Bestest picture thread evaar! (The trilogy)

[acptulsa]

 

[A Son of Liberty]

It occurs to me to wonder if this might be (yet) another significant similarity between the modern US and ancient Rome.

At first, Rome forced its clients to pay tribute (i.e., extortion) to Rome.

I'm not sufficiently familiar with the late Empire's fiscal policies to say, but I wonder if they, too, eventually ended up having to pay tribute (i.e., bribes) to their clients.

Pic tax:

They did pay bribes to the "barbarians"... in some cases to keep them at bay, in other cases to serve in the legions, and in others to prevent them from sacking and looting Roman cities. It didn't work, obviously, because eventually the Goths,Visigoths, Franks, realized that Rome had become weak, morally and militarily. So instead of taking the bribes, they drove into the Empire and slowly but surely consumed it.

I can't remember who or when it was exactly, but at some point in the Late Empire, a barbarian ended up Emperor.

Thus always to Empires, it seems.

 

[ClaytonB]

 

[acptulsa]

 

[Origanalist]

 

[Origanalist]

 

[Origanalist]

 

[Origanalist]

 

[Origanalist]

 

[Origanalist]

 

[Origanalist]

 

[acptulsa]

 

[acptulsa]

 

[acptulsa]

 

[ClaytonB]

This is so good it should be in a museum...

pic-tax:

 

[Occam's Banana]

 

[Occam's Banana]

 

[ClaytonB]

History lesson time:

 

[Intrepid]

LOL i approve these shenanigans

 

[CaptUSA]