From Exile to Triumph: a Western Roman Timeline
- Thread starter Flavius Iulius Nepos
- Start date
Is surely quite hard to reverse an issue such as lack of manpower which had deep sociocultural roots in the peninsula at the time - in the golden age of the Empire, the Italics didn't have to fight anymore leaving the military duty to the provincials, and living of a parasitic mood at expenses of the provinces. And Diocletian's reforms, which caused a "fall from grace" for Italy equiparing it to the rest of the empire, came too late - in the sense Italic society was too sclerotized to the concept of military duty to embrace it again after centuries of peace.
Forced conscription for annoying it could be is the only path - the Italics had to found again the will to fight. But the Imperial court had to realize - maybe with the Church's assistance - they had to inoculate on the Italics they weren't the center of the Empire: they are the Empire now. And military conscription would from one side create cohesion among Italics and another recover a civic sense of military duty.
Anyway I am glad the Roman armies can suffer still defeats - it would be boring otherwise...
Forced conscription for annoying it could be is the only path - the Italics had to found again the will to fight. But the Imperial court had to realize - maybe with the Church's assistance - they had to inoculate on the Italics they weren't the center of the Empire: they are the Empire now. And military conscription would from one side create cohesion among Italics and another recover a civic sense of military duty.
Anyway I am glad the Roman armies can suffer still defeats - it would be boring otherwise...
Vuu
Banned
There's an Arab word for that thing, but I can't remember it. The basic premise is that the more a population fights for some sort of "wider ideal" like the state, the nation etc, the sooner they'll figure out that none of that matters, and start only bothering around their family, making a very clannish society
By the way, as I mentioned Diocletian and the equiparation of Italy, and from what I read in the previous chapters, I can see the diocesan system is still in vigour, so we have the Empire split in three areas (Italia Annonaria and Suburbicana, and Illyricum), more or less at their original extension (I am guessing Raetia returned into Annonaria's jurisdiction, and Noricum into Illyricum's, and Pannonia is under Theodoricus): but Annonaria and Suburbicana were apparently regarded as united, as civilian administration is under supervision of the prafectum pretorium, and there are two magisters (and not three) for Italy and Illyricum.
Hence in principle the current pyramid of power in Western Roman society should be simplified like this if I am not wrong (i can be wrong in the order or forgetting someone) :
1) Emperor
2) The two magister militum (Italy's is de facto superior to Illyria)
3) the prafectum pretorium of Italia
4) the magister officiorum
5) probably the Pope
6) the three diocesan vicars
7) other top rank officiers and administrators.
Which is make me thinking how the WRE right now is geographically divided in two, and wonder if this may lead in the future to possible diverging cultures between "Roman Italics" and "Roman Illyrians". Note, not in the sense this would necessarily lead to a split but more like on a different way how Italians and Illyrians may perceive each other in the future, specially if Italy will take the major burden of the Empire and Illyria taking the role of second fiddle and "wall" of Italy...
Hence in principle the current pyramid of power in Western Roman society should be simplified like this if I am not wrong (i can be wrong in the order or forgetting someone) :
1) Emperor
2) The two magister militum (Italy's is de facto superior to Illyria)
3) the prafectum pretorium of Italia
4) the magister officiorum
5) probably the Pope
6) the three diocesan vicars
7) other top rank officiers and administrators.
Which is make me thinking how the WRE right now is geographically divided in two, and wonder if this may lead in the future to possible diverging cultures between "Roman Italics" and "Roman Illyrians". Note, not in the sense this would necessarily lead to a split but more like on a different way how Italians and Illyrians may perceive each other in the future, specially if Italy will take the major burden of the Empire and Illyria taking the role of second fiddle and "wall" of Italy...
I think it’s best if the emperor fragments the command of forces in Italy.I think there should be one magister militum in charge of forces in N.Italy,one in charge of Raetia,one in charge of Southern Italy and one in charge of the comitatus praesentalis.The magister militum in Italy’s still way too powerful.
