The Sixth Good Emperor: A Pertinax TL

[DaveB]

Oi, Colton! Weber! Now! Fetch!

Sorry, only kidding. Nice idea. Like the Principitate.

Yeah, and technically anyone in OTL after c. 250 is butterflied away, but heh, in TTL there was obviously some other guy called Machiavelli who happened to write a book called The Prince. After all, if you want to follow many worlds quantum mechanics, it's a near-infinite multiverse. At least 10^120 of them last time I checked, and counting

 

[SlyDessertFox]

Alright, calling some bullshit right now.

Machiavelli and The Prince would be butterflied completely, as would the name Turin (alt name Tarrino?) and a bunch of other things in "modern day".

Keep in mind that almost everything otl will be butterflied away. If you're aiming for a "Rome survives tl", then don't use modern names for places.

While I agree, I prefer to see it more as the author stepping into OTL rather than saying these figures will exist in this ATL. So, he is merely saying "modern Turin" to allow us to recognize where the region is, rather than saying ITTL that the region is called Turin. Ditto for the names.

 

[MorningDew]

While I agree, I prefer to see it more as the author stepping into OTL rather than saying these figures will exist in this ATL. So, he is merely saying "modern Turin" to allow us to recognize where the region is, rather than saying ITTL that the region is called Turin. Ditto for the names.

Interesting point you have there. It could forgive his sins...

But he has to confirm it himself.

So are you doing it for our benefit or using modern names to be lazy?! Your fate depends on your answer! (BUM BUM BUUUUUUUUUM)

 

[Xenophonte]

Looking Forward.

 

[Tom Colton]

Great start. I'm not sure any of the sources mention anything about Pertinax's son at all, which wouldn't be surprising since he was only a stopgap in the grand scheme of things to the year of five emperors.

Excellent start.

Eagerly awaiting more.

Great beginning to a tl. Subscribed.

Looking forward to this, a interesting p.o.d.

Looking Forward.

Thank you all! Next update will be next week. In the absence of anything solid about Pertinax Jr. (he had the same name as his father), I'll be shaking up a few things on that end.

Here is the link to that Marcus Aurelius TL I mentioned earlier Tom.

Also I would recommend messaging Shevek for tons of in-depth analysis.

Thanks muchly.

Alright, calling some bullshit right now.

Machiavelli and The Prince would be butterflied completely, as would the name Turin (alt name Tarrino?) and a bunch of other things in "modern day".

Keep in mind that almost everything otl will be butterflied away. If you're aiming for a "Rome survives tl", then don't use modern names for places.

Oi, Colton! Weber! Now! Fetch!

Sorry, only kidding. Nice idea. Like the Principitate.

Yeah, and technically anyone in OTL after c. 250 is butterflied away, but heh, in TTL there was obviously some other guy called Machiavelli who happened to write a book called The Prince. After all, if you want to follow many worlds quantum mechanics, it's a near-infinite multiverse. At least 10^120 of them last time I checked, and counting

While I agree, I prefer to see it more as the author stepping into OTL rather than saying these figures will exist in this ATL. So, he is merely saying "modern Turin" to allow us to recognize where the region is, rather than saying ITTL that the region is called Turin. Ditto for the names.

Interesting point you have there. It could forgive his sins...

But he has to confirm it himself.

So are you doing it for our benefit or using modern names to be lazy?! Your fate depends on your answer! (BUM BUM BUUUUUUUUUM)

Bullshit well-called. It's a bit of column A and a bit of column B. There seems to be some confusion as the objectives of this TL so I reworded the introduction: Pertinax's longer reign will give Rome a shot in the arm but probably not enough of one to ensure its survival, so much of the Western world will still develop along similar enough lines such that some dude called Machiavelli wrote some book about political theory.

So yeah, I'm being a bit lazy here and also grounding it in a real-life reference, otherwise beyond a certain point I'm just writing historical fiction. Er, more so than I already am. Apologies if this destroys the suspension of disbelief, but it'll be among the last few times OTL intercedes in the narrative.

