The roman republic takes over the world

Well sort of

We´re always getting up these threads about the roman empire taking over the world once in a while. And some TL´s and books are ok though ASBish.

Anyway, I´m reading Gibbon´s decline and fall right now and it inspired me. It seems to be his sentiment that from the start the roman empire is doomed to fail. I tend to agree, reason:

The emperor is way to powerful. The system is too dependant on him not being a total jackass.

There are other flaws of course but...

I was thinking maybe there is a way to prolong the life and conquests of the republic somehow.

You could set the POD before the advent of Sulla. Even Gracchi. To prevent the empire from forming we can´t have generals taking all power.

But of course we will end up with it or total chaos. But can we until then expand and improve the republic?

Representation would help, the problem is the Roman Republic was an institution to run Rome, and maybe Italy, not to run an empire, you need to force some sort of change to that before the whole populism thing brings it down.

How about this; the Roman Empire unites the world and then the Roman Republic is restored?

You could have the republic take over the world, in the process reaching some sort of understanding with the conquered peoples to give them the same rights and representation as Romans. I guess that actually happened with the empire though.

-John

The problems for Rome, Republican or Imperial, revolve around several issues:

1. No mechanism for peaceful succession to the leadership.

2. Poor communications, making it impossible for the central authority to effectively control the Army based in the border areas.

3. No concept of legitimacy of rule. The very word "imperator" means military commander.

They could never permanently solve these structural flaws in the Empire. The larger the Empire the worse it got. Only when the Empire was of a managable size, after the seventh century, restricted basically to Anatolia and the Aegean did it achieve real stability.

Two words for you guys: Commercial Revolution. The Commercial Revolution happens during the Roman Republic, and the same forces that drove European global domination are unleashed, over a millenia early.

The emergence of a powerful urban merchant class is able to bring new economic forces to bear on the Roman Republic's constitution, and presto, we solve the Roman Republic's constitutional dilemma. Then we add in the economic driver of the Commercial Revolution, and ya, global domination and what have you.

If you want Rome to continue to expand here's what you do:

1) Find a way for there to be a clear line of succession that is not survival of the fittest

2) Find a way for the people to stay interested in government and believe in their politicians

3) Find a way for them to increase grain production

4) Find a way for them to employ barbarians to help them expand their empire without allowing them any access to your strategy or technology

5) Find a way to eliminate Christianity

Good luck!

It All Starts With Marius

Mung Beans, the Imperium would never've restored the Republic, because it meant nothing to their thinking but weird, hard-to-to-understand parts of their history classes. No, the only way would be for the Republic to survive.

I'm dubious about them conquering the world, because real countries growing and lasting so long grow corrupt, constitutionally strange, increasingly tired of conquering things (OTL Italy and Britain have both given up, note), and long timeframes have a way taking down the mighty. It could, certainly, be hegemon and grow bigger and mightier than OTL Britain's height at least for a time.

There's one ATL I've mentioned before, and have since elaborated, having read Polybius and reading Caesar's The Civil War, and having come up with ways of being kinder to my TLites.

POD: Marius' Daddy crosses the forum a different way than OTL when looking for a tutor and finds a different man for the job that OTL. This man thinks very highly of both Cincinnatus and Solon of the Greece he grew up in. He tutors Marius accordingly to place a high value on their example.

As OTL, Marius becomes consul during the Jugurthan War, and passes laws to reform the military in several different ways. But there's an important difference - IOTL, he fixed an army scaling bug - only men with property could join - by letting the poor join, and promising to personally arrange for property grants to those who make it 20 years. Generals, also had a way of encouraging soldiers to think of pay as coming from them (an idea I doubt OTL Marius minded so much...). Such legions became personally loyal to their generals, of course. Starting with Sulla, they started to conquer Rome and it all reverted to warlordism until Octavian Caesar raises the status of an old title, Imperator.

