Bret Devereaux

Piling through Livy looking at his standard beginning-of-year passages, I do not know how the 'Romans didn't do strategy' limits-of-empire thesis survived editing. Sure, that argument is for the Empire...but do we assume the Romans just forgot how to do strategy in 31?

For those who haven't slogged through Livy 21-45, Livy begins pretty much every year with the allocation of provincia and other instructions by the Senate to various magistrates and while he doesn't usually relate the strategic concerns that motivate those decisions...

...it is very obvious that the Senate is making decisions balancing between various conflicts and theaters, coordinating resources with operational plans and making ends-and-means decisions. Which is to say strategy. (This chunk of Livy covers 218-166 BC)

Do you have a link or explanation for the “Romans didn’t so strategy” limits-of-empire thesis?

B. Isaac, The Limits of Empire (1992) is the key text, though the same is implied by W.V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome (1981). The argument sticks around in some circles, despite being utterly obliterated by E.L. Wheeler, "Metholodigcal Limits" JMH 51.1-2

IIRC Heather in “Empires & Barbarians” argued that Romans basically expanded to the point where the ground wouldn’t support profitable agriculture (limited by period plow technology). Is that accepted or controversial?

Complicated, but probably close to the majority view? It's hard to square with Roman Britain or Dacia, which seem pretty clearly to have been imperial boondoggles that probably never paid for themselves.