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Trajan invading India?

Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: Ancient Mediterranean and Europe
Forum Discription: Greece, Macedon, Rome and other cultures such as Celtic and Germanic tribes
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=240
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Topic: Trajan invading India?
Posted By: Imperatore Dario I
Subject: Trajan invading India?
Date Posted: 20-Aug-2004 at 15:41
Just a question. We all know that Trajan occupied Mesopatamia from the Parthians, right? And he hit pretty deep into Parthian territory, he had the intention of spreading Roman influence to India until a rebellion forced him to retreat. My question to you is, how far could Trajan have gone? Could he have completely dissolved the Parthian Empire and occupied India? How far into Parthian territory did he actually go (I know he took Mesopatamia, but did he take anymore before the Parthians accepted peace)?

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Let there be a race of Romans with the strength of Italian courage.- Virgil's Aeneid



Replies:
Posted By: Tonifranz
Date Posted: 20-Aug-2004 at 17:20
No. Trajan going to extinguish the Parthian Empire and invade India is an impossibility. Unless of course he has the luck and ability of Alexander the Great.


Posted By: Imperatore Dario I
Date Posted: 20-Aug-2004 at 18:30

Originally posted by Tonifranz

No. Trajan going to extinguish the Parthian Empire and invade India is an impossibility. Unless of course he has the luck and ability of Alexander the Great.

 

IMO he came very close to destroying the Parthian Empire. I myself don't really know if he'd be able to invade India, but bring down Parthia, possibly. But how far into did he go? Was it only the areas of Mesopatamia? Or did he enter Iran proper?



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Let there be a race of Romans with the strength of Italian courage.- Virgil's Aeneid


Posted By: Imperator Invictus
Date Posted: 20-Aug-2004 at 21:20
Well, simply capturing Ctesiphon doesn't cut it. There were two other campaigns that captured the city, but all of them did not really bring down the Parthian empire because it was not that centralized towards the capital. I think India is out of question. 

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Posted By: Tobodai
Date Posted: 20-Aug-2004 at 21:30
Great as my respect and admiration for Trajans abilities go....my answer is no.

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"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
-Alexander Hamilton


Posted By: Roughneck
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2004 at 01:19
My answer has to be a flat no.  He would have been too far from the main part of the Roman empire, extending his lines of communication far too much.  Also, I have to feel that the distance he was at from the empire was one of the factors that led to the revolts.  To go even further would have spurred more.  I also think India even then had far more people than Rome, and they never would have been able to control them.

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Posted By: Tobodai
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2004 at 01:52
and with such extended lines of comunication for an infantry based army...they would easily have been defeated by the Guptas or whoever the hell they would have met.

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"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
-Alexander Hamilton


Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2004 at 03:26
Yet another non-believer here.

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Arrrgh!!"


Posted By: Master of Puppets
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2004 at 04:10

Highly unlikely. It took even Alexander a lot to conquer a western fragment of India. I also think such a campaign would be useless anyway. Rome wouldn't benefit from such Imperial Overstretch. But aside from that, it's just impossible, given all the reasons mentioned above.



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Wherever I turn, there is Death.
The Epic of Gilgamesh; Tablet XI, line 245


Posted By: Imperatore Dario I
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2004 at 07:05
Originally posted by Master of Puppets

Highly unlikely. It took even Alexander a lot to conquer a western fragment of India. I also think such a campaign would be useless anyway. Rome wouldn't benefit from such Imperial Overstretch. But aside from that, it's just impossible, given all the reasons mentioned above.

Oh I wasn't talking about invading the WHOLE of India, I meant like a little piece of Pakistan (modern Pakistan) that Alexander conquered. But I truly think he would have been able of destroying the entire Parthian civilization, that I am sure of. Although he may have not been able to hold all of Parthia.



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Let there be a race of Romans with the strength of Italian courage.- Virgil's Aeneid


Posted By: Cornellia
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2004 at 08:03

The capture of Ctesiphon marked the official culmination of Trajan's third campaign and the war.   When he arrived in Charax (now modern Basra), there is the story that he'd arrived just in time to see a merchant ship sailing for India and he publically lamented he was too old to follow in Alexander the Great's footsteps. 