ITTL, he encourages loyalty to the Republic by giving the Senate responsibility for distributing property, and creates a pay officer in each legion representing the Republic. Also, unlike OTL, he gives up public life after his consul term's over after beating Jugurtha, and goes traveling for ten years. Sulla's neither allowed the opportunity to conquer Rome nor the OTL motivation he had when he felt unfairly treated by Marius.

...more later...

General Mung Beans said:

How about this; the Roman Empire unites the world and then the Roman Republic is restored?

Click to expand...

No. Also I don´t think it´d be easier for the empire to conquer the world than the republic. After all the republic had a much easier time expanding since emperors were always afraid of popular generals and preferred usually just keeping what they had.

Two words for you guys: Commercial Revolution. The Commercial Revolution happens during the Roman Republic, and the same forces that drove European global domination are unleashed, over a millenia early.

The emergence of a powerful urban merchant class is able to bring new economic forces to bear on the Roman Republic's constitution, and presto, we solve the Roman Republic's constitutional dilemma

Click to expand...

Thanks Matthais, it´s a good idea. One of the things most troubling about the roman system was how the lower class was always fighting the upper class, if there however was a middle class...

Durindal: I agree with all your points except the first one. I don´t think there exists even today a system where the top leadership position wasn´t survival of the fittest. A decrease of assasinations would be helpful though.

jkay said:

Mung Beans, the Imperium would never've restored the Republic, because it meant nothing to their thinking but weird, hard-to-to-understand parts of their history classes. No, the only way would be for the Republic to survive.

I'm dubious about them conquering the world, because real countries growing and lasting so long grow corrupt, constitutionally strange, increasingly tired of conquering things (OTL Italy and Britain have both given up, note), and long timeframes have a way taking down the mighty. It could, certainly, be hegemon and grow bigger and mightier than OTL Britain's height at least for a time.

There's one ATL I've mentioned before, and have since elaborated, having read Polybius and reading Caesar's The Civil War, and having come up with ways of being kinder to my TLites.

POD: Marius' Daddy crosses the forum a different way than OTL when looking for a tutor and finds a different man for the job that OTL. This man thinks very highly of both Cincinnatus and Solon of the Greece he grew up in. He tutors Marius accordingly to place a high value on their example.

As OTL, Marius becomes consul during the Jugurthan War, and passes laws to reform the military in several different ways. But there's an important difference - IOTL, he fixed an army scaling bug - only men with property could join - by letting the poor join, and promising to personally arrange for property grants to those who make it 20 years. Generals, also had a way of encouraging soldiers to think of pay as coming from them (an idea I doubt OTL Marius minded so much...). Such legions became personally loyal to their generals, of course. Starting with Sulla, they started to conquer Rome and it all reverted to warlordism until Octavian Caesar raises the status of an old title, Imperator.

ITTL, he encourages loyalty to the Republic by giving the Senate responsibility for distributing property, and creates a pay officer in each legion representing the Republic. Also, unlike OTL, he gives up public life after his consul term's over after beating Jugurtha, and goes traveling for ten years. Sulla's neither allowed the opportunity to conquer Rome nor the OTL motivation he had when he felt unfairly treated by Marius.

...more later...

Click to expand...

I agree that it starts with Marius. But didn´t he start enlisting the property less out of necessity?

jkay said:

Mung Beans, the Imperium would never've restored the Republic, because it meant nothing to their thinking but weird, hard-to-to-understand parts of their history classes. No, the only way would be for the Republic to survive.

I'm dubious about them conquering the world, because real countries growing and lasting so long grow corrupt, constitutionally strange, increasingly tired of conquering things (OTL Italy and Britain have both given up, note), and long timeframes have a way taking down the mighty. It could, certainly, be hegemon and grow bigger and mightier than OTL Britain's height at least for a time.

There's one ATL I've mentioned before, and have since elaborated, having read Polybius and reading Caesar's The Civil War, and having come up with ways of being kinder to my TLites.

