I wonder if the Romans will ever get into land reclamation, because northern Germany at the time is hella swampy and I believe only possible to hold with some serious drainage and landfill projects.
Also now that the Romans are campaigning in Jutland do you think there are any trading/exploration vessels in the Baltic? I know they would probably look for the source of all that Amber around Königsberg/Kaliningrad so they have a reason to be in the area. Given the relative calmness of the Baltic to the Atlantic I think even with the pre-POD level of Roman Naval tech the Baltic could be navigated.
Romans have always been in land reclamation, they did it for a number of lakes in Italy and, ITTL, also in the Pontine marshes. So land reclamation is certainly something they'll do but they currently don't have the incentive for those regions.
About the Baltic, yes Roman ships are starting to ply those waters, using small coastal merchant ships or military rowing boats of the large riverine type (no full size liburna or trireme, but still large crafts), using the river system to get in and out of imperial territory.
But who determines merit? What’s there to stop an emperor or general from marching on Rome and making himself emperor. This is what Augustus and other army commanders did after all. The Emperors even in the Byzantine Era were theoretically chosen by the Senate and people. This could simply be interpreted as an army acclaiming their commander as Augustus. When Rome has a stable dynasty like the Flavian, Theodosians, Heraclians, Macedonians, etc. the chance for civil war is reduced as there is a clear chain line of succession.
Merit is determined by the emperor and validated by the Senate, inside the rules defined by the law which excludes blood relatives of the emperor. In practice the Senate is mainly ruberstamping, but it keeps the illusion. It is in time of eventual crisis (death of the emperor and the 2 planned successors) that this approbations takes importance again, but it has not yet been put to the test, the closest was the early death of the imperial heir during the later part of the rule of Marcus Aurelius, which saw the youth selected for grooming take the spot early on, but that was the mecanism working as designed, with the senate doing its role.
Wait what? I’m sure this would be the case on paper but not in practice as the empire evolves. The closest person to the emperor’s was while likely be that of his wife and son. They would naturally be sought out by ambitious courtiers, bureaucrats, and generals to help influence the emperor. With enough of these people the Imperial family could easily lead a coup and reinstate dynastic succession. This is how the Hapsburgs rigged up the HRE elective succession system based on “merit” to get their family into power. They also married their sons and daughters to other powerful vassals to ensure their support. To use as an example in the modern US where dynasties are frowned upon families like the Roosevelts, Kennedys, Clintons,Rockefellers, Bushes still emerged to exert influence on the political scene. Some were successful in getting their relatives into office while others were not. This was also a thing in the early US with the Adams family. Had someone like Washington had children it’s likely that he would become a contender in future politics. This is because the transfer of power is naturally hereditary and thus father’s would want to bequeath their lands and titles to their sons or other relatives to continue their line and legacy. Even Republican Rome had this with the Scipio family thanks to Scipio Africanus. There was a myth that only a Scipio could win in Africa. Scipio was a legendary commanders whose own soldiers even offered him a Crown. Both Pompey and Caesar used the name Scipio for propaganda purposes and to boost their own legitimacy. They tried to get various members of the Scipio family on their side.
In fact the main threat to the system would be the imperial wives (and remember Hadrian had stormy relations with Sabina so he knows it !) but here the system is built to limit the influence of the sons, to create a system of check and balance while preserving the appearance of a republican aspect despite making the imperator stronger. All the usual games of power will of course be played with the heir, but given he is chosen as an adult he's already a mind of his own and won't go into foolish conspiracies like Julia's under Augustus, to give but an example. Also the system eliminates the risk of brothers vying for power because the heir is adopted, thus preventing a Domitian liquidating Titus type of scenario, or a Nero/Agrippina getting rid of Britannicus)
While it’s easy for most of the Antonines who did not have their own children, other Emperors who do have children would likely want to pass the throne to their sons. They would likely secretly train them into getting power like Augustus did with his grandsons and stepsons.
The system is built by an Antonine, and Marcus Aurelius decided not to change the system because he was raised in it and sees, as a philosopher, its merits. The fact that it works when his heir dies in the plains of the north east only reinforces in him the idea its a good thing to maintain. By that point in time the law is already some 60 years old, few people have known any other.
No further challenge in the next few successions means it becomes tradition. Also don't forget that the army command is very different, command is much more split and beside the emperor only 4 men have the power to give order to more than one legion. And those units are also somewhat further apart and certainly further from Rome. Finally the military success under the rule of Hadrian, either his or Voltinius', have allowed him a security in power that could lead him to take such a drastic decision without fear of the army.
I think you’re misunderstanding what the Roman adoptive succession system was. When a Roman patrician Noble family lacked eligible male heirs they would adopt other outside there social class or within their own class to find a suitable male heir to continue their family. This would work to form alliances as it creates a client patron relationship between the “father” and “son.” They would work to support each other in politics or business. The elder would reward his new heir by transferring his title and connections over to him. This was how manh ancient Roman families continued their line and remained oligarchical. The vast wealthy estates of the patrician elite families would also remain intact as well. This was how they dominated the Senate for centuries. The Emperors who adopted their heirs simply lacked male relatives or sons. Trajan adopted his maternal cousins Hadrian. Hadrian and Antonius Pius had no children so they were able to adopt their own successors. Marcus Aurelius HAD to choose his son since he was his legal heir. To simply snub him when he hadn’t done anything wrong would be against nearly 1,000 years of Roman practice. It would be alien to the Romans. If you had Augustus try to implement this change then maybe this could work as he built the system, and now you are over a century removed from his time.
