30,000
The number of clay cuneiform tablets that made up the seventh-century BC Library of Ashurbanipal discovered among, he ruins of the ancient Assyrian cty of Nineveh (now Part of modernday Iraq).
What was the Roman empire's worst defeat?
SHORT ANSWER The imperial era was bookended by humbling routs for the mighty legions
LONG ANSWER Yes, the Roman army earned its formidable reputation for discipline and tactical supremacy, but that didn't mean it was invincible. Two defeats from the time of the empire stand out as the most humiliating: one at the beginning and the other at the end.
In AD 9, three experienced legions - around 20,000 men, or a tenth of the whole army were wiped out in an ambush by a coalition of Germanic tribes. The battle of the Teutoburg Forest shattered the aura of the Roman army and halted conquests beyond the Rhine, causing the first emperor, Augustus, to bang his head on the wall crying “Give me back my legions!”
Then, in AD 378, the eastern emperor Valens went down hard to the Goths in the battle of Adrianople, losing around two-thirds of the
