WI: No Antonine Plague

Would it have been a better longterm strategy to incorporate the client kingdoms into the Empire as provinces instead of having to pay them bribes indefinitely?

Not really. The way the Romans went about their frontier politics was ingenious. Paying small tributes that really didn't have much impact on their finances to keep client kings from being overthrown and playing tribes against each other. Really, it wasn't until the Huns that standard Roman frontier politicking wasn't going to cut it any more.
 
Not really. The way the Romans went about their frontier politics was ingenious. Paying small tributes that really didn't have much impact on their finances to keep client kings from being overthrown and playing tribes against each other. Really, it wasn't until the Huns that standard Roman frontier politicking wasn't going to cut it any more.

So no economic or strategic advantages from making the Empire grow even more?
 
So no economic or strategic advantages from making the Empire grow even more?

In theory IMCO yes, a definite advantage, but with the Antonine Plague all hope of accomplishing such was lost forever due to the enormous losses of said plague in the army and largest cities. IMCO it was the beginning of the end.

Hero of Canton
 
In theory IMCO yes, a definite advantage, but with the Antonine Plague all hope of accomplishing such was lost forever due to the enormous losses of said plague in the army and largest cities. IMCO it was the beginning of the end.

Hero of Canton

So butterflying away the Antonine plague would be crucial for the development of the Roman Empire.
 
So butterflying away the Antonine plague would be crucial for the development of the Roman Empire.

Yes, but that's just IMCO. The thing is unless the Antonine Plague germs themselves are butterflied away sooner or later it is going to reach the Empire. They don't know enough about how disease works to even undertake some sort of eastern frontier quarantine. For example the Plague of Justinian which put DONE to hopes of reconquering the lost WRE provinces came into the Empire at Alexandria from a ship from India.

BUT if it can be delayed by not having the Legions sacking the Parthian capital, and IMCO it can be delayed that way, it might not do as much damage to the Legions and the big cities as it did in OTL.

Would that there could be a reason for the Empire to discover germ theory early, but that I'm afraid is ASB territory in 165 AD. :(

Hero of Canton
 
Would that there could be a reason for the Empire to discover germ theory early, but that I'm afraid is ASB territory in 165 AD. :(

Hero of Canton

Maybe it would be possible with development in optics to innovate some kind of microscope in Alexandria and therefore get a theory about bacteria spreading diseases.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if there was something in the library of Alexandria that could help a head librarian there or someone to create a primitive microscope. Though I doubt that would help much. While the ancient Greeks and Romans may have had some blueprints and the like for all this technology, that doesn't mean they really could make them or put them to use.
 
Fate of the Great Library

Forgive me, I subscribe to so many Roman-themed threads now I am getting them confused. Does the Great Library of Alexandria survive in this ATL?

If it does then I suggest that maybe somewhere on a forgotten scroll sits "Germ Theory" maybe right next to "Steam Power". :D

Hero of Canton
 
I'm not sure it was still around. The largest argument that it was completely destroyed by Caesar is pointing right at Plutarch: He seemed certain that the Library didn't exist in his time and as a Greek scholar, he obviously knew what he was talking about when it comes to that.
 
I'm not sure it was still around. The largest argument that it was completely destroyed by Caesar is pointing right at Plutarch: He seemed certain that the Library didn't exist in his time and as a Greek scholar, he obviously knew what he was talking about when it comes to that.

<Heavy sigh> Yes that is true. :(

HoC
 
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