AHC: Roman Empire survives until present day with OTL borders

Somehow, make Roman Empire surviving to the present day with the OTL borders: Firth of Forth, Rhine, Danube, Euphrates, and Sahara desert.
Is this possible? What sort of PODs needed for this?
 
Srry but it's jus a bit too ASB Rome would eventually gall whether it be civil wars or inept emperors for several reasons
1: there gov style was a Despotic monarchy but had no rule to succesion crises

2: Corruption ran very high in the empire

3; Too big to effectivly manage
4: backward in thinking, especially later on
5: A weak gov
6: Generals always seized power if they had an army
7: Barbarien invasions
8: Raids by Parthians
just my .01 Euro but I think if the POD went back far enough and your a very skilled Writer who can do a ton of research you may pull this off.:) Ill be watching and I wish you the best of luc, consider me subscribed if this TL becomes Plausable.
 
So no takers, huh?
About civil wars and weak emperors, actually Rome in OTL has doing pretty well about them...
Despite numerous internal conflicts and external attacks, Rome was able to keep all frontiers (and even expanding) for nearly four centuries. Byzantium too, was able to keep Danube and Euphrates for nearly three centuries (even expanding, again).
I think if we can butterflying away Migration Period and Arab invasion, maybe Rome could keep it up...
 
I wouldn't say it's completely ASB, actually. Rhine/Danube/Euphrates pretty much was the optimum border for the Empire as it was, since it kept everything within easy reach of the Mediterranean core, and if the Romans manage to recover from the struggles of the fifth century they'll be both strong enough to hold these borders, but weak enough to allow large barbarian kingdoms to develop beyond them, and block further Roman expansion.
 
Well, we've been talking about this a good bit on Eric's thread, a couple of mine and some older ones from Eurofed.

Consensus seems to be that it's not impossible, but that a lot of issues need fixing, both in terms of Roman government and borders. Mostly the former.
 
Does the Roman Empire need to constantly exist during this time? If you allowed them to break apart like OTL, but have more successful conquests by say Justinian, and move onward from there I don't think it's completely implausible that at some point a European state could emerge that resembles the old Roman Empire.

You just have to be willing to see the Empire collapse and reinvigorate itself several times in the process :D.
 
I wouldn't say it's completely ASB, actually. Rhine/Danube/Euphrates pretty much was the optimum border for the Empire as it was, since it kept everything within easy reach of the Mediterranean core, and if the Romans manage to recover from the struggles of the fifth century they'll be both strong enough to hold these borders, but weak enough to allow large barbarian kingdoms to develop beyond them, and block further Roman expansion.

Finally, someone who agrees with me about the Roman borderlands and the Mediterranean. I've been argueing with Eurofed for days about it.

Anyway, I wouldn't say it's completely impossible for the Roman Empire to survive, even with most of its 1st century borders. It's just that thousands of years entails some border fluctuations; I'd guess places like Britain, Mauretania or Armenia would be abandoned but places like Dacia, Pannonia and Mesopotamia would be conquered.

I'd say if we want a surviving Roman system, the best way to do it would be a kind of Republican monarchism; somewhat like DeGaullism or Bolivarianism, but with the trappings of Roman office. Basically a permanent leading figure with extensive foreign policy powers and command of the armed forces, but elected by the Senate for long periods of office (say ten years). They may be allowed to take up dictatorial powers in times of emergency, but I'd guess that would be too much for the Senate (I'd have it stronger IMTL) so there may be another prominent figure who takes that role, maybe a permanent military tribune.
This couldn't happen directly after the republic (i.e. the republic wouldn't transition into this) but maybe after the reign of Augustus; perhaps Tiberius doesn't succeed, or Germanicus succeeds to the office and gives some of his power away. I'm not quite sure, but there would have to be a kind of semi-imperial interregnum. Remember, the idea of a republic never really died until the death of Caracalla, although it was really completely unfeasible by the death of Nero. There's about a fifty year tiem period when a semi-Republican constitution can be drawn up that could be made to work.
 
Alright, surely there are a lot of Roman experts in this forum, so...
To keep up with this challenge, did a change in Roman constitution is necessary...?
AFAIK, things like rebellions, civil wars, and usurpations were common throughout human's history...
So IMO without a serious external threats like Germanic migration and Arab invasion, Rome could more focusing her attention for internal threats...
This way, present day Roman Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates is not unlikely, thus fulfilling the challenge...
Am I wrong...?
 