Also, it's not awfully implausible that "Taurinorum" would wind up corrupted into "Turin" after a good thousand years anyhow.

No Germania Weberae for you until October! Researching Nazi Germany depresses me.

 

[euromellows]

Good start to the timeline. I will read with interest. I always enjoy reading about Ancient Rome. Pertinax has a lot of potential. Do you plan on utilising the OTL usurpers as well (Albinus, Severus, Niger)? Niger and Albinus seemed to have the solid backing of cross section of society, whereas Severus in my view derived his support only from the army.

Its just my opinion, but in my view Severus did enormous long term damage to the empire by removing the Senate as a tool for Imperial patronage and relying on the army instead.

EDIT: Sorry, this is your TL. Don't mind me.

 

[MorningDew]

Also, it's not awfully implausible that "Taurinorum" would wind up corrupted into "Turin" after a good thousand years anyhow.

No Germania Weberae for you until October! Researching Nazi Germany depresses me.

I still think some names should have been a little different. Turin is actually the name in the local dialect, the standard Italian name is Torino. So I would suggest changing modern names to be a little different, such as making TAURINORUM become Tarrino. (alt name for Milan could be Medelan perhaps?)

Your sins are judged as: FORGIVEN!

 

[Tom Colton]

Good start to the timeline. I will read with interest. I always enjoy reading about Ancient Rome. Pertinax has a lot of potential. Do you plan on utilising the OTL usurpers as well (Albinus, Severus, Niger)? Niger and Albinus seemed to have the solid backing of cross section of society, whereas Severus in my view derived his support only from the army.

Its just my opinion, but in my view Severus did enormous long term damage to the empire by removing the Senate as a tool for Imperial patronage and relying on the army instead.

EDIT: Sorry, this is your TL. Don't mind me.

No, by all means, please do! I'm only at the water's edge when it comes to knowledge of this era. Niger, Albinus and Severus were clearly very important and fairly well-documented figures during 193, so I'd be a fool not to use them - the trick will be in being creative about it.

As we'll see, TTL's Pertinax may well play as the anti-Severus in these regards.

I still think some names should have been a little different. Turin is actually the name in the local dialect, the standard Italian name is Torino. So I would suggest changing modern names to be a little different, such as making TAURINORUM become Tarrino. (alt name for Milan could be Medelan perhaps?)

Your sins are judged as: FORGIVEN!

Oh, thank god. I was thinking I'd have to restart the whole thing from scratch.

I shall graciously make a concession regarding the modern name of Taurinorium.

Also, update! The next one might take a while as this was the main impetus for my writing this TL, so now I need to figure out how Pertinax is going to make his big changes once he gets the mandate and hope I haven't blown my creative load here.

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AUGUSTUS

An Aureus struck during the early phases of Pertinax’s rule.​

Pertinax was declared Roman Emperor, gaining the names of Caesar and Augustus along with the titles of pater patriae (Father of the Fatherland) and princeps senates (First [Man] of the Senate), the former normally assigned to the emperor after a great unifying feat – here simply not being Commodus seemed to suffice – and the latter of which he revived in the democratic tradition, on the 1st of January, 193. The announcement was received with massive public acclaim once it had indeed been clarified that Commodus was dead and this was not a test of loyalty given the already-existing hatred of Commodus and respect for Pertinax. In many respects, Pertinax attempted to emulate the transition of Nerva with his lenience towards the senatorial body, to which he had managed to convince Claudius Pompeianus to return, placing him by his side with his other close colleague Manius Acilius Glabrio during his frequent attendances of the Senate. Pertinax lived humbly as Emperor, possibly to mark a deliberate contrast with the erratic excesses of Commodus, who was decreasingly being referred to by name in a de facto damnatio memoriae which Pertinax would later codify; after all, his career had been continuously supplemented by his fruitful investments in and expansions to his father’s estates in Alba Pompeia [1].

