Commodus dies early - who does Marcus Aurelius pick?
- Thread starter Porsenna
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I believe he had a son-in-law named Claudius Pompeianus, but I don't know much about the man.
He rejected Marcus' offer to make him his adopted son and successor a good number of times.Perhaps his son(the grandson of Marcus Aurelius) would make an alternative successor if Marcus lived a few more years.
"Unfortunately"? Well, I suppose he might accept a direct offer from Marcus Aurelius if the emperor appeals to his sense of duty.If no close relative is available, he has to choose the so called Optimus.
Which was unfortunately Claudius Pompeianus.
And if Pompeianus really, really does not want to do it, I expect there would be one or two suitable candidates in the available pool of generals.
Actually he survived Commodus and rejected to become emperor afterwards. He also rejected to become co-emperor of Didius Iulianus.
He was Marc Aurels Chief of Staff and probably a supporter of the provincialization of Bohemia. But he was obviously also a very smart guy. Not willing to risk his life via becoming an heir or co-emperor.
Does not help. One of the templates for this fictious character was probably Claudius Pompeianus.
Burton K Wheeler
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Use the report function in the future, don't just post in the thread. There's no guarantee we're going to see it.
Claudius Pompeianus.
Or, when the message of the emperor's death arrives in Syria, Avidius Cassius. In this case, you could have 193 instead of 172.
Or, when the message of the emperor's death arrives in Syria, Avidius Cassius. In this case, you could have 193 instead of 172.
Avidius Cassius was already dead, when Marcus died. He usurped 175 due to a misunderstanding. He got the wrong message, that the emperor had died. So his usurpation was most probably against Commodus, the heir of a dead Marcus.
Nevertheless, Marcus always cherished him very much. Actually, he was the operating commander, who defeated the parthians and sacked Ctesiphon, not Lucius Verus.
So if Commodus dies before 175 and Pompeianus rejects, Cassius is the obvious choice.
PS: if the OP thinks, that an empire without Commodus would avoid the 3rd century crisis, I am afraid he is very wrong.
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171 - TTL death of Aurelius
Cassius is appointed governor of the east in these years. So it works.
Yes, one person can hardly avoid such a big crisis - with many causes. However, one should firstly describe these causes, and then think of what a "better" emperor than Commodus could have avoided.
So: what are the causes for the difficulties of the empire?
Oh, the mother of all questions: Why did Rome fall?
I am convinced, that if you would know all the reasons of the 3rd century crisis and their interdependencies, you are pretty close to answer the mother of all questions, too.
Fact is, the roman empire of the principate was not able to defend the empire, when attacked at many fronts at once. Not militarily, not politically, not economically and also their society was not appropriate to do so.
The romans have been very lucky for about 250 years. And Marcus was the first emperor who tasted the future.
Yes but why exactly? The republic fought at all fronts simultaneously and won... Why wasn't the principate, better organized than the republic, able to stop the invaders at the borders?
Defensive wars were not the sort the Republic ever truly excelled in, and the fighting they did in all directions was also under the direction of various generals who, in their corner of the empire, held de-facto absolute authority. You can't get away with that sort of thing when those very men who should holding your territory want your position, this forces you to be in all places at once trying to hold together a realm with string and tax money because you're too scared to lighten your workload.
Why their society isn't appropriate, is because of the inability for any one man to command the unquestioned loyalty of his subordinates in the majority of instances, this along with the lack of will in the apparatus to deal with foreign threats simultaneously while maintaining itself in a stable fashion.
The ways the Empire dealt with excursions was to siphon away resources from other slightly less volatile hotspots and send troops in a new direction, in the Crisis the split in Gaul more or less managed to hold up its part of the fence while a separate regime was allowed to hold down its part. The division of authority being the only way for this sort of defense to be successful. However it's already been stated why division of authority is very much a bad idea, and in the crisis it was also demonstrated why that was a bad idea (generals killing each other for the position of Imperator).
Now that I've said that, When did the Republic have to hold an invasion from the north, attacks on any overseas territory as well as the south. There has been no time that I can recall where the borders of the republic were just continually punctured by foreign expeditions? Also, better organization doesn't necessarily prepare the empire for the sorts of threats it had to weather.