Return to the Republic as the Empire is crumbling?

So, I'm no historian, nor do my interests particularly revolve around the decline of the Roman Empire, but I was wondering if, as the Empire is beginning to crumble, there was any point where either a popular revolution could happen leading to a more modern republic, or a revolution lead by wealthy elites leading to an oligarchic government could happen?

Likely, this would be contained in the Italian Peninsula, but I think, especially with popular support, the fledgling republic may be able to levy a large enough army to defend itself and maybe even survive till the modern ages.

Let me know if you think it's possible, and if it would be, how would it affect the history of the world?

(TLDR, I like roman culture, so I want it to survive in the form of a republic till modern ages, is it possible?)
 
The Senate did grow in prestige and influence in the late empire and particularly during Ostrogothic rule, so there's a start. The main problem is that you need to control the army, and said army is getting increasingly Germanic with each passing winter.

IMHO, the most likely solution would be to have the eastern Emperor as nominal overlord, but with the Senate calling the shots in Italy and Carthage (without which they're screwed). Even so, it would be an incredibly unstable arrangement
 

Hmm, do you think it would be possible to basically extract the remaining Romans in the army, and then levy people from Italy to replace the Germans? I have no idea what the population statistics compared to earlier centuries are, but for example, against Hannibal, the Romans simply levied legion after legion.

About the EREmperor becoming a nominal overlord, that makes sense, but it also feels like it would make a more convincing target for Catholics later on, though I suppose there is time before that would become a problem.
 
First, welcome on the board! I hope you'll enjoy your stay there.

Let me know if you think it's possible, and if it would be, how would it affect the history of the world?

Well, for Romans (assuming we're talking of the people of Rome, the city*), the Empire wasn't even in the direct continuation of the Republic, but was the Republic just on another (better?) form.

I understand it can seems weird that people may have prefered imperial Rome than Republican Rome (especially with Republic being mis-indentified as liberal and free) but Republican Rome was more and more troubled by personal interests, corruption and venality, and civil wars; and wasn't spectaculary popular in the political sense.

The monarchical idea, where a vertuous man "above factions" being as far as senatorial elites than populus (and therefore treating them equally) became particularly popular by the Ist century.

Of course between the idealized monarchical regime and the reality, you had some gap (often Grand Canyon's size), no doubt about that : but Julio-Claudian emperors were often described as "democratic" (in the sense of popular, close to people) even by their detractors (or especially by their detractors, depending how you see it).

If something, oligarchic rule was far less of a viable popular alternative than the "good emperor" model, even among senatorial elites (with Caligula's death, some tried to pull a return to Late Republican model, but quickly shunned off by their colleagues)

It seems that Romans went particularly attached to these political institutions, that didn't collided (in matter of institutions) with what existed before (the dynastical principle, with the role of Roman gens, was quite strong, for exemple).
Eventually, as the centuries went by, SPQR** as incarnated by the imperial figure was seen as something totally natural and not contradictory (it can be argued so even during the Late Empire or Byzantium for a good part of its history). Pulling out of blue the Late Republican model, that have few persons to be nostalgic about, seems a bit unlikely to me.

You really have to wait the Middle-Ages for having, with a huge idealization of what the Republic was even before the Civil Wars, a "Republicanism" in the City (with the Commune of Rome, for instance).

Eventually, you'd really need a huge discredit on Imperial idea that even the situation of the Vth didn't managed to create to make it happen. And frankly, with a situation going even more badly for Romania, I'm not sure you'd have much anything left to make a Roman Republic out of it.

*At the difference of Romania, the land ruled by Rome. You did have non-ethnic popular revolts as Bagaudae, but these were more fiscal-driven than "political" even if it's possible (while not sure at all) they had "emperors" leading them.

** Senatus PopulusQue Romanus, the Senate and the Roman People, one of the official names of Roman Republic/Empire


(TLDR, I like roman culture, so I want it to survive in the form of a republic till modern ages, is it possible?)
Depends of what you're searching for: if it's about Roman institutions living on while evolving, it's more or less what happened IOTL.

If you're asking about the institutions between the IIIrd and Ist centuries living on for centuries, I don't think that's possible. Not only because nothing can live on without changing radically with time, but because this situation began already to crumble IOTL (In Our TimeLine) under its own contradictions.
 
Hmm, do you think it would be possible to basically extract the remaining Romans in the army, and then levy people from Italy to replace the Germans?
I'd think several part of your posts should be nuanced, if I may.

