Not to mention wrecking the hell out of the Western Empire by completely destroying it's army and replacing it's leadership with his imbecile of a son.
Optimus Princeps - A Trajan TL
- Thread starter Alcsentre Calanice
- Start date
Nice and very probable story about communication amongst the 2 big human empires. Actually a roman delegation reached China in the 2nd century.
But dude, get real!!! 70.000 men is unreal. Just think about the logistics. They would never reach the borders of the empire with such many men. The legions will not let pass them, and nobody in the empire is willing or happy to supply these masses! Reduce that number to someting reasonable like 7000. Or much better 700.
You also mentioned walls. Remember that this chinese concept failed more than once. Even if I can see some walls in the East like the Red-Snake wall of the sassanids or the sassanid wall between Caucasus and Caspian Sea. Well, both were more a kind of Hadrians Wall than the Chinese Wall. You know the significant difference.
But in the West I see better alternatives.
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Perhaps he tried. But whenever I follow detrimental longterm processes, which led to the fall of the empire back in time, I end up with this glorious Augustus and the multiple mistakes he did establishing the principate initally. Some processes even go back further into republican times and end in the 5th century AD in a catastrophe
Christianity was'nt a bad religion initally. Before it became romanized! Afterwards it was awful. But honestly just 1 of many nails into the coffin of the empire, we should not overestimate. I guess, the romanization of christanity is unavoidable to a certain extent. But it can be slowed down and balanced, if it never becomes a state religion. However the triumph of the doctrine of salvation, represented by Christus and other popular gods, and the decline of the ancient religions, is not avoidable, imho. What counts is, to conserve the religious tolerance of the romans by all means!
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
I can't reduce it. The Chinese said that they sent 70,000 during the first expedition to the west. That's why I write 70,000! I know that this is simply hilarious. I'll add something in the text.
You have the knowledge of 2000 years of Chinese history. In the 2nd century, the Great Wall was only 400 years old.
I do not expect that everything happens at once. It is quite hard to change the roman mindset. I fully agree, that an emancipation of local authorities helps to control these powerful central magistrates. But be careful. There is a point, where this must lead to separation, the worst case of usurpation! Centralism is one of the key success factors of the roman empire. Too much federalism leads to chaos.
Regarding the division of civil and military power. It actually started with some measures like Nervas introduction of the advocati fisci and other measures in the 2nd century. Diocletian was not the great inventor. He was just very good in picking up older ideas, integrating them, and implementing them on a broad scale. But after all he did harm the empire more than he did good (militarization of the society and his genious but longterm detrimental taxation system).
So far so good. In theory. But what happens, if afterwards a son of the emperor is born? Who decides, that he plays no role in the succession? You know the story about the most succesful usurper of the roman empire: Constantine I! How to avoid such an event by constitution or better by actual balance of power?
A central field army is not just good to protect the emperor. This was perhaps the main reason for Constantine. He almost ruined the empire militarily with his paranoia. Strategically, the central army is the force which re-enforces the praefectus orientalis, ocidentalis or illyricum, if the enemy is too strong. The alternative is weakening one front, in order to send troops elsewhere. And you know, how this ends.
Furthermore, it is time to wake up. It is 124 AD and the Danube border is still under a heavily decentralized military command. Ok, the romans don't know whats coming. But after the desaster, they should know, that they have to reform the military organisation at the Danube in your TL. Like they did in the West and East.
Not necessarily. The economy of the roman empire could be strong enough in order to finance another 50-60000 soldiers. Just analyze the roman economy and avoid the mistakes done by several emperors since the early principate.
And I did not talk about comitatenses and limitanei. There is no need to introduce this split. Actually it already existed since the early principate: the auxilia guarded the border and the legions were hold back as a reserve. Just the distribution of these smaller "regional field armies" was different during the early principate. I guess strengthening the praetorian guard and adding some legions with a fleet to move them fast like Severus did, should work in a first step. Brundisium comes to mind, or Mediolanum.
Finally the split into limitanei and comitatenses was not a bad thing. It strengthened the roman army! But I agree, that it has to happen step by step. If you choose to let it happen.
You mean I should describe in detail, how the consilii provinciae and the province administration could be changed for more federalism without violating the ancient mindset, and without ending in separatism? And how a consilium principis controlling the princeps could look like?
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Are you sure these guys made it beyond Sogdiana IRL? I know some Han army made it to modern Tadschikistan. Did'nt they steel their first "holy horses" over there from Nisaea? But that was a rather short expedition.
