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Grand Fromage posted:Even into literally like the 1200s there still was not actually any law about Roman succession. I don't know if there ever was one. To the strongest.
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Aug 4, 2015 04:03
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Is there any explanation as to why Galerius let Constantine pull the self declaring himself stunt? Shouldn't he have been capable of outnumbering in any military matter since the 3 other Emperors were in his pocket?
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Aug 4, 2015 04:15
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xthetenth posted:Why wouldn't Marcus Aurelius be able to adopt a guy to be emperor? It seems like there's plenty of precedent, what with it being the way things were done for nearly 100 years and Commodus being the sort of guy you could believe died in a tragic forgetting to breathe accident. The previous emperors had the good/bad fortune to outlive all their biological male children, and some of them even outlived some adopted heirs. But Commodus just refused to die young like his more generous brothers.
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Aug 4, 2015 04:25
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xthetenth posted:Why wouldn't Marcus Aurelius be able to adopt a guy to be emperor? It seems like there's plenty of precedent, what with it being the way things were done for nearly 100 years and Commodus being the sort of guy you could believe died in a tragic forgetting to breathe accident. There's always the possibility he, you know, loved his son and was trying to avoid a situation which would cause him to die horribly. Although as it turns out making him emperor didn't help much!
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Aug 4, 2015 04:58
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Jerusalem posted:Just out of interest, the position of "Emperor" (which didn't really exist?) wasn't hereditary by default, right? The Emperor still chose their heir (or a new Emperor was chosen by others after his death) and it could have been anyone he chose it to be? We know how that would turn out. See here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172495/
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Aug 4, 2015 05:34
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xthetenth posted:Why wouldn't Marcus Aurelius be able to adopt a guy to be emperor? It seems like there's plenty of precedent, what with it being the way things were done for nearly 100 years and Commodus being the sort of guy you could believe died in a tragic forgetting to breathe accident. He could have, but the adopted heir would have been very weak unless he had several years to establish his position - particularly if Commodus was still alive as the obvious alternative. By the time Marcus Aurelius was faced with the problem - even if he could content himself with killing his own son for the good of the empire - there just wasn't much time. He was constantly in poor health, and there was rarely a time where it would have been safe to attempt such a change in power. In the end, he decided that the risk of poor rule was less than the risk of civil war. Perhaps history proved him wrong, but on the other hand immediately following Commodus' death was precisely the kind of devastating civil war that Marcus Aurelius had been trying to avoid. Kaal fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Aug 4, 2015 |
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Aug 4, 2015 06:06
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Grand Fromage posted:Even into literally like the 1200s there still was not actually any law about Roman succession. I don't know if there ever was one. They wouldn't have needed one after 476, anyway. 
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Aug 4, 2015 06:13
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xthetenth posted:Why wouldn't Marcus Aurelius be able to adopt a guy to be emperor? It seems like there's plenty of precedent, what with it being the way things were done for nearly 100 years and Commodus being the sort of guy you could believe died in a tragic forgetting to breathe accident. He made the classic error of loving his son and therefore not being able to bring himself to murder his own child, even though he knew he would not be a good emperor. Adopting a guy to replace Commodus would not have gone well if Commodus were still alive.
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Aug 4, 2015 06:58
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Yeah, for all the criticism of Marcus Aurelius' choice it would have been really much more surprising if he'd done what peole think of as the better thing. Hell even if it had all gone well it would probably be a historical black mark on his record, history doesn't tend to look favourably on patricide or fillicide. On top of that at what point can Marcus definitively say Commodus will be a bad Emperor? At that point how long does he have to establish an alternative, make him co-Emperor and firmly establish his authority and make sure he's well trained and ready to take over? Because if that isn't all done and Commodus is alive there's a good chance there will be a power struggle. Hell how does Marcus know that Commodus' rule will be as disastrous as it was? Even a disinterested Emperor that's able to keep the wheels of the system spinning would be better than civil war and if he kills Commodus, appoints someone new and then dies himself shortly afterwards you've got an Emperor with little training, not much of a power base and very shaky legitimacy which is a recipe for civil war. I'd say Marcus Aurelius was just unfortunate enough to have an obvious choice for his successor presented to him with many possible bad consequences for trying to change that.