First, Roman population largely lowered by the IIIrd century : climatic changes, epidemics, etc. The lower manpower caused a productive decline that didn't helped. Germans were the more viable alternative to fill the gap, as they did since the Ist century, both militarily and "civily", if you want to.

As for extracting them, you'd need to have a real distinction : it's more and more certain that Germans were importantly Romanized (would it be only because they were largely composed of Romans).
Not that Romans ceased to play a military role and that military matters were let to Barbarians but that these played a more important role (Aetius had to rely on them, mostly because comitatenses and limitanei were busy in Danube's basin).

An even more important pressure on Italian demographics would have bad consequences : you just don't replace populations more or less "specialized" in warfare by farmers and urban denizens without a loss in quality of your army, making fiscal/productive problems even more pressing, and letting Barbarians populations in arms wandering in Romania without being integrated in the army.

I mean, it would have been a reciepe for disaster.

but it also feels like it would make a more convincing target for Catholics later on
Catholicism, as an unified body of Latin Churches would probably be butterflied there : you didn't have real religious gap between Latins and Greek before the VIIth, and it didn't became entierly so until the XI/XIIth.
 
snip (do you guys prefer this or full quotes on this forum?)

Thanks ;), I really enjoy alternate history, sparked by the paradox games (EU4, CK2, Vicky 2).

Yea, I'm aware of the numerous problems of the Republic, but I feel like if I was a Roman living in this time, I would be searching for some alternative to the current model that is fairly clearly not working. If it was a popular uprising, wouldn't they try to resurrect the "idea" of the Republic, not necessarily the exact institutions that lead to the corruption and downfall of it.

Really, about the culture, I'm more saying it would be cool to see a version, that while it would change radically over time, wouldn't be so fused with the "barbarian" cultures of the Franks, Visigoths, Lombards, Germans, etc.

EDIT: To your second post:

Yea, I legitimately wasn't sure about the demographics of the time, that makes sense.

I'm not so sure about it being butterflied away, but I suppose it could have been
 
I vaguely recall one of the Emperors in the Third Century making noise about restoring power to the senate but then dying before doing anything.

It might have been one of the Gordians.
 
I vaguely recall one of the Emperors in the Third Century making noise about restoring power to the senate but then dying before doing anything.

It might have been one of the Gordians.

Due to his age, during Gordian III's reign the Senate held the power, could they have tried to seize power more permanently then?
 
I don't think there's a rule about quotes, but personally I prefer snipping when it comes to long posts (sorry for the wall of text, while we're talking about it).

Yea, I'm aware of the numerous problems of the Republic, but I feel like if I was a Roman living in this time, I would be searching for some alternative to the current model that is fairly clearly not working.
Thing is, the imperial model was working and was eventually more popular and relatively more stable than the Late Republic. It caused other issues, that is certain, but what counted was eventually the popular perception.

I entierly understand that you (or me, or the next man), as a person living in the XXIth with all concept we share about politics, would prefer to find an alternative...
But I think it's important to notice and understand that Roman people didn't, and why.

Contrary to, say, a Paradox game (;)), we can't just assume that people would have tought the same way than ourselves and wouldn't have minded sudden societal/political changes.

If it was a popular uprising, wouldn't they try to resurrect the "idea" of the Republic,
For them, it wasn't to be "resurrected" : what we call the Empire was for them the Republic, the very same since Romans kick the asses of their kings.
It's something that would help you understanding Rome : for them, things changed but SPQR was still there.

It would be like, if you pardon me the anachronism and the innacuracy of the metaphor, an XXIth American considering that because of the presidentalisation of USA, it's a totally different regime than what existed in 1790's.

I'm more saying it would be cool to see a version, that while it would change radically over time, wouldn't be so fused with the "barbarian" cultures of the Franks, Visigoths, Lombards, Germans, etc.
That said, these Barbarians cultures were essentially (up to their core, really. These people's ethnogenesis wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Rome), Romanized, not only since their entry in Romania but before (you just don't live aside with the political/cultural superpower of the time without some consequences).

Germanic influence existed, but the fusion of population was clearly more made on a Gallo-Roman/Hispano-Roman/Italo-Roman ground.

