Lux Aeterna Roma

Prologue:
It had been 4 years of bloodshed and conquest for Majorian, but 4 years that had seen the reconquest of Southern Gaul and Hispania. These four years had taken Majorian from the control of Ricimer in Rome to the very Southern tip of Hispania and now culminated in the construction of a fleet and the beginnings of a reconquest of North Africa. For such a long time North Africa had been the breadbasket of Rome and a very rich province to boot and for such a long time it had been of huge importance to keeping Rome and her empire fed. For 585 years it had been a Roman province from the Fall of Carthage to Scipio Africanus the Younger to its loss to the Vandals between 429 and 439 CE. He was based at the Portus Illicitanus in Eastern Hispania and it was here that he was gathering his fleet to make ready for war against the Vandals. It had only been 5 years since they themselves had sacked Rome under Genseric and now the Romans were ready for their revenge.

Majorian's desires to reconquer North Africa were by no means beyond the thoughts of Genseric who had been fearing this outcome since the conquest of Hispania began. He had devastated Mauretania for fear of a Roman invasion and even had his navy ready around the areas he feared they might land to help repel the Roman fleet. Majorian had already thrown the Vandals out of Hispania and, under Marcellinus, had reconquered Sardinia and Sicily. North Africa was the main prize, however, and it was here that Majorian turned his attentions in 460 AD as his next and most glittering conquest. But this was by no means certain and one event on a night in summer that year threatened everything he had worked towards.

It began as a spark, traitors paid by Genseric to try and prevent the Romans from leaving Hispania, but soon grew into a flame as the traitors moved against the Roman fleet. According to Hydatius, the Bishop of Aquae Flaviae in Gallaecia (North-Western Hispania), the traitors attacked the ships and seemingly attempted to set fire to them while they were still being prepared for the invasion:

'While Majorian was campaigning in the province of Carthaginiensis the Vandals attempted to destroy, through traitors, several ships that he was preparing for himself for a crossing against the Vandals from the shore of Carthaginiensis. However their treachery was discovered as they attempted to destroy the fleet and they were arrested.'

— Hydatius, Chronicle, 200, s.a. 460.

The plot was quickly discovered once they made their attempts to actually destroy the fleet and, although some damage was done to the ships, Majorian's dreams of conquest were still alive. A few days later the traitors were taken out and executed on the orders of the emperor, their deaths serving as a warning to any who would betray him for Genseric. So with this act, the execution of those men who had attempted to preemptively stop the invasion, Majorian turned his attention to Africa. Only a couple of months later the Roman fleet sailed out of the port and away from the Spanish coast towards Africa. What might have happened had the fleet been doomed on that fateful night? Might the invasion have been averted and all the events that followed it as well? What might have become of Majorian and Rome? Of Genseric and the Vandals? Or Ricimer?

Hydatius was a pessimist, he most likely believed that it was the end of the world and that all civilisation was coming to an end. He probably believed he was chronicling the end of days, an apocalypse he would never see after his death only 8 years after Majorian set sail in 460. But whether or not he thought that it was the end times, the remainder of his life would see a very real world end as Majorian, and Rome, was about to face demons from both inside and out.

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Note from the Author:

This TL is going to be more of a side-project for now so I won't update it all that frequently as compared to, say Union of the Two Crowns (I promise there is an update coming) or Golden Kings. I probably will give a second update at some point in the next couple of weeks but I'm going to leave you with this for now and let some discussion foster (I hope). I am sure someone has done a Majorian TL before around the same premise but I hope to, if not go a different route or take a different angle, examine and observe it in a quite different way. (Knowing me I'll end up doing it exactly how everyone else did it but oh well :))

I am very excited about doing this timeline because I do really quite love the end of the Roman Empire and the period just after it but I don't know huge amounts about it (any guidance would be appreciated so I don't mess up) so I'm quite intrigued to see where I'm going to go with this.

EDIT: Also I don't know but I have a feeling that someone else had a timeline similarly named to this so sorry if it seems like I ripped the name off- I honestly didnt! It was the first thing that came to mind. I swear.
 
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Yes! Finally, a Majorian timeline. This is much needed. If you need any assistancr, feel free to PM me. Ricimer and Majorian make an excellent team.
 
