> Somewhat off topic, but I’ll bring it up anyway, it must have been better to have lived in a Gallic or Germanic or Iberian tribe than to have lived as a Roman citizen if they were willing to die than submit.
Peoples conquered by Rome did not become Roman citizens with the rights and privileges associated with that, generally.
In the graded levels of rights in Roman law, depending on whether they were just conquered or had treaty status, they were two or three steps below citizens of Rome.
Good call. I mean "citizen" in the general sense like "person who lives under Rome" but wasn't thinking that "citizen" had a very specific meaning in the Roman context. I edited my answer
The reason these tribes usually resist isn't because the Roman lifestyle is bad, it's because the Romans ran the biggest slaving empire in the world.
Those slaves that does everything in Rome, they get them from waging war.
So strictly-speaking, there is a change that they won't even get to be a "person" if they submit to Rome, they would become a slave. So would their wives and children.
If anything, a lot of people want to be Roman citizens after they have tried it. There is a whole war in Italy called the "Social War" over extending formal, normal citizenship to Roman allies.
Peoples conquered by Rome did not become Roman citizens with the rights and privileges associated with that, generally.
In the graded levels of rights in Roman law, depending on whether they were just conquered or had treaty status, they were two or three steps below citizens of Rome.