POD: Marius' Daddy crosses the forum a different way than OTL when looking for a tutor and finds a different man for the job that OTL. This man thinks very highly of both Cincinnatus and Solon of the Greece he grew up in. He tutors Marius accordingly to place a high value on their example.

As OTL, Marius becomes consul during the Jugurthan War, and passes laws to reform the military in several different ways. But there's an important difference - IOTL, he fixed an army scaling bug - only men with property could join - by letting the poor join, and promising to personally arrange for property grants to those who make it 20 years. Generals, also had a way of encouraging soldiers to think of pay as coming from them (an idea I doubt OTL Marius minded so much...). Such legions became personally loyal to their generals, of course. Starting with Sulla, they started to conquer Rome and it all reverted to warlordism until Octavian Caesar raises the status of an old title, Imperator.

ITTL, he encourages loyalty to the Republic by giving the Senate responsibility for distributing property, and creates a pay officer in each legion representing the Republic. Also, unlike OTL, he gives up public life after his consul term's over after beating Jugurtha, and goes traveling for ten years. Sulla's neither allowed the opportunity to conquer Rome nor the OTL motivation he had when he felt unfairly treated by Marius.

...more later...

Click to expand...

This solves problem one and two. Though I wonder why Marius would give up power to the Senate?

Fabilius said:

Well sort of

We´re always getting up these threads about the roman empire taking over the world once in a while. And some TL´s and books are ok though ASBish.

Anyway, I´m reading Gibbon´s decline and fall right now and it inspired me. It seems to be his sentiment that from the start the roman empire is doomed to fail. I tend to agree, reason:

The emperor is way to powerful. The system is too dependant on him not being a total jackass.

There are other flaws of course but...

I was thinking maybe there is a way to prolong the life and conquests of the republic somehow.

You could set the POD before the advent of Sulla. Even Gracchi. To prevent the empire from forming we can´t have generals taking all power.

But of course we will end up with it or total chaos. But can we until then expand and improve the republic?

Click to expand...

Hmm... the Empire had numerous jackass Emperors and continued to thrive... because it was still at its core strong. And of course the Republic never truely stopped, but thats a language semantics thing.

What about having Caesar avoid assassination? Its an obvious one I admit, but that fellow obsessed with his hero worship of Alexander the Great would never have stopped campaigning, and we might have seen another 10, 20 or even 30 years of expansion.

He was due to go to Dacia, so perhaps he conquers that earlier than it was, a couple of campaigns against the Germans result in lots of glory and slaves but nothing much else. Perhaps he pushes back and redesigns the border making it more defensible for the future. After that its likely he goes of to the middle east, then maybe onto India, perhaps even reaching the borders of China.

His legacy inpires an efficient more militaristic and expansionist Republic, but thats just as likely to cause future chaos as not!

I think the key for the keeping the Roman Republic around in a non-Emperor form (as someone pointed out Republic didn't really end, Octavian just enacted what amounted to a massive constitutional reform) might actually be inflicting a foreign defeat on it. The Roman constitution's forms didn't change because (I think) the general feeling was 'if it was good enough for Cincinnatius (sp?) and Scipio Africanus then its good enough for me'. Even under the Empire, the forms stayed the same, Octavian just rigged the power structure to be dependent on him personally.

So my proposal is that Rome loses the Second Punic War. Sicily falls to Carthage, maybe some southern Italian cities leave the Roman-Italian alliance, Spain is firmly in Carthage's hands. I don't think that Carthage could inflict the same kind of defeat on Rome that Rome could on Carthage so the Romans still have most of their alliance and territory. They lose Sicily and have to pay tribute. OTL the inequality between the Romans and their Italian allies caused the Social War, where the Italian allies revolted in order to gain the equality with Roman citizens.

ATL the Italian allies are able to force Rome to change the alliance into what amounts to a federal republic. The Roman Senate is expanded to include many members from other member cities, and Roman citizenship is extended to a huge number of member cities' residents.