It is nonetheless true that although the senate had granted the title Augusta to Pertinax’s wife Flavia Titiana (the daughter of senator Titus Flavius Claudius Sulpicianus whom Pertinax had appointed urban prefect), Pertinax avoided using it in public. Pertinax also refused to name his son Publius Helvetius Pertinax Caesar, saying that Publius Helvetius was “merely a child” and unworthy of the title. Nonetheless, he accepted his son’s appointment as a quaestor under Sulpicianus’s supervision in order to instruct him in the ways of administration [2]. Pertinax’s other child, Helvetia Flavia Pertinacia [3], was sent to live with her grandfather in Alba Pompeia, and was similarly accorded no imperial titles, although she took to managing Pertinax’s estates in his absence given Helvius Successus’s advanced age.

Engraving of Empress Flavia Titiana, declared Augusta after the failed Praetorian coup.​

Pertinax’s popularity with the public and the Senate was not shared the military in general and the Praetorian Guard in particular; he was only able to mitigate a revolt by the Praetorians concerning his alleged failure to fulfil their expected donavatium by selling off Commodus’s estates to make the balance. Barely three months into his reign, Laetus organised a conspiracy to replace Pertinax with the consul Quintus Pompeius Sosius Falco whilst Pertinax was in Ostia, inspecting grain shipments. When this was foiled, the Senate sentenced Falco to death, which Pertinax overturned, instead commuting it to exile to Dacia. Falco is alleged to have commented that death would have been better. Laetus managed to evade responsibility for the conspiracy, and instead summarily executed several of his colleagues, claiming he had done so on Pertinax’s orders. When disagreements continued as Pertinax tried to discipline the praetorians, rogue elements of the Praetorian Guard – about two hundred strong – marched on the imperial palace on the 28th of March. Having been forewarned, Pertinax sent Laetus to quell them, at which point Laetus deserted the emperor. Realising that the situation was out of control, Pertinax sent Flavia on a chariot to safety, giving her instructions to summon the loyalist cohortes urbanae commanded by her father the urban prefect. Pertinax would aim to escape the palace on foot and meet Sulpicianus. Backed by the city guard, they would either attempt to convince the Praetorian Guard to stand down or – as a last resort – fight them in the streets [4].

Plan of Trajan’s forum (left of image), site of the fatal clash between the emperor’s and the city’s guards.​

Against both Pertinax’s and Sulpicianus’s wishes, Publius Helvetius had followed the cohortes urbanae when they came to the emperor’s rescue. Despite the implicit agreement among the praetorians that neither Flavia nor Publius Helvetius would be harmed (Pertinacia was in Alba), the emperor’s son died protecting his father from a blow from a Tongrian cavalryman. According to the accounts, this was when latter had run out of patience with Pertinax as he attempted to convince the praetorians to cease their unruliness; his surrounding colleagues were considering putting down their arms at that point [5]. The Historia Augusta and Cassius Dio state that Pertinax turned to rage (one of the very few occasions on which he did), retaliating by killing the cavalryman in a single blow and demanding that the city guard take no prisoners, an order quickly rephrased by Sulpicianus to refer merely to those which refused to surrender. Cassius Dio writes that “the violence was such that blood flowed as freely on the streets as rainwater”, although this is probably a somewhat fanciful description given the rather small numbers involved. Regardless of the scale of the combat, the Praetorian Guard was soundly defeated by the cohortes urbanae, and all that was left was the sentencing and punishment.

None of the lenience lent to the senatorial body was evident in Pertinax’s response, and the he seems to have replicated the spitefulness of his draconian ways in Britain; he ordered the survivors of the ambuscade (about a hundred strong) decimated. When Laetus was found, he demanded that the errant praetorian prefect to be sentenced to death along with all of the ringleaders. These sentences were rapidly approved by the Senate, as the damage done to the Praetorian Guard could only improve the Senate’s standing. However, Claudius Pompeianus intervened when Pertinax next demanded that the twelve or so executed praetorians (including Laetus) be thrown into the river Tiber; by this point, contemporary accounts already write of Pertinax’s purge of the praetorians as being analogous to that of Domitian’s of the senate; replicating the terrors of Tiberius would surely have sparked further outrage.