I understand quite well how it worked, but I also remember how the romans could twist the system to fit their political aims : there is of course the famous case of Claudius/Clodius, but other exemples show how adoption could be done for political reasons not directly dynastic. Here I twist the system, very hard, but remains in the general logic of it even if the fact this excludes a blood heir from the power succession is indeed a stretch.
Another analogy is with the Carolingian Empire and Germanic gavelkind succession. Gavelkind is where the lands and titles are divided between the rulers sons. This is ultimately what caused the Carolingians to collapse as each ruler’s sons kept fighting each other to gain power. With the fragmentation of their domains the Frankish Kings eventually became figureheads. The only one who could have prevented himself was the man who built the whole system up from nothing (The Western Romans Imperial title had been defunct for 300 years). Even then he would have had a slim chance of getting this to work as this would go against centuries of Germanic inheritance law that was instituted by the First Frankish Kinf Clovis the Great.
Here Hadrian makes the imperial throne above succession, a political function but not a private property. In this he indeed break with the Augustean tradition of making the imperial position a private possession, but that is not anti-roman, in fact it could be seen as a return to something closer to the mos maiorum.
But he is still the son of the previous Emperor. The Senate has no real power by this point. It seems to ASB to have the son excluded from power. Especially since he would be closest to he emperor. It’s also asb for the other players to NOT see him as a rival for the throne. Even in Republican Rome sons were expected to succeed and take the places of their father. This the whole idea behind Augustus taking power since he was the closet male relative and adopted and therefore legal son of the Emperor. For Marcus Aurelius to simply “adopt” a new son and ignore the inheritance rights of his actual biological son would be seen as madness. This would go against nearly a millenia of established ancient Roman traditions and law. Other ambitious courtiers and generals who dissented with the previous regime or lost favor with would naturally flock around him to use him as a figurehead to implement their policies. Disgruntled soldiers would then hail him as Emperor and thus there would be another civil war.
Sons were expected to struggle to the same honors as those their fathers had, not inherit them : the fact your father was consul helped become consul, but it was in no way automatic. Here the throne is set back into that line of thought. And while the Senate has little power and rubber stamps a lot of things, the fact it has to do something allows for a mechanism in situation of crisis, a time when the Senate did take power back (whether it could maintain it or no is something else... look at the Senate support for the Gordians
Also it would be natural for Commodus to be pissed about the new political arrangements. His father would be ignoring him the legal successor of his father by all rights and traditions for this random dude his father adopted. Commodus and any sane man would view this as a slight. He would likely make plans to succeed his father via a coup or kill him secretly like in gladiator and press his claim to the army who would no doubt support the Emperor’s son. This similar to what happened in the film gladiator with Marcus wanting to reinstate the Republic for no reason.
Yes Commodus might be pissed of being barred from the imperial throne, but he can't really do much about it (especially if his nature is in any way similar to OTL, which I would not guarantee given he does not have the pressure of being the heir). As for the army it may back some successful general, especially if a designated heir/just promoted emperor has had a number of defeats in his past, but under Marcus Aurelius it is no longer the same kind of organization as before, and by the current rule it has evolved a lot : formal schools training at least centurion level NCO in a number of places in the Empire, formal central school in Rome training all higher ranks and testing them in wargames, now a general staff... This changes the relationship of the army to the state, and no one is pulling a Caracalla here : there is no general extension of citizenship so we're in the mid-3rd century with a still working incentive for non-citizens to enlist and enough land and offensive operations to make legion service interesting to citizen legionaries
The real Marcus Aurelius knew what his son was and still gave him power for this reason. This spared Rome a civil war. While Commodus was inattentive to his duties as ruler in real life, he still delegated those functions to competent men. Many of the economic woes in the empire have to do with the Antonine plague that killed a huge chunk of the empire’s population. This wasn’t his fault.
True, but Marcus Aurelius was not in the same situation than the one here (and has not had to get rid of Verus either, thanks to this system). And yes many issues faced by the empire came from that plague, but Commodus did plenty of wrongs too
Let’s say Commodus died and Lucius Verus and his son Marcus’s grandson had lived, this would have meant that Verus or his son would have been the next emperor after Augustus.
Yes but with many plots and tensions around the throne, here we have stability because everyone is well designated by law, which never was the system in ancient Rome for imperial succession. What Hadrian introduces ITTL is rule of law over imperial succession, a true constitution, helped by great jurists such as Publius Salvius Iulianus (who was close to Hadrian). More than military conquests, this is the POD of this timelien
For the succession system you laid out Marcus would have to kill his own son to make room for this to work. Any sons that exist would be angry that their inheritance would be stripped from them. This way his handpicked successor would have had a smooth path to power. It would also necessitate that you stop the next emperor from having children. This isn’t really realistic or a practical solution either. Augustus was suspected of killing off his developmentally disabled grandson by Agrippa to have Tiberius take the reigns without issue.
Marcus Aurelius do no need to do that because the law is in place and he's the second emperor elected following this method, moreover he's the first educated in this way of thinking so he also raised his son telling him he would not be emperor.0
Historians are beginning to reevaluate Caligula and Nero. --- Claudius also based his plans off those devised under his nephew’s reign.
True enough, but historical truth has little weight here as we are talking perception of their reign in the senatorial circles, and there we see the black legend as transmitted by our sources. this does not change the argument on the change of the succession mechanism
All this being said, thank you for your deep engagement with the story
