AHC: Earliest possible collapse of the Roman Empire?

To put it simply, the external factors that could bring down Rome after 27 BCE did not come together until the end of the 2nd, and start of the third century.

This is exactly the point!

Perhaps it could have happened at a very early stage of the principate, when 2 big german alliances existed and Gallia was not fully pacified yet, like I described in my scenario above. Actually this was exactly the scenario Augustus most probably feared, when he started panicking after the Clades Variana.

But it did not happen. The german tribes in Arminius coalition were obviously just loosely coupled and only willing to work together in order to defend their homelands. Marobodus stayed loyal to the romans by whatever reasons. Marobodus and Arminius even battled each other in 17 AD and did not work together. And so the horror scenario, that the germans manage to convince the gaulish tribes to join their revolt, did not happen.

And even then, the chances are high, that the romans can repel the northern armies in Northern Italy and avoid a sack of Rome. Plus a simple sack of Rome does not work. Roma esse delenda! Completely! In this case the roman empire might ruin itself with a chain of uruspations, also falling back into late republican times.

So a lot of IFs, which are perhaps not fully ASB, but rather unlikely to happen all together.
 
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