Pertinax did not stop with the would-be assassins, demanding that the Praetorian Guard effectively be dissolved by splitting each cohort into portions, one for each prefecture of the Empire, and the guards be shipped off to the distant provinces and barred from communicating with each other. In order to prevent them from spreading sedition, Pertinax resurrected the frumentarii (secret police) of Hadrian to ensure that the shattered Praetorian Guard did not sow dissent amongst the ranks. New members of the Praetorian Guard were enlisted from the cohortes urbanae and scrupulously trained and drilled, and Sulpicianus was promoted to praetorian prefect. Pertinax shut down suggestions of a triumph, stating that the battle for the palace had produced no victors, with the prestige of Rome being the sole loser. However, Publius Helvetius was granted typical imperial honours during his funeral despite having no position beyond quaestor, further being granted the title Tector (defender; protector) and the name Filius Augusti (son of the emperor) [6] posthumously; it seems that in death the son had earned more respect from the father than he ever had in life. The theme of the selfless son dying for the father would be enshrined in art late in Pertinax’s rule and beyond.

Modern copy of “Death of the Emperor’s Son” (also known as “Death of the Prince”), stylistically depicting Publius Helvius’s last moments [7].​

The death of Publius Helvetius brought the issue of succession to the forefront; while it was acceptable for Pertinax to have shelved his appointment of an heir for the time being while his son still lived, it was now necessary for him to choose a successor, especially given his own advanced age; at sixty-six, he was only mildly younger than many of his predecessors had been at the end of their reigns. Having failed to convince his old colleague and friend Claudius Pompeianus to accept the principate in the past, Pertinax now suggested that his son Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus Quintianus (henceforth simply referred to as Pompeianus) marry Pertinacia and be appointed as Pertinax’s heir presumptive in his stead [8]. Pompeianus would nevertheless only be named Caesar and become heir apparent years later, as Pertinax considered the 23-year-old to be too young for such an honour, a stand consistent with that towards his own son. Thus, Pertinax had, deliberately or otherwise, ended up following the pattern of the previous “Good Emperors”. It is difficult to know what Publius Helvetius’s fate would have been had he survived the clash; Pertinax had denied him the title Caesar, yet did sponsor his career in the public sector, probably to groom him for the Principate. Then again, his codification of the damnatio memoriae of Commodus and his attempted emulation of the Antonine emperors, along with the many schemes which he drafted to ensure a smooth line of succession, seem to have rejected dynastic succession altogether, instead favouring the selection of heirs by appointment (and presumably merit.)

[1] All OTL details; the ones about his views concerning the Senate shall be one of the strands this TL is built on.
[2] PoD #1, you'll see what's so important about it once we get to PoD #3.
[3] Speculation, derived from her parents' (and grandfather's) names. "Pertinacia" is a word in some Romance languages so I hope I haven't mangled that too much.
[4] PoD #2: Perhaps Pertinax was putting honour too far above reason when he decided to meet the Guard alone. Here he gets a quick boost in cunning - there's no reason why he couldn't, since he was by all accounts a skilled enough tactician.
[5] PoD #3: Beyond giving an impetus for Pertinax to shake things up with the Guard and the army as much as he does, this neatly allows me to chuck the issue of dynastic succession out of the window. As the later paragraph hints at, what if Publius Helvetius was dissatisfied with this apparent snub and developed Commodus-like daddy issues (at least the pop-culture version of Commodus)? We'd be back to square one. Hence my decision to kill him off and establish a pathway for neo-Nerva-Antoninism.
[6] I know that this is the proper grammar because it was the (meaningless) title offered to Constantine in OTL.
[7] This is actually a modern statue by Pierre Julien, but it's Neoclassical enough for my purposes.
[8] This dude, probably one of the Pompeianuses famous in OTL for suffering from a lethal case of Caracalla. I swear I read the Aurelius TL suggested by Grouchio after I decided to have the Pompeianus family featured in this way!

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Thoughts and feedback are very much appreciated!

 

[neopeius]

Nicely done. Pertinax is a pivot point for the Empire, no doubt. At least, that's what I get out of Gibbon.