Flavius Iulius Valerius Maiorianus Augustus

Early Years (420-457):
The future Emperor Majorian was born in around 420 into the military aristocracy of the Roman Empire as the grandson of a former magister millitum under Theodosius I (347-395) and the commander in chief of the army in Illyricum. According to the 5th Century diplomat, Priscus (410-472), Majorian's mother married an officer named Donninus who worked for the Roman general Flavius Aetius (391-454) under whom the young Majorian's career in the military actually began. Priscus mentions that Majorian travelled to Gaul where he met two men whose roles would help define much of Majorian's reign and who would play a huge part in the politics of the future emperor's reign: the Gallic Aegidius and the Visigoth Ricimer. According to 'Carmia' by Sidonius Apollinarus, Majorian first distinguished himself militarily at the head of the cavalry of the Roman army at the Battle of Turonensis (447) and by 450 he had become involved in the politics of Rome itself. Emperor Valentinian III was considering marrying Majorian to his daughter which would have allowed him to place Majorian in command of the army to end his own reliance on Aetius which was already a dangerous relationship as well as avoiding the army coming under the command of a barbarian such as Huneric. Furthermore it meant that Majorian was a potential future heir to Valentinian who had no sons and whose eldest daughter was married to the Vandal Huneric, the son of Genseric. This did not go down well with Aetius who had plans to marry his own son, Gaudentius, to Placidia instead and, according to Apollinarus, fired Majorian from the army only to be assassinated by Valentinian in September 454. In March 455, Emperor Valentinian followed Aetius when he was assassinated on the orders of the disgruntled senator Petronius Maximus (396-455).

The subsequent power vacuum saw Petronius Maximus take the throne and marry the widow of Valentinian, Licinia Eudoxia (422-462), to help legitimise and consolidate his rule over the Western Roman Empire. At the same time he appointed a member of the Gallo-Roman aristocracy and the son of a former consul, Flavius Eparchius Avitus (380-457), as the magister militum of the Western Roman Empire which was a title giving him effective command of the entire army of the empire. Avitus was almost immediately sent to the court of King Theodoric II of the Visigoths where he probably worked to secure their support for the new emperor in Rome and was at Theodoric's court when news reached him of the assassination of Maximus in late May 455 as well as the subsequent sack of the city by the Vandals. He was then promptly proclaimed emperor by Theodoric in July and, later that month, met the Gallic chiefs at Viernum where they gave their support to him before he then received the support of the senate while en route to Rome in August 455. Avitus wouldn't arrive in Rome until September 455 after having spent the last couple of months consolidating his position and in January 456 accepted the position of consul of Rome as was usual for new emperors but accepted the position without a second consul. This led to very real opposition and outcry from the Eastern Roman Empire under Emperor Marcian (392-457) who in response appointed two consuls of his own named Iohannes and Varanes which in turn led to relations between Avitus and Marcian breaking down very quickly and Marcian refusing to recognise Avitus as rightful emperor. From here it was a downward slope for Avitus who had soon let the Visigoths into Iberia and whose favouring of the Gallic aristocracy throughout Rome infuriated the Roman populace while Avitus' treasury was drained and food shortages ravaged Rome as the Vandals held Africa and dominated the sea-lanes of the Western Mediterranean while Avitus' troops further put a strain on the food of Rome.

Majorian had now risen to the rank of comes domesticorum which put him at the head of an elite bodyguard of the emperor stationed in the imperial palace while Ricimer had, according to Priscus, been using Germanic mercenaries to lead both an army and navy against the Vandals in Sicily where he had had success in a naval victory, according to Hydatius, near Corsica which resulted in him being granted the second most powerful position in the Roman army of magister militum praesentalis which gave him command of the Roman armies in Italy. Meanwhile the general Remistus (?-456) held the position once held by Aetius and then Avitus of magister militum of the Western Roman Empire as the first 'barbarian' to hold the position in Roman history given that he was a Visigoth. Under immense pressure from the Roman people, Avitus found himself forced to disband his Visigothic guard in mid to late 456 which prompted Ricimer and Majorian to make their move against him and launch a rebellion which forced Avitus to flee North from Rome. Ricimer then met with the Senate and had them formally depose Avitus and then followed up by having Remistus murdered at the port of Classe in North-Eastern Italy (near Ravenna) in September 456. Avitus soon responded by appointing his friend, Messianus, as the new magister militum in Remistus' place and then travelling to Gaul where he consolidated his forces in preparation to meet Ricimer. The two met at the Battle of Piacenza in October where his forces were massacred and Messianus killed after which Avitus was spared and made Bishop of Piacenza by Ricimer until his death in 457. Apollinarus claims that there was a revolt in 457 in Gaul which attempted to place Avitus back on the throne but failed while Hydatius goes as far as to claim that Avitus was still emperor in 457 until his death.


