If Rome Hadn't Fallen

by Timothy Venning

  The appearance that Severus created of a military despot relying on brute force was unfortunate for his reputation and for his relations with the Senate. But it mattered far less than allowing his unstable elder son to succeed him. Geta had shown no signs of being a better statesman or particularly mature, but at least he had a competent and trustworthy fatherin- law and probable chief minister in Praefect Papinianus; his reign should have posed less danger of bloodshed and eventual regicide than his brother’s.18 The lesson of Commodus’ reign should have been clear: any unstable ruler did not only cause alienation within the political classes (which Severus clearly discounted) but raised the risk of violent overthrow, another civil war, and a succession of copycat revolts by ambitious provincial generals. Severus dismissed the risks of the alienation of an erratic Emperor from the civil establishment as posing no risk to the throne, unlike military discontent. But it did not take a military revolt to have an Emperor murdered and a power-vacuum at the centre causing civil war. Pertinax was killed by his Guard but Domitian and Commodus were killed by potential victims of their paranoia within the Imperial Household and Caracalla was to be killed in a roadside attack during his Parthian campaign in 217 by a lone assassin (probably incited by the worried Praetorian Praefect).19

  Severus drew inadequate conclusions of the measures needed to secure stability, though his reasoning about the Army and the Imperial Family disunity being most crucial was true as far as it went. Similarly, his failings as a conciliator increased the alienation of his family-based regime from the civilian leadership in Rome and decreased the chances of general reconciliation (though the necessary rise in military pay would have entailed higher taxes and some confiscation of suspects’ property to pay for it in any case). All this helped to make the chances of Caracalla’s overthrow and a new round of civil war more likely – and with each successful revolt the chances that long-term stability could be achieved diminished. As it happened, the brief non-dynastic interlude under Macrinus, in 217–18 after Caracalla’s murder, was followed by the swift return of the Severan dynasty.

  The latter drew a flimsy ‘legitimacy’ from the pretence that Elagabalus, the great nephew of Severus’ Syrian wife, was really Caracalla’s son and then by Elagabalus’ adoption of his cousin Alexianus (only four years his junior) as his son. If Severus had seemed to be a ‘Punic’ alien in Rome, the Syrian bisexual transvestite High Priest Elagabalus, a bizarre and feckless spendthrift, was ten times worse. More importantly, the relaxation of strict discipline over the Praetorians after 211 by weak or indulgent regimes led to a recurrence of that arrogance and indiscipline that they had showed in 193.

  ‘Out-of-control’ Praetorians: the most dangerous legacy of Severus’ reign?

  Severus’ open reliance on military power encouraged the Guards’ selfconfidence and made a return to the fatal indiscipline that they had shown in 193 more likely. A cynically pragmatic policy of favouring the soldiers may have helped to preserve the Severan dynasty in the short term but was no good for long-term stability. Vespasian, in a comparable position and equally ruthless with dissent, had emphasised his traditional methods of government and use reliable elements of the capital’s elite. Severus did not use ‘acceptable’ figures in positions of real power and chose to rely on an overbearing and over-indulged Praefect from among his own small clique of fellow-Africans. This was a reflection of reality, but arguably made the Guards too arrogant and contemptuous of civilian control. By Alexander Severus’ reign, in 227, they could murder a disciplinarian Praetorian Praefect (Ulpianus) and get away with it.

  As with the Janissaries of Ottoman Constantinople, the Mameluke regiments of pre-Ottoman and Ottoman Cairo, and the Guards-regiments of eighteenth-century St Petersburg (or London under the ‘New Model Army’ in 1659), an arrogant and mutinous military force in the capital could be the Achilles heel of a great military power even if there was no revolt in the provinces. The Guards, having according to the (later) biographical evidence despised the insecure Macrinus, intimidated Elagabalus into removing his worst cronies in 221 and then murdered him in 222.20 They seem to have been beyond the control of the weak government of Mammea, mother of Alexianus/Alexander, rejecting or murdering Praefects and fighting with the populace. After the interlude of military rule by Maximin in 235–8 they lynched the new civilian rulers, Balbinus and Pupienus, though from this point provincial military revolt returned to being the main challenge to stability. The Guards may not have been the only cause of returning instability after 211, but they played a crucial role in creating a wave of revolts each of which made it less likely that the Empire could return to the political stability of the second century,as any ruler – even an able one – who attempted to secure stability would cause resentment among the military and touch off new revolts.