I vaguely recall one of the Emperors in the Third Century making noise about restoring power to the senate but then dying before doing anything.
Frankly, that was a tired old cliché of imperial grand projects, since at least Augustus. More the Senate became a municipal council, more you had emperors trying to get some easy legitimity claiming that, yes, the Senate still ruled the universe and that he was going to help them doing so.
 
The Senate could seize power from the weak emperors of the 5th century. They just have to ally with some mighty Germanic general to overthrow the puppet-emperor in Ravenna and his master; than, to get rid of the German ally and to set up their own puppet in Ravenna; and the last step: realize that they don't need a puppet and replace the office of emperor with the consuls.

That *just* requires the following:

1) Allying with one of the Germanic tribes without being dicovered.

2) Succesfully getting rid of the Germanic general without risking a sack of Rome.

3) Defending against new emperors coming to take jop vacancy.

4) Defending against the Germanic tribes in the north.

5) Defending against the East Roman Empire and its absolutist government.

A late Roman republic (consisting of Italy and southern France) would be a great idea for a TL, though I don't know if such a thing is going to last long.
 
There's two excellent documentaries about Marcus Aurelius's attempt to enact this exact change you're suggesting - everything is Commodus's fault, really.

Fall_of_roman_empire_%281964%29.jpeg
Gladiator-Poster.jpg


:D
 

No problem, you're posts are well formatted, so they aren't painful to read, and I like information.

You're very right about trying to see how they would have viewed it, I guess I'm just really bad at doing so haha.

I understand that they never thought of the Republic as gone, but I do think they could have wanted a reformation of the Republic.

Yea, I know they were heavily romanized, but just like the Hellinized world ended with a very different culture than Greece, I do think a Roman state that had a "pure" line of Roman Culture would be very different (obviously, it would still be influenced by other cultures, but to a lesser extent).


haha yea, if it is even possible, it would be damn hard, but then again plenty of very difficult things happened in history.

Edit: this is basically what I want to happen :p
OKzGcG5.jpg
(ignore the rest of the world)
 
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Well, the Senate in the West always maintained a sort of sentimental Republicanism, and as the Empire declined they became comparatively more important (because as the distant provinces slipped away, their estates came to make up a larger and larger proportion of the Empire). So, it's not entirely impossible that they might seek to get rid of the Western Emperor and set themselves up as the governing body. They might even do better than the Emperors had: one of the problems with the late Western Empire was widespread tax evasion on the part of the magnates meaning that the Empire could never raise sufficient numbers of soldiers, but if said magnates are in charge they should (at least in theory...) be more willing to pay their taxes.

Maybe the best POD would be to have an underage/insane Emperor, with the Senate stepping in to fill the power vacuum. Then over time this arrangement becomes permanent, and eventually the position of Emperor is allowed to lapse.
 
The Senate did grow in prestige and influence in the late empire and particularly during Ostrogothic rule, so there's a start. The main problem is that you need to control the army, and said army is getting increasingly Germanic with each passing winter.

IMHO, the most likely solution would be to have the eastern Emperor as nominal overlord, but with the Senate calling the shots in Italy and Carthage (without which they're screwed). Even so, it would be an incredibly unstable arrangement

This seems to be common wisdom on AH.com, but I don't see what justification there is for it. Yes, controlling Africa would be helpful, but Italy on its own ought to be a perfectly adequate basis for a state (and, indeed, was under the Ostrogoths).
 
Well, the Senate in the West always maintained a sort of sentimental Republicanism, and as the Empire declined they became comparatively more important (because as the distant provinces slipped away, their estates came to make up a larger and larger proportion of the Empire). So, it's not entirely impossible that they might seek to get rid of the Western Emperor and set themselves up as the governing body. They might even do better than the Emperors had: one of the problems with the late Western Empire was widespread tax evasion on the part of the magnates meaning that the Empire could never raise sufficient numbers of soldiers, but if said magnates are in charge they should (at least in theory...) be more willing to pay their taxes.

Maybe the best POD would be to have an underage/insane Emperor, with the Senate stepping in to fill the power vacuum. Then over time this arrangement becomes permanent, and eventually the position of Emperor is allowed to lapse.

Yea, that sounds like it may be the most possible solution due to the lack of public desire to return to full republicanism

About Africa, I think the thinking is that at the time, Africa was the empire's breadbasket, where Italy was failing at producing enough food.
 
I understand that they never thought of the Republic as gone, but I do think they could have wanted a reformation of the Republic.
Maybe with a Senate that continues functioning with an earlier fall of Rome in the IIIrd century...

