Julian II doesn't die at Maranga?

At the tender age of 32 (Hm, what's the significance of that, I wonder?) Emperor Julian II (The Philosopher or The Apostate) was struck in the side with a thrown spear while fighting, unarmored, in a rearguard action after his army had abandoned the siege of Ctesiphon. The contemporary account is that he rushed into the scuffle so suddenly he had completely foregone putting on his armor in favor of fighting to inspire his troops. The spear was removed and he was treated but he ultimately died, after only two years as Emperor.

Now, Julian was a highly successful military commander. He did a bang-up job in the West fighting off Germanic incursions in Gaul and managed to push aside several Persian armies in his rush to Ctesiphon. He was a bit arrogant (apparently his invasion of Sassanid Persia was partially prompted by his belief that he was a second Alexander), and his problem with Christians could only lead to trouble later on (there is a myth that he was killed not by a Persian spear thrower, but by a Roman Christian soldier, although this is almost definitely untrue), but during his time Christians didn't represent a majority population and he was actually rather successful in removing them from positions of power and influence (or converting them back to Neo-platonism, his religion of preference). He was involved in a lot of transfer of wealth from the church of the time back to pagan temples and the like.

So, lets say he takes a moment before rushing into battle at Maranga to pull on his armor. The fatal spear blow of OTL instead glances off and he survives. Assume, for posterity's sake, that afterwards he will not meet some untimely end and will live to die of old age.

Now, I'm sure there have been discussions ad infinitum with regards to Julian's positions on Christianity. I'd like to concentrate on something different. Yes, a lot of his internal policy was related to undermining Christian solidarity in the Empire, but there are some interesting side effects of his policies. For instance, he was interested in establishing an early form of the welfare state to combat the dependence the pagan poor had on Christian charity. This is interesting not only for the theological implications, but because, if institutionalized and enacted to the correct extent, might this have been able to fight the growing wealth divide and slide into manorialism which would doom the later Roman economy and herald the rise of feudalism?

Also, Julian's great successes against Germanic confederations infringing upon the Gallic limes are for no reason unrepeatable. Would he allow the Goths to move across the Danube with the new threat of the Huns? Would he continue to accept the Franks in Toxandria as foederati or would they eventually be expelled like they had been in Tarraco a century earlier?

What might the implications of a more economically sound and culturally unified Roman Empire have for the Hunnic wars of the 5th century? Who would succeed a Julian who survived 30 more years?
 
If Julian didnt die at Maranga he would end up dead soon enough by a christian conspiracy... (Some historians say that Julian was killed by a Christian soldier in Maranga...)
Besides Julian could have survived the blow but he was badly treated by the doctors... (another clue that leads historians to believe that something foul was happening...)
 
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DG, I will kindly ask you not to post the same thing over and over as you did in the other topic. By writ of OP he lives to a fine old age and dies of some sort of organ failure.
 
the more pagan western empire, leading his legions in Germany and north of Dacia. Thanks to his longer reign he can put long term reforms in place and lessen the impact of christian-ism as well as create the structured pagan clergy he wanted and thus further diminish the power of the church.
If He does set up a Structure for the Clergy in Rome this will Butterfly out to the Germanic and Nordic Communities north and east of the Empire.
This structure leads to a more Interesting effects as the Christians try converting the Nordics in the 800~1200 period.
 
If he is going to counter the spread of Christianity then he needs to back his alternative, neo-platonism, appealing enough to convince the pagans that its the "right" kind of paganism, and christians that its better than Christianity. I don't know how able he would be at doing either one of those.

One possibility is that he mellows out in his un-Christian attitude, and instead of trying to replace Christianity with neo-Platonism, tries to reconcile the two. This was attempted during the Renaissance, but the man who did it was excommunicated (he was sponsored by Lorenzo the Magnificent). Maybe some enterprising young philospher does the task during this *Julian's extended reign.

How would bringing neo-platonist thought into Christianity influence it?
 
How would bringing neo-platonist thought into Christianity influence it?

I'm not even sure the two could be reconciled. Just about everything the Nepolatonists believed in was incompatible or diametrically opposed to Nicene doctrine. Christians gained some inspiration from them, but I think the extent of that has been overplayed.
 
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If Christians are plotting against Julian to the extent that DG suggests and yet by OP fiat he lives to a ripe old age, he's going to have to be quite clever.

Perhaps he has minions pretend to become Christians and join the various churches as spies. A couple of busted plots later, spy paranoia sweeps Christianity.

Also, I don't see why establishing a pagan equivalent to the Christian hierarchy will butterfly away anything the Germanics do, at least prior to the occupation of Roman territory. AFTER they take over a region, their interaction with said pagan priesthood might be significant, but I don't think it will affect whether they migrate or not.
 
DG does not suggest entirely accurately. Yes, Christians had gotten away with such amazing acts as lynching famous pagan philosophers, but an Emperor?

No, Julius was killed by a Persian spear, not a Christian one. He ran into a front-line battle with no armor for pete's sake! You expect him not to be at least wounded?

