Alternate History Scenario #29: What if Gaius Caesar Succeeded Augustus?

September 9, 2 AD: Gaius Caesar, the designated successor to Augustus, had been invited to meet with rebellious Armenians, but, sensing a trap, he declined, and laid siege to the fortress. A couple months later, the rebellious Armenians surrendered, and Roman control of the Armenian Kingdom was assured. While the death of Gaius' brother Lucius had been a blow to the plans of Augustus, the bright and charismatic Gaius easily filled into the roles that Lucius' death had opened for him.

Gaius "Babyface" Caesar... either an Emperor
or a 1930s gangster, I dunno.

For the next twenty years, Gaius continued serving as consul, proconsul and other positions within the Principate, gaining experience, recognition and popularity, especially in the expansion into Germania. The birth of two young boys to his wife Livilla in 4 and 6 AD guaranteed the Julio-Claudian Dynasty as his adopted father began to resign more and more from political life. By 24 AD, Augustus was the Princeps in name only, as Gaius had been named to all the positions and titles that Augustus held, and the power they represented. So when Augustus died in 25 AD, the succession was clear, and welcomed by all.

Almost from the start of his reign as the Princeps, Gaius groomed his sons to succeed him: the eldest served on the border of Germania, while the youngest served in his father's old position in the East facing the Parthians. In Rome, Gaius continued Augustus' work, centralizing the state under his control. The Senate, while it's old prestige and power had waned, began to be revitalized as an advisory council and was allowed, within reason, to propose laws and vote on them. However, Gaius' approval was still needed, and if he dismissed or publically disagreed with the law, it would fail.

However, there was one problem Gaius was unable to tackle, and that was how to continue the growth and prosperity of the Empire. For decades, the conquests of foreign lands had brought in the wealth and resources needed to make Rome the Capital of the World. But even with the capture of Germania, which was mostly wild and untamed, with few settlements, no mines or farms, the question of how much further the empire could continue was left in the air at Gaius' death in 53 AD.

The succession of Gaius' son's was peaceful, but there was an undercurrent of concern. The speed of building had slowed, and military victories were few except against dissatisfied rebels or the ever present Armenian question. The lustre of the Principate was beginning to wear thin as the son's began to exert more overt authority that their grandfather and father never did, and senators, who had been sidelined for decades, longed to return to influence and power. Some began to plot, while others sought to rise to the Principate, and some few even thought that the legal fiction of the Principate should be totally replaced with monarchy. Soon cracks began to grow, as the son's began to be surrounded by opposing camps, and their influence began to tear them apart. 

When in Rome, do as the Romans due: stab possible tyrants on the floor of the Senate

By 59 AD, the split had become irreversible, and Civil War soon broke out again. But this time, there was no strong ruler to unify the widespread lands, and soon the Roman Empire began to fracture: Gaul and Hispania became the home of one of Gaius' sons; Africa, Syria and Egypt the other, while Italy, Illyria, and Greece became home to a new Roman Republic. The fighting between these three nations and their ill-defined borders would continue for decades, but never again would the whole old Roman Empire of Augustus be reformed. The empire he established, with it's complex legal and political machinations to maintain the illusion of the Republic that Augustus had created, collapsed when the ambitions and follies of men became too much. By 100 AD, the Roman Empire was gone, replaced by many smaller, bickering states that once were unified but had drifted apart.

But what do you think? What would have had happened had Augustus' chosen successor succeeded him? If you have a comment or a suggestion, leave a comment below, email me at tbguy1992@gmail.com or look for me on Twitter, @tbguy1992.

A Sneak Peak at my NaNoWriMo Project

I'm very pleased to announce that a) this blog is now (mostly) back, after my NaNoWriMo break, then a trip to Chicago, then a bunch of other things; and b) I won NaNoWriMo with a couple days to spare! My t-shirt is in the mail already.

This year's 50,000 word story that I've been working on (and is no where near complete, sad to say) was one of the most ambitious writing projects I've undertaken, which I've come to call Project Patrician.

In this story, I've been telling the story of a small town, in the ruins of an America ruined by nuclear war in the 1980s, that, from it's founding onwards, parallels the growth and rise of the ancient Roman Republic, from Romulus to Julius Caesar.

And, most likely, doesn't end much better. Or with a salad.

Now, I haven't completed the story, but since I don't have much else to post, here is the prologue of my story to share. Enjoy!