If true, this would indicate even he didn't think it was possible.



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Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas


Posted By: Master of Puppets
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2004 at 12:16
Yeah, maybe he could have destroyed it, but holding it would be another matter indeed.

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Wherever I turn, there is Death.
The Epic of Gilgamesh; Tablet XI, line 245


Posted By: demon
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2004 at 12:39
I know that Alexander had to retreat because he had to pass this "pass" that was unsuitable for his horses because of Monsoon seasons that swept by.  I don't think Trajan would have survived the Monsoon that easily and conquer India.

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Grrr..


Posted By: Cornellia
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2004 at 14:54

Trajan was at least 60 and suffered a stroke while in Persia.  He died on route back to Rome.

He would have had to have started far, far earlier in his career if he stood a chance at India



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Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas


Posted By: YusakuJon3
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2004 at 08:52
   I cast a "yes" vote to provide the possibility that it could've been attempted.  Trajan was considering the possibility (and lamenting the diminished opportunity), after all.  I think it would've depended on whether or not he could've solidified Roman dominance of Mesopotamia before he died.  With the possibility that it could've been done, maybe a port city in the estuaries of the Tigris-Euphrates could have been used as the launching point for an expanded Roman fleet that would be used to support such a campaign.  They did have a merchant fleet which made an annual voyage to India from the Red Sea ports of Egypt, after all.

   The only caveats that I have for this are the distances involved and the fact the the Graeco-Persian and Indian empires would not have taken the intrusion upon the lands by the legions lightly.  Even if they did manage to gain a foothold on the Indian coasts, there'd still be the climate to deal with, and India's natives weren't exactly pushovers when it came to warfare themselves.  You'd also have to consider the strains of maintaining such a long-distance campaign.  It really wasn't possible to do such a thing until the age of European Expansionism, over 1,200 years later...


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"There you go again!"

-- President Ronald W. Reagan (directed towards reporters at a White House press conference, mid-1980s)


Posted By: warhead
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2004 at 21:50
no, first of all the Romans were eventually stopped and defeated in hatra, and second they failed to maintain their control over southern mesopotamia, so the whole war is a defeat in that it failed to achieve its purpose: conquering the whole of the parthian empire.


Posted By: Scytho-Sarmatian
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2004 at 04:42

As YusakuJon3 mentioned, traders from the Roman Empire were well known in India.  The Indians referred to them as "Yavana", which was the name they originally gave to the Greeks who ruled parts of the northwest Indian subontinent in the centuries immediately following Alexander's invasion.  "Yavana" is believed to correspond to "Ionian."

It's interesting to note that some of the "Yavana" Romans of the Indian port cities had a reputation as skilled fighters and were sought by local Indian rulers to be hired as mercenaries. 

There does not appear to be any evidence, however, that any Roman Emperor undertook any military expedition that reached India.



Posted By: Imperatore Dario I
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2004 at 10:23

Originally posted by warhead

no, first of all the Romans were eventually stopped and defeated in hatra, and second they failed to maintain their control over southern mesopotamia, so the whole war is a defeat in that it failed to achieve its purpose: conquering the whole of the parthian empire.

 

It wasn't a failure, he successfully took Mesopatamia. Parthia did not take back the region until Hadrian himself ABANDONED the region completely. Besides, Hatra was not a defeat, it was just a fort that did not surrender to the Romans at all. He had to halt his invasion because of the Judaean revolt in Palestine, and because the Mesopatamians also revolted. It wasn't a defeat just because Trajan's health failed him! He conquered additional territory, yeah he did not take over all of Parthia but Alexander III wouldn't have been able to take over all of the Persian Empire if he had health problems too.



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Let there be a race of Romans with the strength of Italian courage.- Virgil's Aeneid


Posted By: Yiannis
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2004 at 10:29
Originally posted by Scytho-Sarmatian

  "Yavana" is believed to correspond to "Ionian.

 

Deriving from Persian "Yauna" which of course derives from the Greek "Ion".

Interestingly all western nations know us Hellenes as Greeks (Greece, Grecia, Griechenland etc) because the Romans prevailed while eastern nations know us as Iones (Yunanistan, Yunan etc...) because of the Persians.