  The caveat in this argument is the fact that the Guards’ power was helped immensely by the uncertainty in Rome after 217, no Emperor being adult, experienced, secure, or dynastically legitimate. Macrinus was a Mauretanian outsider suspected of involvement in Caracalla’s killing; Elagabalus and his ‘brother’ Alexianus/Alexander were under-age Syrians; Maximin was a low-ranking soldier without civilian backing; Balbinus and Pupienus were Senatorial candidates without recent military experience or connections; and Gordianus III was a teenager chosen for the connection to his late relatives. The frequency of coups had given both Guards and provincial troops (and commanders) hope for the success of revolts, and made the latter endemic. By the time of the rule of the competent and experienced adults Praefect Timisetheus (for Gordian III) and Philip in the 240s, revolt had become a habit and did not need an Imperial defeat to touch it off; Philip resorted to giving his principal military command to his loyal brother, Priscus, but could not prevent another army revolting in 249. If Septimius had been succeeded by a ruthless but less tyrannical son – hopefully, Geta – and a line of adult Severan dynasts been established into the 230s and 240s, Septimius’ reliance on the soldiers would have been less likely to result in a series of revolts that could be blamed on his ‘Sullan’ tendencies.

  ‘Knock-on’ effects of military coups on the Empire’s frontiers

  This round of continuous crises made the Empire less likely to be able to deal with external threats, and more likely to break up if facing disaster on the frontiers as a struggling Emperor faced revolt in his rear and could not concentrate on the foreign enemy. The ability of Emperors to deal with serious external threats was seriously reduced if they were liable to face opportunistic military revolt the moment their military power faltered, and the potential of the invaders to do serious damage accordingly increased. The Empire’s brief success on the threatened Danube frontier in the later 240s only led to the victorious troops (allegedly) forcing their triumphant commander Decius to revolt against the unpopular Emperor Philip.

  Decius, a stern moralist and energetic ruler and accepted by the Senate as an aristocrat, called himself ‘Trajan’ to echo past glory and was probably the most capable Emperor since Severus. He undertook an energetic programme of reform and also had two sons who lacked the fratricidal tendencies of Severus’sons. But by now any military setback could lead to an ambitious provincial general revolting, and the German attacks across Rhine and Danube began to escalate. He was thus in a more dangerous position than Severus, and needed to win his campaign against a massive Gothic crossing of the lower Danube into Thrace in 250–1. Unfortunately, he was killed in battle in the Danube delta.22 This damaged Rome’s military reputation and led to copy-cat attacks by emboldened Germanic neighbours, including seaborne attacks across the Black Sea.

  After Decius’ death in battle in 251, two crucial years of Germanic incursions across the Balkans saw Gallus, Aemilianus, and Valerian fighting over the throne instead of a concerted Roman counter-attack. In 260, Valerian’s capture by the Persians touched off a series of revolts by provincial military commanders that temporarily broke the Empire into pieces, resulting in loss of both manpower and treasure on fight
ing civil wars and economic damage from roaming armies of Germanic and Persian invaders. (The exact numbers of invaders and extent of damage is unclear from the fragmentary sources, but it is clear that the overall results on Roman resources were catastrophic; the decline in size of the towns and numbers of walls erected around them are good indications.23)

  What if Geta had been sole Emperor from 211?

  It would be excessive to blame Severus’ priorities as the main reason why this chain of disasters was touched off. Had either Caracalla or Geta proved an adequate and long-lasting ruler, the disruption of the period of 180–97 would not have resumed until the next crisis of succession, particularly if they had ruled in a more self-disciplined manner. Geta, if his government had been stabilised by Papinian to make up for his youth and apparent lack of interest in business before 211, would have retained the loyalty of the troops to a greater extent than the non-dynastic disciplinarian and poor general Macrinus, the eccentric Elagabalus, or the ineffective Alexander did. He was less likely to be murdered than his brother unless he had developed similar paranoid tendencies and so invited a pre-emptive ‘strike’ by a potential victim (the fate of Caracalla, Commodus, and Domitian).