Off the pagan/Christian dynamic for a moment, that's only tangentially interesting (as its been done to death before). I want to know the economic repercussions of his destruction of the large estates worked by slaves, which he hoped he could then use the freed land to reduce the mod of unemployed in Rome itself.
 
I'm not even sure the two could be reconciled. Just about everything the Nepolatonists believed in was incompatible or diametrically opposed to Nicene doctrine. Christians gained some inspiration from them, but I think the extent of that has been overplayed.

Neo-platonism may be opposed by the Nicene Doctrine, but so were several heretical sects of Christianity. The biggest ones were Donatism and Arianism. If Neo-platonism gets reconciled with a major heretical branch of Christianity, then Julian could work to get that branch into power, and push his neo-platonist/Christian blend as the new Orthodoxy. The problem is that Arianism actually had imperial support at various times during the Empire, and that Imperial support was never enough to overcome Orthodox Christianity.

If Julian lives longer and builds a Neo-Platonic hierarchy, then there is the possibility that the Neo-Platonists get to the Germanic tribes, rather than the Arians. The Goths were converted while Arianism was the current Emperor's faith, so if they are converted during Julian's time, then perhaps they go with that. This would have something like precedent, since it appears that the Franks worshipped the Roman gods before they converted to Latin-rite Catholicism.

I want to know the economic repercussions of his destruction of the large estates worked by slaves, which he hoped he could then use the freed land to reduce the mod of unemployed in Rome itself.

Well, if he lives and does break up the large estates, then perhaps he could turn the tide against Christianity. If you have him live for a very long time, then perhaps he could at least partially resurrect the yeoman farmer who was the back bone of the old Republic. The return of the yeoman farmer could save the Empire. As an off-shoot of that, if he is pushing land reform, then as he breaks these estates up and creates a new rural economy, he could push neo-platonism on these new settlers, perhaps linking owning land from the broken up estates to membership in his Neo-platonic organization.

So Julian II turns the tide of history and with the support of the Neo-platonic yeoman farmer the Roman Empire is saved!
 
If Julian had attempted to abolish the majority of large landed estates, there would have been a severe backlash against him by the senatorial aristocracy, who were still mostly pagan and supporters of Julian. A different route would have been to pursue technology that may have lessened the need for masses of slaves (remember that the library at Alexandria had not been destroyed yet).

The welfare system of bread and wine used in Rome could have been expanded to other medium to large cities throughout the empire, but any money reforms were probably not possible due to the huge military budget.

He did prove to be a successful general though, and one could see him launching several campaigns against the germanic tribes. If he lived to the Gothic crisis of 376, then I highly doubt there would have been anything like the Adrianople disaster in OTL.
 
Well, if he lives and does break up the large estates, then perhaps he could turn the tide against Christianity. If you have him live for a very long time, then perhaps he could at least partially resurrect the yeoman farmer who was the back bone of the old Republic. The return of the yeoman farmer could save the Empire. As an off-shoot of that, if he is pushing land reform, then as he breaks these estates up and creates a new rural economy, he could push neo-platonism on these new settlers, perhaps linking owning land from the broken up estates to membership in his Neo-platonic organization.

If I had spoken of it on this board before (and I don't think I have), you'd know how happy it makes me to see someone agree with me about how the revival of the Roman free farmer could lead to a much stronger Roman economy. Especially if they can hold onto Northern Gaul long enough for less destructive farming techniques to take root in the Roman psyche.

Whenever you hear about people saying the Roman economy was based on conquest and expansion, people often talk about how they needed plunder and slaves, which is true to a small extent but a very minor part of the reason for Roman conquest.

The way agriculture worked in the ancient Mediterranean world was very destructive. Early Roman farmers had plentiful water and extremely rich soil, so they never developed more efficient farming techniques that could keep a given patch of land productive over the long-term. By the fall of the Empire in the west much of Italy and parts of Spain were barren wasteland, unable to support all but the most basic of plant life. It took centuries for the soil to recover (contrary to common knowledge, Justinian's reconquest was extremely damaging of the Italian economy and basic infrastructure, but it was one more bludgeon from the club in a series of such blows stretching back centuries).

Romans solved the problem of accumulating unarable land in their territory by taking other people's land. Since Roman culture looked down upon trade early on, you could see explosive growth in territory just to support the growing need for Roman agriculture. The economy eventually matured as more and more Romans broke social mores and went into the trading business, but it was then forever broken by the continuous civil wars and continued degradation of the soil. A few plagues and barbarian invasions later, bye bye Rome.

However, a revival of the yeoman farmer class while Rome already controls Gaul could force the innovation of the necessary farming techniques to make Roman agriculture more sustainable. The West may indeed still fall (plagues that wipe out double digit percentages of the population are not good for the economy, either), but we may find a sort of China situation, where the barbarians instead settle into the still growing and occasionally even prosperous economies they conquer, eventually leading to a resurgence of a culturally Latin Empire in the West again, one day (and no, I don't mean Charlemagne).

Also, the survival of a heterodoxy of beliefs in the Roman world could forestall the rise in orthodox thought, leading to a surviving classical world as we understand it. Greek philosophical thought had been on the decline for centuries at this point, but it was still quite strong and a very philosophically bent Emperor or two could lead a revival (a second Renaissance, as it were).
 
