Alright, time for my first Roman TL which will probably see a surviving Roman Empire. I used some OTL names and the Christian year count for simplicity (I hope no one is annoyed by this). I hope everybody likes it and that I didn't over do it.
It was in the aftermath of the rebellion in the province of Illyricum that commander in Germania Varus died of a case of pneumonia. Considering the performance of Germanicus Julius Caesar – the adoptive son and heir of Augustus’s heir Tiberius – in crushing the Illyrian rebellion (caused by the harshness of Roman tax collectors), Augustus made him the new commander in the border provinces of Germania in 9 AD. While in summer camp on the Weser, Germanicus heard of a planned rebellion instigated by Arminius who had rallied a number of Germanic tribes that were traditionally anti-Roman. The young, ambitious Germanicus aimed to curry favour with Augustus and wanted to crush the uprising and conquer Germania. Segestes, who was the father of Arminius’s wife and opponent of their marriage, warned Germanicus and suggested him to arrest the tribe leaders. Germanicus heeded the advice and arrested a number of leaders (although Arminius escaped) while sending out scouts and skirmishers to the Teutoburg forest where the Germans were waiting in an ambush, but now with a decapitated leadership. Germanicus quickly received confirmation of the ambush and decided to spring a trap for Arminius instead, using all available troops which were three legions, three cavalry units (alae) and six cohorts of auxiliary forces. Germanicus’s troops surrounded the forest the Germans were in, unsuspecting of what had happened at this moment. He burnt down the forest and the tribes spread out in panic without a coordinated leadership and their troops were picked off by Germanicus’s legions who left few survivors. Arminius himself was taken prisoner and taken back to Rome where he was displayed in a victory parade, to the amusement of the Romans and his own humiliation which induced him to commit suicide in his cell. The Germanic tribes were scattered in this battle.
Germanicus continued battling in a victory streak and pursued the chaotically retreating Germans who were now also leaderless and fighting among each other in an internal power struggle. Several aspiring tribe leaders sought support from the Romans which allowed Germanicus to play them apart in a “divide and conquer” strategy like Caesar had done before him in Gaul. In a year of intense campaigning, Germanicus uprooted and defeated the last vestiges of resistance in the territory between the Weser and Elbe rivers, but also showed himself lenient to the defeated tribes in an effort to win their hearts and minds. By the autumn of 10 AD, the land between the Weser and the Elbe was conquered with only a few very small restive regions remaining to be subdued. Germanicus stood triumphant and added the territory up to the river Elbe to the Empire as the province of Germania Magna.
He further campaigned in Raetia, Noricum and Pannonia with the assent of Emperor Augustus and consolidated the Roman Empire’s power there. He quickly built a glorious career for himself and had an enormous reputation by the time he returned from his campaign in Cappadocia and Commagene which were Roman provinces by 12 AD. It was further enhanced by his victory in Dacia which added another two provinces to the empire: Dacia and Sarmatia Minor on the Danube and the Carpathians respectively, bringing the border to the Dniester. It was around this time that his adoptive father predeceased him in a riding accident which automatically made Germanicus the heir apparent to Augustus’s throne. He certainly already had a reputation big enough to fit with the imperial purple, having enlarged the empire with four new provinces. The provinces were consolidated with rebellions easily being subdued by brute force or Germanicus’s latent diplomatic talent. Germanicus was also interested in technology mainly in Vitruvius’s work on the aeolipile with which he came into contact upon his return in Rome. It was a primitive steam turbine which could be used to open and close doors. It was the first primitive steam engine although it would take metallurgy centuries to advance to the levels needed for a useable model for large scale use. In the meantime, Germanicus employed some in his house. His conquest of Germania also stimulated an invention. The soil of Germania Magna was very heavy and moist and couldn’t be cultivated with normal ploughs. It inspired settlers to use the heavy plough which was introduced after a Chinese invention like it arrived in the empire through trade via Parthia.