Economic changes are going to come from the loss of Sicily (Rome's bread basket) which might create a newly wealthy merchant class. The Senate would no longer be in a position to control the grain market, since the major sources of grain are now outside Roman control. The Senatorial class also wasn't allowed to own ships, so as a result plebian merchants are going to be in a position to take over the grain trade. This is going to give these merchants a lot of control over the politics of Rome and other large Italian cities that are dependent on non-Italian grain. It could serve to create the conditions for the Commercial Revolution, with a class of merchants whose wealth is dependent on a trade that is not allowed if they enter the Senatorial class- and thus making it in their interest to do things like create multi-city banks for plebians. The loss of Sicily might even propel meaningful land reforms in Italy, since I would think that not controlling one's food supply would seem like a major issue for Romans of all classes.

Military reforms will also likely be necessary, since Rome now needs to plan on how to win the inevitable Round 3 with Carthage. The Marian military reforms might come into effect earlier, since the combination of territorial loss and Hannibal's destruction of the Italian countryside are going to probably force Rome/Italy to induct the now numerous urban poor into the Legions.

Anyway, I think that a Carthage successful in the Second Punic War would end up losing to Rome in the Third Punic War. They didn't have a very good system for raising troops, being totally dependent on mercenaries. With the victory I doubt that this would change. More immediately pressing is that their elite is going to be very badly divided because Hannibal will have won the war more or less totally on his own (both in terms of leadership and resources), and one could even say he won the war in spite of the leadership in Carthage. With his victory Hannibal is in a position to impose his will on Carthage, and there are probably enough interested parties on the other side to create the conditions for a civil war.

So when Round 3 happens Rome trounces Carthage. But the constitutional changes made in the wake of their defeat in Round 2 mean that Roman expansion will be different, since the City of Rome will not be sole recipient of the victory's plunder, or the sole owner of conquered real estate. Given enough time, the new merchant class might have carved out enough of a 'getting rich off things the Senatorial class can't do' niche to keep it an independent group.

jkay said:

Mung Beans, the Imperium would never've restored the Republic, because it meant nothing to their thinking but weird, hard-to-to-understand parts of their history classes. No, the only way would be for the Republic to survive.

I'm dubious about them conquering the world, because real countries growing and lasting so long grow corrupt, constitutionally strange, increasingly tired of conquering things (OTL Italy and Britain have both given up, note), and long timeframes have a way taking down the mighty. It could, certainly, be hegemon and grow bigger and mightier than OTL Britain's height at least for a time.

There's one ATL I've mentioned before, and have since elaborated, having read Polybius and reading Caesar's The Civil War, and having come up with ways of being kinder to my TLites.

POD: Marius' Daddy crosses the forum a different way than OTL when looking for a tutor and finds a different man for the job that OTL. This man thinks very highly of both Cincinnatus and Solon of the Greece he grew up in. He tutors Marius accordingly to place a high value on their example.

As OTL, Marius becomes consul during the Jugurthan War, and passes laws to reform the military in several different ways. But there's an important difference - IOTL, he fixed an army scaling bug - only men with property could join - by letting the poor join, and promising to personally arrange for property grants to those who make it 20 years. Generals, also had a way of encouraging soldiers to think of pay as coming from them (an idea I doubt OTL Marius minded so much...). Such legions became personally loyal to their generals, of course. Starting with Sulla, they started to conquer Rome and it all reverted to warlordism until Octavian Caesar raises the status of an old title, Imperator.

ITTL, he encourages loyalty to the Republic by giving the Senate responsibility for distributing property, and creates a pay officer in each legion representing the Republic. Also, unlike OTL, he gives up public life after his consul term's over after beating Jugurtha, and goes traveling for ten years. Sulla's neither allowed the opportunity to conquer Rome nor the OTL motivation he had when he felt unfairly treated by Marius.

...more later...

Click to expand...

As for the Republic not being restored after the Empire begins, how come? There could be a revolution or the Senate could seize power and decide to restore the Republic.

defense of It Starts With Marius

Fabilius wrote:

I agree that it starts with Marius. But didn´t he start enlisting the property less out of necessity?

Click to expand...

Yes. I said the same thing, but, I'm afraid, in engineer's jargon not so good for getting my points across to non-engineering audiences.

Durindal wrote:

Though I wonder why Marius would give up power to the Senate?

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's not explained so well, either. Remember, my POD was to give him special respect for the Roman Cincinnatus and Greek Solon. Both of those men gave up their positions at the heads of their states for the further health of those states. Like our President Washington. Cincinnatus was a dictator who kept his dictatorship short after saving Rome, and Solon was a reformer who started egalitarianism and solved a knotty problem of slavery in his society. A Marius who took their example, I'd hope, would be a man who'd parallel them and give up his special military and political advantage for the good of the Republic.

General Mung Beans wrote:

As for the Republic not being restored after the Empire begins, how come? There could be a revolution or the Senate could seize power and decide to restore the Republic.

Click to expand...

In the Middle and Late Empire, the Senate had the power and character to look cool sitting and chatting in special formal dress in a cool building, and that was about it.
Matthais Corvinus wrote:

Two words for you guys: Commercial Revolution. The Commercial Revolution happens during the Roman Republic, and the same forces that drove European global domination are unleashed, over a millenia early. . . .

Click to expand...

Roman society and culture were organized in a truly unique way that made them focus on AND let them innovate on conquering the world and keeping their elites on top and simultaneously let them adapt easily to and even innovate outside the military, to a lesser extent. Their society's greatest, longest-term awards went to Rome's greatest conquerors, and some scorn tended to be turned on the nonmilitary. They got away with keeping their lower classes down because they really were succeeding at the conquering gig, and people love that kind of thing. BUT, at the same time, they were founded to be open and already with balancing institutions in the King and Senate.

That let them easily adapt to the superior Greek military and other technology until they were able to conquer Greece in the end, with superior Roman military technology. And there WAS a middle class - the military middle class was quite healthy - that wasn't it, but it was it for the healthy bit.

That balance was broken by the Empire because one institution of government wholly dominated the others. We can see a similar problem where a lack of balance has let the UK Commons get far farther than even the US out of whack libertywise after 9/11, and at least they're elected and so have a much better batting average than the King ever did.

Son Of It All Starts With Marius

A centuryish after Marius' resignation, a later set of political reforms is passed, pushed by one Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus [OTL Claudius I].
o Tribes are to be chosen by lot instead of by class or geography, making the popularly representative house actually popular representative.
o The executive and viceregal offices are term-limited.
o The ten plebeian tribunes (a much-abused office) was converted to an ability for either the Plebeian or Tribal Assemblies to kill most Senate legislation by a majority vote.
o Allows judicial appeals to Rome.
o The continual granting of increased rights to more and more allied cities went up a big notch.
Fo Most importantly, an Imperial Tribal Council is formed, giving representation to all cities that have been in the Empire a long time. It has a jiggered-up arrangement of tribal representatives giving Rome one more vote than the Empire, but it's a representative house representing the whole Republican empire nonetheless. On founding, it only exists to decide on internal boundaries and divvy up loot more fairly with the allies who serve along serve along with Roman soldiers. But it's granted more and more power and becomes fairer over time.

A third round, passed by Constantine:
o Builds up Byzantium and alternates imperial gummint between Rome and Byzantium except Roman consuls mostly stay in Rome or where battles are.
o Creates an Imperial Senate holding all consuls elected in the 1st- and 2nd-class set of allies.
o Grants formal religious toleration, though the Mediterranean world already tolerated everybody but the most demonstrative atheists. Christianity grows very popular, albeit more slowly, but never gains special rights.

A fourth round, MUCH later,
o Gives all male adult, nonslave residents of the empire voting rights.
o Lets regions elect their own proconsuls.
o Adds Imperial Consuls, selected by whole Empire

Eventually, very slowly (Rome was all about its elites, and much slower to grant rights than a democracy), they grant rights to women and end slavery in the empire. Much, much, much later, the Senates are popularly elected. The popular involvement, good leadership choice, and dynamic and innovative culture should continue a good, long time ITTL (note: with a dynamic culture, the food situatiion should improve itself as it's done in all the world's dynamic cultures).

[Probably end of TL for awhile - I was hoping to add in a bit of nice conquering history later in the week, bwahaha, but visitors are coming tomorrow, and the prospects aren't looking good. It's not impossible - we'll see.]

Good ideas Jkay.

Of course ideally, my potential TL would end up with a very similar outcome to the one you propose, but with some dramatic obstacles on the way of course.

But weren´t executive and viceregal positions term limited in the old republic? I thought one of the main offenses of Julius Caesar was the "for life" clause.

Anyway, what I´d try to avoid is any empire. It doesn´t have to be socially just necessarily, a republic but not necessarily a democracy.

General Mung Beans said:

As for the Republic not being restored after the Empire begins, how come? There could be a revolution or the Senate could seize power and decide to restore the Republic.

Click to expand...

The Empire and the Republic are the same thing. Its just a term that we now use to set out pre-Octavian Rome and post-Octavian Rome. So the idea of restoring the Republic, when in the mind of the Romans the Republic never ended, doesn't make any sense.

I once suggested that the Empire's political structure should be changed to one where certain large sections of Roman territory, or "Diocese" if you like, would each possess their own local senatorial body, with full determinate powers in domestic policy, while the Emperors would ostensibly be figureheads, although they would be permitted to command only those legions on campaign. Rome would have a higher senatorial body to co-ordinate the Empire's overall administration.

jkay said:

A centuryish after Marius' resignation, a later set of political reforms is passed, pushed by one Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus [OTL Claudius I].
o Tribes are to be chosen by lot instead of by class or geography, making the popularly representative house actually popular representative.
o The executive and viceregal offices are term-limited.
o The ten plebeian tribunes (a much-abused office) was converted to an ability for either the Plebeian or Tribal Assemblies to kill most Senate legislation by a majority vote.
o Allows judicial appeals to Rome.
o The continual granting of increased rights to more and more allied cities went up a big notch.
Fo Most importantly, an Imperial Tribal Council is formed, giving representation to all cities that have been in the Empire a long time. It has a jiggered-up arrangement of tribal representatives giving Rome one more vote than the Empire, but it's a representative house representing the whole Republican empire nonetheless. On founding, it only exists to decide on internal boundaries and divvy up loot more fairly with the allies who serve along serve along with Roman soldiers. But it's granted more and more power and becomes fairer over time.

A third round, passed by Constantine:
o Builds up Byzantium and alternates imperial gummint between Rome and Byzantium except Roman consuls mostly stay in Rome or where battles are.
o Creates an Imperial Senate holding all consuls elected in the 1st- and 2nd-class set of allies.
o Grants formal religious toleration, though the Mediterranean world already tolerated everybody but the most demonstrative atheists. Christianity grows very popular, albeit more slowly, but never gains special rights.

A fourth round, MUCH later,
o Gives all male adult, nonslave residents of the empire voting rights.
o Lets regions elect their own proconsuls.
o Adds Imperial Consuls, selected by whole Empire

Eventually, very slowly (Rome was all about its elites, and much slower to grant rights than a democracy), they grant rights to women and end slavery in the empire. Much, much, much later, the Senates are popularly elected. The popular involvement, good leadership choice, and dynamic and innovative culture should continue a good, long time ITTL (note: with a dynamic culture, the food situatiion should improve itself as it's done in all the world's dynamic cultures).

[Probably end of TL for awhile - I was hoping to add in a bit of nice conquering history later in the week, bwahaha, but visitors are coming tomorrow, and the prospects aren't looking good. It's not impossible - we'll see.]

Click to expand...

Now you solved problem three. What about those Barbarians and Christians?