 

[MorningDew]

Well done! Didn't really know much about perniax before but he sounds badass!

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Intriguing- he does seem to have something of Tiberius about him: a fine administrator, but harsh to a fault.*



*Assuming that, per many historians, Tiberius was cruel but not as psychotic as senatorial sources paint him.

 

[Tom Colton]

Thank you all!

Well done! Didn't really know much about perniax before but he sounds badass!

Thanks! Well, I'm just basing it off the few lines in the Historia Augusta and Cassius Dio about Pertinax's tenure as governor of Britannia - the trick will now to be, in Machiavelli's D) words, to ensure he ends up feared and not just hated by the military for his reprisals.

Intriguing- he does seem to have something of Tiberius about him: a fine administrator, but harsh to a fault.*



*Assuming that, per many historians, Tiberius was cruel but not as psychotic as senatorial sources paint him.

Based on what I've read, Tiberius's main flaw appears to have been not giving a shit and retiring to Capri prematurely. Undoubtedly people would be able to recall Domitian if not Tiberius, so Pertinax will have to tread a fine line here.

Nicely done. Pertinax is a pivot point for the Empire, no doubt. At least, that's what I get out of Gibbon.

Well, having read the other thread, the problems were considerable even before Commodus, with Commodus and Pertinax providing the trigger for the weakening of succession, dominance of politics by the military (exacerbated by the Severans), and the Empire growing to unmanageable size and constantly going broke. The consensus there is that even an alt-Commodus (ie a saner version of him) would be incredibly late to "save" the empire, so Pertinax (and Pompeianus?) could well be pissing into the wind at this point. I don't claim to have solutions to all of these problems, but making things less crappy may be achievable.

 

[Tom Colton]

Bumping and also coming in to say that I probably won't be updating this in the next two weeks but I shall be intently reading Ando's Imperial Rome AD 193 to 284: The Critical Century, so I shall return well-armed as to what Pertinax could plausibly achieve.

In the meantime, any suggestions or discussion would be very welcome.

 

[Tom Colton]

Surprise, canicula! Thought you'd ecce'd the last of this homo?

Behold this extremely punctual update!

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PRINCEPS

Bust of Pertinax as princeps. Note the attire of the toga as opposed to a cuirass.​

With his position consolidated with the trials, executions and dissolution of the praetorians, Pertinax began to assume the powers of Emperor more comfortably, permitting the public address of Flavia Titiana as Augusta and Helvetia Pertinacia as Filia Augusti (the equivalent to her deceased brother’s title, ergo ‘Daughter of the Augustus’) [1], whilst also promoting Pertinacia to priestess of the Temple of Minerva Medica [2]. Pompeianus received no imperial title (beyond the fact of his marriage to the Filia Augusti), although he was fast-tracked on the cursus honorium, being appointed quaestor shortly after the executions, and then sped through the entire system before being appointed suffect consul in early 196 CE – an event said by many to signify the final devaluation of the entire cursus honorium system, given that he was only 26 years old at the time. This is debatable given the examples of many others, such as Commodus, who had nullified age requirements in their careers and Cleander’s gratuitous issuing of suffect consulships in the height of his unchecked power over Commodus and Rome. Furthermore, Pompeianus was heir presumptive anyway, a status codified by his appointment as Caesar at the end of his term as consul. Pertinax also began to wear the imperial purple in public to enforce his primacy, having ousted the latest conspiracy aimed at him. Despite this, Pertinax’s perception as being vulnerable followed him to the grave, much like Claudius before him.