You know I just listened to a podcast in the History of Byzantium series that dealt with the East overcoming this exact problem. It definitely wasn't easy but they managed to pull it off by, among other things, leveraging the defensibility of Constantinople and how if the Emperor had the support of the people it was basically impossible to take it, and a more fragmented military high command, so that becoming Magister Militum did not make you the most powerful man in the empire by itself.
Those bought time for the economy to recover from the devastating plagues of the late empire and once that happened a raise in pay to the soldiers meant that soldiering was not seen as such a miserable existence and they were able to recruit enough native troops to counter the influence of barbarian feodorati.
Your absolutely right. The failure to do this is largely why the civilian administration in the West was dominated and eventually dispensed with by Odoacer while it survived in the East. Among many other factors, like many things with this time period I am rapidly discovering that there is never just one reason things happened the way they did.
That is possible and Nepos is already doing that. The problem is to handle it carefully, maintain a stable proportion between Romans and barbarian while forcing this one to obey to a roman officer instead of a barbarian king/ officer.
The lack of the African income is a serious problem, gut Italy is not doomed to annihilation without it. Just think at the Ostrogoths who were able to establish the strongest Roman-barbarian kingdom in the west while preserving an efficient Roman administration (at the is something expensive), restoring Roman infrastructure ecc.
The loss of Africa means that the western romans can't at the moment pay for a huge imperial army, but with the current economical reorganization of Italy we should be able to finance what we need to defend the remaining provinces and support minor campaigns.
50000 is too much. I meant something between 20000 and 30000 men (probably even less). There is also the question of the proportion between Comitatensi serving in the field army and the Limitanei serving along the borders
How could the church help the emperor with this issue? maybe I could use this idea in the future?
The Beneficiarii could provide the base for a partial reorganization of the army in the future. Don't know yet it this will affect the entire army or just specific categories.
Just wait for the mess I've in mind for the Romans during the VII and VIII century. Unfortunately now I ve to limit the number of Roman defeats, unless we want to end this timeline earlier.
The Romans will certainly evolve during this timeline. Some changes will be positive (like the ones I'm introducing with these updates) some negative. However i don't believe in the principle that societies and empires are destined to be corrupted over time,decline and vanish after a certain amount of time.
The structure of the Late Roman empire is less pyramidal than what we think: obviously a Vicarius will be subjected to Praefectus Praetorio but civil officers were not subjected to military officers (and occasionally a single person could accomplish the task of both). However we can say that a Praefectus has an authority superior to that of a Vicarius who in turn is superior to a Praeses/Corrector/Consularis. Officer such as the Magister Officiorum, Quaestor Sacri Palatii usually operate in the heart of the empire (instead of his periphery) before delivering the results of their work to the provincial authorities. Probably it's a bit complicated, so if necessary I could write in the future a small update about the administration of the empire. The system however will evolve over time, but now I would like to keep the current situation for as long as possible. Don''t know yet if I will have to unify the military and civil administration.
The Magister Militum in Italy already lost his influence over the Illyrian army, with the promotion of the Illyrian Comes to Magister Militum. Raetia will remain subjected to Italy as we need a clear chain of command, with a Dux and a local force. Probably in the future we could split the Italian army, with two Magister Militum Praesentalis like in the east, but now the reduced forces available to the empire don't allow to create multiple commands.
Also the civilian administration was able to check the military. That' s why I'm also exploring elements of the reorganized administration, and probably one the reasons why I would like to keep the army and the administration as two separate career. I will need to explore solutions, so that the position Magister Militum doesn't undermine the stability of the empire.
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I will also explore the problem of separatism in the future (along with possible usurpations ecc.). Soon (well not exactly soon) however Italics and Illyrians won't be the only "groups" inside the empire.
