Why did the roman empire expand?
Don’t discount the power of the Roman Triumph to encourage the legions to more conquest. The honors of the Triumph were so great that during the celebrations, the general assigned a slave to whisper in their ear “you are not a god”, in case they got carried away! The fantastic spoils of war in gold and slaves and territory were too attractive to be ignored. Ultimately, the emperor Augustus had to ban the Triumph for non-emperors and declare the outer boundaries of the empire. He did this out of the realization that Rome could no longer hold onto any more territory than she already had.
