Some Roman PODs

Hey all, I'm new to the boards, and thought I'd post a couple of POD possibilities. I'm watching I, Claudius on DVD, and this is what I'm thinking:

1) Livia was obsessed with there being an imperial successor descended from her. That's why she knocked off everyone between Augustus and Tiberius. Well, what if she focused on one of her other descendents? Suppose Tiberius dies before Augustus, say when he's in Germany after Varus' defeat. Who could she push for? Germanicus? Castor? Maybe even Claudius?

2) This one isn't about anyone in particular, but suppose some clever Greek or Roman farmer is fertilizing his fields with a new concoction he made from sulphur, charcoal and something from his compost heap. There's a bit of an accident, the sack bruses a candel, and Boom! The Romans have gunpowder. How would this affect the course of the Empire?
 
Welcome to the boards!

I don't know about Livia choosing another successor to "concentrate on". I suppose if Tiberius died she'd probably choose Drusus, wouldn't she?
While I think the gunpowder accident is a fine and interesting scenario, you might hear a few 'ASB's or people stating it's ridiculously unlikely. I had that problem when I first started posting and had the idea (apparently even though its discovery was an accident, gunpowder could not be invented until it was.) Something about refined saltpeter and refined sulfides being necessary I think, rather than unrefined versions.

Assuming it could have been discovered back in 1 AD or so, it would obviously have a chance of having a profound effect. I say a chance because like the chinese, the romans may not have realized its potential. But supposing they did, I believe it would give the Romans a lasting edge over the barbarian tribes, and given their military organization (necessary for fielding a gunpowder army) they'd probably have lasted hundreds of years longer, before completely internally collapsing.
 
Interesting ideas. As to the first one I would have thought that Germanius was a bit too sane (if I remember aright) to fall under her control-not sure about castor (don't know too much about him). Claudius does seem a possibility.

The gunpowder one. The Romans were good with metal work and I could see them producing some sort of 'rocket' to, fired from their various artillery piecese, with an explosive 'warhead', it coudl even be made from pottery I suppose. Afterall they were keen on using flaming arrows so this would seem the next logical development to them. At some stage the Empire even developed a sort-of seige artlliery machinegun, imagine that firing such rockets!
 
The subtler problem with gunpowder is that it was known in Europe by c. 1300, or somewhat earlier, was soon used in warfare, but only became decisive after about 1450. Even then, its first really serious application was siege bombards, and sieges weren't a primary concern for imperial Rome.

Also, from the Roman point of view, be careful what you wish for! :D Suppose that guns are widespread from Diocletian's time on. Remember that in the 4th and 5th centuries, the "barbarians" weren't just tribesmen from the back of beyond; they had extensive contact with Rome, and often learned their stuff as Roman auxiliaries or allies. Gothic "wagenburgs" could be a whole lotta fun for late Roman armies to contend with. :eek:

-- Rick
 
I don't really see the Romans using gunpowder for sieges, but I wouldn't rule light artillery and hand cannons.Perhaps they could come up with some primative grenades as well.
 
Rhesus2 said:
1) Livia was obsessed with there being an imperial successor descended from her. That's why she knocked off everyone between Augustus and Tiberius. Well, what if she focused on one of her other descendents? Suppose Tiberius dies before Augustus, say when he's in Germany after Varus' defeat. Who could she push for? Germanicus? Castor? Maybe even Claudius?
All of the prior heirs died of natural causes, and I will not stand your rumor mongering against the imperial family. :mad: :cool:

Claudius or Germanicus would be much better choices though. Tiberius was a competant military leader and administrator, but not much of a politician.

As for gunpowder, search for Zor's alternate Roman Empire timeline. Somebody discovers gunpowder early there.

I'm of the opinion that the Romans would utilize gunpowder with some enthusiasm. Firearms and infantry go hand in hand. And Marius's mules toting arquebuses just seems appropriate. :)

I'd say the best time for this would be the late republic or early empire (anything before the 3rd century AD). Any earlier, and you've got a bunch of Hellenistic states that would probably end up developing better weapons, and giving the Romans a run for their money (I'd love to see what Ctesibius would come up with if he knew about gunpowder). Later on, the quality of the legions diminishes greatly. Of course, handcannons were developed for poor quality armies, who couldn't afford to learn archery...

Oh, and welcome to the board.
 
Thans for your comments. Glad to be aboard.

While the Romans didn't have much use for seige warfare in the west, where there weren't too many seige-worthy cities, their eastern conquests did have to deal with entrenched armies in fortified towns. Thus, the Romans did develop fairly sophisticated seige tactics and engines, the most common of which being the infantry field fortifications. I first though our hypothetical farmer relating his story, and Roman military engineers using the concept directly, i.e. sacks of gunpowder used as missiles in their catapults or for primitive sapper units. These would be primarily incindiary devices, as there would be nothing more than a canvas back to contain the powder's combustion. Later on, I would assume someone would figure out that the explosions are much more deadly if held in a rigid container such as a barrel or ceramic jar. It isn't a big step to include some kind of shrapnel.

