Challenge: Romanistic Era

Is it possible, however unlikely, for a megalomaniacal, but clever, Roman Emperor to go on massive conquests in the East with most of the Roman army, perhaps stopping only at China? In the aftermath, the giant Roman state would split into several usurped states like the Hellenistic states after the death of Alexander.
 

birdboy2000

Banned
Rome had a damn good army, and also a lot of political instability and civil wars during the Republican era. Any "Romanistic" era would probably not be able to crush Parthia and go all the way to China - the Romans didn't OTL - but I could easily see the late republic's civil wars creating several Romanistic states around the Mediterranean. OTL only Sertorius did anything like that, and he lost, but the general trends of Roman armies loyal to their generals over the Republic would seem to support fragmentation - the trick is to convince said generals to focus on consolidating their power in conquered provinces instead of fighting each other for the whole thing.
 
The best you can have is Caesar or Antony crushing the Parthian Empire but even that's not going to last in any serious territorial gains and more into a fragmentation of the former Parthian Empire into client states, many of which being only client states in name. Though I guess if Antony survives in power long enough, Alexander Helios could be placed on his eastern throne promised to him in the Donations of Alexandria assuming they still happen ITTL.
 
Is it possible, however unlikely, for a megalomaniacal, but clever, Roman Emperor to go on massive conquests in the East with most of the Roman army, perhaps stopping only at China? In the aftermath, the giant Roman state would split into several usurped states like the Hellenistic states after the death of Alexander.

My guess that something like that was possible only during Late Republic when Rome had a lot of legions under arms and multitudes of ambitious politicians and generals.
Well, Parthia was a hard nut to crack and it is difficult to find a certain POD.

For example triumvir Crassus dies before the beginning of his unfortunate invasion into Mesopotamia. Or he gets seriously sick and makes his son Publius Crassus his successor - the old man lives long enough to get the approval of Julius Caesar and Pompey. Which would not be too hard at least in case of Caesar, as Publius Crassus served under him during Gaullic wars and they went along just fine.

Publius Crassus was about 30 years old, so he was more mature than Alexander the Great when he started his conquest of the East.
In other respects Publius was similar to Alexander - he learned a lot serving under great general, had a successful experience of independent military command. He even was famous for his personal courage like Alexander the Great; he fought on a horse when he met his glorious death.
With good luck he could conquer the Parthians and recreate something like the Seleucid Empire, which was not altogether forgotten in these lands.
Why not? The Macedonians/Greeks somehow managed to hold these lands for a few hundred years.
But the Romans had to do something to improve their cavalry and missile troops. Better both...
 
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What about something much later in the Eastern Empire? Justinian tried to buy peace with the Persians in order to pursue his dream of reconquering the Western Empire. What if he turned east instead and attacked the Sasanian Empire? If he threw the full weight of the Byzantines against the Persians like he did against the barbarians in the West perhaps he could destabilize the feudal Persians before any of the later tax reforms were put in place. In the long term it would still probably bankrupt Constantinople but a Zoroastrian/Christian Persia with Greek administrators would certainly be interesting.
 

maronruec

Banned
I really doubt that Rome could stretch till China, but I am not sure what would the most plausible farthest East border for Rome.
 
Rome was a Mediterranean Empire, they wouldn't be able to directly hold much land far inland in the east, at least not for very long. Mesoopotamia is about as far as they can rule directly.
 
A permanent breakup of the Empire around the Crisis of the Third Century might result in Roman successor states, some of which might expand in interesting directions on their own.

Say a Gallic Empire that also includes Britain and expands into Scotland and Ireland (to fight Pictish and Scotti raiders) or Germania and Denmark (think Charlemagne) or a Palmyrene state that expands into Arabia.

Going all the way to China would be a bit much though.
 
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