Thanks to his merits, it was no surprise that Germanicus succeeded Augustus upon the latter’s death in 14 AD as Germanicus Julius Caesar Augustus, the new Caesar at the age of 30. Despite his reputation as a warlord, the beginning of his reign started with peace and he quickly made himself popular by announcing one hundred days of games in honour of his predecessor and also by organizing bread handouts to the impoverished proletariat of Rome. At the same time, he maintained Augustus’s harmonious relationship with the Senate. He usually convened with them regularly and conferred with them on important issues although he de facto had the strongest influence and the support of the legions as well as the praetorian guard after he had given them a five percent rise in salary. Due to his mannerisms and attitudes towards the common soldier, he was already popular and his position was boosted. He gained lasting popularity among the proletariat by handing out plots of land in the newly added provinces of Germania Magna and Cappadocia which needed to be Romanized and integrated into the empire. The good start of his reign was disturbed as the Parthian Empire on the eastern frontier was rumbling again under not very pro-Roman ruler Artabanus II who was bent on taking puppet Armenia from the Romans and secure his north-western frontier for conquests further into Roman Asia. Germanicus’s successes bothered him and he wanted to nip future Roman threats in the bud. He therefore invaded Armenia in spring of 20 AD. He wanted to establish it as a buffer state and defeated the troops of the local puppet ruler, enraging Germanicus.
Germanicus mustered a large force, including a lot of (archery)cavalry which he had spent training to counter a possible Parthian threat. Six Roman legions, four Roman cavalry units (alae) and ten cohorts of auxiliary forces entered Armenia and encountered Parthian forces under Artabanus II himself near Tigranocerta in June. Germanicus employed a tactic very similar to the one Hannibal at used at Cannae: a double envelopment. The battle took place in a valley which prevented the Parthian force from surrounding the Romans, forcing the Parthians to attack frontally. They attacked the Roman centre – which seemed weak and mainly consisted of cavalry – head-on with their own cavalry upon which Germanicus ordered his infantry to conduct a fighting retreat. At the same time, his left and right wings, which were mainly cavalry, snapped shut around the Parthian force. At the same time auxiliary forces came in to bolster the centre of the Roman army. The Parthians were surrounded and the Roman army massacred them in the Battle of Tigranocerta which earned Germanicus another honorary title: Parthicus. He followed upon his success by invading Mesopotamia while the Parthian Empire was left leaderless with Artabanus being dragged all the way to Rome for a victory parade after which he would rot in prison for another decade or so, causing a power vacuum in Parthia which led to an internal power struggle.
Germanicus’s campaign in Mesopotamia continued until 26 AD and he inflicted several more devastating defeats, besieging more cities, fighting a number of battles and was honoured as the new Alexander the Great. He continued from Tigranocerta to the ruins of Nineveh where he established a new city called Germanicia where he set up camp. The regional governor, one of the usurpers of the Parthian throne, attacked the Roman camp with 10.000 men and was repelled successfully despite the element of surprise. In early 21 AD, after setting up a number of encampments to consolidate, Germanicus moved on to Assur, the traditional Assyrian capital. After a few more years, the successor of Artabanus II who had styled himself Artabanus III, requested peace from Rome as his empire was crippled by Germanicus’s victories. Armenia, Assyria and Mesopotamia were annexed as Roman provinces, moving the border to the Zagros mountains, which formed a much better and formidably defendable border, and to the Black Sea which brought the Romans in contact with Central Asia and the embryonic Kushan Empire which had grown to include all of Bactria. The Kushan Empire was quick to establish trade and diplomatic relations with Rome which provided it with money to raise armies and expand east and south. Around the same time, exiled pro-Roman former Parthian ruler Vonones I was re-established as a puppet ruler over a rump-Parthian satellite state with his capital in Ecbatana. The small kingdom of Colchis and the Bosporus Kingdom on the Crimean Peninsula were made client states to Rome.
Germanicus was honoured more than ever after this victory which had decisively weakened the empire’s strongest enemy, Parthia. Mesopotamia, with its highly productive agriculture and control of trade routes, was important and a centre for the Persian Empire and all its incarnations like the Parthian Empire. The rump-state that was left wasn’t able to challenge Rome anymore due to the loss of its economic, agricultural and demographic heartland. It was a boon for the Romans who had now added a centre of agriculture and trade to their realm and through the Persian Gulf they now had contact with the distant Indian and Chinese states who were classified as high standing cultures. Trade relations developed by sea and some diplomatic contacts were made although these powers generally ignored each other due to lack of interest, except for the aforementioned Kushan Empire which used Greek and Persian mercenaries to expand into the Hindu Kush. They henceforth functioned as the intermediary between Rome and the Chinese Empire under the renewed Han Dynasty and traded with both of made them, making them a powerful for a state of their size.