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PROLOGUE
The history of our great town and it’s old Republic goes far back, right to the War, the one that ended the Old World. While few stories of the War have survived to the present for many reasons, such as lack of written works and stories being lost as older generations died away. While we know much of the history before the War thanks to books that survived the great global firestorm in small libraries and homes of those far from the targets, and then then years of neglect, weather and destruction after, it must also be acknowledged that what we have is just a tiny sliver of what there was before the War. While we have history books, school textbooks of science and math, copies of famous works of art, and in some cases the original documents of these great achievements in literature, sciences and art, we can only guess that, at most, maybe only 10% of human knowledge gathered before the end of the Old World has survived. This is, perhaps, a greater destruction than the fabled legend of the burning of the Great Library in long ago Ancient Egypt. This is a sad, but frequent occurrence in the line of work of a historian, that many great stories and facts of heroism and valour have been lost with time.

But what we do know, thanks to a few eye-witness accounts kept and documented, as well as the information gathered from sources from all corners of the Republic, was that the time period right before the War was a Golden Age. Technology was greatly advanced, with devices that allowed people to call someone else hundreds of miles away through cables or through the air, though I’m unsure how other people would not be able to hear them. Everyone with a cable connected to a “grid” had electricity, something that now is only for the richest of people. As we have seen in the ruins of the city called New York, they were able to construct massive, tall buildings that could house thousands of people. There self-driving wagons that could transport families or entire villages worth of people, though almost all examples have long since been scrapped and recycled. There were enormous factories that turned out all sorts of products that anybody could afford, and food and water that was safe, clean, and easy. They even had things called “computers” to store information and create new and wondrous things. Today, only a few of those computers still exist, and all of them, that I know of, have never worked.

At the time, the area that we live in now was known as the United States of America, one of the greatest nations that ever existed. They used a form of government not unlike our own, with elected leaders and representatives that met in Washington, D.C. If you go there today, some archeologists and historians have determined where many ancient monuments and symbols of the old nation existed in that city, though due to the destruction caused in the war, there is little that can be seen there. It was all lead by a man called the President of the United States, where we currently get the title for the leader of our Republic.

There were other nations all around the world that were mentioned in the books and newspapers that have survived from the Old World: England, Canada, France, China, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, India. While we know where they were thanks to Old World globes and maps, we do not know for sure exactly what they were like besides some pictures of monuments and buildings, some people dead for centuries, and some statistics and numbers that we are not one hundred percent sure what they mean. But there was another major superpower that was talked about constantly in old American books, called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. From what we gathered, they were a despicable, hated nation that enslaved its people, promising them equality but instead giving them nothing but hard work, miserable living conditions and lies and falsehoods dressed up as facts. Their leaders were paranoid, corrupt and power hungry, and the old United States was terrified of them, but also confident that they were superior to them. This paradox of how a powerful nation could be both afraid and superior to another nation still confuses this writer.

But this book does not mean to tell the history of the Old World, or even of the years after the War. There have been many writers and historians before me that have gone into as much detail as they could about it, and it does not seem necessary to cover all those facts once again.

However, that does not mean we can ignore it totally. Had there never been the War, it’s fair to say that the Republic we know now would never have been born. The fact that the world ended 92 years before the founding of the center of the Republic, in the year that in the old times was given as 1985 lead to the destruction of the great cities of the old United States, the Nuclear Winter that lasted until 2035, the deaths of millions of people around the world from disease, radiation, famine and violence, and eventually the birth of new towns.

Now, it’s impossible for us today to understand and appreciate how much everything has changed, how the world was rebuilt by the men of the earliest times after the War and in the early years of the Republic. In fact, almost all of the ruins of the towns and cities of the Old World have been cleared away and rebuilt in the Republic, but in some areas, like in the far south and west, past the boundaries of modern civilization, there are still the ruins of once great cities. If you someday wish to get the full experience of what it was like back in the earliest years before the founding of the Republic and the return of civilization, those are the places to go.

But there are those that were brave or foolish enough to go and take pictures of some of those towns, and some people have even sketched or used cameras to capture what the ruins of cities like old Chicago, New York, Washington, Boston, Lexington, Cincinnati, and many others looked like.

In order to understand where our city, our Republic came from, it’s important to go back to the time before our town was even founded by our great founders, Alex and George.

AltHistory Scenario #22: What if Julius Caesar Wasn't Assassinated?

On March 15, 44 BC, Dictator for Life Julius Caesar would face immediate death, but also immortality when he was stabbed 23 times by a conspiracy of oligarchic senators afraid that Caesar was trying to become the King of Rome. The assassination of Caesar lead, not to the rebirth of the Roman Republic, but brutal civil wars, first between Caesar's supporters and those that lead the conspiracy to kill him, and later between Caesar's lieutenant Mark Antony and his adopted son, Octavian, who went on to become the first Emperor of the Roman Empire.