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Aug 4, 2015 09:44
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ancient history: he made a big mistake, not killing his only son
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Aug 4, 2015 12:36
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Well the other thing about Commodus is that many of the sources we have for him either don't give us much information or shouldn't be considered 100% reliable. We know Commodus was probably not very interested in running the government, kind of an arbitrary ruler, and the senators and upper class hated him. The best source we have for him is Cassius Dio, a contemporary and also a rich guy who served as consul. Since senators and upper class folks are the ones who have time to write poo poo down, it's quite possible that Commodus gets a shittier reputation than he actually deserves. For example, did he actually fight as a gladiator? Yeah probably, but it's also possible that his political enemies (every rich person) had a vested interest in making him look lovely, so they turn "Commodus fought in the arena" to "Commodus was obsessed with fighting in the arena and he charged the city of Rome for his appearances." Even the imperfect sources we do have concede that Commodus was popular with the army and the common people. He taxed the rich to throw games, and while Rome was in a continuous state of war during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, under Commodus the empire was mostly at peace. Honestly a lot of his problems seemed to stem from trusting the wrong advisers, especially that Cleander fella.
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Aug 4, 2015 14:03
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Was filicide even acceptable in Classical Rome? I can't think of examples.
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Aug 4, 2015 14:27
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You mean, beyond killing babies?
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Aug 4, 2015 14:28
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Well yeah. Like I was thinking in comparison to the classic example, the Ottoman Empire.
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Aug 4, 2015 14:29
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Well you could always refer back to the founders if you needed a decent reason to murder your brother and take his stuff.
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Aug 4, 2015 22:34
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Ras Het posted:Was filicide even acceptable in Classical Rome? I can't think of examples. Though it was mostly a theoretical concept, wasn't the whole idea of the pater familias having complete control over the life and death of family members (including children and even extended family members) considered the right and proper way of doing things? In that sense it would have been acceptable, even if actually doing it might have raised some eyebrows.
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Aug 4, 2015 23:10
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Jerusalem posted:Though it was mostly a theoretical concept, wasn't the whole idea of the pater familias having complete control over the life and death of family members (including children and even extended family members) considered the right and proper way of doing things? In that sense it would have been acceptable, even if actually doing it might have raised some eyebrows. Yes, theoretically, but the privileges weren't independent of the patriarch's moral duties as a Roman citizen. In any case, Wiki provides an answer wrt Marcus Aurelius' era: Under Hadrian, a father who killed his son was stripped of citizenship and all its attendant rights, had his property confiscated and was permanently exiled.
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Aug 5, 2015 00:13
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Ras Het posted:Yes, theoretically, but the privileges weren't independent of the patriarch's moral duties as a Roman citizen. In any case, Wiki provides an answer wrt Marcus Aurelius' era: Under Hadrian, a father who killed his son was stripped of citizenship and all its attendant rights, had his property confiscated and was permanently exiled. Cato the Elder would be furious at how lenient they were - the man should have been tied in a sack with a dog, a cat and an ape and dropped into the ocean. 
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Aug 5, 2015 05:41
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Jerusalem posted:Cato the Elder would be furious at how lenient they were - the man should have been tied in a sack with a dog, a cat and an ape and dropped into the ocean. Furthermore Carthage Should Be Destroyed
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Aug 5, 2015 11:36
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The ape just seems like an excessive amount of trouble.
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Aug 5, 2015 11:38
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Grand Fromage posted:The ape just seems like an excessive amount of trouble. I like to think at least one convicted Roman said this as he was being sewn in  MikeCrotch posted:Furthermore Carthage Should Be Destroyed I really wish I'd thought to add this to my post 
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Aug 5, 2015 12:10
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I feel like being in a sack full of cats who are also wet is bad enough.
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Aug 5, 2015 12:14
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Jerusalem posted:Cato the Elder would be furious at how lenient they were - the man should have been tied in a sack with a dog, a cat and an ape and dropped into the ocean. Wait, where would a Roman court get an ape from?
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Aug 5, 2015 14:00
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Angry Salami posted:Wait, where would a Roman court get an ape from? Are you pointing out what "ape" means or wondering where they got monkeys from? One answer to both is the Barbary macaque i.e. Barbary ape.
