Roman Constitutional Reform

GdwnsnHo

Banned
I'm no great expert on the third century crisis, however after such a crisis it would the perfect time to institute constitutional reform. An alternative moment may be if Trajan/Hadrian had the foresight.

Now historically the Tetrarchy was put in place, but I was curious as to what opinions some of the more knowledgeable people on the board had regarding an idea I had. Rather than the Tetrarchy, instead have a constitution taking the ideas of a consulship and setting up a series of "Consuls" and the "High Consul"/"Emperor".

With the first Consuls appointed by Diocletian, the other Consuls would be selected by a Senate of the Consulate (To give them a name) - which can be rejected by the High Consul (perhaps a limited number of times).

Collectively when a High Consul dies (the first being Diocletian) the sitting Consuls sit to elect from their number a replacement. If there is a tie (the numbers may change if the empire expands) then the deciding vote is cast by the new Consul.

The Consuls would have ultimate economic and military authority, but only in their Consulate, with the defence of their external borders being a major focus. Another focus would be to expand the Emperor in their 'Mandate' as dictated when a Consulate is determined, as well as to support neighbouring Consulates when defending. When a ordered to support another Consul or to assist in the creation of a new Mandate defined by the High Consul, they must also support its establishment.

Initially the split would be as follows :-

1) A Western Consulate based in Hispania, Gaul and Britannia - responsible for the Rhine Frontier and the Pict border. Their mandate is essentially complete.

2) A Central Consulate based in Africa, Italy, Illyria and Pannonia - responsible for the Alpine and Pannonian Frontier. Their mandate is essentially complete

3) An Eastern Consulate based in the E.Balkans, Anatolia, Syria and Palestine (notably not Egypt) - responsible for defending the Danube, Caucasian and Eastern frontiers. Probably the wealthiest, and most burdened Consulate, but has the support of both the Greater Italian and Egyptian Consulates - it does have a mandate to divide the desert territories of the Middle East with the Egyptian and a future Mesopotamian Consulate. I imagine Diocletian would make himself Consul here.

4) A Southern Consulate based in Egypt with a Mandate to expand south along the Red Sea and the Nile - encompassing Abyssinia, Nubia, Arabia Felix and modern Oman. Whilst initially small, this consulate
has the most 'Mandate' to fulfil.

Now I'm well aware that I've not espoused any reasons why this would happen, I was mainly curious if people thought that this would be

a) Politically possible, whilst the ideas of Consuls and Govenors aren't new ideas - this does build upon them dramatically - and will it get any support from any power base.

b) Effective, whilst the two western Consulates have shorter borders to be responsible for, the eastern does not - and I'm not sure if the addition of the E.Balkans balances out Egypt - would these divisions lead to a stronger Empire in the long term?

c) Extensible - Assuming the best, I've mentioned the idea of establishing new Consulates as the Empire expands, accepting that there are limited to how far the Empire could expand without a drastic improvement in logistics, transportation and communications - could this expansion of Empire by Mandate work?

In advance, thanks for any thoughts!
 
Im not gonna comment on the feasability of this all, but I want to point out something that's just not gonna happen:

-It would be entirely irrational to have a consulate controlling an active border region and a prosperous far away province from an administrative efficiency standpoint. They have to focus all their energy on the border regions and governing a prosperous province far away at the same time just doesn't make much sense from an administrative efficiency point of view-such as the consulate controlling Africa and Pannonia-it just would be incredibly innefficient and ineffective and wouldn't make much sense to implement.


On the other hand, it would make a lot of sense if you had one controlling Italy and the Balkans, one controlling Gaul and Britain, one controlling Spain and Africa, and one controlling the eastern provinces (being the largest, this could be the one controlled by the head).

Another alternative is to split it up largely the same way it was during the third century crisis-one consulate controlling Spain, Gaul, and Britain, another Italy, Africa, and the Balkans, and another the east. A third alternative would be to split it up a la Diocletian's tetrarchy but with the consul system.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
Im not gonna comment on the feasability of this all, but I want to point out something that's just not gonna happen:

Thank you :)

-It would be entirely irrational to have a consulate controlling an active border region and a prosperous far away province from an administrative efficiency standpoint. They have to focus all their energy on the border regions and governing a prosperous province far away at the same time just doesn't make much sense from an administrative efficiency point of view-such as the consulate controlling Africa and Pannonia-it just would be incredibly innefficient and ineffective and wouldn't make much sense to implement.

On the other hand, it would make a lot of sense if you had one controlling Italy and the Balkans, one controlling Gaul and Britain, one controlling Spain and Africa, and one controlling the eastern provinces (being the largest, this could be the one controlled by the head).

Another alternative is to split it up largely the same way it was during the third century crisis-one consulate controlling Spain, Gaul, and Britain, another Italy, Africa, and the Balkans, and another the east. A third alternative would be to split it up a la Diocletian's tetrarchy but with the consul system.

Hmm, You make a damn good point - I made them that sort of size because I thought it would be best to ensure all of the provinces had a sizeable pool of manpower and resources, but assuming that the consuls aren't purposely subversive in the Hispanian/African Consulate, I suppose the fear isn't so valid as to reduce the efficiency of their purposes. It just means that the Hispanian/African Consulate is potentially the prosperous support for the border consulates.

I don't think I'd go for the Tetrarchys division, they work well when 2 members are subordinate, but when all are essentially equal under a constitutionally powerful leader it renders the Balkan and the Gallo-Brittanic consuls weaker - unless they were granted mandates. Possible, but.. it defeats what I'd see as a central point - trying to set up regions so that they would be able to balance each other out and leave no obvious circumstance for usurping the throne as the Romans were so fond of doing, form as early a point as possible. I only made Egypt an exception to prevent the east from being too powerful - it is already the wealthiest at this point - it needs local competition, and Egypt serves that quite well, especially if it fulfilled my prescribed mandate.

I'm tempted to draw up a map of Consuls and Mandates, but I'm probably going to do so for the smaller divisions you suggested. Figuring out how the hell this could happen in an ATL.... I'll.... hold off on that
 
Thank you :)






I don't think I'd go for the Tetrarchys division, they work well when 2 members are subordinate, but when all are essentially equal under a constitutionally powerful leader it renders the Balkan and the Gallo-Brittanic consuls weaker - unless they were granted mandates.
Not necessarily-a large portion of the legions are on the Rhine and Danube frontiers. That in itself should make them pretty strong, though it makes the consul governing the peaceful provinces at a disadvantage for lack of an experienced army.

Possible, but.. it defeats what I'd see as a central point - trying to set up regions so that they would be able to balance each other out and leave no obvious circumstance for usurping the throne as the Romans were so fond of doing, form as early a point as possible. I only made Egypt an exception to prevent the east from being too powerful - it is already the wealthiest at this point - it needs local competition, and Egypt serves that quite well, especially if it fulfilled my prescribed mandate.
That makes sense. Though, realistically, I don't think a system of having four equal rulers is going to last very long before they all start jockeying to cut out the other and form temporary alliances between themselves. This was sort of prevented in the tetrarchy as long as you had a Diocletian like figure as the head honcho-but Diocletian's mistake was making him and Maximian step down at the same time, rather than have him step down, Maximian take his position, and continue in that cycle from there.

I'm tempted to draw up a map of Consuls and Mandates, but I'm probably going to do so for the smaller divisions you suggested. Figuring out how the hell this could happen in an ATL.... I'll.... hold off on that
It would be very interesting to see how it plays out. The Third Century Crisis offers a lot of free room to design a unique system, which can't really be said about any other period in Roman history save from the end of the republic.
 
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