Commodus dies early - who does Marcus Aurelius pick?

When does Commodus die? If it's before 175...then it is, without a doubt, going to be Avidius Cassius, as Agricola said. Now will this prevent the third century crisis? No. But butterflies do have an effect here-Commodus may not have caused the crisis but he certainly exasperated it with his terrible management of the treasury. There's also the fact that the Romans are going to take a different route with Bohemia under a Cassius than under Commodus.

Then you have two really interesting side effects: No Severans, and, possibly, no Sassanians. The Severans of course massively expanded the army and weren't the best at managing the treasury. One can make a case that they exasperated things with their "worship the soldiers and fuck everyone else" mantra (well, Septimius and Caracalla, that is). That might have played a contributing role in the complete breakdown of discipline and loyalty that characterized the crisis.

And of course...butterflying away the Sassanians is a MASSIVE change for the eastern frontier for Rome. Heather is right when he puts them near the top of his list for the rise of the dominate, and the need to split the empire in 2.
 
Yes but why exactly? The republic fought at all fronts simultaneously and won...

... , 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.

This is a very important point. And don't forget, that the republican system ended in multiple civil wars! And so the multi-emperorship of the late empire had plenty of civil wars, too.

In order to defend multiple fronts you need multiple strong commanders. The fronts are at least: Rhine, Danube (rather 2 fronts), and Euphrat. And sometimes additional fronts in Britain, various borders at the Sahara or in southern Egypt open up.

Unfortunately in the roman political system strong regional commanders trend to usurp, by various reasons. Auctoritas and Dignitas are two major elements of the roman mindset. Today we would call this mentality: "The winner takes it all". Well, is this really specific roman? Or are usurpations unavoidable given the size of the empire combined with the human mindset in general?

Another strong reason of usurpation arose, if a front was weakenend, in order to defend an other. The structure of the empire had changed massively. Rome conquered an empire. And afterwards the empire conquered Rome. Rome and Italy was no longer the core of the empire. The provinces developed strong and rich societies with many very influential veteran families. And their sons were the legionairies. So neither the local authorities nor the local armies accepted to weaken the defense of their homeland. The logical measure is usurpation! And due to the roman mindset mentioned above it seldomly leads to separatism. It almost always ends in Rome.

So in order to fix at least this one but strong reason for usurpation you need stronger regional armies and a strong central army to reenforce wherever it is needed. Diocletian and Constantine regognized this. But the final military concept with multiple strong armies was not established before the sons of Constantine. But at what price? The roman economy was obviously not able to generate enough taxable income. The decline of the roman economy has multiple reasons, too. And it happenend not everywhere to the same extent. Another strong reason is the militarization of economy and society by Diocletian. This was a neccesary measure to end the crisis, but longterm detrimental. Today we call it planned economy.

But the key question here still is: why could an economy with about 50-80 million people not support a bigger army? 1% of the population serving in the army is nothing compared to 3-5% in the early 18th century. Which is often compared with the roman empire regarding the level of civilization. Well, this comparision is flawed somewhat. But the question is still valid, why the roman army was that small or the economy that weak.

Was the economy really that weak, or was it just corruption which lowered the tax income drastically? Or was it the social structure and change of the society, which hampered taxation and the economy itself? And don't forget, with stronger armies able to defend their border, you just avoid one of many reasons, why legions usurped. There are lots of other good reasons, especially if you establish strong armies with strong and responsible commanders.

Questions upon questions. And we just followed one line of arguments in this complex network of reasons and interdependencies. This is why we have so many attempts to explain the Fall of Rome and the 3rd century Crisis. Every line of arguments sounds plausible. But none is complete.
 
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You say, that the wars of the Severans in the east destabilized the parthian dynasty that much, that the rise of the persians could happen?

This alone is a rather weak argument.
No. While it contributed, that's not what I'm saying. My point was that a POD in the 170s has 50 years of butterflies that will no doubt spread to the Parthians. Even then, the Romans had a fantastic chance to nip the Sassanians in the bud under Alexander Severus, but he screwed it up pretty badly.
 
No. While it contributed, that's not what I'm saying. My point was that a POD in the 170s has 50 years of butterflies that will no doubt spread to the Parthians. Even then, the Romans had a fantastic chance to nip the Sassanians in the bud under Alexander Severus, but he screwed it up pretty badly.

I still do not understand, what another antoninian emperor would do different than Trajanus or Verus, I guess we already discussed, that nipping the Sassanians leads to nothing. You either crush the eastern empire by conquering or at least controlling (client -state) their heartlands (Mesopotamia, Media, Susiana, Persis, and Parthia), or you sack Ctesiphion frequently and march back as always. There is nothing reasonable in between.
 
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