Pertinax and the Praetorians: a Rome TL

Posting the first part of the next chapter, because I'm busy, and updates might take even longer later on.


By 260, matters with the Franks had gotten significantly worse, as King Childericus I “Magnus,” demanded a fourfold increase of the subsidy the Romans paid to him in order to refrain from attacking further into Gaul, which was already on the brink of collapse and loss. However, Emperor Horatius was unable to pay this subsidy, as nearly 16 years of nonstop campaigning had drained the treasury of the previous surplus, and the garrisons of many of the interior provinces were sorely depleted, and thus incapable of a sustained battle.

Denying the king his “tawdry gold,” as Horatius deemed it, the Emperor set out with the Companion Cohorts, leaving only one in Rome to guard his son, Severus. Marshalling nearly every armed man that the Romans could spare within the provinces of Gaul, he marched over the Samara[1] river which had become the de facto boundary between Frankish Eastern Gaul, and Roman Western Gaul, though the Romans still claimed East Gaul as their own, and occupied the major city of Samarobriva[2], waiting for the Franks to make their move.

And indeed, they did make a move. Just weeks after Horatius barricaded himself within the city, the Franks attacked, taking nearly, it is said, 40,000 men, almost double the Roman forces, and quickly breaking down the wall that protected the eastern side of the city, which was split in two by the river Samara, and storming the city. The Emperor marshaled his troops just barely on the East side of the river, while he stood on the bridge with the 9 present Companions.

The Frankish shield wall, however, wrapped around the Roman flanks with superior numbers, crushing the men against the river, where many jumped when they realized the battle was hopeless. According to the most common ancient legend, the Emperor, “Held the bridge long enough for all the Romans to escape the city, before jumping in the river to his death,” though this is questionable, as it seems a direct parallel to the older Roman story of Horatius at the Bridge, fighting off the forces of Lars Porsena. Regardless, during the battle, Roman forces in Gaul were crushed, with a bare 2,000 or so troops remaining in all the provinces that made up Roman Gaul.

[A much later engraving showing the Emperor Horatius attired like the ancient hero Horatius Cocles]
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Very shortly, Gaul would slip almost permanently out of Roman hands, as Spain seemed on the brink of revolt. As Spain seemed to be on the brink of destruction in the form of the Franks, something happened, unprecedented in the history of Rome. A group of provinces seceded. Under the leadership of the governor, Marcus Quintinius Cassius, the Empire of Hispania was founded.[3]

Unlike before or after, when rebellion would only end in the control of the entire Empire, the Hispanic Empire, as it is often called, was a movement to only rule Hispania, not any other group of provinces, nor the entire Empire, but just Hispania. This was a major change, but it did not set a precedent. The next rebellion would be just as far ranging and widespread as a typical attempted rebellion, and over the entire Empire, per usual.

After the death of Horatius, his son, Sextus, was Emperor. However, at 8 years old, he was not quite qualified to be Emperor…

[To be continued]




[1] Somme
[2] Amiens
[3] Unlike OTL’s Gallic Empire, this one doesn’t immerse itself in propagandic statements about how it’s the entire Empire, and how the Emperor, despite not controlling Rome, was "in control of the entire Empire."
 
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Here's the new update, after a long while. I'll try to have a map up by Monday, as I don't have access to my computer which can make a map at the moment. Tis entire update was written, researched, and posted from a tablet, so please forgive any of my typographical errors.I hope y'all enjoy, and have a lovely weekend!

Also, I realized that Sextus' name was originally Severus. Severus was his nine months older brother, who died shortly after Sextus' birth. That's how I'm putting it officially, at least.


Eight year old Sextus, son of Emperor Horatius came to the throne in one of the most traumatic times in the Empire's history, with an emperor dead in battle against the Franks, while Spain had seceded from the empire, under her now emperor Cassius. There was little that the young Sextus could do. A particularly clever and enterprising senator, and distant relative of the Hispanic Emperor Marcus, Flavius Quintinius Nerva Atellus, managed to, shortly after the news of Horatius' death reached Rome, silently cut his way into the Imperial palace, avoiding the last Companion Cohort, and reached the emperor. Terrified, and unprotected, Severus was forced to recognize Atellus as his co-emperor.

In an attempt to make sure that the Franks would not reach Italy, Atellus withdrew large numbers of troops from Greece, a secure region of the Empire, and marched to Gaul. Atellus' First Gallic Campaign, however, accomplished fairly little of import, recapturing Massilia, though Atellus was unable to do more with his troops. He sent them to North Africa, to guard against Hispanic raids, which already were damaging many ports close to Hispania. These legions would never be returned to Greece.

