An Age of Miracles III: The Romans Endure
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
I mean they’re going to have to take that route if they don’t want to deal with all the nasty instability again.
Was I the only one waiting for her to rip open her shirt exposing her breast in front of the Thracian tagma and shout "If any man would shoot his empress let him step forward now" and than they all join her. To go with a good Napoléon parallel. Just me? that's fine. Still a great update looking forward to more.
I would reject the idea that the absolute monarchy is the only way to avoid instability. I would even reject the idea that it necessarily leads to less civil wars.
What an absolute monarchy can do for feudal realms in particular is centralize power and unify a state. I don't think this is a service the Romans are in any particular need of, as their state is already quite unified and has been for a very long time with a fairly strong civil service as well.
Absolute monarchies work great when the leadership at the top is capable or at least well advised. When neither is true, the nation either experiences a rapid period of decline, violent civil strife or brutal civil war as the state recognizes the need to replace its leadership but has no peaceful way to accomplish that. Or all of the above.
This means that the monarchy either falls entirely (often with apocalyptic civil wars), or removes power from the monarchy and places that power in the hands of someone more competent. Hopefully with a way to peacefully change leadership if required.
The Romans stand to gain very little from the adoption of absolutism. As I said earlier, centralization and state building are already accounted for. They generally are already generally pretty good at replacing incompetence at the top. What they need is a way to chuck them out on their ass without violence.
I don't even necessarily want democracy as we would think of it. The Romans would be rightly suspicious of outright republicanism given TTL history. My first thought for something unique would be a formal way for the army to refuse to fight itself on behalf of an incompetent emperor and essentially vote amongst itself for a replacement, which is what it already essentially does, but this way would spill less blood if you got it to work. Given that the Roman Army now is much more of a national army than a mercenary one as in most of its history, and how badly it has bled recently against foreign enemies, I could see this as a solution it arrives at to out of simple bone deep exhaustion as much as anything else.
Of course empowering the army like that creates a whole list of potential problems.
Just spit balling ideas. I just really don't think pushing for absolutism is going to solve any of the major problems that the Romans face, and the current "emperor" is a perfect example of the problems it creates. They need an at least relatively peaceful method of transferring power to create real stability.
Sitting on a horse right between the firing lines is a bad place to be. I think someone might be in trouble here. I wonder whether we'll be informed who fired first, or if this will just be one of those events left to historical guesswork.
I'd say that this scenario is an argument against absolutism - it was the Emperor being feckless that caused the problem. If anything we could be seeing a move to some other system. I've no idea what system would be proposed, as I doubt the Senate would be revisited, and a Stratocracy is unlikely because of the positions of the Tourmarches. Not impossible, the wider involvement of the military class could minimise similar situations.
If anything recent history has shown that the Imperial household has always ruled best as a council of sorts, formalising some sort of Imperial Oligarchy would allow them to balance each other out.
If anything recent history has shown that the Imperial household has always ruled best as a council of sorts, formalising some sort of Imperial Oligarchy would allow them to balance each other out.
People are talking about absolutism and tighter monarchical control but I wonder if you see an attempt at a form of enlightened monarchy especially with all the Napoleon references. I'm sure someone has mentioned this before but even after 2000 years at this point the Senate STILL exists, it doesn't take much historical precedent to make the title of senator (what was the roman senate called in greek? Synklatos or gerousia?) Something more than a cheap prestige titling again. I can imagine sophia and possibly demetrios emerging victorious and establishing a set of guidelines and precedent for how the emperors should rule, and when someone asks how you could guarantee every basileus from now on follows said ideals you can bring back the Senate as a serious body as a check and balance against any terrible rulers. Shouldn't be a big PR issue either cause you can say "it's not mob rule like Venice or the ancient greeks and its not an unstable corruption riddled mess like the post marius Republic its a group of the best of the best of roman society supporting the emperor like Augustus envisioned and like Constantine created in New Rome"
Maybe a sort of revised tetrarchy, but instead of geographic areas of responsibility, they are given issues-based areas of responsibility? The trouble would be how one goes about keeping the whole thing from collapsing into civil strife again.
They would u rather they become another boring democratic state? I believe the goal of this ATL is to have multipolar-different way of governments.
Besides if we're following trend of historical rhyme Absolutism will happen one way or another. I can see the new empress being Alala Catherine the Great.
When did I say that?
I won't retype everything I already have. I just think absolutism would both remove a lot of what made the Romans unique and solve none of their problems.
Roman emperors having actual power over their government than modern day royalties is another form of uniqueness.
Besides I doubt the Roman government would go full on ham absolutism, in any case it would come more as side effect with how entrenched the idea and position of an emperor is at the facet of Roman culture and life.
They already had a very rich tradition of it steep all the way thousand of years now. It's practically inevitable at this point in my opinion.
In the "short" term sure (the next few decades-centuries), but in the long term, it is noteworthy that the number of absolute monarchies among the Great Powers consistently declined throughout the 19th century, ultimately becoming extinct by the end of World War I. While a Liberal-Democratic Republic or Westminster-style parliamentary monarchy aren't the only alternatives to absolutism, the dominant political systems of the 20th and 21st centuries (including non-democratic ones like one-party states) share some key attributes which are fundamentally at odds with the principles of a traditional monarchy.
- National Identity: Perhaps THE distinction between modern and pre-modern states is the emergence of secular national identity that transcends personal or dynastic loyalty and religious affiliation.