  Given his military training by his father, he could have handled a Parthian war in Mesopotamia better than Macrinus did in 217, though the collapse of Parthia into decentralised anarchy and the takeover by the Sassanids in the mid-220s would have invited a risky large-scale Roman attack by an overconfident ruler. Roman conquest as far as the Persian Gulf might have been possible given the resources available to a contemporary Roman ruler, the ease with which Septimius had recently reached Ctesiphon, and the disorder in Parthia, encouraging the (half- Syrian) Geta to think of himself in terms of a Hellenistic conqueror. He as well as Caracalla could have been tempted by Parthian collapse to play Alexander the Great. The 220s could have seen Rome ruling Mesopotamia as in 115–17. But once the Sassanids had unified Parthia again Rome would have faced a strong attack from the Persian heartland c.232, requiring a determined effort to hold the new acquisitions. (Unlike Trajan, however, Geta would not have had to face a Jewish revolt to his rear.) If Geta had matured into a capable ruler, relying on able ministers, his regime could have lasted for decades and restored Roman stability until the major Danube attacks of the 240s.

  Did any Emperor after 217 stand a chance of stabilising the Empire? The ‘what ifs’ of their surviving longer in power

  Given the evident attachment of the Praetorians to the reigning Imperial family and a principle of dynastic rule where possible (as shown by the attempts of Elagabalus’ and Alexander’s ministers to declare their links to Caracalla), it is possible that Alexander as an adult, if not his eccentric and self-indulgent cousin, had a chance to stabilise the situation. Elagabalus never showed any interest in military matters or government, leaving the latter to his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and her minister, Eutychianus. Having alienated Rome by his bizarre behaviour (and probably caused fears of bad luck arising from his marrying a Vestal Virgin), he was induced to name his cousin Alexander as his heir – probably by his nervous advisers so they had a replacement handy. He tried to have Alexander killed to safeguard himself but the Guards refused to do it and turned on him; he saved himself on that occasion but was soon killed in a second mutiny (March 222).24 The hand of Maesa, anxious to save the dynasty, was probably behind the act; and Alexander proved a more biddable and respectable ruler. Both youths had been passed off as Caracalla’s illegitimate sons to improve their dynastic claims, though Alexander and his mother Mammea (effective chief minister after Maesa died) could not stop sporadic military mutinies. Had he proved an adequate general in Mesopotamia in the early 230s and subsequently on the Rhine and shown less attachment to having his domineering Syrian mother at his headquarters, he ran less risk of being despised by the troops as her puppet. A coup to depose him would have been less likely.

  Given the creation of new senatorial dynasties and appointment to provincial governorships of Severan ‘trusties’ after 193, he did have alternative advisers to rely on. The execution of his first wife’s father Seius Sallustius, Praetorian Praefect and ‘Caesar’ so effectively his deputy, around 228 seems to have been a power-struggle with Mammea whether or not the charge of attempted revolt was justified. He could have been a viable senior civilian minister, a ‘strong man’ able to preserve the government, and averted the military rebels’ charge in 235 that Alexander was an incompetent dominated by female control – provided he did not annoy the restless Guard. Another, demonstrably competent, senior minister, Praefect Ulpianus (a distinguished lawyer), was murdered by the Guard (c. 224) for excessive strictness – a return to the defiance their predecessors had shown in killing Pertinax. With a vague story in the (inadequate) sources about the Guard fighting the Roman populace for three days circa 223, it is clear that skill, charisma, or bringing in provincial troops to disband the mutineers (Severus’ solution) was needed. Alexander lacked this ability, and his long survival would have been problematic even if he had not had to campaign – possibly not as feebly as subsequently believed – against the new Sassanid dynasty that had seized power in Persia. He ended up despised by his troops as his mother’s puppet and an ineffective commander, and was killed in a mutiny at Mainz.25

  Maximin, a popular choice to lead the uprising of 235 and a capable general on the Northern frontier, had more of a problem as an ex-‘ranker’ and a Thracian soldier who had no civilian connections in Rome. Relying on his trusted military associates to control the turbulent capital, he was bound to spark off resentment as a ‘tyrant’ relying on non-senators. Even the equally non-aristocratic ‘outsider’ Macrinus, a Mauretanian, had come up through the Imperial bureaucracy to be Praetorian Praefect. Maximin was vulnerable to a revolt within the Severan Imperial ‘clientele’, as seen by the plots on behalf of Alexander’s friends, in the capital, or by senior governors and generals, and the unpopular rule in the capital by his trusted military associates was inevitable, as was Senatorial disdain. He could have saved his throne by prompter action in 238 or a wiser choice of deputy in Rome; his choice was a harsh general who sparked off the revolt in favour of the Gordians in 238.26