However, yet more Frankish attacks upon the few remaining forces of Rome in Southern Gaul forced Atellus to raise seven whole new legions, raised from Italy, the first such legions in more than a century, nearly bankrupting the empire, and embark on his Second Gallic Campaign. The money for these troops was largely mustered from Greece, with tax collectors looting entire cities to pay, as well as the equestrians, some of whom were nearly as rich as senators. Unwilling to ruin their reputation with the senators, many future emperors would continue this tradition, of looting the equestrians in times of need. Arrested and executed on trumped up charges of treason, nearly four hundred equestrians were killed to fill the treasury. Politically irrelevant, equestrians began to turn ever more to sources of income the Senators neglected, such as trade. Over time, this would evolve to a stratification of society. There were the old guard senators, who derived their wealth from massive tracts of land and hordes of slaves, and the newer senators, who had made their fortunes by trade with India, as well as manufacturing. Ironically, the newer senators tended to be significantly wealthier.

But to return to the Second Gallic Campaign, Atellus managed to easily push back Frankish armies from the remaining lands, winnings yet another victory at Massilia, which rapidly was becoming the greatest fortress-city in the west. Guarded by many fortresses, it served as the focus for Roman power, as well as a vast network of walls which stretched thorough the city and the surrounding countryside.

It was then that Atellus realized the precarious situation of the empire, in one of his more farsighted decisions. Seeing the growing value of currency, and the dangerous deflation that was threatening the senators, as the goods they produced were becoming ever less valuable, he decided to increase the gold supply, which was greatly depleted by the loss of Hispania. Leaving two of his seven new legions in and near Massilia, he went to Aegyptus, where with eight legions, he embarked on a campaign up the Nile, into Kush, a land renowned by the ancient pharaohs of Aegyptus for its richness in gold. Enlisting the aid of the nation of Axum, Kush's southern neighbor, Atellus marched up the Nile, as the Axumites marched down the Nile, keeping his army supplied with an unceasing procession of barges. It was a war of conquest unseen since the time of Getis and Titus Flavius.

The campaign finally subjugated Kush in six months of bloody warfare, as countless towns and cities in Kush were sacked. Tens of thousands were massacred in the campaign. In the end, the Axumites gained little from the exchange, as the superior numbers and quality of the now veteran Roman troops threatened Axum herself. Her king, Zaqarnas, offered tribute to Rome, becoming a "vassal king" in the bent of the king of the artificially created nation of Iberia, in the Caucasus. However, shortly after the vassalization of Axum, the Himyarite king, Sharhib II, crossed the Red Sea, subjugating the Axumite armies, executing Zaqarnas, and placing a puppet king, the brother of Zaqarnas, Girma, who had been forced into exile by his brother, on the throne. Girma soon proved to be an utter puppet, and the kingdom of Axum stagnated, a plaything of both Romans and of Himyarites.

Returning to Rome, Atellus spent a well-earned two-year respite there,which was interrupted by the Great Greek Revolt. With the withdraw of forces, the Greeks, recognizing the weakness of the Empire, attempted to regain independence. Cities from Thebes, to the hamlet of Sparta rose in an attempt to overthrow the Romans. The revolt was centered around the city of Corinth, and included a sizable proportion of Christians, who had developed a militant streak centered around gaining a "New Zion," which was to be the spiritual center for Christ's children.

Taking the customary nine Companion cohorts, which had been reformed since the death of Horatius, and leaving the tenth to guard Sextus, his heir, he took four of his Italian legions, which now acted as mobile forces to accompany the Emperor to trouble areas, to destroy the rebels. A brief month long campaign left the only army of the rebels massacred, after Atellus managed to bottleneck them in the Isthmus of Corinth, between two halves of his armies, and in revenge, Atellus razed the city, slaughtering all of the male population, as well as the elderly and children, while he took the young women for his slaves, selling all but the most choice while in Athens.

Then, Atellus set up a new city on the site of Corinth, composed largely of the urban poor from Rome, though he gifted large portions of land to the Senators for them to build their great estates. The brutality of Atellus, however, was left largely unremarked upon, as he set up a great victory column, depicting the slaughter of the Corinthians, in the Forum of Atellus in the refunded Corinth. The Christians, throughout Greece, were rounded up, to be sold to Persia or India. Throughout the empire this process happened, with an estimated ten thousand Christians killed, while the rest were sold, at great markup, as luxury goods in the court of the Satavahana Empire in India. Within the next few decades, the cult was dead in Rome.

It was largely the end of Christianity, a minor Judaistic cult, which other than its role in the Great Greek Revolt, was a footnote in history, unlikely to ever be of note. Its nature was not suited for widespread conversion, and the likelihood of it ever successfully adapting to a large number of converts was low.

This began Atellus' policy of establishing colonies in non-Roman areas, though he no longer razed cities to do so.In Mesopotamia, four cities were established, and subsidized by the Empire, located near other urban centers in order to tacitly weaken the culture of the non-Roman areas. Ten cities were established in Aegyptus, as well as three in Kush, and one each in Axum and Iberia, which, while not provinces, were weak and vassalized. All of this was paid for by the conquest of Kush, and the razing of Corinth, both of which filled the treasury to overflowing, such that the empire could easily pay for these, and occupying forces in Kush.

