Most plausible route for the Roman Empire to restore republicanism?

I'm currently listening to Mike Duncan's The History of Rome podcast, having gotten up to the death of Nero and the extinguishment of the Julio-Claudian dynasty that had been the unquestioned rulers of Rome since Augustus. Duncan makes a point of the new territory being entered now that the ruling family had run it's course, and mentioned how some could've easily thought that, rather than somebody being found to begin a new dynasty, the powers concentrated in the emperor could now be redistributed to many different men, and the Senate be restored as the supreme authority, with the Julio-Claudians being a weird and embarrassing aberration, a second kingdom period that Rome can now try to quietly smooth over as rapidly as possible. Was this ever achievable after Augustus and before the fall of Western Rome in the 5th Century. If so, how? If not, what were the obstacles in the way?
 
Different timing of the Pisonian conspiracy. While Piso himself probably just wanted to become emperor, there were senators in Nero's time who wanted to restore the Republic, but they were killed and the Senate's power reduced before Nero died, so the only ones left to fill the power vacuum were generals. If an unpopular Nero dies before dealing with the Pisonians, the Senate has a chance to take back power.
 
Better relations between Tiberius and the Senate. Tiberius is said to have been "a republican at heart" but the senators weren't fond of him, even though he wanted them to play a greater role.
 
Better relations between Tiberius and the Senate. Tiberius is said to have been "a republican at heart" but the senators weren't fond of him, even though he wanted them to play a greater role.
I think to make the republic viable you have to go back before it fell in the first place. After that is probably too late, especially if the "solution" is essentially doled out by an Emperor. The most effective method, although not easy to achieve, would be a success for the Gracchi. but that would need to be followed up and built upon, so a POD not a full solution.
 
Well, how could the Romans return to the Republic when they all believed that they were still in a republic anyway? Or at least claimed to be? When did Rome formally and officially declared itself to be not a republic?

Was it the time of Diocletian?
 
When did Rome formally declared itself to be not a republic?
Technically never, but the rise of the severans marked the end of even the facade of the semi-constitutional monarchy of the Principate, and then with Diocletian an absolutist monarchy was more or less formalized.

I think its clear that the old republican system was broken, and just 'going back to the good ole days' isn't going to work. A new republican government needs to be worked out, and if said republic is going to include the whole empire then it is going to need to federalize in some manner to avoid splintering apart (and even thats not guaranteed)
 
The strength of the Republic came not only in the traditions of the mos maiorum, which really broke down long before the Empire came about, but more in the immense wealth and importance of the Senatorial Class as it existed in the 1st Century BC.

This class adapted to the loss of the old ways, had innovated street violence as a normal part of politics, and utilized the wealth of empire to stengthen political position. Rome was transitioning from an aristocratic republic into an oligarchic plutocracy, in the years before Caesar.

The breaking point came in the proscriptions of the Second Triumvirate that drastically cut down the power of this class through violence and property exproporiation.

However, this was NOT a point of no return.

Many of Augustus's family and property reforms actually were dedicated to saving this class from extinction and they were to some extent effective.

It is my view at least that after the death of Nero, there was a chance for a Republican renewal.The point of no return I think was with the Severans.
 
41 CE after the death of Caligula the Senate almost restored the Republic, but had to give in once the Pretorians acclaimed Claudius emperor and the Urban Cohorts deserted. The event irreversibly tainted the relationship between Claudius and the Senate, especially after the failed usurpation of Scribonianus in 42, who also claimed that he wanted return to the old system of government.

This was the last attempt to abolish the Principate by making, once again, the Senate the center of government. @bbctol The Pisonian conspirators excluded the consul of 65, Vestinus, from their plans because he was known to be a republican - it's pretty clear that their goal was to enthrone a new emperor.
 
Never! LOL but seriously there's no POD where this succeeds. You can't use the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty's end as a POD because the Senate had long sense lost any semblance of control over the Army and the Generals; the moment they end the Principate the various armies will march on Rome, each led by a would-be Emperor. Look at how the Senate's attempt to elect an Emperor in 69 AD and 193 AD ended. And you can't use a POD during the Julio-Claudian dynasty because one or more of the various Augustan scions would make a claim, likely with the backing of the army. Ultimately no one with real power was interested in reviving the Republic.
 
You can't use the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty's end as a POD because the Senate had long sense lost any semblance of control over the Army and the Generals; the moment they end the Principate the various armies will march on Rome, each led by a would-be Emperor.

I mostly agree with you on this. I'm not 100% convinced some kind of rollback of Imperial authority would have been impossible, but it's a very, very difficult needle to thread.

The Late Republic had broken down for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest was that the size of Roman-dominated territory and the scale of ongoing military activity required long-serving professional soldiers (mostly recruited from the lower socioeconomic classes) under the command of long-serving Proconsuls (and other promagistrates). And under the circumstances, and given how central Patron/Client relationships were to Roman society, it was very hard to keep the soldiers from seeing themselves as clients of the Proconsuls they served under. Likewise, the revenues collected from the provinces and loot collected from the wars flowed through the hands of the Proconsuls, giving them control of considerable resources they could channel in ways that strengthened their individual client networks. The end result was that individual leaders (most notably Julius Caesar) could build up client networks to rival the power of the Senate as a whole.

Octavian's solution to this was to assign himself (and his heirs) direct personal ownership of many of the Provinces, particularly the frontiers that required large garrisons (thus putting most of the army in his provinces) and the recently-acquired big revenue-generating provinces of the far East (giving him plenty of cash flow to pay his soldiers and other clients). These provinces were governed by Legates who served at the Emperor's pleasure, not by Proconsuls who served for long, fixed terms. And it was structured in such a way that the Legates were the Emperor's clients, not independent power centers in their own right who could build up their own client networks.

Any attempt to replace the Principate with something more like the Late Republic would have to find another way to avoid the problems that lead to the de facto end of the Republic in the first place. Simply converting the Imperial Provinces back into Senatorial Provinces would run into the same problems. I'm not sure the best way to do it, but two families of possible solutions occur to me:
  1. Tighter control over the provinces, limiting the ability of provincial governors (be they Legates or Proconsuls) to operate unchecked in their provinces. Allowing the Senate to replace governors at will (as the Emperor could do for his Legates) would be one possible measure. Another would be to extend the principle of plurality of offices to the provinces, so each province would be lead by two Proconsuls with mutual veto power, not by just one as in the Late Republic. The risks here are a) it doesn't go far enough and another Caesar arises, or b) the checks and balances undermine the ability of governors to control their provinces and effectively counter military threats on the frontier.
  2. Retain the principle of personal ownership of the Imperial provinces, but divide them between a large number of families so no one family can accumulate too much power. Octavian, Anthony, and Lepidus had tried a variation of this for the Second Triumvirate (a three-way split of the provinces), which obviously didn't work, but a 20-ish-way split might work better. Or it might lead to stronger power base for the 20-ish Permanent Governors, leading to them fighting among one another for control, or to increasingly-smaller groups of them banding together to take control of the state away from the Senate and the other Permanent Governors. Or splitting up the provinces finely enough to minimize the risk of a civil war might prevent any one frontier province from being strong enough to defend itself from external threats.
And then there's the problem of how to get from A to B: at the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, most of the frontier Legions have thought of themselves as clients of the Caesars for the better part of a century. They're going to provide a ready-to-hand power base for anyone who can plausibly claim to be the proper heir of the Caesars, just as Emperor Constantine described above.
 
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