DBWI: Iesus I doesn’t become Roman Emperor

KaiserWilhelm

In DCCLXXXIII, Iesus I led a small Iudean revolt that turned into an empire-wide civil war and eventually became emperor of Rome. What if Iesus’ rebellion fails, or better yet, never happens? How would this change the trajectory of the empire?

OOC: sorry if I messed up the date, it’s supposed to be like 30 CE IOTL, I tried using a converter and it may have messed up. Also sry if the I’s should be J’s. Everything I’ve found indicates that in Latin at the time the names should be with an I.
 
Neoteros

Neoteros

OOC: I am going to assume that Judea was annexed by Rome earlier than in OTL; no Herodian kingdom, and even more resentment against Rome by the Jews, especially by the Essenes, the sect Jesus has been associated with by quite a few scholars.

IC: well, slavery would've survived, for sure. Even though the rebellion began as a Jewish affair, it turned into a slave revolt quite soon, for the Essenes were opposed to slavery. The abolition of slavery - even though servile conditions quite like it persisted for several centuries afterwards, of course - is perhaps the single greatest change in Roman history; it might've hastened the fall of the Res Publica, sure, but the successor states of Rome might've become feudal backwaters if slavery had persisted. No Jewish influences on Platonism and Pythagoreanism, either.
 
Byzantine fanatic

Byzantine fanatic

KaiserWilhelm said:
In DCCLXXXIII, Iesus I led a small Iudean revolt that turned into an empire-wide civil war and eventually became emperor of Rome. What if Iesus’ rebellion fails, or better yet, never happens? How would this change the trajectory of the empire?

OOC: sorry if I messed up the date, it’s supposed to be like 30 CE IOTL, I tried using a converter and it may have messed up. Also sry if the I’s should be J’s. Everything I’ve found indicates that in Latin at the time the names should be with an I.
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Without the inspired leadership of Iesus I, the Roman Empire might be seen as less of an influence on thought and philosophical matters than it was. Iesus I was a thinker, someone who reshaped society and its values dramatically. Without Iesus' guiding leadership and inspiration, the Romans might have been seen as merely an empire of military might and bridges, aqueducts and roads, instead of the philosophical and theological powerhouse they later became. The influence on intellectual culture would be profound.
 

Arcavia

KaiserWilhelm said:
OOC: sorry if I messed up the date, it’s supposed to be like 30 CE IOTL, I tried using a converter and it may have messed up. Also sry if the I’s should be J’s. Everything I’ve found indicates that in Latin at the time the names should be with an I.
Click to expand...

OOC: You're correct on writing the name with an I at the beginning. Also, assuming you're trying to write the year Ab Urbe Condita, DCCLXXXIII=783 AUC=30 CE.

The Helleno-Judaic Roman belief system would certainly not have emerged. It seems that before "moving to politics" so to speak, Iesus (or Yeshua ben Yosef as he would have been called) was something of a radical thinker, who only reconciled with the Essenes and to some extent the Zealots to fulfill political ends. If he doesn't have a political goal in mind, he probably departs from that tradition. If he tries and fails to become Imperator--and let's face it, if it weren't for the civil war between Germanicus and Tiberius, and his ability to get noticed and promoted by the former when his rebels made common cause with Germanicus' legions until he managed by some miracle to assume Germanicus' mantle after he fell on the field at Patavium--the ideas also wouldn't have gone anywhere. Either way, due to either hostility from the rest of the Judaean community or military defeat, I doubt the ideas of Iesus Nazarenus become a major factor in the ATL religious milieu. Perhaps the traditional Roman belief system survives to the present, or perhaps another cult comes along to replace it--the Egyptian goddess Isis was a fairly popular deity at the time of the rebellion whose ideas satisfied many of the same flaws in traditional Roman religion that Helleno-Judaism resolved, so that might be an option.
 

Mort the Reaper

Arcavius said:
The Helleno-Judaic Roman belief system would certainly not have emerged. It seems that before "moving to politics" so to speak, Iesus (or Yeshua ben Yosef as he would have been called) was something of a radical thinker, who only reconciled with the Essenes and to some extent the Zealots to fulfill political ends. If he doesn't have a political goal in mind, he probably departs from that tradition. If he tries and fails to become Imperator--and let's face it, if it weren't for the civil war between Germanicus and Tiberius, and his ability to get noticed and promoted by the former when his rebels made common cause with Germanicus' legions until he managed by some miracle to assume Germanicus' mantle after he fell on the field at Patavium--the ideas also wouldn't have gone anywhere. Either way, due to either hostility from the rest of the Judaean community or military defeat, I doubt the ideas of Iesus Nazarenus become a major factor in the ATL religious milieu. Perhaps the traditional Roman belief system survives to the present, or perhaps another cult comes along to replace it--the Egyptian goddess Isis was a fairly popular deity at the time of the rebellion whose ideas satisfied many of the same flaws in traditional Roman religion that Helleno-Judaism resolved, so that might be an option.
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I've heard a few people suggest that Rome might've ended up Zoroastrian eventually if Iesus didn't become emperor. How likely do you think that is?
 

Deleted member 114175

If Iesus and the Essenes didn't lead the slave revolt across the Empire, would the importance of class struggle in all conflicts of the last 2000 years have been as emphasized?

Thanks to the Liber Romanus (or Bible as some Helleno-Goths call it) recording the armed conflict between rich and poor and making it into religious doctrine, most peasants throughout history had always been very skeptical of large latifundium-like operations, unless they were held in collective. Ultimately, this really slowed the Industrial Revolution as only the most desperate serfs pushed off their land could be compelled to work in the latifundia. However it also meant more per capita wealth among smallholding and semi-tenant farmers, and the death of manorialism when paganism was replaced by Romanitas and Ecclesia Romana.
 
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