A Rome now freed of any serious threats entered a new period of stability with Germanicus being venerated, allowing him to consolidate his power further. It was a period of peace which would go uninterrupted for another ten years or so. Several Roman officials were awarded with lands in the east and were made responsible for organizing the new conquests, thus ensuring the support of a large part of the Senate. Germanicus also established a succession law which Augustus hadn’t done during his life time. Henceforth, every Caesar was obliged to appoint a successor at the very start of his reign and announce it to the Imperial Senate. His generals would expand the empire further to the Vistula River and the Carpathian Mountains during his long reign, a conquest stimulated by increasing agricultural activities in the northern regions due to the introduction of the heavy plough. Germania would see a large population increase in the second half of the first century AD because agricultural production would grow with the introduction of the heavy plough. Germania was growing toward self-sufficiency (which would make it less of a drain) and contributed to international trade with grain, timber, amber, iron ore and fur. Germania’s economic growth starting in the 40s and 50s also stimulated economic growth in northern Gaul and the province of Belgica as Germania traded with them. Trading around the entire North Sea and Baltic region expanded too, making it another economic hub (although the Mediterranean remained the heart of the empire). Ports arose in Germania as naval travel increased while the road network was expanded too. Much like Gaul, Germania was Romanized with Roman cities being established there. Very soon tribe leaders assumed Roman habits to fit in with the new elites and curry favour in Rome. Roman wealth through trade spread into Germania Magna which now reached up to the Vistula. By the end of the first century AD, Germania would be Romanized. This process went speedy due to a cultural mixing as Roman settlers arrived and due to the economic boom which encouraged Germanic leaders to make use of Roman trade routes to the Middle East, using the Dniester to get to the Black Sea and land routes in Anatolia. In 39 AD, a short break in the peaceful period was made when Germanicus subdued Britannia, making it another province by 42 AD although he didn’t follow up on his success and so Caledonia and Hibernia were left alone for now.
Germanicus died a peaceful death of old age in 60 AD at the age of 76 years. He died after a glorious reign of 46 years which had seen a lot of expansion for the empire and improvement for the people of Rome. Germanicus was succeeded by his grandson (his son had predeceased him due to his longevity) Nero Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Parthicus who would continue to rule a stable Roman Empire which was one of the mightiest states in existence already.
The Empire of Germanicus
Chapter I: The Conquest of Germania, the Parthian War and the Reign of Germanicus, 9 AD – 60 AD.
Chapter I: The Conquest of Germania, the Parthian War and the Reign of Germanicus, 9 AD – 60 AD.
It was in the aftermath of the rebellion in the province of Illyricum that commander in Germania Varus died of a case of pneumonia. Considering the performance of Germanicus Julius Caesar – the adoptive son and heir of Augustus’s heir Tiberius – in crushing the Illyrian rebellion (caused by the harshness of Roman tax collectors), Augustus made him the new commander in the border provinces of Germania in 9 AD. While in summer camp on the Weser, Germanicus heard of a planned rebellion instigated by Arminius who had rallied a number of Germanic tribes that were traditionally anti-Roman. The young, ambitious Germanicus aimed to curry favour with Augustus and wanted to crush the uprising and conquer Germania. Segestes, who was the father of Arminius’s wife and opponent of their marriage, warned Germanicus and suggested him to arrest the tribe leaders. Germanicus heeded the advice and arrested a number of leaders (although Arminius escaped) while sending out scouts and skirmishers to the Teutoburg forest where the Germans were waiting in an ambush, but now with a decapitated leadership. Germanicus quickly received confirmation of the ambush and decided to spring a trap for Arminius instead, using all available troops which were three legions, three cavalry units (alae) and six cohorts of auxiliary forces. Germanicus’s troops surrounded the forest the Germans were in, unsuspecting of what had happened at this moment. He burnt down the forest and the tribes spread out in panic without a coordinated leadership and their troops were picked off by Germanicus’s legions who left few survivors. Arminius himself was taken prisoner and taken back to Rome where he was displayed in a victory parade, to the amusement of the Romans and his own humiliation which induced him to commit suicide in his cell. The Germanic tribes were scattered in this battle.
Germanicus continued battling in a victory streak and pursued the chaotically retreating Germans who were now also leaderless and fighting among each other in an internal power struggle. Several aspiring tribe leaders sought support from the Romans which allowed Germanicus to play them apart in a “divide and conquer” strategy like Caesar had done before him in Gaul. In a year of intense campaigning, Germanicus uprooted and defeated the last vestiges of resistance in the territory between the Weser and Elbe rivers, but also showed himself lenient to the defeated tribes in an effort to win their hearts and minds. By the autumn of 10 AD, the land between the Weser and the Elbe was conquered with only a few very small restive regions remaining to be subdued. Germanicus stood triumphant and added the territory up to the river Elbe to the Empire as the province of Germania Magna.