Atellus had five more years of peace before the land once more returned to chaos, when Childericus II Magnus, Imperator Franci, died in Gaul at the age of fifty four. His kingdom, according to the custom of the Germanic peoples, was divided between his two surviving sons, Ruolandus and Garmanicus, Latinized versions of existing Frankish names, indicating the growing Latin usage within the nobility even. Garmanicus received a majority of the Gallic estates, just recently carved out of what was left behind when Horatius was killed, and Ruolandus largely received the ancestral heartland of the Franks in Germania. This was never designed to be a permanent division; Garmanicus, for instance, received some of the royal domains furthest east, while Ruolandus had many domains on the border with the Hispanic Empire.

In his final, Third Gallic Campaign, also known as the First War of Frankish Succession, Ruolandus and Garmanicus, who had never gotten along, went to war, and with them went the Romans, both the Hispanians, and the rest of the Empire, as Atellus backed Ruolandus, and, from the great fortress of Massilia, struck out into Gaul, occupying significant amounts of territory. The Hispanians also took much Frankish territory, in the interest of "protecting the homes of their allies,"

Atellus himself met in battle against his distant cousin, Cassius, and was forced back, leading to a roughly even split of the Frankish coast between the two Roman empires, as Emperor Cassius of the Hispanic Empire proved unable to press his advantage. At this time, the Romans invaded Hispania from North Africa, as they began construction of a great fortress across the straits separating Africa from Europe. Distracted by the events in Gaul, Cassius did nothing to prevent it, and soon Rome had a powerful foothold in Hispania.

However, not all was lost for the Hispanians in the engagement. Cassius managed to push Atellus back, all the way to Massilia, occupying all of the Gallic coast of the Mediterranean...
 
Is this timeline dead? I hate to necro, but it is in your signature...

Assuming it isn't, my biggest question is what effect all the newfound prosperty in trade would do for everyday life in the empire. You mentioned that it's led to the creation of a class of equestrian merchants and manufactory owners, but what does that do for the land as a whole? Is the population becoming more urbanized? Is there a population boom? You mentioned ports were all expanding, are we going to see Romans head to sub-sahara?

You also mentioned the creation of a Roman city in the place of Corinth - will Greece become more latinized as a result?

Also, map please! I can barely keep up with Frankish borders in my head.
 
Is this timeline dead? I hate to necro, but it is in your signature...

Assuming it isn't, my biggest question is what effect all the newfound prosperty in trade would do for everyday life in the empire. You mentioned that it's led to the creation of a class of equestrian merchants and manufactory owners, but what does that do for the land as a whole? Is the population becoming more urbanized? Is there a population boom? You mentioned ports were all expanding, are we going to see Romans head to sub-sahara?

You also mentioned the creation of a Roman city in the place of Corinth - will Greece become more latinized as a result?

Also, map please! I can barely keep up with Frankish borders in my head.

I'm actually considering starting over with this timeline. There are a lot of details I think I fluffed, and I've been doing some more research. I can answer your questions though.

Everyday life is pretty similar to what it was IOTL. However, the fall of equestrians from political importance, as well as their rise financially has lead to a sort of politically adrift, but economically vital class of people. They basically thrive off of the richest land owners, as well as off of each other.

Population wise, the Empire is growing, but nothing massive. The turmoil following the loss of Gaul, Britannia, and then Hispania lost the Empire a number of wealthy and important provinces, though they gained much more land along the Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates, and in Armenia.

The Romans aren't going to be exploring sub-saharan Africa soon ITTL, but they have lost much of their OTL prejudice towards commerce and trade.

I think I accidentally erased my map during one of my spring purges of my harddrive, but I'll take a look.
 
Here's a remarkably terrible map I just created giving a rough outline of the division between East and West Francia, Spain, and Rome. Ignore Britain, there were a number of fiddley little kingdoms there of different allegiances that I came up with originally and can't remember where I put them...

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I like this a lot and would love a reboot. :D Would be interesting to know a bit more about the Emperor's private lives and families.
 
I like this a lot and would love a reboot. :D Would be interesting to know a bit more about the Emperor's private lives and families.

Yeah, that was one of the failings of this TL, in my opinion. I couldn't find the middle ground between getting information out, and making this sound like a book, with all the analysis, lack of full information and 20:20 hindsight that that entails.
 
I am proud announce, than after a gap of 14 months between updates, I am rebooting this timeline. The update is ~40% finished, and covers the first update "chapter" of the timeline, though with significantly more research, and a fair bit more detail.
 
Very nice, easy to read and follow. Just read through again, would appreciate a continuation/re-write very much.
 
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