Agricola said:
I am sad to hear, that you are not longer motivated to focus on this thread. Especially because your revised story is great. It is a well written and planned gradual approach to reform the empire. I was always very sceptical, wether it is possible at all, to avoid the 3rd century crisis starting as late as the reign of Aurelius and Commodus. But if there is an opportunity, your TL is damn close and almost perfect now.
Of course we are still eagerly waiting for your ideas about the internal measures to reform the roman empire, but your well thought out measures to cover the external threats look very promising so far.
Thank you, Agricola, this is very encouraging. I hope that I will continue to meet these expectations of plausibility
But after I had read about this measure, I saw that it was a reasonable and rather careful approach. It is crazy to provincialize Bohemia now. But honestly, there is no time to do it later, and I doubt there is going to be a better chance. So it had to be done somehow.
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Now this is a very interesting concept. I guess you know, that this can't work for long. But as part of a temporary step in a "offensive in-depth strategy", as we discussed in this other thread about the Rhine border (
https://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...d.php?t=360204 ) it sounds like a good measure for now. Well, interrupting an ongoing provincialization by implementing 3 client kings is a rather radical and unseen move. Again a map would help. Who are the three kings: Hermunduri, Marcomanns, Quadi?
Yes, ultimately there is no increase in the number of legions by war's end and many legions are left at less than full strength. Right on both accounts about Bohemia! I suspect my attempt to provincialize Bohemia, only for that effort to be halted when resources are needed elsewhere, reflects these facts. My understanding is that the limiting factor in the longevity of this new approach is the lifespans of the kings and of the emperor - if either die, then actions would need to be taken to preserve the situation, and even with the same kings ultimately something will go fatally wrong as long as Germanic client kings are in charge (the Dacian King Decebalus provides a good example of this sort of failure, although he is surely an extreme case regarding ambition and "Mel Gibson"-ey attitudes).
As for the kings, I have left that ambiguous for now. I thought that taking them from individual groups - perhaps two Marcomanni and one Quadi - would be realistic but I'm uncertain (a) how meaningful those distinctions are to the Germanics themselves and (b) how wise uniting people of one group into the same kingdom is, if these identities are meaningful. Either way, it seems, the use of Quadi/Marcomanni distinctions does not seem realistic. I don't want to make this decision without more information.
Did you say, that just the borderland in the Sudeten Mountains and Carpathians is permitted for germans or the entire province Marcomannia? Of course your colonization program with germans in Pannonia and elsewhere helps. Also massive recruiting of auxiliaries and moving them to the other end of the world often helped.
The entire province of Marcomannia (as well as Pannonia as you say). However, I have chosen not to place the border on the Sudeten Mountains as this makes the frontier too long and leaves a less defensible frontier in the West near Raetia. However, I could be convinced that a Sudeten frontier is a more realistic choice. You are certainly right that a map would help here - I will work on that when I can
I was a bit surprised about the Hermunduri. They were allies of the Marcomanns, but lived west of Bohemia in southern Germania (Franken and perhaps Thueringen). Longterm I see them as a part of an expanded Germania superior and not as part of a province Marcomannia. So I would be interested, why you decided to do it this way.
Oh! Thank you for pointing this out. My inclusion of the Hermunduri is a lack of information, if anything. If the Hermunduri are not among the conquered regions, then I suppose they would not take kindly to the conquest of their former allies and would be fomenting trouble in Marcomannia. This problem fits nicely with the efforts put into fortifying the borders of the new province to prevent any incursions.
Implementing full roman client states in Armenia and the Caucasus, and provincializing Osrhoene aka Nothern Mesopotamia is perhaps the most reasonable first step. If there is a gradual approach to conquer the Parthian Empire at all. I am sure, that you know, that the parthians cannot accept that. As soon as their internal trouble or whatever hampers them for now is solved, they will attack with everything they have.
Hmm, that's reasonable but the question is when that will happen. My thought is that Khosrov will have to deal with usurpation by one or both of his older brothers, who likely would not take kindly to being skipped in the succession. Who wins this civil war is an open question although Khosrov likely has the advantage. If Khosrov finds himself Shah of a united Persia without internal troubles, then I'm actually uncertain he will go straight to war with Rome. Before the Parthian War ITTL, Khosrov is known to have a neutral attitude toward Rome and it isn't clear to me how that attitude would change by having Rome place him on the throne he would otherwise never have received (since this gift comes poisoned with the loss of two vassals and an empty treasury). Perhaps, in the end, geopolitical factors will make his attitude irrelevant and force him to attack Rome for these losses as a matter of maintaining his authority but I will need to give the matter more thought.
