AHC: Save the Roman Empire (with a twist)

Is there any way to maintain the Emperor as Commander-In-Chief whilst still having the rest of the army accepting that if the Emperor breaks the law, he is no longer the C-I-C? I'm not sure how to do that.

The paradoxon of the principate is, that Augutus ended the civil wars and the detrimental competition amongst roman aristocrats by implementing a (hidden) absolutistic monarchy. 2000 years later we claim on this forum, that in order to reduce civil wars, we need to reduce the power of the princeps.

I am afraid, every roman would just shake his head and claim, that by reducing the power of the princeps you get more civil wars not less. If you reduce the authority of the princeps, the pax romana is in danger, becuase he looses the control over the legions. And this was the most important achievement of the principate at all.
 
@RogueTraderEnthusiast @Agricola Perhaps increase the Emperor's power in military affairs, but give a judiciary a chance to override that.
As soon as one joins the legions, they report to the Emperor only, but they also swear to obey the judiciary and Senate IF the majority rule that the Emperor must go.
 
The paradoxon of the principate is, that Augutus ended the civil wars and the detrimental competition amongst roman aristocrats by implementing a (hidden) absolutistic monarchy. 2000 years later we claim on this forum, that in order to reduce civil wars, we need to reduce the power of the princeps.

I am afraid, every roman would just shake his head and claim, that by reducing the power of the princeps you get more civil wars not less. If you reduce the authority of the princeps, the pax romana is in danger, becuase he looses the control over the legions. And this was the most important achievement of the principate at all.

Well, in both circumstances, it is when someone has too much power they are a problem. Especially with nothing holding them to account. Man, fixing Rome hurts the head.

Well, anti-corruption agency and theoretically independent judiciary is a start.

I do like @Mental_Wizard 's suggestion, but I don't know how much they'd respect that part of their oath.

It fundamentally comes down to trying to tear the executive and legislative powers of the Emperor away from each other, and somehow have it so that the Executive isn't also enforcing the laws.. and leading the army.. and providing the pay..

So. Much. Entangled. GRAH.
 
@RogueTraderEnthusiast

The judicial body can be appointed only by the Senate.

So in order for the Emperor to put himself above the law... He would have to control the Senate. The Senate can only unanimously veto the powers of the judiciary.
If the Emperor controls all three, then he likely controls every single thing in the Empire personally. Marcus' chicken coop is not safe from him if he has that much control. So yeah this should do it.
 
@RogueTraderEnthusiast

The judicial body can be appointed only by the Senate.

So in order for the Emperor to put himself above the law... He would have to control the Senate. The Senate can only unanimously veto the powers of the judiciary.
If the Emperor controls all three, then he likely controls every single thing in the Empire personally. Marcus' chicken coop is not safe from him if he has that much control. So yeah this should do it.

That.. that might work. I was concerned by the anti-corruption organisation under the Emperor being able to control them - but if it works where the Senate can't just remove them, then whilst Senators could be blackmailed into supporting a judiciary candidate, but once there, the Senators aren't safe from the judges. You still have the Judiciary reliant on the Emperor to apply rulings, but it is a step.
 
That.. that might work. I was concerned by the anti-corruption organisation under the Emperor being able to control them - but if it works where the Senate can't just remove them, then whilst Senators could be blackmailed into supporting a judiciary candidate, but once there, the Senators aren't safe from the judges. You still have the Judiciary reliant on the Emperor to apply rulings, but it is a step.

Federalise the Empire. Reduces revolts to all hell, but keep the army centralised and taxes centralised. Boom baby solves all yo problems.
 
@RogueTraderEnthusiast

The judicial body can be appointed only by the Senate.

So in order for the Emperor to put himself above the law... He would have to control the Senate. The Senate can only unanimously veto the powers of the judiciary.
If the Emperor controls all three, then he likely controls every single thing in the Empire personally. Marcus' chicken coop is not safe from him if he has that much control. So yeah this should do it.

Actually i imperial times the senate was already the highest court of the empire. At least for senators.

The emperor often used the senate as court and delegated cases to them. Especially if senators were accused. Of course the senate always decided according to the emperors wishes. They were even very confused, if the emperor delegated a case, without his "advise" and rejected to decide until the emperor advised them. You know, the emperor controlled the admission to the senate and he controlled every useful career.

Sometimes the emperors bypassed the senate and decided behind closed doors. Nobody complained about that, if not 100 years later.

Another obstacle is, that for a roman, there is no difference at all between iurisdiction and executive. Every administrative task is ex definitione based on a judicial decision. Therefore romans could not imagine how a propraetor without iudicative power should work at all. And of course the super-propraetor with his imperium proconsulare cant work without iudicative power either.
 
