The Good Twin Lives

Marcus Aurelius and 13 children, 8 of them sons and the only one to survive was Commodus. What if he'd had a bit more luck and he had a son survive who was a chip of the old block? A mildly to middling Romewank of course! :D

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164 A.D. – Commodus dies and his twin brother lives.

178 A.D. – Fulvus (means a tawny yellow so I assume he's blonde) marries Bruttia Crispina. OTL Commodus married her, but it was an arranged marriage so I see no reason it wouldn’t happen with Fulvus.

March 17th 180 A.D. – Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus becomes Emperor on his father’s death.

180 – Fulvus continues his father’s campaign, harrying the defeated tribes and setting up the new provinces of Markomannia and Sarmatia. However such Roman expansion and particularly the defeat of a Quadi army deep in Germania Magna by the praetor Tarutenius Paternus stirred the other tribes dwelling between the Rhenus and Albis (Elbe) to war lest they be next.

180-83 – And next they were. Had they joined the Marcomanni and Quadi earlier on victory would likely have been theirs. However those powerful tribes were a spent force at this point and the tribes of the interior were crushed between the Legions of the Rhine advancing eastward and those of the Danube advancing to the North and West under Fulvus.

183 – The tribes crushed, Fulvus reforms the province of Germania Magna, lost since the withdrawal of the Legions by Augustus after the defeat of Varus at the Teutoburg Wald.

Colonies of veterans are established and Legions once stationed on the Rhine and the Upper Danube, are now based in the three new provinces. Aside from keeping the locals down and protecting Roman settlers and merchants, they are kept busy building fortifications, roads, bridges, and all other accoutrements of Roman civilization.

184 – Fulvus returns to Rome with thousands of slaves and hostages, and a grateful senate named him Germanicus Maximus and a triumph was thrown in his honor.

185-86 – Fulvus toured Italia, Hispania, Gaul and Britannia. While in Britannia he contemplated the reoccupation of the Antonion wall. However, the local magistrates and generals persuaded him that the tribes between the Hadrian and Antonion walls were primitive and though violent, not a threat to Roman Britain nor worth conquering. During his tour, Fulvus was occupied with administrative duties, dispensing justices and overseeing the construction of large public works projects.

187 – Fulvus returned to Rome.

188-189 – Fulvus toured Dalmatia, Greece, Moesia, and Dacia.

190-93 – Fulvus returns to Rome. The Empire is straining under the financial burden of administration so much new and underdeveloped territory. The only solution that can be found is a campaign in the East to destroy the Parthians once and for all and seize the riches of Mesopotamia.

194 – Fulvus tours Anatolia and the Leavant as he prepares for his Parthian campaign.

195 – Fulvus advances down the Tigris with six Legions. The Parthian army is smashed, Adiabene overrun and the Parthian capital Ctesiphon sacked. Over 100,000 slaves and thousands of talents of gold and silver are taken.

196 – Fulvus lays siege to the fortress at Atra. Given the strength of the walls he is content to starve it into submission. An attempt by the Parthians to relieve the siege fails and the fortress eventually is forced to surrender due to hunger.

197 – After another attempted at a counterattack is thrown back by Fulvus, Vologases V is assassinated by a bitter noble and Parthia falls into a multisided civil war. With no one left to fight Fulvus declares victory and beings reorganizing the province of Mesopotamia and Assyria that Hadrian had abandoned. The fortress at Atra is repaired and construction of several new fortresses of similar strength is begun. Two new Legions are raised to aid in the garrisoning of the East, the 31st and 32nd.

198 – Fulvus tours Egypt, visiting Alexandria and paying his respect to the tomb of Alexander. While in Egypt he put to work many of the slaves gained in his Mesopotamian campaign to work repairing the old Nile to Red Sea canal built by Ptolemy, and repaired since by Trajan. It was becoming chocked with silt and unusable. Tolls were established at the port at Arsinoe in order to support the further upkeep of the canal.

199 – Fulvus returns to Rome where he receives a grand triumph and is awarded the name Parthicus by the Senate.

200 – On the 20th anniversary of his father’s passing, inspired by his father’s stoic ideals of universalism, Fulvus grants a great extension of Roman citizenship. All free men in the provinces of Rome that had existed at the time of his father’s coronation were granted full citizenship. This expanded the tax base and the recruiting base of the Legions. This of course exempted the new provinces of Markomannia, Sarmatia, Germania Magna and Mesopotamia, the inhabitants of which were understandably not entirely trusted yet. Those wishing for citizenship there would have to join the Auxiliaries.

201 – Fulvus discovers his 17 year old son Gaius, who had always seemed a bit off to him, has made it a habit of seducing and then strangling to death female slaves who work at the palace. As a man who has tried to live up to the high moral standards of his father his whole life, Fulvus is not amused and has him thrown off the Tarpeian rock. This left him with 4 young daughters (Lucilla 12, Domitia 10, Julia 9 and Faustina 7) and no clear heir. His wife, a vain and arrogant woman whom Fulvus blamed for their son’s poor upbringing eventually committed suicide two years later.

203 – Fulvus remarries but the union only begets three children, two sons who die in infancy and a daughter (Fabia).