Unlike the Antonine emperors, especially Marcus Aurelius, Pertinax could not claim much in the way of intellectualism (his highest academic qualifications were instruction in grammar) and thus appropriated where he could. His skill in reading and teaching in Greek lent itself well in the rediscovery of the Stoic philosophies of Marcus Aurelius, in a compilation generally now known as Self-Reflections [3], and it is known that he would dictate these to Pompeianus in the hopes that he would learn through copying the texts. It is for these reasons that Pompeianus is occasionally referred to as “the last Stoic”, although his contributions, if any, to their dogma are superficial at best and gratuitous at worst. Having adopted Self-Reflections as a guide to imperial governance, Pertinax began to work on the many reforms he was famed for, where he attempted to cure the ills which had begun to plague the Empire towards the end of the century. These can be grouped into broad themes of the confused nature of imperial power in relation to the Senate and the state, curbing and managing the role of the massive military, attempting to regain control of the state’s finances from an economy that classical scholars never fully understood, and the eternal paradox of succession. It is these four themes, along with the necessary evaluation of Rome in relation to its neighbours, which shall provide the broad outline of this text, with this chapter – Princeps – opening with the redefinition of imperial power under Pertinax [4].

Of the entirety of Self-Reflections, the philosophies of debasing the ego-self seem to have been best in line with his senatorial attitudes, namely the telling sign of the revival of princeps senates upon his declaration as Emperor. Although known as one of the first rulers to declare some variation of “I am the state” (“Ego sum imperium”; “I am the Empire”[5]), this statement has been reinterpreted by later despots to mean rather the opposite of Pertinax’s intent. As far as we can tell, Pertinax meant that the emperor was simply the consolidated will of the Empire – hence the preferred translation of “The Empire is me”. This will manifested in the institute of the Senate, which Pertinax deeply respected, as he had carved out his career through both the senate and the military. He thus elevated it back to some measure of decision-making after the tyranny of Commodus. To this end, he shifted the senate house into Trajan’s Forum, opposite the Basiliaca Ulpia [6], and reinstated the practice of regularly sitting in on senatorial meetings in the original intended role of the princeps, announcing the business of the day and opening and closing discussions, reinforcing the legal fiction of decision by consensus. However, Pertinax was no republican, privately stating that it was folly to think that the senate could ever regain the position of authority it had once held and bemoaning that the only qualities individual senators now possessed were “nodding to the emperor’s face and plotting behind his back” – it is unclear to what extent this statement was meant to be self-depreciating, given his at least tacit complicity in the death of Commodus. To put it in Stoic terms, while Pertinax the individual was simply one of the many senators who debated the issues of the Empire and while the Senate simply was a body representing its myriad peoples, Caesar Publius Helvius Pertinax Augustus was the sole executor of its will [7]. When Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus passed away due to natural causes later in the year, his seat of honour was taken by Didius Julianus, another of Pertinax’s former colleagues.

Didius Julianus, right-hand man (literally and figuratively) to Pertinax [8].​

The youth of Pompeianus and the death of his father, whose funeral the younger Pompeianus officiated in one of his first public roles, brought several benefits to Pertinax. As father-in-law, Pertinax came to directly intercede in his life (in addition to Pertinacia’s influence as wife) to greater extents, such as his dictation of Self-Reflections as well as orienting Pompeianus to his personal views concerning the nature of imperial power. Just as significantly, Pompeianus, still in his early twenties, was uninitiated in petty politics and thus, (for the time being) was also un-ambitious. Therefore, Pertinax managed to have all the benefits of the security of succession without needing to worry about conspiracies, although he employed the frumentarii to ensure that Pompeianus did not fall into the orbit of other interests in Rome – verily having one’s proverbial brioche and eating it too. Accusations of sexual misconduct between emperor and heir, much like those bandied about Tiberius on Capri, can be easily dismissed as slanderous propaganda by those disenfranchised by the Pertinacian reforms. As mentioned above, Pertinax was ambitious in attempting to change these fundamentals of the empire, and he had made his fair share of enemies even in his disciplining of the Praetorians. Theirs were neither the first nor the last interests which Pertinax would disrupt in the sweeping reforms he envisioned.

