A Julio-Claudian would be best if you choose this option, since that was a dynasty indeed.Intriguing, in regards to the first issue of the succession, who could have consolidated the succession amongst their own dynasty?
InterestingA Julio-Claudian would be best if you choose this option, since that was a dynasty indeed.
A Julio-Claudian would be best if you choose this option, since that was a dynasty indeed.
Political instability: Some people propose more explicit succession rules in order to avoid endless usurpations and civil wars. That amounts to stating the obvious, i.e. that the ROman state had become a monarchy. This, though, seems to have been a problem for Roman political culture. Nevertheless, setting the Principate on a solid constitutional foundation in the 1st or 2nd century CE is not impossible and could have reduced the likelihood of endless chains of usurpations.
Very few soldiers for such a large empire:
This is difficult to change within the framework of the Principate. Some people have proposed a reform similar to Byzantine "themata".
Stronger forces beyond the borders: In Persia, the Sassanids built a much more centralised, urbanised, and militarised state than the Parthians had been. Across Rhine and Danube, Germanic groups were coagulating into greater units, had absorbed a lot of knowledge, were forging good swords, and were driven into ROman territory for raids by push factors, too (see below). While the former could have been sabotaged or failed somehow, it may well have happened a few decades later anyway; the latter is almost inevitable, regardless of how far North the ROmans would push their borders (actually that would make matters only worse).
Monetary crisis:
Usually overrated; imperial administration and military worked well with transfers in kind, too, and wider Roman economic crisis had other more important reasons (see below). Nothing to be done here, though, the ROmans couldn`t have developed the necessary economic theory to understand the problem they were in.
Epidemics:
Nothing to be done against them really; Romans already had the best sanitation of their times. Expansion of foreign trade inevitably brings in new germs. Bad for the taxbase and for recruitment. Of course, if recruitment were at levels of the Republic, the population base would still have carried a super-big imperial army, so maybe the epidemics aren`t the no.1 problem, either.
Agricultural / ecological problems:
Things got cooler and drier in Northern Europe and in the steppes; that pushed countless barbarians from the North against the Roman borders. Across the Mediterranean, home-made problems aggravated the situation: deforestation washed off fertile soil from mountain slopes and led to the silting of river deltas, damaging both fertile land in the valleys (through swamping) and trade (because ports became useless).
Maybe the Crisis wouldn`t have occurred if not all of these factors had come together; maybe it´s sufficient to solve just one or two of these issues - that is difficult to say.
Stronger forces beyond the borders: In Persia, the Sassanids built a much more centralised, urbanised, and militarised state than the Parthians had been. Across Rhine and Danube, Germanic groups were coagulating into greater units, had absorbed a lot of knowledge, were forging good swords, and were driven into ROman territory for raids by push factors, too (see below). While the former could have been sabotaged or failed somehow, it may well have happened a few decades later anyway; the latter is almost inevitable, regardless of how far North the ROmans would push their borders (actually that would make matters only worse).
The problem was inept leadership--one reason why Gallienus excluded senators from military commands.
@starman,
so you`re saying poor military leadership was the main problem?
Isn`t it weird then that the Romans, in the West, fell to comparatively much less organised attackers?
Personally I think that the greater strength of Rome's enemies is overrated as a cause of the crisis. Foreign invasions only started to be a major problem once the crisis had already broken out, and stopped being a problem soon after the Romans managed to pull themselves together and stop slaughtering each other for five minutes.
Sure the Germans and Sassanids were more dangerous than their predecessors, but a reasonably stable Roman Empire was strong enough to keep them at bay, at least during the third century.
So I see a lot of modern historians claim that this was a necessary move due to the increased threats the Empire faced, but is there any actual evidence that the "professional" post-Gallienus commanders had a better track record than the "amateur" Senators?
Incidentally, I've always thought that Goldsworthy's explanation for the crisis is quite interesting. Basically, in the early Empire important military commands all went to Senators. There were a few hundred Senators (numbers naturally tended to fluctuate over time), of whom only a dozen or so would be talented, well-born, rich, and experienced enough to make a plausible bid for the throne in the case of imperial instability. This meant it was generally quite easy for Emperors to keep an eye on potential rivals, especially since the standard career pattern meant that they'd come back to Rome every few years. Over time, however, Emperors started appointing equestrians to more and more important posts, since they were obviously too lowly to be considered Emperor material, and so the Emperor had nothing to fear from them rebelling. Then the first equestrian became Emperor (Macrinus). Suddenly, everybody of equestrian rank was now a potential candidate for the purple. This meant that there were now many more potential Emperors, and, as they often spent their entire careers in the provinces, they were much harder to keep an eye on. This led to a period of near-constant usurpation, until Diocletian (kinda) solved the problem by appointing several Emperors who could keep a closer eye on what their subordinates were up to.