206 – Lucillia is married to Decimus Licinius Maximus, a protégé of the Emperor.

214 – Maximus is adopted by the Emperor and declared his heir.

April 5th 222 – Fulvus (60) passes away and Decimus Aurelius Maximus inherits the throne. Having been a Consul, a Praetor of the Legions in Markomannia, and a governor of Mesopotamia, Maximus was well connected to both the Army and the Senate and viewed as a competent administrator and general. Thus his ascension to power proceeded with little difficulty.

224 – Maximus commenced a tour of the frontier, beginning in Germania and then proceeding down the Danube.

225 – While in Dacia, Maximus party is set upon by Roxolani raiders. They’re beaten off but this is a provocation that cannot be ignored.

225 –Decimus campaigns against the Roxolani. The Romans suffer an embarrassing reversal when a night attack manages to burn their supplies forcing them to retreat for the year.

226 – Despite this setback Maximus eventually manages to bring the Roxolani to battle, inflicting a decisive defeat. Maximus was not given long to celebrate his victory though. Word arrived of a major Sassanid invasion of Mesopotamia arrived.

Maximus sets off for Mesopotamia immediately, leaving his generals the unenviable task of mopping up any remaining resistance, pacifying the region and organizing it into the province of Roxolania. This took two years to accomplish and removed a deep salient into Rome’s borders between Dacia and Moesia Inferior and allowed the border north of the Lower Danube to be better garrisoned.

227-29 – Maximus arrived in upper Mesopotamia in time to find Ctesiphon captured and the former Parthian fortress at Atra under siege. Maximus successfully relieved Atra and in a grinding campaign finally managed to retake Ctesiphon driving a large portion of the Sassanid host into the Tigris River.

230-31 – Maximus sees to the restoration of order in Mesopotamia, the recruitment of reinforcements and raised a new legion, the 33rd, for a campaign against the merchant cities of the Arabian Red Sea coast. The increase in Roman-Indian trade in the last three decades has left them fat, rich and ripe for the picking. They quickly submit and yet another province is brought into the Empire.

232-37 – Having seen many impressive city walls in the East, Maximus decides that the capital of the world could not be overshadowed in this regard and a massive wall is begun construction. Taking fives years to complete the walls ran a circuit of 20 kilometers and is 30 feet high and 12 feet thick. To cut costs and time many existing structures were incorporated in the design.

238 – The Goths crossed the Danube into Moesia Inferior. The V Macedonica was bloodied and forced to retreat toward Tomis. However when reinforced by the XI Claudia the tide turned and the Goths were forced back across the Danube with significant losses. The Praetor of the XI Claudia, Quintus Seius Corvus rose to prominence due to his actions here.

239 – Corvus leads several raids into Gothic territory in order to punish the Goths for their aggression further burnishing his military reputation.

June 3rd 243 – Maximus dies unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 57.

His wife and two sons (aged 12 and 10) were assassinated the next day and Quintus Seius Corvus was proclaimed Emperor by the Legions of the Danube. The Legions in Germania quickly followed suit. The legions of the East were slower to signal their submission, but signal it they did. No doubt because of Corvus military reputation and the lack of any figure in the East who could rally all the Legions there to his cause as would be needed to challenge a man who controlled all of the west. The only general with the charisma and ability to do so had suddenly died after a short illness a year ago.

On the surface the reign of Corvus seemed a continuation of what had come before. Officials were appointed, men of merit promoted, republican traditions respected, taxes collected, infrastructure repaired and borders defended. No great reforms were made or rolled back, no major changes in criminal law passed. Yet Corvus weighed upon the minds of the people like no other Emperor had before; they were terrified of him and with good reason. People just disappeared, anyone who ever said anything negative about the Emperor just seemed to vanish whether they were competent or a fool, a great man or slave, in Rome or Anatolia. Corvus quickly built what is believed to be the most effective secret police force before the modern era. The number of his victims is believed to be in the thousands, and historians immediately after his death charged him with orders of magnitude more.

He was especially reviled by the Christians of the time. While the last three emperors had been tolerant, Corvus took offense to the Christain refusal to participate in the Imperial cult. Not an especially religious man, Corvus seemed to take this more as a personal affront and responded accordingly. Many prominent Christain leaders were thus among who vanished.

249 – Hostilities with the Sassanids were renewed when the Armenian royal family and much of Roman client state’s aristocracy was poisoned at a royal banquet. Quite coincidently a Sassanid invasion soon followed that overran the country and then advanced down through western Anatolia down into Syria where Antioch was besieged despite fierce resistance from the XV, XII, XVI, and IV Legions.

250 – Corvus landed in Judea and led the III and IV Legions to reinforce the above mentioned Legions and broke the Sassanids against the walls of Antioch. From there he harried them back across the Tigris and liberated Armenia.

251 – With the decapitation of the Armenian elite conveniently supplied by the Sassanids, Corvus took it upon himself to reorganize Armenia into a Roman province, granting himself the name Armenicus. Some historical critics after his death accused that he found out about the invasion ahead of time and ordered the poisoning himself knowing that the Sassanids would get the blame. Modern historians of course think such a thing highly improbable.
 
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