He further campaigned in Raetia, Noricum and Pannonia with the assent of Emperor Augustus and consolidated the Roman Empire’s power there. He quickly built a glorious career for himself and had an enormous reputation by the time he returned from his campaign in Cappadocia and Commagene which were Roman provinces by 12 AD. It was further enhanced by his victory in Dacia which added another two provinces to the empire: Dacia and Sarmatia Minor on the Danube and the Carpathians respectively, bringing the border to the Dniester. It was around this time that his adoptive father predeceased him in a riding accident which automatically made Germanicus the heir apparent to Augustus’s throne. He certainly already had a reputation big enough to fit with the imperial purple, having enlarged the empire with four new provinces. The provinces were consolidated with rebellions easily being subdued by brute force or Germanicus’s latent diplomatic talent. Germanicus was also interested in technology mainly in Vitruvius’s work on the aeolipile with which he came into contact upon his return in Rome. It was a primitive steam turbine which could be used to open and close doors. It was the first primitive steam engine although it would take metallurgy centuries to advance to the levels needed for a useable model for large scale use. In the meantime, Germanicus employed some in his house. His conquest of Germania also stimulated an invention. The soil of Germania Magna was very heavy and moist and couldn’t be cultivated with normal ploughs. It inspired settlers to use the heavy plough which was introduced after a Chinese invention like it arrived in the empire through trade via Parthia.
Thanks to his merits, it was no surprise that Germanicus succeeded Augustus upon the latter’s death in 14 AD as Germanicus Julius Caesar Augustus, the new Caesar at the age of 30. Despite his reputation as a warlord, the beginning of his reign started with peace and he quickly made himself popular by announcing one hundred days of games in honour of his predecessor and also by organizing bread handouts to the impoverished proletariat of Rome. At the same time, he maintained Augustus’s harmonious relationship with the Senate. He usually convened with them regularly and conferred with them on important issues although he de facto had the strongest influence and the support of the legions as well as the praetorian guard after he had given them a five percent rise in salary. Due to his mannerisms and attitudes towards the common soldier, he was already popular and his position was boosted. He gained lasting popularity among the proletariat by handing out plots of land in the newly added provinces of Germania Magna and Cappadocia which needed to be Romanized and integrated into the empire. The good start of his reign was disturbed as the Parthian Empire on the eastern frontier was rumbling again under not very pro-Roman ruler Artabanus II who was bent on taking puppet Armenia from the Romans and secure his north-western frontier for conquests further into Roman Asia. Germanicus’s successes bothered him and he wanted to nip future Roman threats in the bud. He therefore invaded Armenia in spring of 20 AD. He wanted to establish it as a buffer state and defeated the troops of the local puppet ruler, enraging Germanicus.
Germanicus mustered a large force, including a lot of (archery)cavalry which he had spent training to counter a possible Parthian threat. Six Roman legions, four Roman cavalry units (alae) and ten cohorts of auxiliary forces entered Armenia and encountered Parthian forces under Artabanus II himself near Tigranocerta in June. Germanicus employed a tactic very similar to the one Hannibal at used at Cannae: a double envelopment. The battle took place in a valley which prevented the Parthian force from surrounding the Romans, forcing the Parthians to attack frontally. They attacked the Roman centre – which seemed weak and mainly consisted of cavalry – head-on with their own cavalry upon which Germanicus ordered his infantry to conduct a fighting retreat. At the same time, his left and right wings, which were mainly cavalry, snapped shut around the Parthian force. At the same time auxiliary forces came in to bolster the centre of the Roman army. The Parthians were surrounded and the Roman army massacred them in the Battle of Tigranocerta which earned Germanicus another honorary title: Parthicus. He followed upon his success by invading Mesopotamia while the Parthian Empire was left leaderless with Artabanus being dragged all the way to Rome for a victory parade after which he would rot in prison for another decade or so, causing a power vacuum in Parthia which led to an internal power struggle.