Again you deploy legions into client kingdoms like you did in Bohemia; an innovative approach. I am just not sure, if I understood, where you got these 10 legions from? 5 were already there, 2 from Egypt/Arabia, 1 newly recruited and 2 established from Rhine/Danube vexillations? You know that this might not be enough in the long run, after 2 legions had to return at least to Egypt and Arabia.
Great questions! I had found that the eastern legions during the reign of Marcus Aurelius included seven legions already in Syria (
Legiones II Adiutrix, III Gallica, IV Scythica, VI Ferrata, X Fretensis, XII Fulminata, and
XVI Flavia Firma) and two legions in Egypt (
Legiones II Traina and
III Cyrenaica). With the new legion raised in Syria, this brings the total to ten. The vexillations from the Danube will likely be integrated into the local legions, at least whichever vexillations are not brought to Caledonia where they will have another fate that I will touch on in a minute. Given the loss of thousands of men in the Parthian War, most of these legions will have poor numbers afterward. With two legions returning to Egypt/Arabia, this leaves one full strength legion and seven weaker legions defending the eastern provinces and new client kingdoms (the majority will be spread between Syria and Mesopotamia but at least one will be in Armenia).
This seems to initially leave roughly 25,000 legionaries for the frontier against Persia. To be sure, more auxiliaries will be needed to make up for this weakness on this end (down from a normal strength of about 36,000 legionaries - i.e. about 2/3rds of what normally defends against Parthia).
However, using one-time-loot for raising standing armies is never a good idea. What Sulla needs is economical growth with more ongoing tax-income. And therefore most probably a well thought out tax reform and an idea how to fight corruption.
Quite right! I have a number of ideas for tax reform that I had initially planned for later in the timeline but the need for them is far more pressing now and, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention
The core concept will be an expansion of the taxation practices in Italy to the provinces (i.e. abolition of tax farming) and the renewal of the Census, as Hadrian had done without putting in place the appropriate structures for future
censi. However, given how early it is, I may moderate this abolition of tax farming to just include cities and towns, while leaving those practices for rural regions and villages. I mention this now to get some feedback before including it in the next installment.
PS: If you are planning to break the neck of the Parthian Empire later, I recommend to read one of Sydessertfox's threads and G.Washington_Fuckyeah's thread, where we already discussed the challenges coming along with such a campaign. Short summary: The challenge is not that much the military conquest, but the political and cultural nightmare coming along with it, impacting the whole empire in many regards.
If G.Washington_Fuckyeah's thread is his Trajan story, then I know where to find that but I have not seen Slydessertfox's thread. I'll take a look for these discussions of the challenges. However, I don't intend on having Sulla end Parthia, since, as you summarized, the integration of provinces covering Persia is a nightmare. My last rewrite of this alternate history had an annexation of Persia in the 7th century and even then I saw it as ultimately failing as an overextended occupying force faced an external invasion forcing it to abandon Persia.
swag of the swag said:
So you are going to use this timeline to verify the concepts? good idea!
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The re-write on the other wiki is very good, but still implausible, are you going to re-re-write it on the wiki here? I'm a little confused.
Verify details actually! I intend to carry forward changes to the whole saeculum novum (247 to 1247) with this complete reworking of the PoD and first alternate emperor. I see the relationship between the stories posted on this forum and the longer story posted on wikis as reciprocal. Posting on this forum has allowed for open discussion and criticism of my alternate history in concept and in detail while the thousand years of history that I've written already has provided the concept and details for the story posted here, which I've then molded according to feedback that I can now apply to the wiki narrative.
In using the wiki here as the new host for my timeline, yes, I'm going to re-rewrite it. If you have comments on the timeline currently in the other wiki that you wanted to share with me, I'd be happy to hear them by PM
I'd prefer to keep discussion on the forum to what is on the forum, since I'm trying to be systematic in building up the history from the PoD through feedback and my re-interpretation of my wiki material, but I am not against hearing criticism on that content through messages outside the forum!
How is Latin going to evolve in the new version? I'm studying it right now, so I can tell you that some degradation is inevitable. The -us and -um and -u endings probably morphed into o even before the collapse of the west, and that's just one example. The full case system was only really used by the aristocrats, which due to the population growth ttl there should be LESS of, so I don't think Latin can just stay the same as in superpowers, it would take longer then otl but eventually common Latin and upper class Latin would become separate languages.
Good question! You are correct that the language of the plebs will evolve in its own direction but I see aristocratic Latin as an anchor for vulgar Latin. I don't see the language of the aristocracy changing too drastically (although I have ideas for some changes) even as vulgar Latin evolves but eventually (perhaps a millennium from 180 CE) the anchor will pull vulgar Latin back to its position. This renormalization of sorts would be dependent on national, institutionalized education so it's not even close to being on the horizon yet. Now, I'm no a linguist but I intend to do the best I can with the evolution of Latin, in light of feedback that I hope to eventually get on language.