How about the (non-client) Parthians and the Kushan, who are still controlling the route from Sogdiana to Armenia killed 50.000 of them? How far did these chinese move IRL anyways? And afterwards your praefectus orientis allows 1000 men to accompany your chinese legate to Rome. The rest has to camp in Armenia supplied by the roman army.
A good point!
- But at Rhine and Danube, a wall makes no sense at all.
- If you plan to go for the the Tyros-Vistula line in the north, a wall makes perhaps sense to close the gap between the 2 rivers. But not that much. More sense makes a big dyke in the west, which leads to a big swamp at the eastern shores of these rivers. But this line is a hell of a challenge to explain. Because of the economical stupidity.
- Now if you plan to go with Augustus' old plan, which was most probably the Elbe river, and if you already got Dacia, the Sudeten Mountains and the Carpathian Mountains, a chinese style of wall makes a lot of sense, to close the gaps. But be aware, there are a lot of very big gaps in these mountains. Check your atlas or use Google Earth to see the drama. You need a lot of wall over there! And honestly, the romans never buildt such a type of (fortress-) wall, because they had not enough soldiers to man and defend such chinese walls accordingly. That was not the roman way of defense! I prefer to see them in an offensive stance anyways.
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Do not give up Rome! If not for a fully fledged Roma Nova. Byzantium as the ideal location comes to mind.
When the western roman emperors left Rome, they did a big mistake. They lost the support of the roman senate and the plebs urbana. They thought, that this is negligible, and a good measure in order to avoid the daily trouble with all these guys, like you perhaps do.
But Honorius woud have been more than happy to have a senate and a plebs urbana nearby, when he became a toy of his own central imperial administration.
The support of the senate of Constantinople and the plebs urbana over there, shows clearly, how important these old groups still have been for the emperor, if the shit hitted the fan. The senate and plebs of Constantinople was one of many important reasons, why the East did not fall! In Ravenna the emperor became just a lonesome man without the ability to balance power anymore.
From a technological point of view, I have no doubt, that a roman engineer could invent such a pre-modern telegraph system. Actually, we don't know, how good the roman signal system from watchtowers to forts already have been. And I agree, that communication is a serious issue in such a huge empire.
However, the romans had a working system: the cursus vehiculorum.
In the very beginning, during Augustus' early reign, when the cursus was established, the romans even had a very fast horse relay system. Everything needed was available: roadhouses every 40km and stations to change the horses about every 12-15km. More than enough to operate a courier system with a speed of 500-600km per day like the US Pony Express or the mongolian courier system. Actually the Pony Express had less stations than the usual roman route. So a roman system should be able to match the Pony Express. But the roman horse relay was performed by amateur riders. It was a munera for the youth of the cities along the streets. So professional riders organized in Alae might help to reach the goals.
But Augustus abandoned it. He prefered to talk personally to the courier bringing him the message all the way from the origin. These couriers were usually speculatores, later frumentarii. Both central imperial spies, who had more to report, than he could read in the message from his legate.
But this greatly reduced the performance of the couriers to about 50-80km per day, because just the horse was changed, but not the rider.
I am not sure, if Chappes system was that much better than the US Pony Express. Also in terms of reliability. So I recommend to re-introduce horse relay, before you start with fancy new technologies.
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Actually, there is no evidence, that the Parthians or the Sassanids ever blocked the trade routes from India to the Roman Empire. Regardless of the current political situation. They obviously made just too much profit with this trade. And the romans still had the trade route via the Red Sea, which should have been even less costly because less expensive land transport.
Now the romans rule in Mesopotamia and get the profits. I just say, let the experienced traders in Characene do their job (civitates foederatae). And let them pay tribute to the emperor now instead to the King of Kings. Roman agents could still control the harbours, in order to collect the usual 25% tax for external trade. The example of Palmyra after Aurelianus shows, how profits drop soon to nothing ,if you destroy an existing trade infrastructure.
If the legions move from Mesopotamia to Media you get even a shorter border. So no new legions needed. And you get a better border by replacing the Zagros Mountains with the iranian deserts. Of course you enlarge your politically hard to control empire even more.
But you are right, that this needs time! You first have to develop a working political model for the East. As soon as Mesopotamia is fully pacified and loyal to the empire, it is time to move to Media. No step further please (perhaps Persis), because there is nothing beyond Media but deserts and a lot of trouble with asian steppe hordes. Just an idealistic dreamer like Alexander would go any further. But never a commander with a brain.
