Why did Rome and Persia Fight so Much?

♦ For seven hundred years, Rome and Persia fought each other. First the Parthians, then the Sassanids dozens of campaigns, sieges, and battles across the same stretch of the Near East, from the first century BC to the seventh century AD. And yet, for almost all of that time, neither side was actually trying to destroy the other. That is the puzzle this video tries to answer. If neither empire wanted to conquer its rival, why did they keep going to war? Part of the answer is geography. Mesopotamia was rich, urbanised, and sat on trade routes running all the way to China, and its fortress cities like Edessa and Nisibis changed hands again and again. It was also home to the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, which Roman armies stormed no fewer than five times. Rome's own capital was never in any comparable danger.

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00:00 Seven Centuries of Rivalry
00:37 The Mesopotamian Front
02:14 A Capital Within Reach
03:15 Not Always at War
03:59 The Armenian Question
06:04 Corbulo, Trajan, and a Broken Treaty
08:12 Partition and a Christian Armenia
09:30 A War of Prestige

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potatohistory-us, johnathondwigans, MohitAgrawal-d9n, Николай Димитров, Tobias Tron, Mahmoud Shahin, Justin Bourke, Augustus Caesar, Chaim laser
Joshua Kerr, Slayer, John McKeon ,Michael Morale,Rory,Smithy3371, The Angry Celt, Paula Collins-Cook, Jonathon Dwigans