How would a surviving roman republic carry on?

SpaceRome

Many threads have been made debating and suggesting ways to save the roman republic and prevent the empire, but I don't recall a lot of discussion about what a surviving republic actually does. So lets assume that sulla's reforms are both different and more successful, and that the consular republic survives with some major changes, but retains its essence of republicanism. maybe more pleb rights if that's needed for the republic's survival.

A few points to consider:
1. a republic, specifically the roman republic with its proto-patriotism, might have an easier time recruiting soldiers in late antiquity at times where the OTL empire failed.
2. Bad emperors like Nero or Caligula and dictatorial emperors like Domitian will be butterflied away as they could just be replaced a year later.
3. While they won't be absolutely immune to economic issues, the roman republic will be much more resistant to it than the empire since you don't have an emperor to spend the entire treasury on building projects.
4. Maybe philosophy and art flourishes more as there's no need to fear reprisal from the current military dictator. without Augustus, TTL Virgil will be free to write whatever he likes.

So, what do you think?
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
The character would change. It would acquire a more of a cosmopolitan and empires inside empire like characteristics in a couple of centuries from the old Latin only character to Germanic,Slavic,Dacian,Illyrian,Greek,Anatolian,Scythian,Arab,Tatar,Oghuz,Caucasian,Hungarian,Finnic,etc unions could flourish as subsets inside this large empire is in my opinion. But yes,philosophy and art would flourish.
 
Dante

Dante

I wonder if a Roman Republic could survive long term, the problems that caused the civil wars would still be there, as to your points:

1. This is going to cause so many butterflys there is no way that we can speculate what would happen 400 years in the future
2. Yes, but, good emperors like Trajan or Marcus Aurelius are butterflied away as well, they did much to encourage stability and helped Rome grow and prosper.
3. The building projects of Augustus was a giant jobs program aimed at helping the economy. Remember, one of the causes of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey was that the large influx of slaves had made it hard for normal Romans to get jobs, hell opening the legion to all citizens was partially a way for jobless Romans without prospects to serve the republic and earn a living.
5. This is probably true, but, with no Emperor to be a patron of the arts many of the things we think of when we think of Rome wouldn't exist.

All that being said, I would love to see a timeline where the Empire never rises and the Republic caries on, how does this change history? Can a Roman Republic cope with the challenges of empire? Will it slowly become more democratic? It's an intriguing concept.
 

SpaceRome

Dante said:
1. This is going to cause so many butterflys there is no way that we can speculate what would happen 400 years in the future
2. Yes, but, good emperors like Trajan or Marcus Aurelius are butterflied away as well, they did much to encourage stability and helped Rome grow and prosper.
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I would like to address these two points.
First of all, while late antiquity as we know it will absolutely be butterflied, climactic changes that factored in the migration era are still going to show up and large scale migrations will probably still occur similarly to OTL. this means that the empire will be facing a crisis similar to OTL, and combined with the many other problems a lasting republic can't solve (economic factors, plagues, persia) there will probably be a point where the republic is very close to the breaking point military-wise, and it is here where I think that republican ideals and roman republican 'patriotism' can really shine

As for the emperors, good men definitely contributed to the roman republic - dare I say, more than later good emperors. while the empire managed to have terrific emperors from time to time, the republic (specifically the middle to late republic) had a knack - or rather, a design feature - that promoted good and able men to the top of the hierarchy. Scipio, Marius, Caesar, Pompeii magnus, even augustus to some extent - all three were elevated to the consulship by merit, and all were major contributors to rome's success in the later republic and empire. A republican rome ITTL would have people like marcus aurelius and trajan succeeding almost to the degree they did OTL through the consulship - if during the year of Trajan and Insert Namius the parthians suffer massive defeats, that trajan is definitely going to be consul next year - but bad rulers would be replaced after a short while.

As for the rest of your comment, I completely agree.
 
Sertorius126

Sertorius126

The Roman Republic had long become inadequate to sustain Rome’s increasingly extended hegemony since 146 BCE. Provincial commands became the power base for senators to expand their influence and auctiritas, thus attempting to gain a role of preeminence, over which which his colleagues would staunchly and stubbornly fight, this causing unrest and civil war. Corruption was rampant, provincials were squeezed on a permanent basis because Roman senators had no salary and they needed the money to further their careers, since overall control of the Republic was shared between a clique of wealthy families, social mobility was impossible, long term policies were impossible, significant building projects were impossible, organized and well sustained campaigns were impossible, wrestling tax farming from publicani was impossible, planning a pension for soldiers which wouldn’t be disruptive was impossible. The Republic’s latter years were characterized by men who saw the Republic for the rotten apple it was and tried to gain sole control of it by the strenght of their soldiers, and after a period of massive warring and bloodshed, Augustus emerged as the sole survivor, and lucky us he did, because when it came to organize the inevitable transition from Republic to Empire, he did a fine good job at it. If we’d asked anybody but a senator, they’d all have told you that life in the Empire was better than under the Republic.