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Aug 5, 2015 14:27
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YouTuber posted:Is there any explanation as to why Galerius let Constantine pull the self declaring himself stunt? Shouldn't he have been capable of outnumbering in any military matter since the 3 other Emperors were in his pocket? The other emperors being so totally in his pocket was the problem since they weren't really important people with any power of their own. First off there were only two other emperors because Constantius had just died. Constantius was not under Galerius's control and also was dead which precipitated the whole Constantine's acclamation thing him being Constantius's son and all. The nominal Caesar of the West was Severus, who had no native power base and was totally Galerius's creature. He had just been recently sent out to the West and was technically an Emperor but really just a flunky dispatched to some provinces where he was unknown and trying to implement unpopular policies like increased taxation. Severus lost Italy to rebellion in an unrelated matter only weeks after Constantine elected himself the new Augustus so that tells you how irrelevant Severus was as a political force. The Caesar of the East was Maximinus who as also a nobody with little power and completely in Galerius's pocket. He wasn't an ally so much as an overgrown provincial governor. And with Maxentius ruling Italy all of a sudden what was Galerius supposed to do about Constantine ruling Gaul Spain and Britain? Somehow march through the heavily fortified and hostile Po Valley to reach a different enemy on the other side? Tramp through Upper Germany? Build a fleet and sail to Hispania Terraconensis? Those are all terrible options, and Rome itself in open rebellion is a much bigger problem than an ambiguously loyal coruler in the distant and placid western provinces. Things only got worse when Maxentius destroyed Severus's army and bought off a significant portion of the Danube Legions. With an aggressive Persia on one side and a major rebellion in Italy threatening to spread to Illyria Galerius had no time to worry about Constantine. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 5, 2015 |
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Aug 5, 2015 16:04
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Emperor Pedro II of Brazil was pretty awesome. He was overthrown because he helped abolish slavery in Brazil, so a coup isn't really a mark against him.
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Aug 5, 2015 16:36
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Emperor Pedro II of Brazil was pretty awesome. It's Latin America. Who doesn't eventually get tossed out by a coup?
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Aug 5, 2015 19:41
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FreudianSlippers posted:It's Latin America. Who doesn't eventually get tossed out by a coup? Hugo Chavez?
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Aug 5, 2015 19:58
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Star Man posted:Hugo Chavez? Nope. The CIA and native traitor-capitalists gave him that cancer. That's a coup right there.
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Aug 5, 2015 20:01
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Nope. The CIA so his cancer is cured already?
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Aug 5, 2015 20:03
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Agean90 posted:so his cancer is cured already? Nope. Apparently it worked this time because Hugo Chavez Is Still Dead.
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Aug 5, 2015 21:53
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Ah, I wasn't really aware of the placement of armies during that timeframe. I always wondered why Galerius didn't consider using the same means Domitius Alexander used. Breaking North Africa off and cutting the grain shipments of Egypt and North Africa seems to be a more logical way to destabilize Italy rather than the failed march Galerius did.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:31
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YouTuber posted:Ah, I wasn't really aware of the placement of armies during that timeframe. I always wondered why Galerius didn't consider using the same means Domitius Alexander used. Breaking North Africa off and cutting the grain shipments of Egypt and North Africa seems to be a more logical way to destabilize Italy rather than the failed march Galerius did. Yeah but Severus had just been thrown out of Italy because of his unpopular economic policies and lack of a local power base. I doubt dispatching him to North Africa to destroy their whole economic model in the name of a distant eastern Augustus's political aims would have gone well either.
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Aug 7, 2015 12:58
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Star Man posted:Hugo Chavez? He got tossed out by a coup in 2002, it just didn't stick.
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Aug 7, 2015 13:15
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So I think this is kind of within the scope of this thread, maybe better suited for Medieval? I'm interested in learning more about the Viking age/Carolingian Europe. Anyone have any good recommendations for where to start?
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Aug 8, 2015 04:44
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"Before France and germany: the formation and transformation of Merovingian Europe"is great. A touch before your period but key to understanding how it came together. I'm not 100 percent sure I got the subtitle right but it's something like that
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Aug 8, 2015 14:50
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Creation and transformation of the Merovingian World. And that's another book I'm going to have to pick up at the library.
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Aug 8, 2015 15:51
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Thanks!
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Aug 8, 2015 16:00
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Also, "The Inheritance Of Rome" by Chris Wickham.
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Aug 8, 2015 18:38
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HEY GAL posted:most of the Electors of Saxony just got extremely drunk  Henry VIII was also a great ruler. Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 02:41
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