In the unlikely case that Romulus could get any kind of power in this situation, I doubt Syagrius would accept any help from Odoacer, the man who fought against him 10-15 years ago and was sent East to get him away from Gaul as a foederati following his defeat in the Visigoth/Briton/Gallo-Roman war in 468/470s
Romulus Augustulus is not deposed by Odoacer and rules into adulthood
- Thread starter Count Romanus
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I'll admit to never having read it (not my area of preference or expertise), but I remember seeing it pop up on the first page when I'd log in. Figured it could provide some useful suggestions for the OP
True, Honorius, despite being incompetent, was able to ensure his own survival (and that of the WRE as well) and was able to keep his Generals such as Stilicho and Constantius III firmly under control. Valentinian III was the opposite however and killed Aetius to escape from his influence, not knowing (or probably not caring) how it affected the Empire. Romulus is a different case since Orestes is his father, and he's definitely not going to kill his own father. Orestes had been alive since the reign of Valentinian III so he was probably in his 30s or 40s in 476, so he may simply die of natural causes and his successor (if he has one) is given the boot by Romulus, who spends the rest of his reign without a regent, but may be dominated by either his mother or his wife if he has one. speaking of which, who would make a suitable candidate as Romulus's wife and Empress?
I don’t think killing Stilicho and raising Constantius III to the throne was much of an accomplishment to celebrate.There was no real need to kill Stilicho. Main reason why it went ‘smoothly’ was because Stilicho didn’t resist. The whole event,especially killing the families of the Germanic soldiers caused much more harm than benefit. As for raising Constantius III to the throne, I think that was an admission of defeat.He had little choice but to do it. The alternative may be to risk Constantius III rebelling or a repeat of the purging of Stilicho, not that I think any other general wouldn’t fight to the death thinking they would end up like Stilicho.
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I rather think we agree on those facts, but my point is that regardless of the good judgement being displayed, Honorius could do those things and he was not murdered or overthrown and quietly passed his rule over to his chosen successor, which is not what an incompetent ruler generally can do. Despite the many many problems occurring during his reign, he survived all his attempted usurpers, and passed his authority to his chosen successor, granted not his preferred one but an acceptable one.
Agreed. historians often portray Honorius as a weak willed nonentity who didn't know a thing about ruling and didn't care about the Empire he was ruling. this is rather an exaggerated view of him, Honorius may have lacked the qualities of a strong ruler like his father Theodosius I, but he made do with what he could, he settled the barbarians in Gaul and Hispania because he knew he couldn't get rid of them altogether, sure, that doesn't make up for the fact that the Empire suffered from the disgraces of Rome being sacked and an Imperial Princess (Honorius's half-sister, Galla Placidia) being captured by barbarians. but he did what he could to keep his throne and his Empire safe. but when you talk about Honorius's chosen successor, do you mean Joannes? he wasn't chosen by Honorius, and neither was Valentinian III for that matter.
Of course it wasn't, Stilicho was simply trying to keep the Empire together and fell out of favor because of his methods (such as seeking an agreement with Alaric to help the WRE militarily) Constantius's acclamation wasn't an admission of defeat, it was a recognition of his powerful status in the Empire, if you ask me, it's pretty suspicious that he died after only seven months, but even if Honorius hadn't made him Emperor, i doubt Constantius would rebel against the man who, despite being a weak ruler, has survived several usurpations and has shown himself willing to kill members of his own family to protect his throne, (Stilicho was Honorius's father in law and Honorius could hold Constantius's son Valentinian III as a hostage for his loyalty) and from what we know, Constantius probably wasn't interested in the Imperial throne since he complained about how burdensome and restrictive the position was because let's not forget, the position of Emperor in this period is one where power is nominal and threats are predominant, Generals such as Castinus, Aetius, Ricimer, and Orestes all had a chance to become Emperor and didn't take it, they chose to remain in their positions as Magister Militum since that position was more powerful and influential.
Most of them didn’t take the throne due to fear of Constantinople’s response.The example of Theodosius I marching on the Western Empire and later the invasion to install Valentinian III was still fresh within living memory. Nevertheless, the fact that Stilicho, Aetius, and Orestes were all angling for their sons to take the throne shows that there’s still considerable power, or at least threat to the authority of the Magister Militum in the office. Let’s not forget that two of these strongmen ended up getting killed by the emperor while Ricimer was only able to take out Majorian after a loss of influence from the failed campaign against the Vandals and Anthemius after a protracted civil war. The office of Magister Militum was just as insecure in this period. It should honestly have been divided in order to re-concentrate power in the person of the emperor, and it likely wouldn’t have grown this powerful if not for the fact that the House of Theodosius was full of child rulers who could not take up the traditional duties of emperorship, that is to lead the army in person.
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Even if they didn't take the throne, they still elevated Emperors that were not recognized by the ERE. and military intervention was not always the East's reaction to Western Emperors they gave no recognition to, it depended on the personal ambition of the Emperor, Theodosius I and Theodosius II both had dynastic ambitions, Emperors such as Leo I and Zeno did not. Leo used the Imperial throne in the WRE to rid himself of potential rivals to his own throne while Zeno did the same, but with barbarians. and the situations surrounding the different Generals in the west was not always the same. Stilicho and Aetius were in a safer position because the Emperors they served under were legitimate in the eyes of the ERE. Ricimer found himself in a sticky situation after he had killed Majorian because he lost control of most of the Provinces outside Italy, the East still had the power to invade Italy as they had done in 423 and Ricimer had an on-off relationship with them. unlike Orestes, who deposed Julius Nepos (who had gained the throne with the ERE's help) and proclaimed Romulus Emperor in his place without caring about what the East thought.
