AHC: Stable Roman Imperial Government

[Timmy811]

Originally Posted by Elfwine

Heirs dying off left and right should mean adopt-a-successor or nephews, not civil war, assuming a system not based on who has the biggest army.

Well, that's the problem this thread is meant to address is it not.

What could they have done to change this mentality?

[Elfwine]

Originally Posted by Timmy811

Well, that's the problem this thread is meant to address is it not.

What could they have done to change this mentality?

The system existed because that's how Augustus took power, so its poisoned from the start.

I'm not saying its incurable, but I think it was pretty much set up to work like this - and the trick is making changes stick, when those whose ambitions are thwarted by reforms can just overthrow the reformer.

[Timmy811]

Originally Posted by Elfwine

The system existed because that's how Augustus took power, so its poisoned from the start.

I'm not saying its incurable, but I think it was pretty much set up to work like this - and the trick is making changes stick, when those whose ambitions are thwarted by reforms can just overthrow the reformer.

At the beginning of every Empire is a strongman who ascended on the back of military might. What makes the rise of Augustus so especially poisonous?

[Wolfpaw]

Having a succession/legitimation right other than "the army raises you on a shield" would be a good start.

[Zmflavius]

Originally Posted by Wolfpaw

Having a succession/legitimation right other than "the army raises you on a shield" would be a good start.

It doesn't necessarily have to not be "the army raises you on a shield" either, you just need a better justification than effectively stating that the aforementioned fact makes it legal.

[Simreeve]

Originally Posted by Wolfpaw

Having a succession/legitimation right other than "the army raises you on a shield" would be a good start.

Weren't the Julians allegedly descended from Aeneas, like the city's founder Romulus?

[Timmy811]

Originally Posted by Simreeve

Weren't the Julians allegedly descended from Aeneas, like the city's founder Romulus?

And he was the son of Venus. That notwithstanding, how serious did other Romans take that? Not much, from what I've seen.

[Elfwine]

Originally Posted by Timmy811

At the beginning of every Empire is a strongman who ascended on the back of military might. What makes the rise of Augustus so especially poisonous?

The lack of any basis for it other than victory. There was no deep rooted idea that the Emperor was entitled to his position and that overthrowing him would be some kind of bad thing.

Also, Augustus came to the Roman empire (small E) mid way through, he didn't form it. Not sure exactly what he could have done better, but it is different.

[mrmandias]

Peter Heather says a big factor was separating the Senate from military responsibilities and giving it to the Equitates.

The idea, he says, was to reduce the threat to the Emperor from big Senatorial potentates. But in actual practice all that happened was that you made the much larger Equitates class a threat too. While at the same time removing some of the mechanisms that had dampened conflict: (1) the Senatorials were much less on the make because they were mostly hugely wealthy and powerful already, (2) the Senatorials were a small enough group that they mostly knew each other and so quarrels were 'in the family,' so to speak, (3) the Senatorial aristocracy was much less regionally based so the coups and civil wars could be contained and had less destructive effects. He had a couple of other points, but I don't remember them right now.


So perhaps butterfly this decision. Come up with some other approach to making the Imperial office apparently more secure that has less destructive consequences.

[Snake Featherston]

The cheater's answer would be to note that there was such a thing IOTL, and that it's known nowadays as the ERE. The honest answer is that Augustus had a major dilemma that didn't present him with any good options in a long-term sense. Caesar was murdered for starting to look like a monarch, Augustus naturally did not want to have a case of untimely death. Augustus also lived a very long time, meaning he started a Julio-Claudian sequence of succession issues. The simplest way for the Empire to improve the stability is for a POD where Augustus sets out a clear principle of succession for his successors to follow, and for the POD to lead to nobody deciding that he doesn't like the new guy so he's going to invent the secret of empire in a different fashion.

If this is done, the biggest factor in the ultimate collapse of the Empire would at the very least be changed. Establishing a consistent system of primogeniture and making the concept of using soldiers to replace emperors taboo is essential. Ideally inventing the ERE's combination of bureaucracy and heavier taxation and other innovations that enabled it to last so long and to become as flexible as it did 300 years earlier, but IMHO that requires either time-travel or Rome becoming China-in-the-West, which in the context of the Wars of the Triumvirates is not all that likely.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Timmy811

At the beginning of every Empire is a strongman who ascended on the back of military might. What makes the rise of Augustus so especially poisonous?

That he was the second to do this and due to the civil war and triumph of the first this limited his options and expanded those of others? If Augustus can somehow set up a stable system of primogeniture his rise in a civil war would be an exception to a rule. As it was IOTL he never did establish a consistent principle which meant that emulating Augustus became a goal of other dynasties. And what you say is only partially true in modern times, and where it was most true, the empires involved were extremely unstable. Look at Tsarist Russia, where the succession issue was a kettle of catfish, or say, the Mughal Empire which like Rome had a civil war every generation and this eventually proved immensely problematic for it.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Arachnid

Wow, that's a very big ask, first of all while I agree with Snake that the Imperial Government was fundamentally unstable I think he slightly overestimates it. There was an element of divine right thanks to the deification of the Imperial Family, an element which the various Emperors frequently tried to boost, though they generally failed.

