No Marcus Aurelius

What if there was no Marcus Aurelius? The earliest signs of the decay of the Roman Empire start with him, due to the amount of wars fought by him and the plague that happened to occur during his reign. Who would gain the throne if he didn't?
What I want to know:
-Would the new Emperor accelerate, slow, or prevent the roman decline?
-What would be their response to the plague?
-What would be their stance on early Christianity and Judaism?
-What would be their response to the revitalized Persian empire that Aurelius defeated OTL?
-Would they continue the pattern of the "five good emperors" or would they similarly bring that period to an end?
 
First and foremost, whoever replaces Marcus Aurelius will be able to do very little, if anything about the plague. The actions of one man, however powerful, in a pre-scientific revolution society are not enough to stop biological catastrophes. That, of course, correlates very strongly to the Roman Decline.

Who will rule in his absence is real problem. For simplicities sake, let's say he is struck by a falling meteor on 7 March 161, a few hours after the death of Antonius Pius. Lucius Verus seems a logical choice, though one of our Roman experts can probably come up with someone else. But let's say Verys gets the purple.

Parthia really provoked the war and so I can't see the Romans reacting much differently. So that's the same. I also don't see much of a different policy towards Christians and Jews; they made convenient scapegoats. So in the end, not much difference at all.
 
At least Commodus won't succeed to the purple. There's no real reason for the emperors not to continue the policies that led to the second century crisis unless they had modern knowledge of economics. And of course they'd have little control over the external factors.
 
I read this idea and my immediate concerns are our loss of important Stoic texts. There are precious few writings left that detail Stoicism at all, losing Aurelius's makes things more difficult for History of Philosophy. We only have three authors whom we have complete works of, and one of them is Aurelius.

But I'm probably the only person who would be concerned for that....
 
I read this idea and my immediate concerns are our loss of important Stoic texts. There are precious few writings left that detail Stoicism at all, losing Aurelius's makes things more difficult for History of Philosophy. We only have three authors whom we have complete works of, and one of them is Aurelius.

But I'm probably the only person who would be concerned for that....

Actually, I thought of that too. It seems a pity.

OTOH, perhaps different events lead to the survival of more texts than IOTL, more than making up for his loss? It's certainly plausible.
 
OTOH, perhaps different events lead to the survival of more texts than IOTL, more than making up for his loss? It's certainly plausible.

It's plausible I suppose. At the time they still had texts from the original founders of Stoicism, so butterflies willing, we could end up with those surviving.

But you know, more to the political side of things, how can you get better than Aurelius? I would assume anybody you replaced him with would be at best, just as good, and could conceivably be a lot worse in various areas.
 
Getting rid of Aurelius would put Commodus in charge... although I assume he dies of over-partying around the same time he does otl. After that, who could we expect as emperor? Parthia is still beaten by Commodus (or more accurately, his legates) but the other emperor may react differently to German invasions and whatnot. Aurelius did a good job; he was set up for trouble, and he managed to stave it off until the next emperor bungled it.
 
Getting rid of Aurelius would put Commodus in charge... although I assume he dies of over-partying around the same time he does otl. After that, who could we expect as emperor? Parthia is still beaten by Commodus (or more accurately, his legates) but the other emperor may react differently to German invasions and whatnot. Aurelius did a good job; he was set up for trouble, and he managed to stave it off until the next emperor bungled it.
If you mean Commodus the son of Marcus Aurelius, then that would be incorrect. If you mean Lucius Verus, who was born Lucius Commodus, and I think you do, then that makes more sense.
Without Marcus Aurelius, he will probably marry Faustina, and if he dies 'on schedule' then he may be succeeded by ATL offspring or someone else entirely.
As for his ability to rule, he had more fun than Marcus, but without the craziness and grandiosity of Commodus. I don't think it would have made too much of a difference immediately.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Marcus Aurelius was a good emperor, and he was able to keep things together even when multiple disasters (German attacks, plague) seemed to descend on Rome. But if he is butterflied away for some reason, you also butterfly away Commodus, and that might be worth it.
 
Marcus Aurelius was a good emperor, and he was able to keep things together even when multiple disasters (German attacks, plague) seemed to descend on Rome. But if he is butterflied away for some reason, you also butterfly away Commodus, and that might be worth it.

Or you could keep the good and get rid of the bad by attacking Commodus directly. He can't possibly be too hard to engineer a good excuse for getting rid of, even with Marcus Aurelius still on the throne.
 
Or you could keep the good and get rid of the bad by attacking Commodus directly. He can't possibly be too hard to engineer a good excuse for getting rid of, even with Marcus Aurelius still on the throne.

Didn't he have a brother who died young? Have Commodus be the one who does. With a reasonable pinch of luck...
 
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