De bello Parthico
- Thread starter Pamc
- Start date
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
Depending on what the political situation is based on what happens next, Parthia might end up heavily Romanised.
I heard he was warned of the assassination attempt, but ignored the warning and went anyway. Suppose he takes a couple dozen legionairs with him as well as a magistrate. The senators who were implicated by whoever warned him are arrested while the remainder is too afraid to act as most of the conspirators get the death penalty or lengthy prison sentences. The vacant posts in the senate are filled up with Caesar's cronies. Then Caesar can go avenge Crassus by beating down Parthia. He was a good military leader and I could see him do it. After all, this incarnation of the Persian Empire wasn't at the height of its power. I could see him take Mesopotamia and the Caucasus like Trajan except that he would consolidate these gains. Rump Parthia (mostly modern day Iran) is too weak to fight on with the heart of the empire (Mesopotamia, the commercial, economical and political centre) gone, but also too big to be swallowed for now.
Rump Parthia instead becomes a puppet and this gives Rome a much more secure eastern border, not to mention control over trading routes. Considering Caesar's track record in Gaul, Germania with its tribes should be less of a problem (Divide et Impera, anyone
). The Gauls were arguably higher developed as they were beginning to form embryonic states and cities. Who knows what another century or two would have done to them if left alone. Germania should be less of a problem IMHO, considering that you can fumble around with Germanian history since no written sources from Germania itself exist. That makes you less reliant on facts and gives you more freedom to have Caesar squash Germania. Caesar could ver well establish a border on the Oder or even move on to the Vistula and Carpathians which gives Rome a large population, but a much shorter border to defend. Romanwank! Maybe Hibernia and Scotland (once Brittannia is set up) could be added too since it removes some more borders, and don't forget Denmark!
Of course there needs to be an incentive to conquer Germania. For Caesar it could be glory, but I recommend introducing the heavy plough early to make cultivation of Germania easier, giving Rome an economic incentive to take it. It's not as if the Romans couldn't invent it. They just need to put 2 and 2 together.
Hope my ramblings helped.
Rump Parthia instead becomes a puppet and this gives Rome a much more secure eastern border, not to mention control over trading routes. Considering Caesar's track record in Gaul, Germania with its tribes should be less of a problem (Divide et Impera, anyone
). The Gauls were arguably higher developed as they were beginning to form embryonic states and cities. Who knows what another century or two would have done to them if left alone. Germania should be less of a problem IMHO, considering that you can fumble around with Germanian history since no written sources from Germania itself exist. That makes you less reliant on facts and gives you more freedom to have Caesar squash Germania. Caesar could ver well establish a border on the Oder or even move on to the Vistula and Carpathians which gives Rome a large population, but a much shorter border to defend. Romanwank! Maybe Hibernia and Scotland (once Brittannia is set up) could be added too since it removes some more borders, and don't forget Denmark!Of course there needs to be an incentive to conquer Germania. For Caesar it could be glory, but I recommend introducing the heavy plough early to make cultivation of Germania easier, giving Rome an economic incentive to take it. It's not as if the Romans couldn't invent it. They just need to put 2 and 2 together.
Hope my ramblings helped.
just a few notes:
Military bodyguards in political assemblies were considered the trademark of tyrants and willing-to-be-king at the time.
One of the reasons that he (and his successors) lasted so long is that they kept an appearance of republic (the senate went on and apparently governed the empire, the emperor was just primus-inter-pares)
Apart from the logistical (desert), military (horse harchers) and political (far from rome: revolt, anyone?) problems there is a diplomatic aspect to consider.
Romans and Parthians viewed one onother as the only other civilized power in an otherwise messy confusion of barbarian hordes.
Sure, they couls bicker about armenia, syria or even mesopotamia, but it made sense to have the other one around
In germany, Cheruscii did not give a damn if you had defeated Sugambri before: to impose your rule you had to fight another battle
also consider that germany is quite more distant (no roman roads in gallia yet)
Let's lay on the triclinium, and peel me another grape
That would be signing his death sentence.
Military bodyguards in political assemblies were considered the trademark of tyrants and willing-to-be-king at the time.
One of the reasons that he (and his successors) lasted so long is that they kept an appearance of republic (the senate went on and apparently governed the empire, the emperor was just primus-inter-pares)
Considering that on the next 1000 years virtually every Roman ruler tried and failed, I think it is a bit more complex than that.
Apart from the logistical (desert), military (horse harchers) and political (far from rome: revolt, anyone?) problems there is a diplomatic aspect to consider.
Romans and Parthians viewed one onother as the only other civilized power in an otherwise messy confusion of barbarian hordes.
