Saving Rome (POD: Marcus Aurelius)

Yeah, dark ages might work for Britannia, but not for most of the rest of Europe. For example I dont see dark ages in Spain under the Visigoths.

Even if the WRE survive with a rest-territory of Africa and Italy, they would have hard times. German invasions of Italy will not stop. And so will new tribes coming from the East keep the pessure high. I doubt they can reconquer Spain soon, and Gallia against the Franks perhaps never. Britannia is out of scope anyways.

Therefore the WRE might be busy elsewhere and/or not strong enough, in order to help the ERE to secure Egypt and Syria in AD 630+. The WRE will rather face an arabian invasion of Africa soon afterwards like in OTL.

Well, feel free to design a more optimistic scenario. ;)

That's assuming that the Arab armies are powerful enough to defeat the Eastern Roman Army that isn't exhausted by years of constant warfare.
 
That's assuming that the Arab armies are powerful enough to defeat the Eastern Roman Army that isn't exhausted by years of constant warfare.

Why should the eastern army not be exhausted after 40 years of war against the Sassanids? Do you expect, that a small WRE fighting to survive in these bad times itself, could help the East?
 
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Perhaps I did. Do you mean, that the members of the english parliament had military power, because they have been feudal landlords with military? I guess you talk about the early House of Lords, don't you?

Unfortunately, feudalism is no option. Roman senators too were in the senate, because they had power. At least durimg the republic, and many of them still in early principate. This power was a civil power. They had a lot of clients, money and connections. A roman would say auctoritas & dignitas. Thats why they made it into the senate by elections and acceptance & support by other aristocrats. The consulares of the big families were the most powerful people of the world, until the civil war.

Well, 100-200 years later during Marc Aurels reign, the situation had changed. Most senators lost their power as a patron, because the super-patron emperor was overwhleming. And more and more the members of the senate were loyal buerocrats of the emperor without many clients. So in this time, the senators had no power before they entered the senate and afterwards, too.

But roman aristocrats had never their own private forces. Even if in the republic, they could activate loyal veterans and the loyality of legions to a single commander became a serious problem. But they always commanded an army on behalf of the republic or later on behalf of the princeps as a subcommander.

In late empire, there are some evolutions to feudalism with independent landlords with private armies. Even bigger armies, if these landlords are warlords, too. But not in early principate.

But perhaps i didn't get your point again.

Well, when a Roman had great wealth and connections, his wealth was always insignificant compared to the Emperor's (who could count all of Egypt, of course, as his personal estate), and their clients rarely extended much beyond the city itself. Put it this way: Emperors could, and often, did, totally ignore the will of the Senate, due to that disparity. But English monarchs needed the support of the members of Parliament to get anything done.

Can we disperse the wealth in the Empire enough to make the support of the Senators more essential?
 
Why should the eastern army not be exhausted after 40 years of war against the Sassanids? Do you expect, that a small WRE fighting to survive in these bad times itself, could help them in the East?

An Eastern Army which would not have had to exhaust itself in retaking Italy, bit by bit, and the added exertion of consolidating Africa...
 
An Eastern Army which would not have had to exhaust itself in retaking Italy, bit by bit, and the added exertion of consolidating Africa...

I would say, that the conquest of Italy was a a few generations earlier than 634. And even the defeat against the Lombards was decades ago.

The exhaustion was most probably caused by the most desatrous war the romans ever fought from 603 to 629. The Persians conquered Syria and Egypt. They even invaded and plundered Anatolia and sieged Constantinople, while the Awars did the same coming via the Balkan. It is a miracle, that the empire did not fall yet.

Btw, the Awars. Here is the next threat for the WREs northern italian border. Remember the East-Goths are in this TTL still in Pannonia or wherever, and also the Lombards are on their way to Italy.

But I have to admit, that I never dived that deep into the very late roman history. Very late history, because imho, Rome ceased to exist as an empire in 634. I know this date is disputed like any date. It is just my personal belief ;)
 
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Why should the eastern army not be exhausted after 40 years of war against the Sassanids? Do you expect, that a small WRE fighting to survive in these bad times itself, could help the East?

That war was a very long shot to happen to begin with,. Most wars, and there's no reason why with a pod so far back this would nt be the case, between the Sassanids and ere were nowhere beat the size, scale, and large movement of borders that this war was. And again, it only happened because of the unique circumstances surrounding Maurice and his death and the Persian king who's name escapes me. Even THEN, the Romans still almost stopped the Arab invasions at Yarmuk, and even then, the Byzantine forces in Egypt nearly salvaged the situation. We are talking almost ASB conditions that let the Arab forces have the amount if success they had , that 9/10 times would not be there.