Actually i imperial times the senate was already the highest court of the empire. At least for senators.

The emperor often used the senate as court and delegated cases to them. Especially if senators were accused. Of course the senate always decided according to the emperors wishes. They were even very confused, if the emperor delegated a case, without his "advise" and rejected to decide until the emperor advised them. You know, the emperor controlled the admission to the senate and he controlled every useful career.

Sometimes the emperors bypassed the senate and decided behind closed doors. Nobody complained about that, if not 100 years later.

Another obstacle is, that for a roman, there is no difference at all between iurisdiction and executive. Every administrative task is ex definitione based on a judicial decision. Therefore romans could not imagine how a propraetor without iudicative power should work at all. And of course the super-propraetor with his imperium proconsulare cant work without iudicative power either.

Ok, the only understanding of Iudicative I can find is indicative, which doesn't quite make sense. Are you using instead of Judiciary/Judicial? This suggests that there is no seperation between policy and the process of crime and punishment. (Which, if I'm honest is at the heart of what I've been skirting).

In which case, that seems to contradict with the idea that the Senate would handle cases. I'm confused. You might need to explain this without the word iudicative.
 
You might need to explain this without the word iudicative.

Sorry for my english. I forgot that Iudikative is no english term. I meant the 3 powers: legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. The romans did not distunguish between executive and judiciary. Even the legislature was not really separated; not as clearly as today.

Therefore a separation of powers is rather unlikely to happen.

Regarding the senate: at least the republican senate saw itself as the highest executive of the republic. Steering the magistrates in every affair which goes beyond daily routine business. In addition they pre-decided every law the comitia had to adopt. The republic worked fine until some selfish idiots started to enforce the constitution.
 
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It must be fixed then. The Republic was failing, and our discussion seems to have indicated that the Empire's structure is inherently flawed too. Rome is doomed to not be eternal I guess?
 
It must be fixed then. The Republic was failing, and our discussion seems to have indicated that the Empire's structure is inherently flawed too. Rome is doomed to not be eternal I guess?
I am not sure, if Rome was doomed to fail. If I look to the roman culture and mindset I say yes. They were doomed when Romulus killed Remus. But on the other hand, they ruled a europe-wide empire for over 1000 years.

Of course a lot of things have to be fixed. And it is not that difficult for us to develop some ideas. The problem is, how and why should the romans have this idea and implement it.
 
DominusNovus wrote:



The Romans, if we by that mean people living in the Roman Empire, had (at least according to some)

heavy plows,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plough

horse collars,
http://www.humanist.de/rome/harnessing/collar.html

distillation
http://montgomerydistillery.com/our-process/distilling/

and three-field rotation.
http://blogs.nature.com/soapboxscie...much-to-both-christianity-and-the-middle-ages

But maybe you mean that the technology should have been more spread or developed in the empire?

Thats some great evidence for horse collars, but your citation of wikipedia for plows (no, I'm not bashing wikipedia) doesn't actually say anything about the Romans having heavy plows from what I can see. And the bit about distillation, I was referring to distilled liquor, which still seems to date to the middle ages (but there was more awareness of distillation than I had thought, I only knew of a few cases, not as many as there are); distillation's benefit is that it is a nice little economic boost to agriculture and really helps give farmers a product they can ship long distance. And I'm still not seeing any definitive sourcing on the Romans having thee field systems.

But still, I'm very intrigued by the numismatic evidence for the collars.
 
If a smart Emperor could face some sort of legal requirement to pick a smart successor, than how is this going to screw up?
maybe...
1. Emperor must be fluent in Latin
2. Emperor must be approved by the Senate
3. Emperor must have qualities deemed worthy of a monarch
4. Emperor must win the approval of the legions
 
If a smart Emperor could face some sort of legal requirement to pick a smart successor, than how is this going to screw up?
maybe...
1. Emperor must be fluent in Latin
2. Emperor must be approved by the Senate
3. Emperor must have qualities deemed worthy of a monarch
4. Emperor must win the approval of the legions

1. De facto the case
2. De facto the case (they're a rubber stamp)
3. Why? The Romans would be sure to remind you that their Emperor was not a monarch.
4. De facto very much the case.
 