Sure, they couls bicker about armenia, syria or even mesopotamia, but it made sense to have the other one around
That also meant that they had more stable "statal" structure (or at least tribe confederations): winning or losing a battle would mean something for most of them.Considering Caesar's track record in Gaul, Germania with its tribes should be less of a problem (Divide et Impera, anyone
In germany, Cheruscii did not give a damn if you had defeated Sugambri before: to impose your rule you had to fight another battle
also consider that germany is quite more distant (no roman roads in gallia yet)
If he has parthia at that time he is the new Alexander, and also in his mid sixties. Why bother for a freezed wasteland full of half starved illitterate barbarians living in swamps?
Let's lay on the triclinium, and peel me another grape
Given how long Caesar had to fight in Gallia, we can assume that he won't have anough time left to conquer Germania after "bello parthico", which should require some years as well.
However, I think the most likely outcome of Caesar surviving the assasination attempt would be further attempts. And if these do not succeed, there'll probably be an outright revolution. In particular, as soon as Caesar and his legions are engaged against the Parthians, I bet there'll be something in Rome which requires Caesar to come back and deal with it. This, in turn, makes conquest of Parthia unlikely - although I also think that Caesar, if given the opportunity, could do it.
To another point given above: Only holding Mesopotamia is to insecure, as vassal Parthia is unrelyable and might turn against the Romans. To hold Mesopotamia, you must hold some of the mountain ranges and passes. This was the main reason Hadrian gave up Trajany conquests, AFAIK.
However, I think the most likely outcome of Caesar surviving the assasination attempt would be further attempts. And if these do not succeed, there'll probably be an outright revolution. In particular, as soon as Caesar and his legions are engaged against the Parthians, I bet there'll be something in Rome which requires Caesar to come back and deal with it. This, in turn, makes conquest of Parthia unlikely - although I also think that Caesar, if given the opportunity, could do it.
To another point given above: Only holding Mesopotamia is to insecure, as vassal Parthia is unrelyable and might turn against the Romans. To hold Mesopotamia, you must hold some of the mountain ranges and passes. This was the main reason Hadrian gave up Trajany conquests, AFAIK.
Thank you all by your contribution
I will now proceed to make research before posting my first "real post" of the Tl so it won't become ASB.
The Post will come tomorrow or after tomorrow depending on my school work
P.S My English is really,really terrible
by the way I'm no novelist so don't expect wonders from my narrative
He will probably avenge both Crassus and his son Publius who was for many a huge lost at the battle of carrhae because is promising political carrer was cut short ( he was only 30 years old)
I will now proceed to make research before posting my first "real post" of the Tl so it won't become ASB.
The Post will come tomorrow or after tomorrow depending on my school work
P.S My English is really,really terrible
by the way I'm no novelist so don't expect wonders from my narrative
He will probably avenge both Crassus and his son Publius who was for many a huge lost at the battle of carrhae because is promising political carrer was cut short ( he was only 30 years old)
Caesar might survive one assassination attempt after another, but the fact is that he was fifty-six years old in 44 BCE, and was reportedly suffering from seizures. If he actually went ahead with a Parthain campaign, it would not be too plausible for him to reach the Persian Gulf. Also, he was also said to be planning an invasion of the powerful Balkan-based Kingdom of Dacia for years, because its King Burebista had supported Pompey during the Civil War. Which one of these seems more logistically sound?
Caeser embraced a politic of pardoning many of his civil war foreign enemies so I think he would send a delegation and pardon the Dacian King ( but perhaps his sucessor mighty try)
Ho by the way I think that the plot of the ides must be exposed by one of the traitors. Who do you think would be the squealer( is this spelled correctly). Perhaps Brutus ( relation to caesar)
Ho by the way I think that the plot of the ides must be exposed by one of the traitors. Who do you think would be the squealer( is this spelled correctly). Perhaps Brutus ( relation to caesar)
[...]
Considering Caesar's track record in Gaul, Germania with its tribes should be less of a problem (Divide et Impera, anyone
Of course there needs to be an incentive to conquer Germania. For Caesar it could be glory, but I recommend introducing the heavy plough early to make cultivation of Germania easier, giving Rome an economic incentive to take it. It's not as if the Romans couldn't invent it. They just need to put 2 and 2 together.
Hope my ramblings helped.
Sorry, but Divide et Imperia wouldn't work the way it did in Gallia. Also, Conquering Germania would be of little use to Caesar.
1) As you mentioned, most of Germania lacked the proto-cities, oppida, which where quite common in Gallia. The "germanic" tribes were less strictly organized, hell, they only started to develop a strict social hierarchy and organisation in the centuries after Caesar had conquered Gallia and the Roman contact and trade played a major role in this development.