That's wild tought, but you'd likely see a huge political division without clear imperial succession as it happened with ERE with having instead something like several "dux"*-led Roman states along or preceeding Romano-Barbarian kingdoms.

It's likely that Senate would keep functioning, and without the political and identitarian role played by the pope ITTL (In This TimeLine), Roman people would still keep being largely identifying itself trough municipal institution.

Let's assume that the post-Imperial Italian state is more centered on Milan or another city than Rome, and is relatively hostile to senatorial elites. With a right context (alliance with an opponent of this Italian state, for exemple) you could see a revival of SPQR as an independent entity (but more or less limited to Rome's and its immediate countryside) with a popular support (while it would certainly be lead and at the benefit of urban elites)

How long it would last is anybody guess (critically with such vague context), but basically it points what's necessary IMO.

- Strong identitarian role of the Senate for Roman population
- No clear imperial successor
- Rome becoming politically secondary and untied to regional hegemony to think itself as one.

* Yeah, I know it's something I regularly propose for earlier fall of Rome during the IIIrd century.

Yea, I know they were heavily romanized, but just like the Hellinized world ended with a very different culture than Greece
More so, actually. Hellenization was, roughly speaking, about Hellenic culture being sur-imposed on different cultures : Celtic, Syrian, Etruscean, Egyptian, etc.
Safe exceptions (and these really happened during Roman rule, as in Anatolia), it didn't went as an acculturation.

That's what happened, tough, with regions conquered by Rome, and even more so with peoples and groups that settled within accultured regions.
You certainly had much, much more difference between a Syrian and a Greek from Syria, than between a Frank and a Gallo-Roman.

I do think a Roman state that had a "pure" line of Roman Culture would be very different (obviously, it would still be influenced by other cultures, but to a lesser extent).
I must admit, I'm not too sure what you're describing.

Roman culture ceased to be "pure" as soon Rome went out of Latium : it collided with different cultures, languages, civilisations and while it largely romanized them, it certainly knew a lot of influences (the most obvious being the hellenic influence).
Eventually, I think you had too much of not only non-"purely" Roman influences but as well regionalisation that we can still speak about such thing.

Now, I don't want to derail the thread too much, so let's see about a lesser "Germanisation" of Western Europe (it would still happen, would it be trough the presence of migrants or deported peoples in western Romania, even without full fledged conquest. And giving the moves of populations, you can bet you'd have a lot of Barbarians within Romania)

Eventually, I'm not sure it would be that distinct in a first time : Late Antiquity structures largely remained intact on Romano-Barbarian states, and even more so in Eastern Roman Empire.

As it would involve important PoDs, and large butterflying, it's hard to say what would exist, but it's true that several features (that were less direct consequences than indirect) wouldn't appear : politically, the most obvious would be the absence of the mix between territorial beneficii and political clientelisation (that gave way in the VIIIth/IXth to feodalisation).

A more mediterranean focused Europe, meaning a societal development more along old trade roads for what matter Barbaricum (and no consequences of the huge mess of the Vth, such as Scandinavia going downhill); more urban** based political power, fiscal redistribution (trough imperial "liberality") allowing preservation of direct trade and political links...

** Roughly so. It's not like urban elites didn't already moved to countryside since the IIIrd century. But you'd make them returning at least periodically so.

I don't think that's really compatible with a return of "Republicanism" in Rome : more successful the imperial structures, even less likely the need to replace it.

About Africa, I think the thinking is that at the time, Africa was the empire's breadbasket, where Italy was failing at producing enough food.
That, but it could have been taken trough trade. What mattered was eventually its fiscal capacity, that remained largely intact, for imperial policies.
I'd disagree there with Fabius there : while Italy was enough to make Ostrogothic state functioning (especially with Sicily), imperial ambitions are hard to fund, especially large armies needed for basic interventionism.
 
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Pure isn't the right word obviously, but I couldn't think of a better one. I just mean a nation where the roman culture never ceased to be the prevalent culture. It would still be heavily influenced by migrations; however, the influence of the Roman culture would be even stronger than it was in history. (for example, would Latin still die? (side note: what would be the scientific language if it didn't))

With a more Mediterranean focused Europe, would there still be as much a drive to find new trade routes leading to the New World? I'd assume if Byzantium still falls than yes, but the Republican Rome may try to support it.

I'm not really sure where it's incompatible with republicanism ( you say because the imperial structures are more successful, but I thought you were talking about a Roman Republic that survives)

I'm not really proposing a very interventionist Rome, just one that survived, so perhaps Africa isn't necessary.
 
I just mean a nation where the roman culture never ceased to be the prevalent culture.
Well, Roman culture never really ceased to be the prevalent culture after the fall of WRE. Not only linguistically in former WRE (Germanic languages simply didn't have any chances in Gaul or Spain, and even less Italy), but as well politically and culturally (trough Christianisation, for exemple) so up to ERE (for obvious reasons).

I'm sorry if I'm particularly obtuse there, but for all intents, post-imperial states and ERE were states with a prevalent (late) Roman culture from what I gather.

It's probably easier if I'd asked you, what's "more" Roman, or "prevalent" for you? (At least I'd look less understanding-challenged)

(for example, would Latin still die? (side note: what would be the scientific language if it didn't))
Latin would certainly not be widely used : Classical Latin was the language of elites and not even their only one.
Even Cicero used Vulgar Latin privately when it was at least as different as, say, King James Bible's English and XXIth American English.

The distinction only grew with time, and at some point romance speeches would have been too different from Classical Latin to be even remotly mutually understable.

You may have ended with something similar between scholarly Arabic, and Arabic languages : several distinct languages with a common origin and one scholar, written language.
I agree, though, that the differenciation, with a lasting direct connection, would have taken more time.

With a more Mediterranean focused Europe, would there still be as much a drive to find new trade routes leading to the New World?
Butterflies are too huges for that I could say anything really sensible.
Eventually, it would have been harder and harder ignoring a whole landmass with technological advance, IMO.

What may happen would be a lesser societal/political development of Western Africa, at the benefit of Eastern Africa with the maintain of old trade roads. Meaning *maybe* a delayed tentative to reach for Sudanese trade (which was the prime reason of Portuguese and Castillan expeditions), but it can turn otherwise easily with suchpossible consequences.

I'm not really sure where it's incompatible with republicanism ( you say because the imperial structures are more successful, but I thought you were talking about a Roman Republic that survives)
What we call Republican Rome was, really, becoming more and more inneffective and politically rotten.
"Monarchical Roman Republic" took its place for quite good reasons, and it can be safely said that late Republic was pregnant with it.

For these reasons, and a more or less "monarchical" take on Romania, any "Republican" attempt would be largely influenced by the latter form of the Roman Republic (the Empire). Giving, however, you wanted a Republicanism that would have been develloped specifically against imperial power, you have to discredit it as much as humanly possible.

IMO, giving that everything that happened between the Ist and Vth century didn't managed to do this (if something, it only get strengthened), you have to make Rome the pushing-ball of the creation and make emperors so tragically ineffective that a good part of what made the Empire would be lost or at the very least, not desirable.

As the roots of Roman Republicanism, strictly speaking, were about identification with the city of Rome institutions (for a Gallo-Roman, for exemple, Romanity was expressed trough either the curiae of his own cities, or trough imperial politics*) in Antiquity or Middle Ages, I'd think plausible to estimate that it could be the case as well ITTL.

Imperial collapse on steroids and identitarian attachment from the people of the city, eventually seems to me the most workable situation. There can be other that I missed, but giving the hard premise you gave us...

Now, does that means that a Roman Empire living on in some form in spite of the IOTL crisis couldn't have gave birth eventually to what we'd call a republican regime at the scale of the Roman State? It would be silly to argue something like that, and I hope I didn't gave this impression.

But, in the timespan considered (as you put it "as it's crumbling"), it's going to be hard and along what we know of it.

*Really roughly speaking, of course. It was more complex than I depict it, but the city of Rome proper became more and more irrelevant to Romanity with time

I'm not really proposing a very interventionist Rome, just one that survived, so perhaps Africa isn't necessary.
I think that it wouldn't have been that easy : a Roman state in Italy (or claiming the political succession) would still be politically driven to take back at least part of its territory. After all, it's more or less what emperors largely stuck in the peninsula as Majorian attempted.
 
Yea, that sounds like it may be the most possible solution due to the lack of public desire to return to full republicanism

About Africa, I think the thinking is that at the time, Africa was the empire's breadbasket, where Italy was failing at producing enough food.

Without Africa the city of Rome itself would (and indeed did) shrink in size, but Italy as a whole seems to have carried on alright after the Vandals took over Carthage.
 
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