Heavy plough:
"The Romans achieved the heavy wheeled mouldboard plough in the late 3rd and 4th century AD, when archaeological evidence appears, inter alia, in Roman Britain.[14] The first indisputable appearance after the Roman period is from 643, in a northern Italian document.[15]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plough#Mouldboard_plough
"Arkeologiska fynd visar att romarna använde tunga plogar med vändskiva av järn i England under 300-talet e.Kr."
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plog
"In den 70er Jahren des 1. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. beschreibt Plinius der Ältere in seiner Naturgeschichte 18,172 den Räderpflug mit breiter Schar zum Wenden der Scholle als neue Erfindung der rätischen Gallier: „Vor nicht langer Zeit hat man im rätischen Gallien die Erfindung gemacht, an einer solchen Pflugschar zwei kleine Räder anzubringen; man nennt diese Art plaumoratum. Die Spitze hat die Form eines Spatens. ... Die Breite der Pflugschar wendet den Rasen um“ (Übersetzung Roderich König)."
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pflug#Geschichte_des_Pfluges
"The heavy plow was known in antiquity. Pliny described a heavy wheeled plow as having been in use in Asia Minor."
http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/heavyplow.html
"The historian, Richard Carrier, says the Romans invented the heavy plow. "They had large, wheeled plows that turned the soil, pulled by teams of four to six oxen, already in use by the 1st century A.D. (as described in Pliny the Elder, Natural History 18.48.172-173). The Romans actually had a fairly (and correctly) sophisticated understanding of plow technologies, and kept many different kinds in use, specialized to soil and climate." [3]"
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Flynn.htm
 
Three-field system:
"Crop rotations date back as far as the Roman Empire. European farmers followed a crop rotation system
created by the Romans called, “food, feed, fallow.”
Farmers using this cropping system divided their farm into three sections, rotating the sections to the next category the following year.
In the “food” section, farmers would plant a food grain such as wheat,
in the “feed” section barley or oats would be planted for their livestock
and in “fallow” the ground would lay empty so it could recover some of its organic matter and nutrients that was lost in previous years."
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/coarc/sites/default/files/may_2013_article.pdf
"Agriculture in Italy was very diverse. Farmed fields with crop rotation predominated (Varr. rust. 1.44.1–2; Verg. georg. 1.73ff.; Plin. nat. 18.49ff.); to some extent, the Romans had already initiated the later three-field system, although two-field rotation was still the most common method."
http://erenow.com/ancient/an-environmental-history-of-ancient-greece-and-rome/17.html
 
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Heavy plough:
"The Romans achieved the heavy wheeled mouldboard plough in the late 3rd and 4th century AD, when archaeological evidence appears, inter alia, in Roman Britain.[14] The first indisputable appearance after the Roman period is from 643, in a northern Italian document.[15]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plough#Mouldboard_plough
"Arkeologiska fynd visar att romarna använde tunga plogar med vändskiva av järn i England under 300-talet e.Kr."
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plog
"In den 70er Jahren des 1. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. beschreibt Plinius der Ältere in seiner Naturgeschichte 18,172 den Räderpflug mit breiter Schar zum Wenden der Scholle als neue Erfindung der rätischen Gallier: „Vor nicht langer Zeit hat man im rätischen Gallien die Erfindung gemacht, an einer solchen Pflugschar zwei kleine Räder anzubringen; man nennt diese Art plaumoratum. Die Spitze hat die Form eines Spatens. ... Die Breite der Pflugschar wendet den Rasen um“ (Übersetzung Roderich König)."
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pflug#Geschichte_des_Pfluges
"The heavy plow was known in antiquity. Pliny described a heavy wheeled plow as having been in use in Asia Minor."
http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/heavyplow.html
"The historian, Richard Carrier, says the Romans invented the heavy plow. "They had large, wheeled plows that turned the soil, pulled by teams of four to six oxen, already in use by the 1st century A.D. (as described in Pliny the Elder, Natural History 18.48.172-173). The Romans actually had a fairly (and correctly) sophisticated understanding of plow technologies, and kept many different kinds in use, specialized to soil and climate." [3]"
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Flynn.htm
Distillation:
"The Romans apparently produced distilled beverages, although no references concerning them are found in writings before 100 ce. Production of distilled spirits was reported in Britain before the Roman conquest."
https://global.britannica.com/topic/distilled-spirit

These really are not compelling sources, I'm sorry. Your horse collar examples were contemporary coins. Meanwhile, take that bit from NYU. They mention, without citation, Pliny's reference to a heavy plow. Except that that very excerpt is debated as to its meaning. Here's a well-sourced paper that actually mentions that: http://www.ehes.org/EHES_70.pdf

Its certainly possible that isolated examples of heavy plows existed in the time frame (though, even those uncertain examples are largely from the late Roman period), but I'm not convinced that its a certainty that they did.
 
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