Romans were as patriotic as they were before, I don’t see why you think building projects were a bad thing, forums, markets, theatres, temples, baths, they were all public building which benefitted all this involved, maintenance for roads and sewers was enforced, and archs and columns were decorative buildings bolstering the glory of the empire and of the emperor. Artists and philosophers were equally allowed to speak their minds, provided they didn’t go too far with it. Virgil had no problem in writing of the woes of the farmers dispossessed by soldiers during the triumvirate, Livy has no problem in singing Pompey’s praises, Seneca had no problem in complaining to Nero about his fall from favour and Juvenal had no problem in smearing the name of pretty much everyone aside from Hadrian.

Bad emperors were as much a possibility as terrible generals in the Republic, Nero was a bad emperor, but nothing bad to the empire truly happened during his tenure, and Domitian was no more autocratic than Trajan and Hadrian, he just lacked the charm and subtlety to disguise that, other than that, he was a solid emperor.
 
Dante

Dante

Sertorius126 said:
The Roman Republic had long become inadequate to sustain Rome’s increasingly extended hegemony since 146 BCE. Provincial commands became the power base for senators to expand their influence and auctiritas, thus attempting to gain a role of preeminence, over which which his colleagues would staunchly and stubbornly fight, this causing unrest and civil war. Corruption was rampant, provincials were squeezed on a permanent basis because Roman senators had no salary and they needed the money to further their careers, since overall control of the Republic was shared between a clique of wealthy families, social mobility was impossible, long term policies were impossible, significant building projects were impossible, organized and well sustained campaigns were impossible, wrestling tax farming from publicani was impossible, planning a pension for soldiers which wouldn’t be disruptive was impossible. The Republic’s latter years were characterized by men who saw the Republic for the rotten apple it was and tried to gain sole control of it by the strenght of their soldiers, and after a period of massive warring and bloodshed, Augustus emerged as the sole survivor, and lucky us he did, because when it came to organize the inevitable transition from Republic to Empire, he did a fine good job at it. If we’d asked anybody but a senator, they’d all have told you that life in the Empire was better than under the Republic.

Romans were as patriotic as they were before, I don’t see why you think building projects were a bad thing, forums, markets, theatres, temples, baths, they were all public building which benefitted all this involved, maintenance for roads and sewers was enforced, and archs and columns were decorative buildings bolstering the glory of the empire and of the emperor. Artists and philosophers were equally allowed to speak their minds, provided they didn’t go too far with it. Virgil had no problem in writing of the woes of the farmers dispossessed by soldiers during the triumvirate, Livy has no problem in singing Pompey’s praises, Seneca had no problem in complaining to Nero about his fall from favour and Juvenal had no problem in smearing the name of pretty much everyone aside from Hadrian.

Bad emperors were as much a possibility as terrible generals in the Republic, Nero was a bad emperor, but nothing bad to the empire truly happened during his tenure, and Domitian was no more autocratic than Trajan and Hadrian, he just lacked the charm and subtlety to disguise that, other than that, he was a solid emperor.
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Exactly, the Republic was inadequate to deal with the kind of state Rome had become. It was all well and good when it was a regional hegemon, but, the political apparatus was just not set up to be a multi-ethnic state. The Republic either needed a massive overhaul of how it functioned or transform into something different, other wise it would tear itself apart.
 

DominusNovus

Emperor Constantine

Badly. The Roman Republic had trouble governing just Italy, let alone the massive empire her generals conquered, and was virtually paralyzed for its last decades. The problem was the Republic was built as a city state and a city-state lacked the mechanisms to govern such an empire. Unless we get a Sulla-like figure that's willing to create a new system that can effectively govern the Empire, secure the Legions loyalty to the central government and control taxation, the Republic would be screwed.
 

DominusNovus

Emperor Constantine said:
Badly. The Roman Republic had trouble governing just Italy, let alone the massive empire her generals conquered, and was virtually paralyzed for its last decades. The problem was the Republic was built as a city state and a city-state lacked the mechanisms to govern such an empire. Unless we get a Sulla-like figure that's willing to create a new system that can effectively govern the Empire, secure the Legions loyalty to the central government and control taxation, the Republic would be screwed.
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On what grounds do you say it badly governed Italy? By and large, the Republic did great governing Italy.
 

DominusNovus

Sertorius126 said:
The Social war, the latins who joined Spartacus and the troops raised by Catiline would prove to the contrary.
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Three examples from the very latest days of the Republic, when it was generally falling apart already, from 91 BC to 63 BC, when the Romans had united most of Italy by the 270s.

I’ll counter that with the general loyalty of the Italian cities to Rome in the face of Hannibal’s armies. Hardly a sign of misrule.
 