Bust of Pompeianus, as a young man. Note the facial hair as an indicator of maturity despite his relative youth.​

One of the key problems concerning the Empire at this stage was its size, which had been expanded to essentially its maximum extent under Trajan and Hadrian, maintained by Antonius Pius (minus some feeble efforts in Britain), and constantly besieged during the reigns of Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius. Pertinax himself was a veteran of the Parthian and Macromannic Wars and being appointed to a number of high-level governorships, would almost certainly have known about the difficulties of managing the various fronts. The provincial governors and generals represented points of authority dissociated from the central government under the emperor, as had been made clear by the rebellion of Avidus Cassius. It is generally acknowledged that the restructuring of the Empire following his reign into smaller dioceses generally derive from his experimentation, which was in many senses a codification of the cooperation between Marcus and Lucius before him. Once given the suffect consulship, Pompeianus was promoted to “rector occidentis” (coordinator of the west) [9] and given authority over the relatively secure imperial provinces in Britain, Gaul, Hispania and Mauretania, prior to the hurried transfer of military authority along the Rhine to him once declared Caesar – a clear prelude to the more formal divisions in later times. To contextualise Pompeianus’s appointments, we must now turn to the military reforms of Pertinax.

[1] Pertinacia is arguably a princess, although the term wasn't used at the time. Filia Augusta goes some way towards it, though, and before long you'll get Augustula...
[2] Vaguely like Agrippa re: the cult of Claudius, although this is simply to bring Pertinacia into the public sphere as a woman of authority.
[3] Read: Meditations. It was titled (insofar as that counts) as "To Myself", after all. It's unclear just when Meditations was rediscovered in OTL, but I take Pertinax's Greek-speaking (and teaching) to be an advantage in studying them earlier.
[4] If you look carefully, the previous chapter has been retroactively titled "Augustus" to reflect this chapter naming convention I didn't just make up.
[5] I don't actually know Latin, so if that's wrong let me know.
[6] This would place it just by the entrance, if I'm not wrong. Architecturally, this raises the profile of the Senate considerably from being cooped up in their former chambers which got marginalised more and more over time.
[7] Not a Stoic, but I hope that makes sense. Pertinax is aiming to be a coordinator and not a director, if you get what I mean. He wishes to give an overall direction and to be the prime mover of that vibe, as opposed to a micromanager.
[8] Not much is known about DJ Usurper in da Forum here, but we do know he basically petitioned to become emperor at his wife's urging, so in a more stable climate there's no reason not to believe he would simply do the work of the Senate as per usual. The other three of the Five almost certainly will turn up, especially since we're going into the military bits.
[9] Kind of a reverse Philip (the Arab) and Priscus here (which is where I got inspiration for the title.) Pompeianus is given these responsibilities as a crash-course in administration where it's relatively safe and also getting a bit economically stagnant, so that he doesn't inadvertently wind up outshining Pertinax, who's still going kind of strong-ish in 196.

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Comments and feedback, as always, are very much welcome.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Well, I'm enjoying it.

 

[Arrix85]

Nice, I'm really interested in this. The third century and the empire's decline are a bit vague in my mind (and this should go a long way).

 

[Tom Colton]

Well, I'm enjoying it.

Nice, I'm really interested in this. The third century and the empire's decline are a bit vague in my mind (and this should go a long way).

Thank you both! I'm trying to use what I can from the aforementioned Imperial Rome AD 193 to 284, but information seems rather sparse and solutions aren't presenting themselves neatly (hence why the crisis lasted half a century, I guess.) I'll do what I can but when Germania Weberae is back up and running this will probably go on hiatus.

 

[Russian]

I'm trying to use what I can from the aforementioned Imperial Rome AD 193 to 284, but information seems rather sparse and solutions ...

I stumbled upon your TL quite accidentally thinking that is one more The Chronicles of Narnia like TL.
But it seems you truly read this history book of yours.
Good job so far!
Keep using that book

 

[Deleted member 67076]

Well done! Keep it up!

 

[Tom Colton]

Well done! Keep it up!

Thank you!

I stumbled upon your TL quite accidentally thinking that is one more The Chronicles of Narnia like TL.
But it seems you truly read this history book of yours.
Good job so far!
Keep using that book

Thank you very much. What do you mean by a "Chronicles of Narnia" like TL? I admit to being a little puzzled by that.

Have you any recommendations on resources regarding the deposition of military forces during the Year of the Five Emperors or the Severan Dynasty? I realise that I'm just at the water's edge when it comes to these things.