While this made "conquering" Germania easy (the Romans considered it conquered before Tiberius abandoned it, which was a wise decision imo), it made it very hard to rule it. In Gallia, the Romans could use their usual approach of divide et imperia. They allied with some of the most important nobles, took their sons as political hostages, educated them and turned them in to "civilized", roman citizens, which stabilized the Roman rule and was a major part of the romanification effort.
This approach was used in Germania, too. After Augustus declared Germania conquered, they tried to turn it into two roman provinces by pretty much the same methods used all over the empire. Work through local elites, grant cities a lot of rights, urbanize and romanize the people, build infrastructure, etc. The problem was, the germanic tribes had in mostly not traditional elite of nobles. They were dirt poor, which made them pretty much all equal. Power was mostly gained through great deeds, like being a good warrior and an able warleader. Also, tribes were not stable. They would split up, swallow weaker tribes, flee from or join stronger tribes, etc. It's hard to urbanize and control such a fluid society in such a sparsely settled region as germania.
2) Germania was not worth taking. There were no metal mines, except for some important lead mines just east of the Rhine, which were taken either by Caesar of Augustus (not sure which and too lazy to look it up right now
) and were never surrendered afterwards. The rest was seen as a region with no important natural resources, very little usable farmland and with wet and cold weather.3) Caesar himself had defined Germania as the lands east of the Rhine and Gallia as the lands west of it, so he could end the war after he had conquered wealthy Gallia and wouldn't had to continue the war into Germania, where very little would be to gain.
4) The Romans didn't know, that they would shorten their border by extending east. For them, the Rhine was the most sensible border. It was easy to guard, it made defending wealthy Gallia easy and east of it were only unorganized barbarians, which could be easily kept at bay by a military expedition every once in a while or by supporting inter germanic wars.
Edit: sorry 'bout that, but the whole "Rome should have better conquered Germania" cliché just rubs me the wrong way.
So very true. I'd say that logistics would be somewhat better against the Parthians. Furthermore, climate and infrastructure in the Middle East would be better for a 56 year old than Germania or Dacia. Finally, loot and fame waiting in Parthia dwarf anything that could be done in Europe. So I think Caesar would go against Parthia. And I still think that he'd either has to stop his war due to civil unrest in Rome - or, as you said, get killed or die naturally during the campaign.
Edit: sorry 'bout that, but the whole "Rome should have better conquered Germania" cliché just rubs me the wrong way.
Nice work. It's good to see an AH.commer who looks at the whole Rome/Germania thing from the viewpoint of the Romans themselves, rather than with lashings of 21st century hindsight.
Thank you
I had to read a lot about that subject for uni last year and I guess it still shows...
Not exactly what I meant. Dacia, actually, might be logistically easier to target. Its practically on Rome's border in the Balkans, and an invasion could be launched via Macedonia, Illyria, and even from Anatolia. Plus, Dacia is rich in gold, just as Gaul was. With Parthia, its frontier is a long way off from Roman Syria, with Syrian-based client states seperating Parthian-ruled Mesopotamia from the Roman frontier in Syria. Those client states would have to be sufficiently crushed or intimidated before the Romans could move on to Parthian strongholds in the area of modern Iraq. These states, Corduene, Edessa, Hatra, and Adiabene, were vassals of the Parthians, and would have supplied the Seven Clans with local troops. Any expedition into Parthian territory would need a corps of horse-archers recruited from Scythian tribes around the Black Sea region, to screen the advance of the legions. The fifty-six year old Caesar rather likely won't live long enough to see any significant gains in Asia.
Okay, I'm no expert in dacian history, but OTL privince of Dacia was north of the Danube river, which means that launching an invasion from the provinces of Macedonia or Illyria means that first several hundrets of kilometers of non-Roman, mountainous territory with no roads whatsoever had to be crossed to reach the Danube river, which then had to be crossed to reach Dacia. This is a logistical problem.
On the other side, the distance between Roman Syria and Parthia proper might be larger, yet one had to cross civilized lands. In particular, the trading cities there should be useful hubs of supply lines.
Note also that although the Parthian vassals had to be crushed before the invasion, these should be an interesting goal anyway as they should be rich from trade.
That's our general problem here. Fifty-six year old Caesar might also not live long enough to march through the wild Balkans and cross the largest river he'd ever seen, even larger than the Rhine.
But I have to say that if it were my decision to die preparing an invasion into Parthia in Roman Syria or fighting Parthian vassals there or, alternatively, to die somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the wilderness of the Balkans on teh way to some barbarian kingdom, I'd go for the Parthians
There is no doubt that Caesar would have desired to conquer Parthia. The road east is the way to emulate the preferred role-model of ambitious leaders of the time, Alexander the Great. This is the road to immortal glory. I am not sure if Caesar deemed Gaul to be sufficient for this!