Not to mention, you are assuming there is still a Muhammad, a Muhammad that turns to the profession of being a prophet nonetheless, still exists with a pod 230 years earlier.
 
I would say, that the conquest of Italy was a a few generations earlier than 634. And even the defeat against the Lombards was decades ago.

The exhaustion was most probably caused by the most desatrous war the romans ever fought from 603 to 629. The Persians conquered Syria and Egypt. They even invaded and plundered Anatolia and sieged Constantinople, while the Awars did the same coming via the Balkan. It is a miracle, that the empire did not fall yet.

Btw, the Awars. Here is the next threat for the WREs northern italian border. Remember the East-Goths are in this TTL still in Pannonia or wherever, and also the Lombards are on their way to Italy.

But I have to admit, that I never dived that deep into the very late roman history. Very late history, because imho, Rome ceased to exist as an empire in 634. I know this date is disputed like any date. It is just my personal belief ;)

The point is that, from the time of Justinian until the Arab invasion, the Eastern Empire was constantly being drained of resources to a greater degree than it could bear. First the reconquests, then the plague, which kept on popping in every so often, while the Avars and the Slavs were pushing in and totally disrupting the Balkans, and, of course, the Persians on the eastern frontier.

Now, with a Western Empire still running in some fashion, then its possible that there's enough relief that the East could actually focus enough energy on one of these problems that they aren't just playing whac-a-mole.
 
ok guys, please let me summarize this discussion, which gets a bit out of hands and offtopic.

The thread started with the OPs point about a better succession after Marc Aurels dead. Could this avoid usurpations as a main reason for the fall of the empire? Well, this just makes sense, if we believe that the 3rd century crisis was the beginning of the end.

In the further discussion we argued, that just another heir or a more stable succession model will not prevent usurpations. The reasons for usurpations are diverse. The political model of the principate is one reason, but also pressure due to internal issues (economical and social changes) and external threats (stronger Barbarians and Sassanids). And therefore, to avoid usurpations and the 3rd century crisis your alternate history has to start earlier than the era of the "Good Emperors by Accident".

Then the discussion went the other way around and a bit offtopic with the argument, that you could rescue the Roman empire later. That means, that the 3rd century crisis was not that detrimental and the empire of the 4th century was again strong, prospering and defensible. If you agree with the shock-theorists you just have to avoid some single events, in order to let the core of the WRE survive, which is at least Italy and Africa.

The point, I tried to make is, that it is not sufficient, that the WRE survives with the chance to grow again slowly in order to rescue the ancient world and avoid the so called dark ages. It is also neccessary, that the ERE survives as a real empire controling the orient. As long as the Mare Nostrum survives as the cultural hub of the ancient world, the ancient world survives. Or at least we can expect a smoother transition into a different mid-age. BTW, another option to rescue the ancient world is, that the muslims are more succesful and conquer Europe. But thats another story.

Now I played the advocatus diaboli in this threat, defending the pessimistic view. If we assume, that the WRE with Italy and Africa still exists in 476, it still meets some serious challenges:

- even if the Visigoths and Franks probably might stay where they are, there are a lot of other german tribes which might invade Italy. Think about the East-Goths in Pannonia and the Langobards and others north of the Alps. Also new steppe tribes will arrive like the Avars. And Africa is also under permanent attack by the Berbers and others.

- the WRE has to solve the problem with their overwhelming barbarian magister militum. One option is, to disempower and control them, like the ERE did. But due to the different social and political structure and situation I doubt this is possible.

- The second option is a german emperor. Well, we had something similar in OTL. Odoacer took over the reign over the rest of the WRE in 476. He did not ask for the title Augustus or Caesar, just for patricius. For the ERE this allowed the illusion, that Italy is still a province of the Roman Empire governed by a foederatus. Which was nothing new. Same with Theoderic the Great. If there was ever a german emperor of the WRE, it was he. Looking to his measures, he was better and more roman than the most emperors of the last century.

But again, he was not called Caesar. The ERE saw no need to appoint a western emperor, in order to just rule one province. And the East got just rid of their usurping german magistri. They were definately not interested in a german emperor in the West, also in order to prevent new ambitions in the East. I expect a war, if a german appoints himself emperor of the WRE.