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Posted By: mauk4678
Date Posted: 25-Aug-2004 at 20:44

As fascinating as it would have been, I don't think it would have been possible.



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Posted By: warhead
Date Posted: 26-Aug-2004 at 10:28

"It wasn't a failure, he successfully took Mesopatamia."

 

The goal of Trajan was not just to conquer Mesopatamia, but the rest of Iran as well, and in that aspect he failed, whether due to health or defeat.

 

"Oh I wasn't talking about invading the WHOLE of India, I meant like a little piece of Pakistan (modern Pakistan) that Alexander conquered. But I truly think he would have been able of destroying the entire Parthian civilization, that I am sure of. Although he may have not been able to hold all of Parthia."

 

Not even possible, north western India at this time is held by the Kushans a greater power than Parthia, and perhaps under the great king Kanishaka who subjugated most of western central asia and has hundreds of thousand of troops whose quality is no way inferior to the Legions.



Posted By: Imperatore Dario I
Date Posted: 27-Aug-2004 at 13:02
OK so you mean on a technicallity, I guess that's fair. But militarily, Trajan was successful in driving the Parthians out of the way.

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Let there be a race of Romans with the strength of Italian courage.- Virgil's Aeneid


Posted By: Constantine XI
Date Posted: 01-May-2005 at 23:39
Not a chance, as every historian who has studied this has noted, once you get past the Euphrates there isnt a single defence barrier to the east to protect your territories from the various peoples to the east.

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Posted By: Ahmed The Fighter
Date Posted: 06-May-2005 at 12:39
with my respect to his military ability he didn't invade india becauseinhis rieghn roman empire reached it maximum size and it greatest point in the east was tigres river(mesopotamia)

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"May the eyes of cowards never sleep"
Khalid Bin Walid


Posted By: Jazz
Date Posted: 07-May-2005 at 01:43
Originally posted by Cornellia

The capture of Ctesiphon marked the official culmination of Trajan's third campaign and the war.   When he arrived in Charax (now modern Basra), there is the story that he'd arrived just in time to see a merchant ship sailing for India and he publically lamented he was too old to follow in Alexander the Great's footsteps. 

If true, this would indicate even he didn't think it was possible.



I've once read this as well.  Only what I read went once step further saying that his lament was to the point of crying because he was too old.  I agree with virtually everyone else here in that it would have over-streched the Roman Empire at that time...

Just a note, but with tectonic action causing the slow closing of the Persian Gulf, at the time of Trajan, it is highly likely that both the Tigris and Euphrates flowed into the Gulf separately.  So it is likely that what is now modern day Basra might have been on the Gulf coast.


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Posted By: ArmenianSurvival
Date Posted: 09-May-2005 at 23:14
I read somewhere that Trajan once occupied the shores of the  Persian  Gulf, but he was only able to hold it for a  couple of months until revolts broke out.
As for India....Given the emotional toll for the soldiers of such an attempt to take India, i think that one major Roman loss on the battlefield would have demoralized Trajans army and left them dumbfounded. And i cant see them going undefeated through Central Asia like Alexander the Great did. And it was simply too far. Too much cavalry in Central Asia, and too many elephants in India. If they survived Central Asia, which i think they would have, i really doubt they would have enough in them to go much past the Indus River. Not to mention that India was equal to Rome in power at this time. If Rome achieved such a thing it would have been the most hardfought campaign in world history because there were too many obstacles in the way, not to mention India itself.

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Posted By: Herodotus
Date Posted: 14-May-2005 at 09:20
I voted yes, seeing no reason why he could'nt have reached india. Of course, he would have had no hope of conquering it or even successfuly attacking it.

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-Francois Marie Arouet, Voltaire



Posted By: Idanthyrus
Date Posted: 04-Aug-2005 at 15:58
Lol, was'nt the Kushan Empire at the peak of its power during Trajans reign? Their Empire was nearly as big as that of the Parthian's themselves.


Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 04-Aug-2005 at 18:00
They would have starved to death, even if he took every Parthian city, they still had a huge pastoral element and would have attacked Roman supply lines left and right, fighting a guerilla war, quickly cutting them off and and finishing them slowly. The terrain East of Mesopotamia is unlike any the Romans would have had much experience of.

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