- Popular Sovereignty: Deeply connected to national identity, modern states place tremendous importance on the concept of popular sovereignty, which asserts that the power of the state is derived from the consent of its people. This is true even in modern autocracies, particularly in the most successful ones like the USSR or PRC, (or for a non-Marxist-Leninist example, Singapore) where tremendous emphasis was/is placed on obtaining at least the illusion of popular support, if not the genuine article.
- Rule of Law: Finally, at least on paper, modern states claim to have a fair and impartial legal system to which all citizens are accountable. To what extent this is actually the case varies over time and between countries, but generally speaking, nations that are better at fulfilling this ideal are more stable and MUCH more economically prosperous.
Thus, at least in my opinion, the best option for Rhomania is for Konon's idea of non-hereditary transfer of power to win out in the long run, alongside a revitalization of the senate into a functioning legislature, and the establishment of formalized rules for succession-the closest thing they have is the idea that the emperor is acclaimed by the senate, so make that official-and give the senate the ability to recall/dismiss a serving executive. That retains the unique feature of a monarch (or "monarch") with actual political power without condemning Rhomania to the kind of extractive kleptocracy seen in 21st century absolute monarchies.
Being a 2,132 year old institution didn't spare the Chinese monarchy from being stamped out in a matter of years. Without adapting to modernity (and crucially, articulating a coherent claim to legitimacy in modern times apart from simple performance or the personal popularity of the monarch), the Roman monarchy is likewise doomed to be marginalized, removed by force, or end up dragging the nation down with it.
Last edited:
I think there are a few ways Rhomania's political structure could go. There seems to be a lot of teasing that "democracy" will remain as something Romans are wary of, but you could say that of the OTL US, even today and certainly a century ago.
I wonder about an elected Emperor (ie a very very powerful elected executive) or a less-powerful but still significant Emperor elected either for a term or for life from the eligible members of the dynasty (eg any adult, sane, citizen, resident descendant of Demetrios III which will potentially be thousands of people by the C20th). More broadly I think they'll at least experiment with a multi-level indirect democracy as was tried in c19th France, where eg. the locality elects a delegate who elect the senate who elect the executive.
Last edited:
Well, the grooming part at least. And perhaps some anti-abuse laws stemming off of that.
The significant age gap thing isn't as easy though. 50 and 30 is not as bad as 25 and 15, assuming 'typical' upbringing.
So if the Senate ever comes back as a serious institution what do you think it would be refered as?
Senate and people of Rhomania: Σ.Κ.λ.Ρ (Σύγκλητος και λαός των Ρωμανία)
Senate and people of Constantinople: Σ.Κ.λ.Κ (Σύγκλητος και λαός των Κωνσταντινούπολης)
Senate and people of New Rome: Σ.Κ.λ.Ν
(Σύγκλητος και λαός των Νέα Ρώμη)
Or will nostalgia win out and they just use the old Latin SPQR. After all they have a problem with Latin Christianity and politics mainly, not the language
Senate and people of Rhomania: Σ.Κ.λ.Ρ (Σύγκλητος και λαός των Ρωμανία)
Senate and people of Constantinople: Σ.Κ.λ.Κ (Σύγκλητος και λαός των Κωνσταντινούπολης)
Senate and people of New Rome: Σ.Κ.λ.Ν
(Σύγκλητος και λαός των Νέα Ρώμη)
Or will nostalgia win out and they just use the old Latin SPQR. After all they have a problem with Latin Christianity and politics mainly, not the language
Almost certainly the Greek version. That's probably how they'd do it for historicity. Though it's not impossible that they'd just try and avoid the Senate in favour of something new - rather than a Senate made of the powerful, they could go for a Senate of the Cities, bringing in some level of representation (not democratic) but at least people who ostensibly are there on behalf of the city.
Unless the Emperor serves at the pleasure of the legislature, terms limits are extremely important; there's a reason why every properly functioning presidential democracy has them. Even non-democratic systems benefit from this; the period of "collective leadership" where the top executive was rotated on a regular basis is widely considered the strongest era of governance in the PRC.
As far as tying eligibility for the Imperial office to descent from Demeterios III, while it's true the number will be large enough to (mostly) resolve the issue of no competent candidates, it does little to address the more fundamental question of legitimacy. The only real narrative that can justify a hereditary monarchy in a modern, secular, developed nation is symbolism and tradition, which is enough to keep a figurehead monarch around, especially when proponents can claim (rightfully or otherwise) that the cost to the taxpayer is largely offset by tourism revenue.
On the other hand, if the office of Emperor has real authority, and especially if they're the chief executive of the nation with powers akin to a prime minister or president, then a lot of very, very influential and ambitious people will find that tradition standing between them and the highest levels of power. While could stand for a few successions, the pressure to drop the restriction entirely would win out as soon as a Sideroi Emperor acclaimed is this fashion is unfortunate enough to see their reign overlap with a major economic downturn or foreign policy disaster.
Now, this would make Rhomania functionally a presidential/parlimentary republic* depending on the exact process by which the Emperor is elected, and B444 mentioned that Rhomania is likely to have significant hang-ups about "republicanism." However, that could well end up like the United States where we have that peculiar aphorism "America is a Republic, not a Democracy"; a concern (mostly) about the aesthetics of the system that has little to do with the actual way the government works in practice.
* It's kinda sad in OTL we didn't end up getting any elective monarchies; the closest thing we have is that weird situation where the President of France is also the co-prince of Andorra.