Becoming Emperor (457):
With Avitus dead and no one claiming the throne in the wake of his death, it was up to the Eastern Roman Empire to appoint a new emperor but, due to the death of Emperor Marcian in 457 and the ascension of Leo I (401-474), this appointment never came. Some historians have argued that Leo didn't appoint a new emperor because he intended to rule the empire alone but, whatever the case, he chose to appoint Majorian and Ricimer as magister militum and patricius as well as magister militum respectively (patricius or patrician status was used sparingly in the WRE at the time and so was still very prestigious). This was a precarious state of affairs and later that year it all changed when the Alemanni invaded Italy with 900 men and Majorian sent soldiers under a man named Burco to stop them near Lake Maggiori but, after the Alemanni were defeated, Majorian was given the credit and in April 457 he was proclaimed emperor at 'ad Columellas'. There was only one other real contender for the position, a man named Olybrius who had been the one to ultimately marry Valentinian III's daughter but who had no influence nor popularity in the Roman army at the time while Majorian held both prestige from victories as well as a good deal of popularity. Initially, however, Leo I refused to accept him as emperor until late 457 which meant that Majorian couldn't be crowned until late December and then took up the position of consul alongside Leo in 458. Majorian now finally took the throne of the Western Roman Empire at the age of 38 and from here he turned his attention outwards from Italy to Gaul and beyond to Iberia and finally Africa. In only a short couple of years, Rome had seen 3 emperors on the throne and three separate usurpations through assassination or rebellion and now it was Majorian's turn to wear the purple and to hope that he could make a better job of it and survive beyond his predecessors.
 
Flavius Iulius Valerius Maiorianus Augustus:

Early Domestic Policy (458-460):
When talking about the first two years of Majorian's reign, the period of time between his ascension to the throne of the Western Roman Empire in late 457 AD to the departure of his fleet from Hispania for the shores of North Africa two years later, we must focus just as much on Majorian's domestic policy as his foreign policy. Majorian intended to save the Western Roman Empire and he, maybe more than most, understood that the Western Roman Empire needed more than just expansion and conquest, it needed a strong domestic policy as well. Majorian ascended to an empire in chaos, when he first took the throne he was not recognised in Gaul and, as a result, only really held Italy and was in desperate need of consolidating his position. An inscription from Lyons from 458 talks about the consulship of Leo I in 458 AD but quite pointedly ignores the consulship of Majorian while Apollinarus in 'Letters' makes a reference to one Marcellus in Gaul who apparently conspired against Majorian that very year although it seems to have come to nought. Neither did Majorian control Hispania nor Africa, one of the richest provinces in the Western Empire and currently under the rule of the Vandals who had already sacked Rome and now sat in control of one of the main breadbaskets of the Roman Empire. Majorian held a tenuous position when he started his reign and if he wished to restore the empire to its former glory, then he needed to be successful both in war and in politics. On January 11th 458 AD, Majorian met with and addressed the Roman Senate in Ravenna and there made his very first speech before the senate and, in doing so, passed his first legislation.

This legislation was known as 'Novella Maioriani 1: De ortu imperii domini Maioriani Augusti' or 'On the Inception of the Rule of the Lord Emperor Majorian' and effectively set the tone for his reign, both some of his policies and some of the problems that he would face later down the line:

'Know, O Conscript Fathers, that I have been made emperor by the decision of your election and by the ordination of our very gallant army... Also, on the Kalends consecrated to Janus we raised aloft the fasces of consulship... Grant now your favour to the emperor whom you have made, and share with us the responsibility for matters that must be considered. No person shall fear the practices of informers... No one shall fear calamities except those that he himself originated. The watchful care of military affairs will be Our concern, as well as the concern of Our father, the Patrician Ricimer...' -Novella Maioriani 1

From the very beginning we can see a lot about Majorian's rule, the speech starts with him explaining that he's emperor and then calling upon the Senate to give its formal support for his position so we know from the very beginning that he needed to shore up his position and receive more political support than he already has. This is an interesting point in comparison with how the extract ends when he places Ricimer in a very powerful position within the state. From Majorian's later experiences with Ricimer, this very much sets the tone for how Ricimer exists within the state initially and gives us an early hint as to where the relationship between the two is going to end up. Ricimer, by most accounts, wanted a puppet emperor through whom he could rule but Majorian had no intention of being a puppet for Ricimer, his speech makes quite clear some of his policies as emperor, policies that the empire desperately needed in 458 AD.