- another problem is, that the WRE in the early 5th century ceased to exist as a state more or less. The emperor lost all the important social groups. The landlords did their own thing, trying to avoid taxes by all means. The same counts for the warlords. The soldiers were mostly foreigners loyal to their warlords. Even roman soldiers were loyal to their roman warlord and landlord and not to the empire or the emperor. The rural plebs and cities looked for safety and care by becoming clients of the landlords. The urban plebs in Rome lost any connection to the emperor in Ravenna. Therfore the emperor of the WRE has to rebuild something like a state from scratch.

So my point was, that the WRE will perhaps be too busy in stabilizing and defending itself in order to be any help for the East. That does not mean, that I don't believe, that the ERE could survive and beat the Arabs. Perhaps we could avoid the war with the Sassanids. Perhaps another miracle was close to happen by just changing one single event. Please, don't say Mohammed dies as a kid, thats too easy. Like the idea, that the WRE survives and everything becomes better is too easy imho.

Actually I like the idea of a surviving WRE in the 5th century and a surviving ERE in the 7th century. The world would be very different and a bit more ancient in the next 1000 years. However, I like the idea to change the roman empire earlier (1st cenury BC or AD) much more. Coming back to the OP, I guess the discussions show, that Marc Aurel and his successor are not that important. and the 2nd century is not the best point of time to change roman history.
 
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The point we are trying to make is it took extremely unique and near ASB conditions for the Arabs to be anywhere near as successful as they were. With butterflies from a POD over TWO HUNDRED YEARS earlier, those conditions will almost certainly not being there. The butterflies would spread to Arabia too, so the same conditions probably won't be in Arabia to begin with either.
 
On a related note to the original discussion:

Suppose Marcus Aurelius had to adopt someone to be his heir (Commodus dies of the plague or Marcus dies early). Who do we think would be the best candidates?

- Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus
Pretty much the most obvious choice, and many did offer him the throne.
- Avidius Cassius
Usurper, but only because he thought that Marcus Aurelius was dead.
- Didius Julianus
Bid for the throne after death of Pertinax, had a distinguished career before.
 
If Avidius Cassius doesn't mistake Aurelius for dead and mistakenly rebel, he's got the job I think. He had close ties with Aurelius' wife (he interpreted a letter from her that lead him to assume Aurelius was dead) and IIRC, was friendly with Aurelius too. He also controls the Syrian legions, so that's always something to factor in.
 
Another possibility: What if Marcus Aurelius designates a co-Emperor for Commodus? One of those responsible men, who might serve as a check on Commodus; after all, Lucius Verus was pretty hedonistic from accounts, and he managed not to ruin the Empire.
 
Another possibility: What if Marcus Aurelius designates a co-Emperor for Commodus? One of those responsible men, who might serve as a check on Commodus; after all, Lucius Verus was pretty hedonistic from accounts, and he managed not to ruin the Empire.

Unfortunately a co-emperor has not the power to serve as a check on the emperor in the principate, if you mean that this guy should control or tame Commdodus.
 
Unfortunately a co-emperor has not the power to serve as a check on the emperor in the principate, if you mean that this guy should control or tame Commdodus.

One could argue that Marcus Aurelius was able to tame Lucius Verus, who seems to have some serious flaws (though, also, some genuine talent).
 
One could argue that Marcus Aurelius was able to tame Lucius Verus, who seems to have some serious flaws (though, also, some genuine talent).

Yes, but according to Antoninus Pius testament and measures before his death, Marcus Aurelius was the emperor and Lucius Verus the co-emperor. This was a very special situation, because Antoninus inherited Lucius from Hadrian so to say. Antoninus changed Hadrians plan for succession actively this way.

But Commodus is the adult son of Marcus Aurelius. There was no need for a co-emperor. Actually nobody would understand such an appointment, in this case.
 
One could argue that Marcus Aurelius was able to tame Lucius Verus, who seems to have some serious flaws (though, also, some genuine talent).

The thing about Lucius Verres was that he was an amazing delegator. He wasn't very talented at anything himself, but he surrounded himself with extremely talented people and knew how to use them to do the important tasks for him.
 
I agree with all of the differences. Perhaps the ideal scenario for such a supposition would be for Marcus Aurelius to die before Commodus reached his majority. On his deathbed, the Emperor appoints a Co-Emperor.
 
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