Whatif Gordian III reigns 50 years as emperor

There was a Roman emperor, Gordian III, who either died in battle (easily butterflied) or was assassinated (harder but still rather easily to butterfly away) after having taken the throne at age 13 in in 238; he ruled 6 years and it seems like much of that was spent at war.

My question is, what if he lives? I was tempted to give him 60 years, but that would make him 73 and maybe getting a bit up there for the stress he'd be under if there was a lot of war. 50, however, puts him at age 63 which is an age when several emperors were just starting, and while old not ridiculously so for an emperor of those days.

This gives him lots of time and also allows Rome, which suffered a slump in the 3rd century, to avoid a period of a lot of assassinated emperors and instead allows him to gain favor with a lot of groups. Does he divide Rome a century early? Does he stabilize borders? Even try to establish buffer states? Would he continue to tolerate Cbhristianity as was done more or less during this period (though one could argue becasue rival groups were too busy persecuting each other)? Could he even convert, strange as that would seem nearly a century early?

This could make for an interesting timeline to see an end to the troubles of the middle 3rd century. Even if the TL has to go a few years further back than just his not dying. (After all, he's a teenager and therefore could easily make different decisions.)
 
Wow, so many views and in a board that seems to have quite a few fans of the Roman Empire - though admittedly perhaps more Eastern Roman.

This has more info but obviously facts are still a bit scant. It does seem like there would be a lot of room for movement, though despite how interesting an emperor serving for decades could be at this time, I have too little knowledge to try. Althoguh it is tempting, I have an idea where it would be a mere TLIAD or TLIAW with the first chapter being called "Did you remember to unlock the door?" Where instead of opening the Gates of Janus in time of war Gordian III is hurried and they choose not to, and he goes on to win anyway, perhaps it's like Constantine doing it in the sign of the cross, perhaps for his own glory.
 
Wow, so many views and in a board that seems to have quite a few fans of the Roman Empire

Calm down I'm on vacation, I can't be expected to check this website every minute for Christ's sake. ;)

I'd view Gordian's death as a symptom of the 3rd century crisis rather than a cause. He probably couldn't have lived much longer than he did IOTL because of the underlying causes of the 3rd century crisis. To paraphrase Peter Heather in his book "The Fall of Rome, a New History", the 3rd century crisis was caused by the combination of a rising power in the form of Sassanid Persia combined with the military inefficiencies that had been present in the Empire from the beginning. The frequent assassination of emperors wasn't a cause of the crisis, but rather a symptom. Basically, solider-emperors were too obsessed with marching on Rome, which drew forces away from the frontier, exacerbating the problems posed by the rise of Persia. This wouldn't really be solved until Diocletian established the tetrarchy thus eliminating the legitimacy provided by marching on Rome. The problems that caused the 3rd century crisis were fundamental, systemic, and most importantly they were cultural. It took somebody with the vision, foresight, and absolute contempt for the city of Rome to fully resolve the crisis, and I doubt that a longer-lived Gordian III (even if he managed to successfully fight off all usurpers) would be able to address all the underlying structural problems that caused the crisis. Best case scenario would be Gordian spending his entire reign hunkered down in Rome with a few legions constantly fighting usurpers or marching out to put down revolts, thus weakening the borders furthest from his own army. Gordian was too tied to the interests of the senate (and thus of Rome) to be able to see the big picture and put a stop to the bleeding. With historical hindsight, we often underestimate just how visionary Diocletian was, and I'm not sure that any Italian emperor would be able to reform the system as effectively
 
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Interesting, thanks. I never realized just how much of a visionary one would have to be either. The impact of a culture can be difficult to determine when historical hindsight only gives us the fact that everyone and his brother just kept wanting to be emperor.

It always seemed really far-fetched to me, but I guess that Star Trek mirror episode (and universe that rose from it) where the captain just naturally expected that his first officer would be plotting to kill him actually have some basis in history!
 
