Third century crisis WI

So the best way to go about this would be to have a more successful Alexander Severus?

More or less. Barbarian invasion will still occur, but the empire might have an easier time containing the incursions.

Or, what if the Severans never take power? Caracalla increased the army's pay by like 50% or something, (which even though he probably did need to keep its loyalty is still a little overkill)?

Can't be helped. I recall one historian arguing that the service in the Roman army is getting less and less popular by the time the Severan dynasty came to power. If that is the case, you either accept a much smaller army or you increase the pay of the soldiers.

Another dynasty/Emperor would probably have done the same.
 
So the best way to go about this would be to have a more successful Alexander Severus?
Not necesserly. Actually what I have in mind is more close of Aurelianus or an Aurelianus-like emperor appearing maybe a bit earlier and sucessful in his reforms of the empire (like Dictolecian was).


Or, what if the Severans never take power? Caracalla increased the army's pay by like 50% or something, (which even though he probably did need to keep its loyalty is still a little overkill)?

Well, he needed the army loyalty. Severus said in his death's bed "Don't care about anything but the army". The emperors were stuck in thestruggles between senatorial elites and military and obviously needed more the support of these ones.
 
Not necesserly. Actually what I have in mind is more close of Aurelianus or an Aurelianus-like emperor appearing maybe a bit earlier and sucessful in his reforms of the empire (like Dictolecian was).
Do the reforms have to be like Diocletian's? (as far as the tetrarchy goes?)


Well, he needed the army loyalty. Severus said in his death's bed "Don't care about anything but the army". The emperors were stuck in thestruggles between senatorial elites and military and obviously needed more the support of these ones.

Yeah, but raising it 50%? That doesn't even seem like something Severus himself would do.
 
Returning to this thread, how early can you have the Third Century Crisis. After thinking about it more, I think an earlier, less damaging, third century crisis (obviously not being named the third century crisis because it won't be in the third century) would be more beneficial to the empire than having it happen when it did at the magnitude it did.
 
...any ways I could make the crisis "less hard" on the Empire?
Well, in my opinion, the crisis was surprisingly 'mild' on the Empire as it was in OTL.

One might think of a lot of ways the crisis would have gone much, much harder.
It would have been quite natural and even highly expected if the Roman Empire had been desentigrated or/and conquered by the surrounding neighbouring 'Barbarian' peoples.
As a matter of fact that is what had happened to all the empires before and that is what would happen a long time after the third century A.D.
The best usual average 'life expectancy' for any empire was about 200 years (give or take).
The Roman Empire seems to be a happy lucky rare exception to this universal historical rule. Instead of expected death in the III century A.D. it was reborn. Which was a sort of a miracle as I see it. The Romans tricked their fate once again :D
 
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I find it hardto believe that the Roman Empire was expected to disintegrate and collapse during that time. Sure it might have been expected to may e end up in multiple large roman states but those states themselves were not near collapse. I do t think the barbarian raids of the 3rd century were enough to overcome the empire.

Anyway, what qay could I make the crisis happen prior to the start of the great migrations?
 
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