Germanicus’s campaign in Mesopotamia continued until 26 AD and he inflicted several more devastating defeats, besieging more cities, fighting a number of battles and was honoured as the new Alexander the Great. He continued from Tigranocerta to the ruins of Nineveh where he established a new city called Germanicia where he set up camp. The regional governor, one of the usurpers of the Parthian throne, attacked the Roman camp with 10.000 men and was repelled successfully despite the element of surprise. In early 21 AD, after setting up a number of encampments to consolidate, Germanicus moved on to Assur, the traditional Assyrian capital. After a few more years, the successor of Artabanus II who had styled himself Artabanus III, requested peace from Rome as his empire was crippled by Germanicus’s victories. Armenia, Assyria and Mesopotamia were annexed as Roman provinces, moving the border to the Zagros mountains, which formed a much better and formidably defendable border, and to the Black Sea which brought the Romans in contact with Central Asia and the embryonic Kushan Empire which had grown to include all of Bactria. The Kushan Empire was quick to establish trade and diplomatic relations with Rome which provided it with money to raise armies and expand east and south. Around the same time, exiled pro-Roman former Parthian ruler Vonones I was re-established as a puppet ruler over a rump-Parthian satellite state with his capital in Ecbatana. The small kingdom of Colchis and the Bosporus Kingdom on the Crimean Peninsula were made client states to Rome.
Germanicus was honoured more than ever after this victory which had decisively weakened the empire’s strongest enemy, Parthia. Mesopotamia, with its highly productive agriculture and control of trade routes, was important and a centre for the Persian Empire and all its incarnations like the Parthian Empire. The rump-state that was left wasn’t able to challenge Rome anymore due to the loss of its economic, agricultural and demographic heartland. It was a boon for the Romans who had now added a centre of agriculture and trade to their realm and through the Persian Gulf they now had contact with the distant Indian and Chinese states who were classified as high standing cultures. Trade relations developed by sea and some diplomatic contacts were made although these powers generally ignored each other due to lack of interest, except for the aforementioned Kushan Empire which used Greek and Persian mercenaries to expand into the Hindu Kush. They henceforth functioned as the intermediary between Rome and the Chinese Empire under the renewed Han Dynasty and traded with both of made them, making them a powerful for a state of their size.
A Rome now freed of any serious threats entered a new period of stability with Germanicus being venerated, allowing him to consolidate his power further. It was a period of peace which would go uninterrupted for another ten years or so. Several Roman officials were awarded with lands in the east and were made responsible for organizing the new conquests, thus ensuring the support of a large part of the Senate. Germanicus also established a succession law which Augustus hadn’t done during his life time. Henceforth, every Caesar was obliged to appoint a successor at the very start of his reign and announce it to the Imperial Senate. His generals would expand the empire further to the Vistula River and the Carpathian Mountains during his long reign, a conquest stimulated by increasing agricultural activities in the northern regions due to the introduction of the heavy plough. Germania would see a large population increase in the second half of the first century AD because agricultural production would grow with the introduction of the heavy plough. Germania was growing toward self-sufficiency (which would make it less of a drain) and contributed to international trade with grain, timber, amber, iron ore and fur. Germania’s economic growth starting in the 40s and 50s also stimulated economic growth in northern Gaul and the province of Belgica as Germania traded with them. Trading around the entire North Sea and Baltic region expanded too, making it another economic hub (although the Mediterranean remained the heart of the empire). Ports arose in Germania as naval travel increased while the road network was expanded too. Much like Gaul, Germania was Romanized with Roman cities being established there. Very soon tribe leaders assumed Roman habits to fit in with the new elites and curry favour in Rome. Roman wealth through trade spread into Germania Magna which now reached up to the Vistula. By the end of the first century AD, Germania would be Romanized. This process went speedy due to a cultural mixing as Roman settlers arrived and due to the economic boom which encouraged Germanic leaders to make use of Roman trade routes to the Middle East, using the Dniester to get to the Black Sea and land routes in Anatolia. In 39 AD, a short break in the peaceful period was made when Germanicus subdued Britannia, making it another province by 42 AD although he didn’t follow up on his success and so Caledonia and Hibernia were left alone for now.
Germanicus died a peaceful death of old age in 60 AD at the age of 76 years. He died after a glorious reign of 46 years which had seen a lot of expansion for the empire and improvement for the people of Rome. Germanicus was succeeded by his grandson (his son had predeceased him due to his longevity) Nero Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Parthicus who would continue to rule a stable Roman Empire which was one of the mightiest states in existence already.
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