Got to admit, that was perhaps my favorite Late Antiquity timeline on this site - basically this version of Romulus had rolled max on all his stats and was a Caesar Augustus level of Emperor, pushing the WRE back from the brink to becoming somewhat prosperous again.
Direct military intervention was not the only way the ERE screwed over the warlords. Many of these 'legitimate' emperors were financially bankrolled by the ERE. Screwing over them meant the loss of subsidies or them using said subsidies to fight the warlords. Also, many of these warlords weren't necessarily the sole warlords in the empire. There are many other warlords. Stilicho etc were only big because they were the prime warlord in Italy. Others such as Bonifacius, Marcellinus, Aegidius were extremely powerful and their opinions had to be considered too. Aegidius actually marched on Italy following Ricimer's killing of Majorian and it was only stopped following his defeat by Ricimer's Burgundian allies. Likewise, Marcellinus had to die first before Ricimer moved in to fight Anthemius. Ricimer's loss of control outside of Italy showed that there are major consequences if you try to kill the emperor and that the position of emperor was far from a powerless one.
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Honorius and Valentinian III were both legitimate Emperors, but that time was different, they didn't need resources from the ERE because they had Africa, a group of wealthy Provinces that supplied the WRE with grain supplies and financial resources, thus the Western Empire was able to recover during the reign of Honorius. when the African Provinces were lost to the Vandals, things became less easy to repair due to lack of financial revenue, Valentinian III even had to pay some of the taxes he had issued! the ERE wouldn't have been the only source of revenue available to the WRE, the Senatorial class would've benefited from this situation because their wealth was a source of income as well probably used by the Emperors that the ERE did not recognize. as for the Warlords you talked about, Bonifacius was in a pretty powerful position because of his command in Africa and he was able to force the Imperial Government to come to terms with him. as for Marcellinus and Aegidius, Ricimer was able to piss them off and get away with it, Aegidius's domain was separated from the WRE through land concessions of the surrounding territory to the Visigoths and Burgundians and thus Aegidius became unimportant since we hear of no further contact between his domain and the WRE, Marcellinus was a different story since his position in Dalmatia made him closer to Italy and a threat to Ricimer, as well as the fact that he was a former friend of Aetius and a competent General made him also a threat to Ricimer's position as Magister Militum. once Marcellinus was dead, Anthemius had to take the initiative against Ricimer himself, you're right, the position of Emperor wasn't powerless, but it was more unstable and often life threatening.
A lot of contingent circumstances had to happen for Zeno IOTL to resort to telling Theodoric "please fuck off to Italy" so that probably does not happen ITTL.
I’m not entirely sure about what’s your point with ‘legitimate emperors’. Are you trying to argue that being ‘legitimate emperors’ helped with their positions?As for as the empire is concerned in this period, any one could be a legitimate emperor if he was recognised as such by the other emperor, which again, implied incurring the East’s displeasure if you tried to unseat the ‘legitimate’ emperor.
In the relevant period, Africa was lost more than half the time, starting with ‘legitimate’ emperor Valentinian III. The ERE certainly wouldn’t have been the only source of income, but it certainly represented an important source of income when the ERE was feeling generous. Whatever taxes the remaining parts of the WRE yielded, it was barely covering costs. A vital reason why Avitus and Majorian got deposed/killed had to do with the fact that they were no longer able to pay for their armies after these senators refused to pay for them and they had to be disbanded.
Considering the fact that Ricimer and Gundobad were the only ones who died in their bed or lived to resign their posts out of their own volition without becoming emperor themselves during this period, it is difficult to say that the position of Magister Militum was any more stable or less life threatening. I would argue that most of the Magister Militums did die unnatural deaths. The fact that Gundobad gave up the position as soon as he had the chance to become King of Burgundy showed that the position was not necessarily a very desirable one if there were alternatives. I would further argue that Ricimer and Gundobad would have certainly tried to become emperor if they were actually Roman. It was the fact that they weren’t Roman that led to them staying as Magister Militum. Majorian, who was Ricimer’s equal in the army at the time of his ascension certainly did take up the throne instead of becoming magister when the situation warranted.The position of Magister Militum was only powerful in so far as a series of child/incompetent emperors necessitated the delegation of the army to the Magister Militum. Had the emperor been a military man, the emperor himself could have executed most of it’s functions personally just like in the past. The likes of Majorian and Anthemius could have potentially done this had not for the fact that they were already in a power—sharing relationship with Ricimer from the very beginning. So they had to somehow eliminate Ricimer before they can remerge the powers of the Magister Militum back to that of the emperor.
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Before he got rid of Theodoric by sending him off to conquer Italy, Zeno had been having an on-off relationship with the Gothic King. He did send troops to fight Theodoric, but otherwise pretty much let him do his thing in Ilyricum. (Zeno wasn't very protective of his Provinces and some of the Cities in Ilyricum thought he had given up on them) The idea of sending Theodoric to Italy to fight Odoacer only came up because Odoacer had been interfering in Eastern affairs (he gave refuge to the rebel Marcianus and his brothers) and the fact that Odoacer was a barbarian would've given Zeno the excuse to dispose of him. But Romulus is a Roman and although the WRE and ERE often got nasty with each other, they never intentionally sent a barbarian entity to conquer the other's territory. Zeno would know that even he can't ignore this and hope to survive. So he'd probably go with cutting off Eastern resources to Italy or helping Julius Nepos (if he's still alive) regain the Western throne. With or without sending Theodoric along with him.
Is there any chance at all of Romulus Augustus forming an alliance with the Byzantine Empire?