Alright, surely there are a lot of Roman experts in this forum, so...
To keep up with this challenge, did a change in Roman constitution is necessary...?
AFAIK, things like rebellions, civil wars, and usurpations were common throughout human's history...
So IMO without a serious external threats like Germanic migration and Arab invasion, Rome could more focusing her attention for internal threats...
This way, present day Roman Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates is not unlikely, thus fulfilling the challenge...
Am I wrong...?

Well my theory is that if Pompey had won the civil war he wouldn't have made himself dictator for life. He'd probably back Cicero, who called for an elected head of state who could command the armies yet be subject to Senate oversight and the military tribunes. If this could be made to work, then the Empire would probably be a lot more stable, and could keep its late Republican dynamism which was responsible for much of its territorial expansion (Caesar in Gaul, Pompey in Asia etc. etc.)
 
Well my theory is that if Pompey had won the civil war he wouldn't have made himself dictator for life. He'd probably back Cicero, who called for an elected head of state who could command the armies yet be subject to Senate oversight and the military tribunes. If this could be made to work, then the Empire would probably be a lot more stable, and could keep its late Republican dynamism which was responsible for much of its territorial expansion (Caesar in Gaul, Pompey in Asia etc. etc.)

I think this could work, except that I wonder if it would make it impossible to meet the stipulation of keeping OTL borders. A key thing which made the Republic work was that generals were kept busy expanding the borders.

When internal politics became more interesting than new conquests to the generals, civil war was the inevitable result - Pompey was merely the second last in a line of dictators and generals which ended with Caesar. Any time after Marius' reform of the army, it is the generals who hold the real power, and I believe the Senate would have found it impossible to exert a calming influence over any long periods of time.

Perhaps a good POD for this timeline is the transition from Julius to Augustus. There are two factors which I believe might make this a viable TL. First, if Augustus could (early on in his reign) lay down a consitutional formula to enable a generally peaceful succession and prevent the generals thinking of themselves as candidates for the purple, there would be a chance of avoiding most of the civil wars which happened under the empire. Second, and I don't know how this could be acheived, but the wives and mothers of the early emperors would have to be prevented from carrying out all the dynastic intrigues they did in OTL. I guess that one (again) comes down to forcing through rules for the succession so that the womenfolk didn't get the idea that they could influence things.

I guess the real problem is that we have very few OTL examples of empires which lasted multiple millenia, and none which did so without some significant changes of character and governance in the process.
 
Well my theory is that if Pompey had won the civil war he wouldn't have made himself dictator for life. He'd probably back Cicero, who called for an elected head of state who could command the armies yet be subject to Senate oversight and the military tribunes. If this could be made to work, then the Empire would probably be a lot more stable, and could keep its late Republican dynamism which was responsible for much of its territorial expansion (Caesar in Gaul, Pompey in Asia etc. etc.)

Very interesting scenario...
Why no one make a TL for that...? :D
BTW I wonder how large the Roman Empire could be in TTL, if she retains "republican expansionist dynamism"...
 
Very interesting scenario...
Why no one make a TL for that...? :D
BTW I wonder how large the Roman Empire could be in TTL, if she retains "republican expansionist dynamism"...

I'm thinking of doing it, you think I should go ahead?

btw the TL about Rome surviving until the present has a slightly similar set-up only with Caesar and lots of conquering. Kinda ASB in my opinion, but whatever, people like it.
 
Somehow, make Roman Empire surviving to the present day with the OTL borders: Firth of Forth, Rhine, Danube, Euphrates, and Sahara desert.
Is this possible? What sort of PODs needed for this?

I'm not going to say impossible, in part because Rome did serve as a relatively stable model of a state (for much of its existence). But Infeasible to the extreme. Basically nothing manmade, certainly on that scale, exists in such a state of stasis for so long. Sure, we are only talking about external borders, but even so, Two millennia is an incredibly long time. Even China (not a perfect analogue, but close enough) has divided, collapsed, been conquered, and seen its borders fluctuate a lot over similar timespans.
 
I wouldn't say it's completely ASB, actually. Rhine/Danube/Euphrates pretty much was the optimum border for the Empire as it was, since it kept everything within easy reach of the Mediterranean core, and if the Romans manage to recover from the struggles of the fifth century they'll be both strong enough to hold these borders, but weak enough to allow large barbarian kingdoms to develop beyond them, and block further Roman expansion.

While I agree that the OTL empire was an near optimum unit for its technological and logisitics base there is the problems that that base will be shifting over time - the iron plow and medieval warm period will cause a large growth in population in Northern France just as the Med basin is getting drier, and improvements in ship building will make it harder to police the Mare Nostrum. I just don't think a Roman state will have the resources to hold all its OTL borders post 12th century, and will need to reorganise on a more modest scale.
 
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