The development of a Roman small arm I see as much more problematic. I'm not to familiar with Roman artisanship, but would asume the mechanics for a matchlock or wheelock gun to be too far out of their league (at least during the late reppublic or early empire). Perhaps they might devise a differnt pilum, one with a gunpowder charge as the head that would be lit by a fuse then thrown. It would have greater range than a more traditional grenade typ weapon, and fulfil the same purpose as the original pilum, namely blunting enemy charges at range and fouling shields when blocked. The psychological impact on enemy armies not familiar with the effect would certainly be immense. Didn't Claudius use some sort of "thunder and lighning engine" during his invasion of Brittania?
 
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I don't think gunpowder can really save the Romans, their biggest problems came about through internal stability issues, and all gunpowder is going to do then is give them even more ways to kill each other. It's going to help them against anyone else certainly, but all expansion is going to do is make the Romans even more vulnerable to internal problems as local governers will be even further away from supervision and thus even more inclined to build their own personal strength.

I would say the best bet for a stronger Rome is to give them some sort of improved infrastructure that made the massive empire more centralised, and more stability in the succession so that every general with a few legions doesn't try to become Emperor. Certainly if the Romans had kept up the system they had during the reign of the "Five good Emperors" that could help with political stability, but how could we manage a more centralised Roman state?
 
Hey, I'm always up for someone having a lower postcount than mine.:D

I like the idea of Germanicus as emperor, but in the Julio-Claudian dynasty the saner you were the less likely you'd ever be princeps. Heck, Julius Caesar and Octavian were half-crazy just going for that kind of power.

Speaking of power, I don't know if the Romans would weaponize gunpowder at all, and I can't believe they'd make guns out of it. The Chinese used rockets, not guns, for a reason. Gun technology grew out of bells, which medieval Europeans specialized in. Only such a society could invent guns, although, once they had, it would spread out all over the place. Maybe the Romans had more bells than I think they had; could anyone more knowledgable than me tell me how much the Romans were into bells?:confused:
 
I actually think Castor would take the lead over Germanicus, at least in Livia's eyes. He was her grandson, tiberius' child. He was married to Livilla, another of her grandchildren and who was easily controlled by her (if you want to believe the story of the conspiracy against Posthumu Agrippa). Later in life, before he died, he did straighten out from his rakish ways and became close friends with those who opposed Tiberius part after Germanicus' death. I can see this friendship still developing, though whether Germanicus would still live if Livia was pushing for Castor is questionable. I don't see Castor being of the Tiberius or Nero sort of emporer, more like a brash and impulsive Augustus. With people like Agrippina, Claudius, and Herod Agrippa around him, he might be able to counter Livia's influence until she (finally) dies. Livilla might become like Messalina or perhaps Agripinilla. Without Tiberius in power, there's no place for Sejanus, and he'd remain an insginificant, though probably disliked, commander of the guards.
 
Cloudy Vortex said:
Gun technology grew out of bells, which medieval Europeans specialized in. Only such a society could invent guns, although, once they had, it would spread out all over the place.

Not entirely correct, but essentially true. Wrought-iron guns were related to barrels (hence gun "barrels"), not bells. Very large wrought-iron bombards were effective siege guns, but even in the East, the Romans were more often defending walled cities against the Parthians, later Persians, rather than attacking them, so they don't have much motivation to develop large bombards. Smaller wrought-iron guns had only limited value.

Bell technology, however, was directly applied to making bronze guns, which were far more powerful relative to size than wrought-iron guns. That led to the real artillery revolution, since bronze cannons made serious firepower transportable. I don't believe the Romans made much (if any) use of large bells, so they are unlikely to develop bronze cannon.

Even if you have bronze guns, you need an effective horse collar in order to haul them fast enough to keep up with a march - so the Romans would have trouble deploying artillery even if they had it.

Hand guns are a different matter - so far as I know, arquebuses were always normally made out of iron. But the Romans could have a problem here as well. Tactically, an arquebus fills much the same role as a crossbow, so when arquebuses appeared, late-medieval armies already had a place for them in the order of battle. But how would a Roman legion deploy a few hundred arquebuses? It would be hard to use them to best effect, because they don't fit an established role in Roman tactics.

-- Rick
 
Firearms would work well for Romans. It takes years to train archers, as well as mainting a high level of fitness, in order to be able to draw a bow with any power, which is why the Romans effectively outsourced their archery to auxillery soldiers willing to spend that much time.

However, for all their vaunted dicipline and training, it doesn't take as long to train someone to fight in infantry. The basic hoplite/legion formula for success was sticking together and maintining dicipline. Thats relatively easy to learn. Especially when you're a society willing to kill one in ten of those that fail. :cool:

Anyway, its easy to learn how to operate firearms as well. Suddenly, you can equip all your Italian heavy infantry with a loud, scary projectile weapon. One which, its worth noting, your enemies won't have (and, in the case of the Germans, can't develop in any large numbers) I can almost see how they would be used as the technology progressed.