Well, my statement refers more to the initial phase of the Empire at its territorial height. The Medieval, i.e. Byzantine, phase managed to replace civil wars with intrigue and coups de'etat, which proved successful enough to last from the 4th to the 13th Centuries.

[mrmandias]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

That he was the second to do this and due to the civil war and triumph of the first this limited his options and expanded those of others? If Augustus can somehow set up a stable system of primogeniture his rise in a civil war would be an exception to a rule. As it was IOTL he never did establish a consistent principle which meant that emulating Augustus became a goal of other dynasties. And what you say is only partially true in modern times, and where it was most true, the empires involved were extremely unstable. Look at Tsarist Russia, where the succession issue was a kettle of catfish, or say, the Mughal Empire which like Rome had a civil war every generation and this eventually proved immensely problematic for it.

The Chinese secret was that they had a theory explaining why you needed a strong founder but that forced his successors into legitimacy (the Mandate of Heaven theory).

Rome never really had that. If Caesar had lived longer and gone through with more of his schemes, you still would have a had a civil war at the end, but if Caesar's successor was of his blood the government would be less likely to be a fake Republic as with Augustine but instead a claim of divine heritage from herculean Caesar. Which would allow a type of primogeniture set-up.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by mrmandias

The Chinese secret was that they had a theory explaining why you needed a strong founder but that forced his successors into legitimacy (the Mandate of Heaven theory).

Rome never really had that. If Caesar had lived longer and gone through with more of his schemes, you still would have a had a civil war at the end, but if Caesar's successor was of his blood the government would be less likely to be a fake Republic as with Augustine but instead a claim of divine heritage from herculean Caesar. Which would allow a type of primogeniture set-up.

Well, a Roman concept of the Mandate of Heaven would be immensely useful and would permit a way to *have* dynastic changes and even civil wars that produce them that are less devastating to the overall system.

[Elfwine]

The question I want to know is.

What marks the threshold between the old system, and the Byzantine reforms that see the ERE as a proto-state instead of an army with a state in the West?

I suspect part of it is several emperors - starting with Diocletian - trying to bludgeon the system into shape, whereas the classic Roman thing to do treated administration as at best a career stage.

But

1) martial glory
2) political power
3) ?
4) Profit!

is an unhealthy basis for empire.

"For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it."

That's the model you need. When the Emperor says jump, "at me with a dagger" should NOT be what his rivals finish the sentence with.

[Snake Featherston]

The thresh-hold was when Diocletian began an ambitious and large-scale reform of the system. His system was a reflection of the reality that by his time the empire was too complex for one man to rule. Either a Mandate or the appearance of ERE-style bureaucracy would mitigate how much rule applies as part of the phrase, which can only help the entire Empire IMHO. And such an Empire evolving would not really develop in the fashion of the OTL one due to butterflies.

[Elfwine]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

The thresh-hold was when Diocletian began an ambitious and large-scale reform of the system. His system was a reflection of the reality that by his time the empire was too complex for one man to rule. Either a Mandate or the appearance of ERE-style bureaucracy would mitigate how much rule applies as part of the phrase, which can only help the entire Empire IMHO. And such an Empire evolving would not really develop in the fashion of the OTL one due to butterflies.

The question is on what basis the Mandate is from. As I understand it, Augustus's attempt to avoid being prematurely disposed of meant preserving the old offices of state, just consolidating his power around having all the major ones necessary for de facto rule - which someone in a position for Diocletian scale reform would not need to do.

[Thespitron 6000]

Originally Posted by Elfwine

The question is on what basis the Mandate is from. As I understand it, Augustus's attempt to avoid being prematurely disposed of meant preserving the old offices of state, just consolidating his power around having all the major ones necessary for de facto rule - which someone in a position for Diocletian scale reform would not need to do.

You could have an early Milvian Bridge--some kind of seemingly supernatural event that bestows apparent blessings on one particular house or line.

[Elfwine]

Originally Posted by Thespitron 6000

You could have an early Milvian Bridge--some kind of seemingly supernatural event that bestows apparent blessings on one particular house or line.

You could. Although the question comes up what happens when/if that line dies off - as it probably will within a couple centuries (the usual trend on dynasties).

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Elfwine

The question is on what basis the Mandate is from. As I understand it, Augustus's attempt to avoid being prematurely disposed of meant preserving the old offices of state, just consolidating his power around having all the major ones necessary for de facto rule - which someone in a position for Diocletian scale reform would not need to do.

There's always the prospect of using one or another Oracle to give it divine sanction, pre-Christianity......