  The elderly Gordian I was clearly not going to reign long even if his army had defeated Maximin’s troops in Africa and enabled him to reach Rome in safety to benefit from the Senatorial rebels’ defeat of the ‘despot’. But he had a son to succeed him, though the sources are too muddled to make it clear how competent the latter was. The capable Praefect Timisetheus could have preserved the young and inexperienced Gordian III’s regime beyond 244 had he lived, or the competent and ruthless Decius defeated the Goths in 251 and led his armies against the next waves of invaders. Decius was a harsh but capable ruler, promoting himself as a second Trajan and ‘restorer’ of ancient values, and had the energy to be a second Vespasian or a luckier Pertinax – and his military capabilities would have given potential rebels pause for thought before revolting against him. He had one adult son, Herennius Etruscus, so he could have safely left the latter in Rome to govern while he fought the attackers on the Danube. Herennius was killed with him in battle against the Goths; a younger son, Hostilianus, was titular ruler in 251–2 but only a teenager and so at risk of overthrow by his senior general, Gallus. As it was, Hostilianus died in the plague of 251–2 and the throne was up for grabs to any well-supported general; chaos duly followed.

  The violent overthrow of none of these men – except arguably Alexander – was inevitable, and a successful reign of one or two decades by one of them would have discouraged would-be rebels. It would have aided stability despite the events of 193 encouraging potential provincial army rebels to take a chance. Maximin, Gordian I and Decius had heirs to hand – adult heirs for the latter two – as had the less successful Philip, meaning the potential for a dynasty lasting several decades, although the young and childless Alexander and Gordian III would have had to rule for decades to leave an adult heir. It was the endless
round of successful revolts from 235 that prompted further military disobedience and opportunistic rebellions, leaving the Roman government critically unstable when the first major Germanic challenge since the 160s and the first Eastern threat since the 40s BC combined in the 240s and 250s; this vulnerability, no doubt, emboldened Rome’s enemies to attack. Had a stronger ruler, in power for decades without a successful challenge, and a long-lasting dynasty faced this challenge instead of a succession of ephemeral sovereigns facing imminent revolt, the threat of the crisis breaking up the Empire and undermining its economy would have been far less.

  Disaster and recovery from 253. The added burden imposed by Persian attack: the inability of the Empire to fight on two fronts

  Even in the 250s, when the Empire faced multiple attacks and the effects of plague on the available manpower to fight them, it could have survived intact with mutually trustworthy commanders fighting in each area. This is what Valerian, the victor of the civil wars of 252–3, attempted to do after 253. He used his adult son Gallienus as co-ruler to campaign on one frontier (the Rhine) while he was occupied elsewhere. Furthermore, Gallienus was lucky enough to have a teenage son available to rally loyalty too. The first geographical division of the Empire probably followed . But by that point revolt had become a habit as soon as the current ruler faced a setback. Crucially, Valerian could not concentrate on both the Germanic attacks over the lower Danube and the seaborne raids across the Black Sea into the Aegean, leaving the latter to spread unchecked and humiliate the Empire. It was at this point that Athens appears to have been sacked, as well as one of the ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ (the temple of Artemis at Ephesus) burnt.

  Imperial failure – probably helped by loss of manpower to the plague – then encouraged Persia to attack on the Euphrates. Without this, the Empire could still have held out; by this reckoning the replacement of the decentralised and coup-prone Parthian monarchy by the aggressive Sassanid dynasty in 224/7 provided one foe too many for Rome. The Sassanid monarchs constantly harped back to the glorious days of the Achaemenid empire in their propaganda, which meant reclaiming all its old territories – as far as the Bosphorus. The biggest ‘What If ?’ of the disasters which hit the Empire in the 250s is probably the question of the Sassanids’ overthrow of Parthia. Plague-weakened Rome had faced massive Germanic incursions over the upper Danube in the late 160s, though not on so wide a front, and survived. This time there was a major Persian invasion on the Euphrates as well. Valerian had to take an army to Syria and leave the Balkans alone. Had he not had to march East, the presence of both him and Gallienus on the Northern frontier would have deterred too many local rebellions as long as they were winning against the Germans.