Sertorius126

Sertorius126

DominusNovus said:
Three examples from the very latest days of the Republic, when it was generally falling apart already, from 91 BC to 63 BC, when the Romans had united most of Italy by the 270s.

I’ll counter that with the general loyalty of the Italian cities to Rome in the face of Hannibal’s armies. Hardly a sign of misrule.
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Yeah, but that was before Rome became an hegemonic power. The Republic could still work back then, but once it kept acquiring territories, it had long become inadequate.
 

DominusNovus

Sertorius126 said:
Yeah, but that was before Rome became an hegemonic power. The Republic could still work back then, but once it kept acquiring territories, it had long become inadequate.
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But it began acquiring territories outside Italy in the First Punic War, which wrapped up in the 240s. They didn’t have much trouble with Italy until 150 years later. Thats not bad.

Anyway, Emperor Constantine’s point was that they did badly governing Italy, not that they did badly governing Italy plus an empire beyond the peninsula.
 
TheCataphract

TheCataphract

DominusNovus said:
Three examples from the very latest days of the Republic, when it was generally falling apart already, from 91 BC to 63 BC, when the Romans had united most of Italy by the 270s.

I’ll counter that with the general loyalty of the Italian cities to Rome in the face of Hannibal’s armies. Hardly a sign of misrule.
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Exactly, it is difficult I think to overstate just how unprecedented that was. I can only imagine how much it shocked Hannibal. Any other power would have crumbled in the face of repeated crushing defeats and the loss of an entire generation of manpower, but instead of turning against Rome the other Italian cities rallied behind them and even helped raise new armies. That kind of loyalty is definitely something to try to preserve, as it made Rome one of the most robust states in history up to that point.

The trick I suppose would be granting regional power to local republics at least on a civilian level. Rome had a nicely functioning republic for most of its history but when its elected rulers were able to extract incredible amounts of wealth from postings in the provinces they were able to subvert the checks and balances that had grown into the system over time, such as practically buying out one of the Tribunes to subvert the Citizen's Assembly with his veto. Once the offices designed to keep the Senate in check began to do the opposite the fall of the Republican system became much more difficult to avoid.

Sertorius126 said:
Yeah, but that was before Rome became an hegemonic power. The Republic could still work back then, but once it kept acquiring territories, it had long become inadequate.
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So like I was getting at above, I think the problem wasn't with the Republic as a concept, but with its lack of mechanisms to govern overseas territory beyond just sending out a governor, who could then use those provinces to create huge amounts of wealth and upset the political balance of power in Rome. If it were able to say, install more local governments in these provinces that would manage the civilian government and simply send their taxes directly to a treasury belonging to the state rather than allowing individuals to accumulate huge amounts of wealth an power through their political office than a lot of what caused the fall of the Republic could be avoided.
 
Sertorius126

Sertorius126

TheCataphract said:
So like I was getting at above, I think the problem wasn't with the Republic as a concept, but with its lack of mechanisms to govern overseas territory beyond just sending out a governor, who could then use those provinces to create huge amounts of wealth and upset the political balance of power in Rome. If it were able to say, install more local governments in these provinces that would manage the civilian government and simply send their taxes directly to a treasury belonging to the state rather than allowing individuals to accumulate huge amounts of wealth an power through their political office than a lot of what caused the fall of the Republic could be avoided.
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Pretty much what Augustus did. Being consuls cost a lot of money, and senators received no salaries in the Republic, because giving salaries would have made the senator who did the patron, thus the superior, of all those who received it, who would have become his clients. In the days of the Republic, this would have been unacceptable.
 
Sertorius126

Sertorius126

DominusNovus said:
But it began acquiring territories outside Italy in the First Punic War, which wrapped up in the 240s. They didn’t have much trouble with Italy until 150 years later. Thats not bad.

Anyway, Emperor Constantine’s point was that they did badly governing Italy, not that they did badly governing Italy plus an empire beyond the peninsula.
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Considering the massive unrest from the 130’s, and the servile wars in Sicily, I’d rather say problems began arising soon after 146, when the Roman Republic truly became an hegemonic power.
 

DominusNovus

Sertorius126 said:
Considering the massive unrest from the 130’s, and the servile wars in Sicily, I’d rather say problems began arising soon after 146, when the Roman Republic truly became an hegemonic power.
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Sicily was not part of Italy at that time, and even if we say that cracks started to appear in the system when they conquered Greece and Carthage for good, thats still 50 years before the Social War. Italy’s pretty damn cohesive during this time.
 
Sertorius126

Sertorius126

DominusNovus said:
Sicily was not part of Italy at that time, and even if we say that cracks started to appear in the system when they conquered Greece and Carthage for good, thats still 50 years before the Social War. Italy’s pretty damn cohesive during this time.
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Wouldn’t say cohesive if there are cracks all over. Praeneste got pummeled to the ground in the second half of the second century due to an abortive rebellion towards Rome.

EDIT: It was Fregellae, not Praeneste.
 
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