Roman Succession

[jimmy olsen]

I think most people here would agree that it was the internal weakness of the Empire, principally the inability to establish a stable method of Imperial succession that doomed the Empire.

Was there ever any real chance that this flaw could have been fixed?

[Valmy]

I actually do not buy that premise.  I mean Caracalla was the obvious successor to Septimus Severus and was his reign a fantastic boon to the Empire?  Was Nero a big source of strength and Vespasian a big source of weakness?  I mean coups and Civil Wars were practically the only check on the power of the Emperors and practically the only way to remove a bad one and get a more worthy man in there.  However I guess it did get a bit ridiculous after Diocletian's Tetrarchy and the idea of multiple Emperors.  But by that time the more serious problems that were eroding the Empire's strength had really taken root: reduced population from plague and war, economic disruption from various Imperial policies and so forth.

I mean the thing did last for almost 500 years and the Romans had been bashing each other over the head for a good while before they even got the Empire started up.

[Syt]

The problem still persists.

After all, Berlusconi's reign was one big, Roman Suck Session.

[jimmy olsen]

I actually do not buy that premise.  I mean Caracalla was the obvious successor to Septimus Severus and was his reign a fantastic boon to the Empire?  Was Nero a big source of strength and Vespasian a big source of weakness?  I mean coups and Civil Wars were practically the only check on the power of the Emperors and practically the only way to remove a bad one and get a more worthy man in there.  However I guess it did get a bit ridiculous after Diocletian's Tetrarchy and the idea of multiple Emperors.  But by that time the more serious problems that were eroding the Empire's strength had really taken root: reduced population from plague and war, economic disruption from various Imperial policies and so forth.

The crisis of the 3rd century crippled the Empire and it never really recovered from the devastation and the instability it generated.

[The Brain]

Their lack of mass army had serious consequences, maybe not so much for the Romans (as it luckily turned out in the end) but certainly for Gaul and Scythia.

[Viking]

If anything the Roman lack of a sensible succession system meant that cruel and cowardly emperors were replaced by the best men availible. Coup as a means of social mobility you might say. After the crisis of the 3rd century constant civil wars probably resulted in dead barbarian auxilliarys more than anything else as well as the less competent being replaced by the more competent.

I'll agree that there was a problem however. Being soldiers the emperors merely saw the rest of the empire as a source of funding for the army and relied on the support of that army for their legitimacy. 

[garbon]

The crisis of the 3rd century crippled the Empire and it never really recovered from the devastation and the instability it generated.

Many of the children who got in through inheritance after the 3rd century didn't help matters.

[Viking]

The crisis of the 3rd century crippled the Empire and it never really recovered from the devastation and the instability it generated.

Many of the children who got in through inheritance after the 3rd century didn't help matters.

Puppets of Stilicho and Odacer shouldn't count as Emperors. The clean dynastic succession suggests a lack of power rather than order. Or in terms Timmy understands, Stilicho was Shogun whatshisname was Tennoheika. Once the roles separated that was when the empire was in trouble. Odoacer could be king of Italy in his own right, but he could never convince the barbarian generals or the roman population that he was Emperor.

My alt-hist contribution would be, if Odoacer (and none of his successors) had decided to be the big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond then Bellisarius could have reunified the entire empire under Justinian.

[jimmy olsen]

If anything the Roman lack of a sensible succession system meant that cruel and cowardly emperors were replaced by the best men availible. Coup as a means of social mobility you might say. After the crisis of the 3rd century constant civil wars probably resulted in dead barbarian auxilliarys more than anything else as well as the less competent being replaced by the more competent.

Cruel and cowardly emperors were often the best at arranging assassins to kill the previous emperor.

While sometimes the more competent would gain the purple at the expense of the incompetent, it seemed that it just as often happened the other way around. Either way it happened all too frequently, there were 45 Emperors in the 3rd century IIRC.

[garbon]

Puppets of Stilicho and Odacer shouldn't count as Emperors.

When children of non-emperors, sure as they really fail on the inheritance angle but individuals like Arcadius, Honorious and Theodosius II who gained the throne by clear dynastic succession? That's a clear example of how it didn't really help matters.

My alt-hist contribution would be, if Odoacer (and none of his successors) had decided to be the big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond then Bellisarius could have reunified the entire empire under Justinian.

Justinian already was concerned about B's power in our timeline where his victories were smaller than you propose.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I don't think the East was in any shape to rule the West, the expenses of the expedition were enormous as it was.

[Viking]

While sometimes the more competent would gain the purple at the expense of the incompetent, it seemed that it just as often happened the other way around. Either way it happened all too frequently, there were 45 Emperors in the 3rd century IIRC.

Yes, and then there was Aurelian, who cleaned up the messes of the bulk of those emperors in five years.

The other issue is that there is no alternative which provides for a better system. In the 1000 years following the roman empire the barbarian successor states were constantly at war with themselves and others. I fail to see how succession by means other than that of granting the imperial title to the man with the biggest army would solve the problem? This point applies to garbon as well, what was the alternative and how would it give better results? Civil wars or barbarian wars happened to pretty much every emperor, even the ones that didn't want them. Caligula, Nero, Elgabalus etc. were dynastic heirs

The nature of power was what it was at that time and that power was the army. It doesn't matter if the emperor is made dynastically or by right of conquest. What matters is that the true nature of power would remain unchanged. Again the Japan analogy works here, the Emperor could have ended up as the Tennoheika locked in a Kyoto castle monumentally irrellevant.

I also don't accept the apparent premise that Rome >>> Barbarian Successors.

[The Brain]

I think most people here would agree that it was the internal weakness of the Empire, principally the inability to establish a stable method of Imperial succession that doomed the Empire.

Was there ever any real chance that this flaw could have been fixed?

If they had stayed true to ancient Roman virtues as displayed in the early republic then everything would have been awesome. No Empire plz.

[Viking]

I don't think the East was in any shape to rule the West, the expenses of the expedition were enormous as it was.

I'm suggesting that a continued emperorship would have made the west governable since the new barbarian "kings" would remain Generals in name but kings in practice. Bellisarius would thus not be replacing the former leadership, but getting it to accept in practice what they accepted on paper, Roman overlordship.

[Drakken]

I think most people here would agree that it was the internal weakness of the Empire, principally the inability to establish a stable method of Imperial succession that doomed the Empire.

Was there ever any real chance that this flaw could have been fixed?

The real problem with Roman succession, at least before the Late Roman Empire, was the "constitutional convention" that they had to boon off the Legions or the Pretorians with increasingly higher bonuses, otherwise they'd be "replaced". It definitely reached a new low when Pertinax was killed and Didius Julianus won his Imperial robe by winning the following auction.