This speech was followed up two months later when, on March 11th, he passed the Novella Maioriani 2: De indulgentiis reliquorem or 'On the remission of past-due accounts' by which he cancelled the unpaid debts of any Roman landowners and made it illegal for anyone other than the governors to collect taxes. Majorian had been particularly annoyed at the tendency of the landowners to avoid paying taxes as they should but, at the same time, their debts had mounted up so that it was impossible for them to actually ever pay. By remitting the debts prior to 458 itself, Majorian was effectively wiping the slate clean and making it far less unfeasible for the landowners to pay what they owed the state. At the same time, he was also freeing the landowner from the illegal collection of taxes by officials who were not legally allowed to do so which, according to the Novella Maioriani 2:
'ruin the landholder and decurion, they extort all things in accordance with their desire for their own looting to such an extent that when some definite or very small portion of the tax is delivered to the public accounts, such greedy and very powerful enforcement officers receive double the amount, or more, as fees'-Novella Maioriani 2
Yet again this served to help free the burden upon the landowners and make it a lot easier for them to pay the taxes that were due to the government, in doing so he helped not only ensure more money was being paid in taxes but also that less money was being skimmed off the top by corrupt officials. These weren't the only problems with late-Roman Taxation, at the time the decurions were being ruined by the abuses of the upper class which wasn't exactly helping the situation that Majorian hoped to improve. The decurions were members of the town councils responsible for making sure unpaid debts were paid but because of the abuses of the upper class, most decurions ended up either fleeing their responsibilities or, in turn, putting more pressure on the plebians below them. Majorian's response came when he passed 'Novella Maioriani 3: De defensoribus civitatum' or 'The Defenders of the Municipalities' in which he restored the position of defensor civitatus (City Defender) whose role was to protect each specific town from oppression, although the people usually appointed were the very same people who were oppressing them in the first place. These laws were followed up in September with the Novella Maioriani 5 by which Majorian made it so any judges who stole from the imperial treasury were to be punished severely while the Novella Maioriani 7, passed on November 6th, forgave the past abuses of decurions and forbid them from abandoning their jobs in a continued attempt to try and bolster them. The Novella Maioriani 10, which had been passed in October 458, set up the protection of the inheritances of women and children. At the same time, he changed the minting of coins, adopting a type of minting in Ravenna that had been used for Emperor Honorius (329-423) and minted significant quantities of gold, silver and bronze coinage throughout his empire with the silver coinage really coming later from Gallic mints.

Majorian was working heavily to try and build a strong administration within the empire as well as increase the financial resources available to him. However even as he worked to reduce the abuses of the upper class, he was well aware that he needed the support of the aristocracy if he were to remain emperor and rebuild Rome to her former glory. His relationship with the aristocracy was to be important, he understood that he needed the support of the Italian aristocracy to remain emperor but also the support of other groups to recover the empire. This is very much shown in the kinds of people he established as consuls, such as Ricimer (459), Flavius Magnus (460); of Gallic aristocratic stock, and Flavius Severinus (461); an Italian aristocrat. However, despite showing a lot of respect and deference towards the Senate, his policies still angered some of the aristocracy which, as we know, would play a very major role once Ricimer grew tired of Majorian.

Another interesting point we might want to look at was Majorian's natalist policies at the time. With
Novella Maioriani 6, he set a minimum age of 40 at which one could take religious vows and gave the same inheritance rights to any women who had been forced to take religious vows and were disinherited as a result. By doing this he hoped to balance out the numbers of Romans and barbarians within the empire and especially encourage widows to remarry instead of simply taking religious vows. He also hoped to correct the policies of aristocratic families making their daughters take religious vows and never marry so that they wouldn't have to pay a dowry and could keep their wealth within their family thus meaning that wealth didn't spread as much. Finally, he set it so any marriage that did not have a dowry and exchange of gifts prior to the wedding was not a valid marriage.

