In the popular imagination? The Romans were conquering barbaric tribes that aren't worth talking about in detail, I think. Certainly not civilizations. The actual details of those civilizations seem to be as niche and obscure as knowledge of the Kush.

> In the popular imagination? The Romans were conquering barbaric tribes that aren't worth talking about in detail, I think.

There was plenty of interaction, but the thing about those insignificant barbaric tribes is that they aren't worth conquering either.

And there's a simple rule that's obvious even in a superficial read of de bello gallico: don't cultivate wheat and the legions won't bother you.

It's my impression the Gallic Wars were more about building Julius Caesar's personality cult than anything else. Enriching his soldiers so they'd be loyal to him and winning the respect of Roman pyblic (hence the self-aggrandizing book written in Latin, not Greek.)

Few external wars haven't been fought for internal reasons

Now it’s cultivate nukes and the legions won’t bother you.

If we're really talking about Western popular imagination, 1-4 generations ago, I have to think it was dominated by what's in the Bible.

The Persian and Macedonian empires both reconquered what had been conquered by the Assyrian empire, and likely others before.

No, the Persian empire was much, much larger than the Assyrian empire.

The Macedonian empire was technically larger, including Persia, except it was never administrated as a whole and fell into pieces just a few years after coming into existence.

Barbarians! Tribes! People in some way not civilized!

(This was, in fairness, largely how the Romans represented it to themselves, regardless of how true it was, so it's maybe not surprising.)

The Romans were well aware that Carthage, Greece, and Persia were great civilizations.