Ancient History

Well if the Romans would have conquered Germania in that quite peaceful way (Arminius submitting, other Germans (who were following him) following close behind):
1) there wouldn't have been anymore wars with the Germans (a big deal!!!).
2) if the Romans had gained loyalty of the German they would have been a lot stronger when the Huns started pouring in.

No I meant Mithradrates of Pontus. I read this book called the poison king which I highly recommend, but in it you see how close he came to beating rome

Lawl "Poison King" what a fitting name

Well, I now do wonder how the Migration Period would've turned out had the Germans joined the Romans.

Have you ever heard of the "Procurator" book series, it's an alternate history novel series that is based on the ideas "what if Rome won the battle of Teutoburg forest" and "what if Pontius Pilate pardons Jesus".
( I've never read them, but I'd like to).

Hmm, that sounds pretty interesting.

Stopping the expansion in itself was a good thing. Now in some spots I think they stopped their expansion in the wrong places. Marcus Aurelius wanted to expand the Roman Empire on one of their northern fronts to a much more defensible border ( I forget where and what this was), but had to deal with various German invasions, and then died before he could accomplish what he had set out to accomplish.

It's always good to seal a front.

Well, they certainly tried with Hadrian's Wall.

What I meant with sealing was, for exampe, you conquer Scotland and thus that front doesn't exist anymore.
Building the Hadrian Wall was more like reinforcing the front.

Hmm, well, yes, of course. Reinforcing indeed =/= eliminating.

Well they actually did get peace terms with the Celts of northern Britannia.

What about picts?

I dont know. It was either the Celts or the Picts they got a peace treaty with.

The roman downfall was largely in part of ineffectual leadership in my opinion

But they had had innefectual leadership prior to their collapse. And minus the actual emperors, the Western Roman half produced some of the greatest leaders of all time, most notably Stilicho, who very nearly completely stabalized the Western Roman Empire before he was betrayed by the corrupt government. I would blame corruption as the biggest culprit, but not one of the causes could have alone brought down the Roman Empire in the west.

Well the emperors had quite an influence over the empire you know.
For example emperor Dioclentian's decision to form tetrarchy wasn't really the best idea in the world -___-

But I mean compared to the Eastern Roman Empire, the West created some great leaders. Yes the East survived longer...

Well, having a massive city with even bigger walls guarding a strait did help.