Roma to Hispania (458-460):

Majorian, of course, knew from the outset that he needed more than to just reform the Roman system of finance and government but he needed to bring the empire back under his control. Gaul refused to accept him as emperor while Spain and Africa were both ruled by barbarian kingdoms while even Italy came under attack. Furthermore, the sack of Rome in 455 by the Vandals needed to be avenged and King Geiseric destroyed. In summer of 458, Italy was faced with an invasion by the Vandals which inspired the Novella Maioriani 8 which concerned the right of Roman citizens to bear weapons, the Vandals landed in Campania and started devastating the region. Majorian's response was quick, personally leading the Roman army to crush the Vandals at Sinuessa and then inflicting heavy casualties upon the Vandals as they tried to flee to their ships to escape the onslaught of the Romans. This victory would, in turn, inspire further domestic developments in the empire, including the Novella Maioriani 8 and the Novella Maioriani 12 which concerned quelling disorder over chariot races. Both of these came from Majorian's awareness that he couldn't really push forward the boundaries of the empire while Italy was under threat and, in particular, the Novella Maioriani 8 gave the people of Italy a means by which they themselves could defend against invaders such as the Vandals. According to Apollinarus, he also then majorly strengthened his army, recruiting a number of barbarian tribes to his cause such as:

'Bastarna, Suebus, Pannonius, Neurus, Geta, Dacus, Halanus, Bellonotus, Rugus, Burgundio, Vesus, Alites, Bisalta, Ostrogothus, Procrustes, Sarmata, Moschus...' -Sidonius Apollinarus
Similarly, he soon rebuilt the fleets of Ravenna and Miseno in the construction of up to around 300 ships for his eventual invasion of Africa so that he could both fight the Vandal navy and successfully transport his forces across the sea towards Africa.
Majorian didn't actually leave Italy until winter of 458 with Nepotianus and choosing Aegidius to be his magister militum per Gallias and quite quickly swept through Gaul, defeating King Theodoric II of the Visigoths decisively at the Battle of Arelate. While we don't have significant information about the battle itself, the result was decisive as, in one fell swoop, Majorian pushed the Visigoths back through Aquitania and forced them to give up their conquests in Hispania and return to the status of foederati. The Visigoths were now limited to a small area of land bordering the Atlantic Ocean along the Garonne (Garumna) River and, using his new allies, he swept North-East to reconquer the Rhone Valley in a campaign that culminated in the defeat of the Burgundians and the Siege of Lugdunum. Yet again, however, in the wake of this campaign, we must turn to look a bit at the domestic policy of Majorian which rears its head once more. In the wake of the siege, Majorian chose to fine the city heavily and subdued the Bagaudae [1] whom he forced to accept to join the empire. But Majorian, as we have seen, understood that he needed the Gallic aristocracy on side if he were to bring Gaul back into the empire properly and, as a result, chose to incorporate the very same aristocrats who had sided against Majorian and refused to accept his rule as the new administration of Gaul. One of these aristocrats was none other than the very same Sidonius Apollinarus who is one of our main sources on the period. Like with the Italian aristocracy, Majorian was making a definite effort to try and win the powerful members of society over to his side to help in the administration and restoration while effectively giving Aegidius command over the region as magister militum. At the same time, he granted the citizens of Lugdunum a tax remission which proved to be effective in helping win them over.

In the wake of his victory in Gaul, Majorian rapidly turned his attention towards Hispania and Sicily, the latter of which was held by the Vandals at the time and was in desperate need of reconquest if Majorian were to invade Africa and secure the Mediterranean. At this point it is the time to introduce another major player onto the stage of Majorian's drama, the comes rei militaris of Illyricum, a man by the name of Marcellinus. The philosopher Damascius (458-538) tells us in Epitome Photiana comments that Marcellinus had a particularly well-equipped army, hence why he was so powerful in Illyricum at the time and the resources of Dalmatia were what kept him a major player in the political games of the 5th Century in a similar way to how the Gallic army made Aegidius a major player. Indeed it has been argued that the main forces in the politics of the Western Empire were Aegidius, Marcellinus, Ricimer, Majorian and the Eastern Empire. Marcellinus had been effectively independent in Illyricum since the death of Aetius in 454 and yet agreed to Majorian's request for an invasion of Sicily by Marcellinus and his forces. Why Marcellinus did so is quite fiercely debated amongst historians, some believing that he simply supported Majorian whereas others taking the view that he was acting in his own interests or had even been told to do so by Leo. Whatever the case, Marcellinus was to lead a force to Sicily and, from there, join Majorian in a two-pronged attack against the Vandals once the time came with Majorian invading from Hispania and Marcellinus from Sicily.