Calm down I'm on vacation, I can't be expected to check this website every minute for Christ's sake. ;)

I'd view Gordian's death as a symptom of the 3rd century crisis rather than a cause. He probably couldn't have lived much longer than he did IOTL because of the underlying causes of the 3rd century crisis. To paraphrase Peter Heather in his book "The Fall of Rome, a New History", the 3rd century crisis was caused by the combination of a rising power in the form of Sassanid Persia combined with the military inefficiencies that had been present in the Empire from the beginning. The frequent assassination of emperors wasn't a cause of the crisis, but rather a symptom. Basically, solider-emperors were too obsessed with marching on Rome, which drew forces away from the frontier, exacerbating the problems posed by the rise of Persia. This wouldn't really be solved until Diocletian established the tetrarchy thus eliminating the legitimacy provided by marching on Rome. The problems that caused the 3rd century crisis were fundamental, systemic, and most importantly they were cultural. It took somebody with the vision, foresight, and absolute contempt for the city of Rome to fully resolve the crisis, and I doubt that a longer-lived Gordian III (even if he managed to successfully fight off all usurpers) would be able to address all the underlying structural problems that caused the crisis. Best case scenario would be Gordian spending his entire reign hunkered down in Rome with a few legions constantly fighting usurpers or marching out to put down revolts, thus weakening the borders furthest from his own army.
Like Gallienus come earlier? With the luck to survive in the middle of the crisis, but not on top of it?
Gordian was too tied to the interests of the senate (and thus of Rome) to be able to see the big picture and put a stop to the bleeding. With historical hindsight, we often underestimate just how visionary Diocletian was, and I'm not sure that any Italian emperor would be able to reform the system as effectively

Was Diocletian's resolution of 3rd century Crisis an outcome of natural developments as consequence of 40 years of crisis?
Or was it a stroke of luck due to Diocletian's vision?
How did Aurelian's restoration compare?

Would it have been possible to avert the whole 3rd century crisis by someone stumbling on the OTL eventual solution right at the start of the crisis?
 
Like Gallienus come earlier? With the luck to survive in the middle of the crisis, but not on top of it?

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Gallienus' reign came at the absolute apex of the crisis, and he was the longest-reigning emperor during the crisis, yet the length of his reign did absolutely nothing to solve the systemic factors at play.

Was Diocletian's resolution of 3rd century Crisis an outcome of natural developments as consequence of 40 years of crisis?
Or was it a stroke of luck due to Diocletian's vision?
How did Aurelian's restoration compare?

Would it have been possible to avert the whole 3rd century crisis by someone stumbling on the OTL eventual solution right at the start of the crisis?

I'd say one of the Illyrian emperors would have been able to solve the crisis eventually, it happened to be Diocletian IOTL, but one of them probably would have stumbled upon the solution. The biggest factor that drew the crisis out for so long was that most emperors needed to march on Rome to gain the legitimacy that only the senate could provide. But after Gallienus died, the Illyrian emperors came to power in quick succession, and that meant two things: 1. Aurelian built better walls around Rome, making it harder to simply march on the city and 2. these emperors were of low birth and came from Illyria, so they had no strong familial or cultural connection to Rome itself. In my opinion, it happened to be Diocletian because Aurelian and Claudius Gothicus did most of the heavy lifting on the war front (Claudius defeated the Goths and Aurelian reunited the empire). But if Diocletian hadn't divided the empire, the crisis probably would have started up again once the Persians, Goths, Franks, etc. regained their strength for the reasons I've mentioned.

And to answer your last question, yes I think that if one of the early emperors had divided the empire similarly, the crisis could have been blunted. The main problem with that is that the cultural conception of the empire in the eyes of the ruling elite precludes that kind of partitioning. Diocletian was the son of a Greek slave raised in the Illyrian army and had only been to Italy a handful of times, so the level of detachment he had from the city of Rome is understandable. But emperors like Gordian or Gallienus or Decius were from senatorial or equestrian families and had lived in Rome for years, so they were thoroughly entrenched in the politics of the city, and I'm not sure any emperor from Italy would have the vision to do what Diocletian did (maybe Aurelian but I have my doubts).
 
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