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Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
Alas I have no other sources on this than wiki. (Oh no, I just realized that the 70,000 were the soldiers of the western army and not the members of the delegation...). The idea with the Praefectus orientis is quite realistic.
I don't really were these line is.
And after that, Rome lands of the moon. No, this is simply too big to be annexed 20 years after Rome conquered Mesopotamia.
My thoughts were, regardless of the actual effectivity of such a wall, to secure 1) Dacia 2) The Agri Decumates 3) Sarmatia and Marcomannia (after the incursion and repulsion of the Sarmatians) with the wall (see the two maps... I was a bit megalomaniac in the first version).
I quote myself here, because I guess it is important to be evocative about something.
The Marcomanns did ask Marcus Aurelius' legates in Pannonia initially to enter the empire and settle over there. Like the Visigoths did later. They panicked, because they were under heavy pressure from northern german tribes coming from north of the Sudetes Mountains. The real barbarians, you know? Most propably Vandals or their precedessors.
So there is a political solution for the Marcomann-War in a very early stage. If just somebody overrules these decisons of the local legates. And of course if somebody avoids the terrible mistakes, Valens' local magistrates did with the Visigoths!
And if there is no need for the eastern roman army (commanded by Lucius Severus IRL), to move west, the antoninian plague would perhaps spread differently and hopefuly less devastating.
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Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
My question was if, by chance, rich Roman equites can start to invest in the Indian trade and get a chunk of the profits - so if some kind of Roman merchand class can emerge.
The Roman have no reason for controlling Characene very tightly, even if it is provincialized.
Dude, I am never disussing about the next 20 years. I am always thinking in centuries. Because I am intersted in the big pictue and how you change the roman society until Attila arrives. Actually this bastard is no problem, in my preferd scenario, because the Huns are beaten before he is even born.
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
Maybe the Marconmannian could be disarmed and simply integrated in the empire as foreign inhabitants.
I'm afraid that the new trade links to China and India will accelerate the spread of diseases and plagues.
The Vistula is the biggest river in Poland. And the Tyros is the Dnjestr in Moldavia a bit east of the Carpathian Mountains. This border means, the romans conquer entire Germania. It is highly disputable, if the romans are able to do that at all militarily. There is no economical reason to do so. But I have to admit, it is perhaps the most perfect strategic position and surely the shortest border you can imagine. Of course, this is nothing the romans can reach in 20 years. If possible at all, this is the 200 year timeframe.
Regarding the Elbe border. I am convinced 124 AD, this is much easier than 24 AD or 224 AD. Very much easier! of course you still need a reason to do so. There is no economical reason, but a very good strategical one, after you once have been in war with the Marcomanni and their allies the Hermanduri in southern Germany. Actually there have been already pretty good campaigns by Corbulo in or Galba. But that is long time ago.
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Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
Sure, sure. If the Romans manage to keep their empire united while avoiding civil wars, religious problems and financial crises, they have ~ 500 000 professional soldiers on fortified frontiers standing against an army of maybe 50 000 barbarian mounted archers.
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
The updates get step by step, emperor by emperor. 200 years are very far avay... And I have a real problem with the reasons. Maybe a demographic explosion in the empire? After that, the empire need much land to settle the excessive population. But why should the population grow that quickly?
Actually, this was exactly Valens' plan with the Visigoths in Moesia. But he forgot to disarm them. And even more important, he forgot to control his roman magistrates onsite closely. Without these greedy and corrupt roman idiots exploiting the Visigoths shamelessly, and enforcing them to revolt, raid the Balkan and destroy Valens army at Adrianople, history would have gone fully different.
So yes, integrating german tribes on a step by step basis into the empire is a key success factor. Actually most historians say, that the roman empire was just overwhelmed in terms of speed and masses of barbarians to integrate.
But surely not 150 AD with the Marcomanns. This was either just bad communication amongst the local legates and the emperor, or Marcus Aurelius was too ignorant.
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Nope, nobody is willing to settle beyond the Elbe until late mid-ages. This area is the real german hell, Varus has never seen. Even the german Kings during the Mid Ages had a hard time with this region beyond the Elbe. As I mentioned: the Vistula-Tyros line is a very theoretical but good strategial position. More a wet dream of an author of alternative histories or a new Julius Caesar.
Don't worry. Go with your mountain border. It is much more feasible and realistic. Just rethink about chinese style of walls please.
Perhaps consider to deal with the west-german tribes up to the Elbe on a step by step basis. They always gave the romans a reason to attack. Just to avoid, that they build the big confederations like the Franks and the Allemans.
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