Majorian's conquest of Hispania began in May 459 when Nepotianus and the Visigoth Sunieric were sent to lead a campaign against the Suebi in the North-West of the region as Majorian gathered his forces in Liguria for an invasion into Hispania itself even as Genseric looked on nervously studying the situation. Fearing a Roman invasion, he quickly tried to open diplomacy with Majorian only to be refused any peace negotiations, to which the Vandal responded by ravaging Mauretania, the likely area in which Majorian would land, and preparing his navy to make incursions into the waters in the area. Nepotianus and Sunieric continued their campaign against the Suebi, defeating them at the Battle of Lucus Augusti and conquering their way through Lusitania in Western Iberia. Majorian himself didn't actually pass into Hispania until May 460 but rapidly passed through, holding a ceremony at Caesaraugusta and heading down towards Portus Illicitanus in the South-East of Hispania where his navy was stationed.

Here, the desperation of Genseric was starting to become very apparent as he realised the immediacy and threat of Majorian's invasion of North Africa. In the wake of his failure to stop the invasion through diplomacy, the king turned to another tactic, a gamble that might be able to save him. This, famously, was an act of treachery in which Genseric hoped that he may be able to destroy the Roman fleet and prevent the invasion by doing so. The sabotage failed spectacularly, the traitors being quite quickly found and captured by Majorian's soldiers and the flames being extinguished before any major damage could be done. This ended any hope of the invasion being strangled in its cradle and only a couple of months later, in Autumn 460, Majorian's fleet set sail from Portus Illicitanus for Africa and prepared to descend upon the Vandals once and for all.

[1] The bagaudae were groups of insurgents, primarily peasants, who began cropping up in areas of Gaul and Hispania starting in the 3rd Century and who had persisted ever since. Majorian subdued a group in the Rhone Valley who were forced to become Roman Citizens in 459.
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Notes from the Author:

Some sources I have been unable to always access myself, for example, while I could find a copy of Apollinarus 'Letters' online I could not find a translated version so I have had to take the word of the site that references his source to base my own work on.

Sources:

http://www.roman-emperors.org/major.htm - Majorian's laws are all translated by Clyde Pharr in 'The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondinian Constitutions (Princeton, 1952)'

 
Note from the author: I'm having a bit of an issue I hope my readers can help me solve. In short, I have no clue how big the Vandal fleet was in 461, I've seen a number of sources online claim that Geiseric was unsure he could beat the Roman fleet. One source would support this by saying that he had had 120 ships when he took Sardinia and Sicily. That would make sense to some degree, it would explain why he's so worried about an invasion force of 300 ships. But then what confuses me is that he is noted as having maybe around 800 ships at Cap Bon only 7 years later.
 
Note from the author: I'm having a bit of an issue I hope my readers can help me solve. In short, I have no clue how big the Vandal fleet was in 461, I've seen a number of sources online claim that Geiseric was unsure he could beat the Roman fleet. One source would support this by saying that he had had 120 ships when he took Sardinia and Sicily. That would make sense to some degree, it would explain why he's so worried about an invasion force of 300 ships. But then what confuses me is that he is noted as having maybe around 800 ships at Cap Bon only 7 years later.
That number seems unlikely to me unless they are counting every rowboat they could get their hands on. That number would make it larger than both sides of most of the largest naval battles in history combined, which, to me anyways, seems unlikely.
 
Note from the author: I'm having a bit of an issue I hope my readers can help me solve. In short, I have no clue how big the Vandal fleet was in 461, I've seen a number of sources online claim that Geiseric was unsure he could beat the Roman fleet. One source would support this by saying that he had had 120 ships when he took Sardinia and Sicily. That would make sense to some degree, it would explain why he's so worried about an invasion force of 300 ships. But then what confuses me is that he is noted as having maybe around 800 ships at Cap Bon only 7 years later.

My philosophy is that you don't need to be any more accurate or precise than actual history when writing alternate history.
 
That number seems unlikely to me unless they are counting every rowboat they could get their hands on. That number would make it larger than both sides of most of the largest naval battles in history combined, which, to me anyways, seems unlikely.

So what you're saying is that 120's a more realistic number? I agree on that point TBF, it also fits better with the TL I'm telling so I'm probably going to go with that.

My philosophy is that you don't need to be any more accurate or precise than actual history when writing alternate history.

I do tend to get a bit caught up in details like this, more than I really should.
 
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