With primitive hand cannons, the Legionaries could use them to complement their pila or replace them. Throw the pila, then fire a volley into the shieldless opponents. I don't know if you'd want all the Legionaries to be armed, or just a few lines. You'd probably want everyone with a hand cannon firing at once, to minimilize the problem of their inaccuracy and unreliability. If you could work out a way to equip them with bayonets, the Romans would love that.

By the time we get to true guns, I'd expect something similar to the Tercio. Rest assured the Romans would be using bayonets by this point.
 
The Chinese had bells they used to communicate with the spirits since time immemorial, but they didn't go into cannon-making 'till around 1260...Granted, they weren't European-style bells, but they were bells...
 
By the time we get to true guns, I'd expect something similar to the Tercio. Rest assured the Romans would be using bayonets by this point.
If you want an ancient Terico go for Macedon or the diadochi state rather than Rome... converting Legions to Pikemen looses much of their flexibility.
 
Romulus Augustulus said:
The Chinese had bells they used to communicate with the spirits since time immemorial, but they didn't go into cannon-making 'till around 1260...Granted, they weren't European-style bells, but they were bells...

Small bells don't get you anywhere - you need to be making big bells, out of bronze or brass, to have a technology adaptable to making high-power cannons.

-- Rick
 
Hmmm, I seem to have neglected the fact that Drusus died before Augustus. Well, Tiberius had a son by the name of Drusus also, so everyone just pretend I meant him... ;)
Although I suppose Germanicus being Julian gives him the edge there. Bah.

I think sometimes we get hung up on things like the lack of bells in Rome. Just because the use of bells in Europe was a factor in developing viable gunpowder weapons, does not mean that it couldn't be done without bells. In fact that postulate seems rather silly to me. The romans did have bronze instruments, if not bells. Hand cannons indeed have been made of bronze, for instance in China.
It seems like we have a tendency to take our own timeline's technological progression as the only possible technological progression. Though perhaps not disprovable, this concept does seem unlikely to be the case.
 
The Romans didn't really view ranged weapons as an arm of decision, and given the woeful inefficacy of matchlocks compared to the capabilities of Balearic slingers and other foederates, I can't see gunpowder changing this. Grenades, on the other hand, would be absolutely adored by the legions, as a supplement to their infantry along the lines of the pilum volley.
 
The issue with bells isn't gunpowder weapons in general, but a specific weapon - the transportable, high-power cannon. However, the Romans couldn't transport them very well if they had them, due to lack of suitable horse-collars.

Forum Lurker makes a very good point. The arquebus is not a good fit to the Roman tactical system, at least not until it is already highly developed. There's just not a natural place in the legionary order of battle for a ranged weapon that is powerful but very slow-firing, whose users have to be protected between volleys. A few hand cannon and light cart-mounted guns, yes, but only as a specialized secondary arm, replacing the carroballista.

Grenades, though, would be a very nice fit indeed - throw them to disrupt the front ranks of the enemy, then close with the gladius.

-- Rick
 

MrP

Banned
A ranged weapon? Powerful, slow firing, needing protection. I'm just getting images of pike and shot blocks manoeuvring in the Hoplite Era now!
 
Rhesus2 said:
Hey all, I'm new to the boards, and thought I'd post a couple of POD possibilities. I'm watching I, Claudius on DVD, and this is what I'm thinking:

1) Livia was obsessed with there being an imperial successor descended from her. That's why she knocked off everyone between Augustus and Tiberius. Well, what if she focused on one of her other descendents? Suppose Tiberius dies before Augustus, say when he's in Germany after Varus' defeat. Who could she push for? Germanicus? Castor? Maybe even Claudius?

2) This one isn't about anyone in particular, but suppose some clever Greek or Roman farmer is fertilizing his fields with a new concoction he made from sulphur, charcoal and something from his compost heap. There's a bit of an accident, the sack bruses a candel, and Boom! The Romans have gunpowder. How would this affect the course of the Empire?

#1) The evidence for Livia as a behind the scenes figure comes entirely from Suetonius. We have no idea if she really was as influential as he claims her to be. So if Tiberius did die, I really have no idea what would happen. Most likely, Germanicus would become Emperor. From what I recall, by the time Tiberius assumed power, there were relatively few direct descendants of the original Julio-Claudians, and Germanicus was incredibly popular with the army.

#2) Probably nothing would happen. In antiquity, it's very hard for inventions to take hold because there's no commercial advantage (ie. no patents). So the only people who benefit from inventions are the same as who use them. A farmer would have no use for explosives, so he would just look in awe and mention it to some friends. Probably the news wouldn't even spread outside of the province.
 
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