If the Magister Militum in Italy decides to rebel,it would be too late for the Illyrian Magister militum to do anything by the time he got wind of what happened.It’s also unlikely that this Magister militum would have been able to defeat the Italian one—given the overwhelming amount of resources the Italian Magister militum would have had.It’s similar to how Aegidius couldn’t really do anything meaningful to stop Ricimer from killing Majorian.
Unless the emperor is able to flee to Illyricum then he is doomed. However I wouldn't underestimate the strength of the Illyrian army: we are rebuilding the two armies and this means that the emperor can decide how to distribute the resources between the two Magister Militum. If necessary I will follow a path similar to the east, but now seems too early. With such a small army we risk to have two commanders unable to react autonomously to threats and invasion. We could also risk to weaken the position of the Italian army too much in front of the unified Illyrian army
The office works best if the empire’s intact and that there’s plenty of provinces around,thus requiring the emperor to delegate his authority to fight threats efficiently.With the way how there are barbarians to the north and Vandals to the South,it’s unlikely that one Magister Militum could have responded to simultaneous threats in person anyway.Given that the empire’s reduced to Italy and Illyria,the emperor could afford to micromanage his armies a lot more.
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Well with the current situation it's true that the emperor doesn't really need to delegate power to the Magister Militum, he can directly lead the army, as he did during the recent campaigns. So this is what I propose: after the war Nepos will reorganize the army, the Italian army will be divided between 2 generals however to avoid to weaken to much the Italian commanders, I will divert some Illyrian units to the two Italian armies. Therefore we should have 3 generals with equal powers (more or less). The 2 Dux subjected to the Magister Militum Praesentalis will now obey to different commanders (maybe one responsible for the eastern sector and for the western). However this situation will only be temporary and there will be further changes once the empire starts to recover lost territories.
Deleted member 114175
I believe you mean 'Asabiyya, a concept furthered by Ibn Khaldun. As Ibn Khaldun imagined it, it processed in the opposite direction; 'asabiyya is most strong in the nomadic phase, and decreases as civilization advances. In this model, ruling dynasties start out as cohesive or "clannish", their unity or asabiyya allows them to take over an empire -- but they then gradually forget about a wider group ideal and, as they became more concerned with their individual power and lifestyle, disperse. When another group with more compelling 'asabiyya rises, it then replaces the empire whose 'asabiyya has dissolved, making for a continuous cycle of the rise and fall of empires.
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I think the fubing system of the Tang Dynasty/themata of the ERE would be quite effective in this situation. There's probably a lot of empty land at this point in time.Personally,I favor the fubing system a bit more,given the troops of the fubing system were not attached to a specific commander unlike the themata system. In the fubing system,troops were organized into regiments. Their commander in peace time and war would be different people.In peace,they would be trained under provincial officers. Apart from officers up to the regimental level,these regiments would serve under completely different commanders in war or frontier duties,and once the frontier duty or war's over,the commander of the entire army would be recalled back to the capital while the regiments would be sent back to their home provinces.This meant that the commander of the whole army doesn't have the same authority over the army as themata strategos did.
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Conscription could have solved a lot, IMO. Treating the situation as a total war situation would have changed so much.
The thing is that most people liked to dodge conscription,and the landlords loved to help them out with this.
You will most likely die very quickly if you tried to pull that in ancient Rome lol.
Well my ideas was to slowly the introduce something similar to the Themata through the Beneficiarii. If we keep the civil and military administration separate then we could achieve something similar to what you proposed. That or we could make the office of Dux more autonomous from the Magister Militum, while increasing the number of small provincial armies led by these officers. The Magister Militum would just intervene with a reserve army when authorized by the central authority. There are many possible alternatives, each with its own merits, so if you have any particular idea about how to gradually reform the army just write here.
The emperor need the support of the civil administration (aka the aristocracy) if we want to finance a proper roman army. The destruction of this social class could be a serious blow to Italy and its economy ( and I think that something similar happened after the Gothic war). Conscription however is a good idea and as you can see, Nepos took the first step towards this direction.
And even if you survived, then you would quickly regret it
