Can the Year of Four Emperors Collapse the Roman Empire?

[IchBinDieKaiser]

The suicide of emperor Nero in 68 CE sparked a civil war which ended up seeing four different men on the throne, with General Vespasian eventually winning and establishing the Flavian Dynasty. What I'm curious about is can this civil war be enough to collapse the Roman Empire, similar to how Alexander the Great's empire collapsed with rival generals claiming ruler-ship over different parts of the Roman Empire, never to be reunited? Or is an earlier version of the Crisis of the Third Century the worst that can happen at this point?

 

[Alex Zetsu]

Why not?

 

[HIM Dogson]

I highly doubt it. First off, the fighting was contained mostly to Italy, second off barring the Parthians the Romans didn't face any serious threats(while in the Third Century they had the Goths and the Sassanids) but most importantly, during the Year of Four Emperors the institutions of Rome were still in good shape. Their means of exerting power was fine, their economy was doing well, their army could effectively defend all of the Empire. The Crisis of the Third Century was due to a combination of issues of which delegitimization of the office of Emperor was only one. Without a POD much further back you don't have those other issues during the Year of the Four Emperors.

 

[Alex Zetsu]

Their means of exerting power was fine, their economy was doing well,

Wait a minute, how can you say their means of exerting power is fine when the Senate declared Nero stripped of his titles (which made him powerless in the face of Galba and why he committed suicide)? Seems like his means of exerting power wasn't perfect. Also, the legions had divided loyalties during the Year of the Four Emperors, while they could defend boarders it doesn't seem like the central government is doing well when there are multiple factions all vying for the throne. The next three years saw a large drop in trade with Asia and Africa (for unrelated reasons), a reduction in craftsmen quantity output, and a pest on olive oil, which means they effectively entered a recession after Vespasian made the Empire at peace, wouldn't a continuation of a war greatly destroy the economical infrastructure if it was about to go into recession during peace?

 

[HIM Dogson]

Wait a minute, how can you say their means of exerting power is fine when the Senate declared Nero stripped of his titles (which made him powerless in the face of Galba and why he committed suicide)? Seems like his means of exerting power wasn't perfect. Also, the legions had divided loyalties during the Year of the Four Emperors, while they could defend boarders it doesn't seem like the central government is doing well when there are multiple factions all vying for the throne. The next three years saw a large drop in trade with Asia and Africa (for unrelated reasons), a reduction in craftsmen quantity output, and a pest on olive oil, which means they effectively entered a recession after Vespasian made the Empire at peace, wouldn't a continuation of a war greatly destroy the economical infrastructure if it was about to go into recession during peace?

Well, no, I mean the beauraucracy, for example, which is distinct from the powers of the Emperor himself and also distinct from the legitimacy of the Imperial office; there's a difference between saying "This a Emperor is crazy, depose him" and saying "Well, I just won a victory and my army likes me, time to declare myself Emperor". Another difference we can see is that yes, while a continued civil war would be the cause of a recession, in the case of the COTTC economic collapse was a cause of the crisis(and I doubt any economic collapse here could equal the COTTC; that was so severe that a new currency had to be introduced). I also think that the legions being able to defend the borders is super important to there being a crisis given that both Postumus and Odenathus declared independence because Arome lacked the resources to protect them from the Germans and Persians. Sure, you could have bad stuff happen but I don't think it equals collapse without these regional divides spurred on by strong external enemies. You also have to remember that the year of the four emperors was relatively sudden; we can safely say that if Nero had been a good Emperor it wouldn't have happened. The Crisis of the Third Century, OTOH, had arguably been building since the Antonine Plague and definitely since Maximinus Thrax killed Alexander Severus.