Conquering Germania would pale in comparison, it makes as much sense as the purchase of Alaska in 1867.
I also agree that Germania would simply be the wrong aim at the time. The circumstances there do not allow swift conquest, but only gradual pacification at a time when Gaul was still freshly acquired. Going all the way to the Elbe still proved to be too far 50 years later (while conquering the Ager Decumatus proved to be viable at the end of the first century AD).
The only way I can imagine a successful conquest of Germania is a gradual process of conquest and Romanization in 4-6 steps, undertaken throughout the principate, maybe as an alternative to conquering Britannia.
Conquering Germania would pale in comparison, it makes as much sense as the purchase of Alaska in 1867.
I also agree that Germania would simply be the wrong aim at the time. The circumstances there do not allow swift conquest, but only gradual pacification at a time when Gaul was still freshly acquired. Going all the way to the Elbe still proved to be too far 50 years later (while conquering the Ager Decumatus proved to be viable at the end of the first century AD).
The only way I can imagine a successful conquest of Germania is a gradual process of conquest and Romanization in 4-6 steps, undertaken throughout the principate, maybe as an alternative to conquering Britannia.
Would he even survive "Bello Parthico"?
Iirc the Parthians were a semi-nomadic people, so they probably weren't dependent on particular strongholds. They can keep Caesar marching and counter-marching up and down Iran until either he or his men have had enough. And he's getting on in years. How much more campaigning can he survive?
Dacia definately had a road system no different in make from Roman roads. Along with aquaduct systems, stone fortifications protecting their cities, called "Davas" and other civil engineering structures. Also, Burebista's kingdom extended to the shores of the Black Sea, either capturing or establishing alliances with Greek colonies such as Apollonia(Bulgarian Sozopol), Dionysospolis (Bulgarian Balchik, Olbia (Ukrainian Ochakov District). The also possessed legal code called "Belagines Laws", along with philosophy and other sciences.
The Thracians of the Balkans were quite civilized in their own right, partly influenced by Hellenistic culture.
The Balkans, and particular Dacia, was wealthy from both trade, being in touch with the "Amber Route", and was known for its extensive gold and silver-mining, part of the reason behind Emperor Trajan's military conquests.
Erm, surely boats could have solved that problem. Alternatively, the navy could transport an army to the Black Sea coast of Burebista's kingdom, after mustering forces in either Greece or western Anatolia.[/QUOTE]
I'm back sorry but now I will have more time to write because i will by in vactions (yeahhh)
So here it goes. I apologize for any mistakes (damm translator) and don't be rough on me this is my first TL
(OTL day of murder) Even before the sun was born, already appeared ill omens, crows flew, I fell out of bed and my wife spent all night with fever and babble alerts about this day and there was the omen that I would die this day, said a few years ago by a Gallic priestess.
I was planning to stay home but my beloved Brutus came to my house requiring my presence in the senate. He said that if I wouldn't go to the senate the senators would be outraged and would want to kill me.
I went but along the way brutus started crying. I asked what had happened. He said that many senators would try to kill me today and that he was one of them. I asked him who else was in the plot ( i can only remember cassius, casca can you tell me more). He said all the conspirators.
By that time Mark Anthony came to me and informed me of the plot that brutus had betrayed. I enginereed a plan. I would enter and went as nothing had happened and when brutus fakely called his fellow conspirators , anthony would came from the backdoor and save me, arresting the conspirators.
The conspirators rush to their on arrest (don't mind that "isn't" caesar dead, it just a senator sleeping)
So here it goes. I apologize for any mistakes (damm translator) and don't be rough on me this is my first TL
(OTL day of murder) Even before the sun was born, already appeared ill omens, crows flew, I fell out of bed and my wife spent all night with fever and babble alerts about this day and there was the omen that I would die this day, said a few years ago by a Gallic priestess.
I was planning to stay home but my beloved Brutus came to my house requiring my presence in the senate. He said that if I wouldn't go to the senate the senators would be outraged and would want to kill me.
I went but along the way brutus started crying. I asked what had happened. He said that many senators would try to kill me today and that he was one of them. I asked him who else was in the plot ( i can only remember cassius, casca can you tell me more). He said all the conspirators.
By that time Mark Anthony came to me and informed me of the plot that brutus had betrayed. I enginereed a plan. I would enter and went as nothing had happened and when brutus fakely called his fellow conspirators , anthony would came from the backdoor and save me, arresting the conspirators.
The conspirators rush to their on arrest (don't mind that "isn't" caesar dead, it just a senator sleeping)
Last edited: