Rome: an alternate history

Just as an idea for a Roman Empire that dominated the known world:
As far as I can tell, it came down to a few major points in history. Much as we call Augustus the mightiest and first Emperor, he also was the emperor that Rome began its decline in.

Now, there were three or four key flaws in Augustus' reign:
1. Augustus attempted throughout his reign to promote ideals that were considered old-fashioned, but he failed miserably.
2. Marriage to his wife Livia was, as far as I can tell, one of his worst mistakes. She married him perhaps with a bit of love, but she most likely married him to further her son's future and to advance her own.
3. Augustus selected Quintilius Varus to defeat the German tribes-- this was his worst failure. If he had selected a better general, his conquests might have been pushed farther into barbarian Europe.
4. This could tie into 1 and 2-- Augustus was unable to find a political heir suitable to the task of defending Rome and maybe pushing it further. Rome might have survived longer if Tiberius was not in charge.

Nonetheless, Augustus still did a fine job of ruling Rome, but I believe these factors tied into Rome's fall.
 
Just as an idea for a Roman Empire that dominated the known world:
As far as I can tell, it came down to a few major points in history. Much as we call Augustus the mightiest and first Emperor, he also was the emperor that Rome began its decline in.

I think you are overestimating the personal impact here. Not to mention that Rome under the first dynasties can hardsly be adequately described as 'in decline'.

Now, there were three or four key flaws in Augustus' reign:
1. Augustus attempted throughout his reign to promote ideals that were considered old-fashioned, but he failed miserably.

The Augstan reforms were hardly oldfashioned in substance. I personally suspect that his marriage laws and stiff traditionalism were mostly a facade to cover up for the wrenching change he imposed. I mean, he carefully refrained from reflexive conservatism anywhere it actually mattered.


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2. Marriage to his wife Livia was, as far as I can tell, one of his worst mistakes. She married him perhaps with a bit of love, but she most likely married him to further her son's future and to advance her own.
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I can't quite see how Livia has any bearing on the future of Rome. Certainly she may have been the conniving bitch that Suetionius paints, but even if, what lasting impact would it have?


3. Augustus selected Quintilius Varus to defeat the German tribes-- this was his worst failure. If he had selected a better general, his conquests might have been pushed farther into barbarian Europe.

To be fair to him, Varus was never chosen as a general. He was a lawyer, and his job was to administer law. Augustus considered the conquest finished at that time. But presumably, Augustus might have pushed a little farther. The problem is the cost - the military resources were stretched and the political situation didn't really allow for the kind of mobilisation that had been possible earlier. Of course, if Varus had handled Arminius better, the situation could have been saved, but even so, I can't quite see world domination resulting.


4. This could tie into 1 and 2-- Augustus was unable to find a political heir suitable to the task of defending Rome and maybe pushing it further. Rome might have survived longer if Tiberius was not in charge.

Here, I think, you're really on to something, but the person of Tiberius is a bit of a red herring. Tiberius was a pretty damned good emperor, all told. His successor actually was a disaster, of course, but interestingly, it didn't really matter. The problem is that Augustus wasn't able to esatablish a stable system of succession. I don't think anyone could have but that is the key point right there. It allowed the destructive politics of soldier-emperors later on.
 
Much as we call Augustus the mightiest and first Emperor, he also was the emperor that Rome began its decline in.

I thought Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix's character in Gladiator) was generally considered the emperor under whom things started to go downhill.
 
Just as an idea for a Roman Empire that dominated the known world:
As far as I can tell, it came down to a few major points in history. Much as we call Augustus the mightiest and first Emperor, he also was the emperor that Rome began its decline in.
Simply not true: Rome's decline did not begin until after the period of the "Good Emperors", and even then, it still took two centuries and strong external and internal pressure for the western Roman Empire to collapse. There's also the other side of this argument: it is thanks to Augustus that the Republic's decline was halted (even if it was just replaced by the principate, the principate was better in general): if not for Augustus, civil wars would have continued to ravage the Empire and it would have declined far more quickly and wouldn't have achieved the absolute hegemony it did IOTL.

Now, there were three or four key flaws in Augustus' reign:
1. Augustus attempted throughout his reign to promote ideals that were considered old-fashioned, but he failed miserably.
He did not fail miserably; he "imposed" certain conservative laws and was then rather lax in their application, because as carlton said, these reforms were more a way to placate the conservatives and traditionalists than it was any genuine attempt to turn back the clock socially.

2. Marriage to his wife Livia was, as far as I can tell, one of his worst mistakes. She married him perhaps with a bit of love, but she most likely married him to further her son's future and to advance her own.
She married the emperor: even if there was love involved, you can bet that foremost in her mind was the advancement of her son's career. All the same, she is not the main person responsible for the disastrous emperors that would follow (and neither was Augustus for that matter, but that will be covered in response to point 4)

3. Augustus selected Quintilius Varus to defeat the German tribes-- this was his worst failure. If he had selected a better general, his conquests might have been pushed farther into barbarian Europe.
Again, as carlton said, Varus was not actually a military appointment but an adminstrative one. Furthermore, the disaster at the Teutoberg forest was just as much a result of good planning and merciless execution on the part of the germanic tribes than it was naivety on Varus' part.

Keep in mind also that there was little chance for further expansion beyond Germania: not only was there no political will to push even further into barbarian territory, keep in mind that there were far more pressing matters militarily than pushing the border further north, chiefly, the constant Parthian threat in the east.

4. This could tie into 1 and 2-- Augustus was unable to find a political heir suitable to the task of defending Rome and maybe pushing it further. Rome might have survived longer if Tiberius was not in charge.

Nonetheless, Augustus still did a fine job of ruling Rome, but I believe these factors tied into Rome's fall.
This is simply not true at all: Augustus had infact found a suitable heir, two actually, his grandsons by Agrippa. If contemporary accounts can be trusted (and truth be told, they can't really considering all contemporary accounts are from his personal historians essentially), either one (whose names escape me right now...) would have been more than capable successors, and would have secured the Julian dynasty. Sadly, they both predeceased him, and so he was left with his eventual successor Tiberius and the resulting Julio-Claudian emperors.

Of course, again as carlton already pointed out, Tiberius has been vilified by historians but honestly speaking he was by no means a bad emperor, in fact before his retirement to Capri he was a very efficient and even austere emperor who avoided most of the excesses of his immediate successors. The problem with Tiberius is that he made a lot of enemies and when he left Rome he left the empire in the hands of incompetent and greedy cronies who abused their positions to enrich themselves and tarnished Tiberius' reputation as a result.

Caligula at first was a very promising Emperor, but he unfortunately went off the deep end 6 months in and became increasingly paranoid, which is what resulted in his assassination as the Roman elites feared another round of purges like the ones that occurred near the end of Tiberius' reign. Interesting anecdote: the oft-quoted proof of Caligula's madness, his desire to name his favorite horse consul, was basically slander propogated by the senatorial class he alienated: in truth, what happened was that Caligula, facing increasingly intransigent senators, decided to show them who the real power in the empire was and so threatened to name a horse consul, just to show them how much that office meant. He was killed for it.

And then there's Nero, the early empire's black sheep... he was a good emperor. I know it might be hard to believe, but he was neither stupid nor cruel, he was not paranoid or crazy, he was quite simply a good emperor who just so happened to have a taste for theatre. His rise to the throne was a bit... merciless (he murdered his half-brother Britannicus and tried to murder his mother once he was emperor), but he was an otherwise effective administrator, and he was no more at fault for the fire that ravaged Rome during his reign than the english monarchs were responsible for the great fire of London. Again, he was killed because he alienated the senatorial class.

So, to sum it up a bit more succintly: sorry, you're wrong on all accounts.
 

Neroon

Banned
Pretty much agree with the critics here.
My 2 cents: The grand mistake Augustus and also his competent successors made (the incompetent ones you cannot expect to have forsight) is that after the end of the Republic there was no institutional support mechanism keeping the system in balance.
What i mean is that it neither had a later European style feudal system nor a Ottoman or Chinese Style Civil Service administration. Well it actually had some of both but not as an institutionalized tradition. The Emperors rule always stood on and required the Pretorian Guard. That eventually that tail would be wagging the dog was inevitable. Some rival center of power to the Guard is something Augustus should have created (would have been more difficult for one of his successors to do for obvious reasons).
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
If Rome had been able to conquer Germania (say Augustus sends Germanius instead of Varus) and basically secure everything west of the Oder and the Carpathians (and probably reducing the Nordic chiefdoms into client states), I can see it being able to survive for a long, long time.

Granted, incursions from nomadic tribes might be able to upset things now and then, but I can see Rome being strong enough to survive them, just maybe with steppe dynasties on the throne for periods after the invasion (like the Yuan in China)

The only rivals to Rome would probably be some sort of TTL's version of a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and an Islamic Caliphate (which could potentiall take all of Rome's Asian and North African territories, but probably wouldn't cause a disintegration.)
 
I agree with the idea of an institutional support mechanism in the early imperial period. That is something that I tried to create in my TL and my ongoing book. I think with the right institutional setup, Rome could survive less competent rulers (or avoid most of them altogether). The key is definitely getting the emperor's legitimacy away from the Praetorian guard. The position needs to be legitimate in and of itself. Also I agree on the conquest of Germania, if more of central Europe could have been subjugated and perhaps colonized, Rome would have been in a much better position to resist barbarian incursions later.
 

Typo

Banned
Granted, incursions from nomadic tribes might be able to upset things now and then, but I can see Rome being strong enough to survive them, just maybe with steppe dynasties on the throne for periods after the invasion (like the Yuan in China)
There are more tribes to the east of Germany you know

The only rivals to Rome would probably be some sort of TTL's version of a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and an Islamic Caliphate (which could potentiall take all of Rome's Asian and North African territories, but probably wouldn't cause a disintegration.)
It wouldn't stop Rome from weaknening itself enough through civil wars for it to disintergrate under strain.
 
I agree with the idea of an institutional support mechanism in the early imperial period. That is something that I tried to create in my TL and my ongoing book. I think with the right institutional setup, Rome could survive less competent rulers (or avoid most of them altogether). The key is definitely getting the emperor's legitimacy away from the Praetorian guard. The position needs to be legitimate in and of itself. Also I agree on the conquest of Germania, if more of central Europe could have been subjugated and perhaps colonized, Rome would have been in a much better position to resist barbarian incursions later.

There was an institutional provider of imperial legitimacy - the army. The preaetorian guard is a bit of an anomaly, buit it only ever became decisive in a crisis (after Caligula's assassination, after Commodus' death). I strongly siuspect the emphasis placed on it is fue to the fact that it weas the military that senatorial historiographers interacted with (the uncouth bastards tramping through their living rooms making peremptory demands and at least potentially their bullies and executioners). For most of the Empire, the army polayed a similar role. The close ties between the emperor and the army were a matter of necessity at leastr as much as choice - an emperor who lost the support of the army was a dead man walking, and the public rituals of bonding looks to me like a very important element of government by theatre. Only the very topmost apex predators of Roman society could not consider this a constitutive element of their state. By the third century, you even had the legal theory to support it - 'Senate and People in Arms'.

As to Germany, I guess it is possible, but there are far too many imponderables involved. First and foremost, I can't see it being easy. Rome had a huge colonisation project on its plate already. Taking on Germany along with Gaul, Raetia, Moesia, Illyricum and Thrace might have been overstretch given how backwards the place was.

Assuming it works, it's likely that the tribes oif Scandinavia and east of the Elbe would take on the role of those east of the Rhine. Their incursions might be on a smaller scale, but they might just as easily not be. The mechanism in play - formation of öarge-scale organisations in interaction with the Empire - wouldn't really change. The Romans might use the Balts to keep an eye on the Alt-Goths the way they used the northern Germanic tribes to control the transrhenanian ones OTL.
 
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