Let´s tackle some of the most important factors one by one:
Political instability: Some people propose more explicit succession rules in order to avoid endless usurpations and civil wars. That amounts to stating the obvious, i.e. that the ROman state had become a monarchy. This, though, seems to have been a problem for Roman political culture. Nevertheless, setting the Principate on a solid constitutional foundation in the 1st or 2nd century CE is not impossible and could have reduced the likelihood of endless chains of usurpations.
Very few soldiers for such a large empire: This is difficult to change within the framework of the Principate. Some people have proposed a reform similar to Byzantine "themata".
Stronger forces beyond the borders: In Persia, the Sassanids built a much more centralised, urbanised, and militarised state than the Parthians had been. Across Rhine and Danube, Germanic groups were coagulating into greater units, had absorbed a lot of knowledge, were forging good swords, and were driven into ROman territory for raids by push factors, too (see below). While the former could have been sabotaged or failed somehow, it may well have happened a few decades later anyway; the latter is almost inevitable, regardless of how far North the ROmans would push their borders (actually that would make matters only worse).
Monetary crisis: Usually overrated; imperial administration and military worked well with transfers in kind, too, and wider Roman economic crisis had other more important reasons (see below). Nothing to be done here, though, the ROmans couldn`t have developed the necessary economic theory to understand the problem they were in.
Epidemics: Nothing to be done against them really; Romans already had the best sanitation of their times. Expansion of foreign trade inevitably brings in new germs. Bad for the taxbase and for recruitment. Of course, if recruitment were at levels of the Republic, the population base would still have carried a super-big imperial army, so maybe the epidemics aren`t the no.1 problem, either.
Agricultural / ecological problems: Things got cooler and drier in Northern Europe and in the steppes; that pushed countless barbarians from the North against the Roman borders. Across the Mediterranean, home-made problems aggravated the situation: deforestation washed off fertile soil from mountain slopes and led to the silting of river deltas, damaging both fertile land in the valleys (through swamping) and trade (because ports became useless). Nothing realistic to be done about that, and that`s a major problem, because it is both the main reason why the North was so unsafe (which also destabilised overland trade in addition), and it is not only bad for the taxbase, but also for social stability. The 3rd century was a time of great social transformations, which undermined the way in which the Roman state worked even further. (Some people say Diocletian solved at least the latter by
adapting the state to it; I disagree, but even if you tend to view things this way, I find it hard to imagine a Diocletian-like reform palatable to Roman politics without the prior mess of the Crisis.
Maybe the Crisis would not have occurred if not all of these factors had come together; maybe it´s sufficient to solve just one or two of these issues - that is difficult to say.
Overall, we should not call too many things inevitable. But there were deep-reaching causes for the C3c, not all of which I have explored here.
Lol, start with victories including Naissus 269 CE and continue through the period of Illyrian led recovery c 270-99.
When is your PoD limit?Are there solutions to the Military Anarchy that don't accelerate the rise of the Dominate?
Let's say the accession of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, to give time for Commodus to be less of a shit.When is your PoD limit?
The constant succession and cvial wars resulted in the emperors seeing civil wars as being the greatest risk. In response to this they kept pulling units to be closer to them as a mega body guard often leaving the border troops under maned, trained, and poorly led.
This in effect allowed endless pin prick attacks by war band raiders to penetrate the borders and disrupt the tax payer farmers. This reduced tax revenues which led to less well funded military forces (which impacted the borders not the central forces) which led to more porous borders. And on and on it goes.
A respected government that was stable would have solved the problems of :
1. Less / No civil wars which caused pourus borders and the slaughter of well trained Roman troops.
More resources to border protection troops vs central gov forces.
An example of this is the Vandal conquest of N Africa. Their conquest took he major tax revenue stream from the Western Empire. Without this tax stream they could not pay for an effective army.
So if the succession issue had been solved the crisis would have been avoided