Perhaps we have Julian live and start to break-up the estates, and these yeoman farmers, who need to compete against the larger estates, come up with some agricultural innovations, like the V plow and crop rotation?

I would say that the V plow would be a more important invention, because then you open northern Gaul, Britain, and Germany to intensive agricultural, which may build up enough of a population to effectively assimilate the Germans who end up conquering the areas, or even create a large enough population of yeoman farmers that the Germans don't get to conquer. Actually, with more effective agricultural and the empty land generated from the plagues that would probably come regardless, a stronger empire could probably safely settle the German tribes inside the Empire, and with a larger population and more effective elite as a result, assimilate them relatively pain-free.

Charlemagne could become "Roman Emperor," but as a member of the Roman Army, from a noble Frankish family that had been granted citizenship two generations before for valor in fighting off Mohammad the Arab's invasion of Africa. His father had been the Magister Militium Europa for the previous Emperor, and Charles' advantegous marriage to the last Emperor's daughter put him in the position to gain the purple. When the last Emperor's son showed that he was a fierce opponent of the Pope, high-church officials and Charles' plotted to overthrow the Emperor. The Pope's crowning of Charles' following his murder of the previous occupant of the Imperial Throne is seen as "cleansing" him of his actions, and allowing him to expand the Empire's border north into previously barbarian Saxony.
 
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This could actually be an interesting TL, if done. Unfortunately, all my research and thought lately has been put into a somewhat later PoD I've been contemplating for a while. One around the time of John Komnenos, to be specific.
 
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, saving the Byzantines? Please, please, please no. Julius II living, awesome and cool. A retread of the Byzantines, not so much.

Please do Julian, PLEASE.
 
No, Julius was killed by a Persian spear, not a Christian one. He ran into a front-line battle with no armor for pete's sake! You expect him not to be at least wounded?

As i have said in previous threads Julian might have been killed by a Persian spear but a christian spear has the exact same chances to kill him... We cannot be sure which one killed him... either way christian church was happy to get rid of him... The army which remained headless in a foreign territory elected the pagan Praetorian Praefect Sallustius as Emperor but he declined the offer... Partly because of his age and partly that there were strong "rumours" within the army that Julian was a victim of foul play... True? We might never know... The second candidate which was elected... Commander of the Imperial Guard Jovian was much safer... (at least he would be immune to a christian plot...)
 
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, saving the Byzantines? Please, please, please no. Julius II living, awesome and cool. A retread of the Byzantines, not so much.

Please do Julian, PLEASE.


This will be a very different one, believe me. It's as much a side-project for my economics class as it is an AH.

Plus, how many actual quality Byzantine AHs have you seen? I can only really think of a few off hand, and most of them have Byzantium surviving as a side-effect and a side-show to the main PoD, not as a centrality.

Yeah, there's a lot of shit out there, but believe me. It's a unique PoD and I'll be handling it in a way that very few AHs are. It's about the commercial revolution, mainly, Byzantium is just a good vehicle for this (I thought about doing any of the several Italian states that underwent the same thing, but none of them would be near as fun).

As i have said in previous threads Julian might have been killed by a Persian spear but a christian spear has the exact same chances to kill him... We cannot be sure which one killed him... either way christian church was happy to get rid of him... The army which remained headless in a foreign territory elected the pagan Praetorian Praefect Sallustius as Emperor but he declined the offer... Partly because of his age and partly that there were strong "rumours" within the army that Julian was a victim of foul play... True? We might never know... The second candidate which was elected... Commander of the Imperial Guard Jovian was much safer... (at least he would be immune to a christian plot...)

Ok, why the hell are you so convinced Julian would be the victim of a Christian knife? At the time Christians were still a minority (albeit a large one) of the population and the center of political power in Rome, the army, was mostly Mithrandic. Very many Emperors had survived persecuting Christians to a much greater extent than Julian had engaged in.

The only reason he's called 'the Apostate' is because he converted away from Christianity.
 
Ah the commercial revolution . . . well, if your going that-a-way then I guess I can forgive you. Anyone who can work some serious economics into an alternate history has my support and readership.
 
Ok, why the hell are you so convinced Julian would be the victim of a Christian knife? At the time Christians were still a minority (albeit a large one) of the population and the center of political power in Rome, the army, was mostly Mithrandic. Very many Emperors had survived persecuting Christians to a much greater extent than Julian had engaged in.

The only reason he's called 'the Apostate' is because he converted away from Christianity.


I am not so convinced... i just that the chances of a christian plot are the same with the chances of dying accidentaly in battle... Besides christians where a minority but since the lost imperial protection under julian they grew restless... Another clue that there could be a christian conspiracy is the fact that when Julian sent envoys to Rome to consult the Sibylline Books (actually what was left of them...) Christians bribed the envoys to change the prophecy so it would be ensured that julian would have met his disaster in Persia...
Conspiracy or no conspiracy we might never know... There are strong indications but no proofs... pretty much as they are strong indications but no proofs that he died accidentally...
 
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