Even Tacitus was pretty pessimistic about the Roman Empire's survival during the Year of the 4 Enperors. So, what if the empire tears itself to pieces? What are the likely splits that would occur? Is this even plausible? And would anyone be able to put a Humpty Dumpty Roman empire back together?
WI: Roman Empire Fractures During Year of Four Emperors
- Thread starter JonasResende
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If it could have been torn to pieces, it would have, but by 69 CE the Empire was still too solid to entail fragmentation, and none of the generals involved ever entertained the notion, they were all of Italian stock, and they all identified Rome as the center of power. As a testimony to the Empire’s strenght, when Julius Civilis led the Batavian revolt during the civil war, in the hope to split off the northern provinces from the rest of the empire, Vespasian quickly retaliated and suppressed it. The time where the emperor would identify his power outside Rome was still far from coming, since pressure from the borders was contained and limited enough to actually allow them to never leave the capital, if they so wished.
Fair enough. I don't know enough about Roman history to know if this was feasible ir not. I just came across a reference in a non-fiction book I was reading that even Tacitus was far from sure that the empire would survive, and I wondered what a split in 69/70 would look like.
Tacitus was writing under Trajan, a provincial with no family ties with the previous ruling dynasties, thus he had all interest in portraying the times before Trajan’s advent as nearly disastrous for the empire. That’s not to say he wasn’t genuine in his deploring of corruption and civil war, but he certainly exaggerated some of his sentiments, especially regarding Domitian, for the sake of flattering the emperor under whom he was living.