But what if Caesar wasn't killed on the Ides of March? What if Mark Antony, who heard of the plot the night before, was able to warn Caesar? (In our history, Antony was intercepted and prevented from warning Caesar.)

Hey Caesar! I brought you that salad... oh, uh... you're busy. I'll come back.

Antony, sending a servant to Caesar's house early that morning, is able to warn him of the plot on his life. Learning that his friend Marcus Brutus was part of the plot from the servant, Caesar, in grief, was reported to have said "Et tu, Brute?" He then summoned Brutus to his home, to ask of this. Brutus, realizing the plot had been foiled, but resigned to become a martyr to the cause of freedom, goes to Casear's home, and explains why he joined the plot (to rid Rome of a tyrant, to restore the Republic, and due to the historical background of his family who had disposed the last King of Rome), and that he was prepared to accept the punishment Caesar was to give.

But Caesar, stunned into silence of the huge plot against him at first, eventually embraced Brutus, praising him for his courage to do what he believed right, even going so far as to kill him. "No matter the gifts and honors I have bestowed on you," Caesar was reported to have said, "you still are your own man, one that believes in all else freedom for all." They then talked into the early morning hours of philosophy, war, and the Republic.

On the Ides of March, despite the knowledge of the plot against him, traveled to the Senate, with Mark Antony, Marcus Brutus, and other supporters. But instead of proceeding to business as was originally planned, Caesar gave a short, impromptu speech. Announcing that he had learned of a plot on his life, in part raised due to the vast powers he had acquired and the hostility it had generated, Caesar announced that he would be stepping down from his position of Dictator for Life, renouncing the titles that the Senate had given him, and would subject himself to the will of the Senate to try him for whatever crimes he may have committed, and that he would respect whatever decision they made. He was also prepared to allow free elections of any eligible citizen to the posts, even those that he had already determined.

The senators sat stunned at the speech. Some of the conspirators, namely Gaius Cassius Longinus, wanted Caesar to be killed or at least exiled, but many of the senators, appointed by Caesar, instead praised him for his humility, and after a series of votes, pronounced him innocent of any crimes that he may have committed, agreed to allow Caesar the chance to continue his military operations against the Parthian Empire, and to allow the next year's offices to be taken by those Caesar had appointed, but then allowing free votes for 42 BC. These actions were announced to the people of Rome, who overwhelmingly approved. However, despite the renunciation of his offices, Caesar was still massively wealthy and influentially powerful, and he still held great sway among the crowds.

The 43 BC Consular elections had Brutus and Mark Antony elected, and, while they continued to clash (as Antony saw Brutus as a threat to both Caesar and himself, as the now aborted conspiracy had shown), Caesar did his best to soothe tensions on both sides, and they worked fairly well together. And while Cassius continued to speak and rail against Caesar, he was soon driven into obscurity.

It also did nothing for the reviled senator Septus Marcus Flatuls.

Caesar left at the end of March 44 BC for his campaign against the Parthian Empire. While Parthia was strong, Caesar's command abilities were superior, and he defeated the Parthians in battle time and again. King Pacorus I of Parthia, however, continued to pester and annoy the Romans, withdrawing his troops and not engaging in battles with the Romans. After three years of war in the Mesopotamian region, and with little to show for it, Caesar eventually decided to end the war. He negotiated a peace where some land was traded and Armenia was made a neutral buffer state between the two nations. The Roman troops under Caesar then marched north, through Anatolia and into Eastern Europe, over the Danube River, to tackle the tribes of Germania.

Unlike in Parthia, Caesar was more successful in Germania, defeating tribe after tribe. While the land wasn't as rich or developed as in Gaul that Caesar earlier conquered, Caesar believed that the land, with Roman citizens settling in colonies through the area, could make it "richer than Italy, Egypt and Hispania combined." Every tribe between the Rhine and the Elbe River's were conquered and made subservient, and Caesar began the process of reorganizing them into new provinces of Rome.

Julius Caesar, basking in the glory of this conquest, began to march south back to Rome. However, before he reached the frontier of Gaul, Caesar had a massive heart attack while riding his horse, and died before he fell to the ground. It was 39 BC, and Caesar was 61.

His troops brought Caesar's body back to Rome, which was in a period of mourning. Mark Antony, Brutus and Octavian, all of whom were publicly arguing and trying out maneuver the other, all united in sadness of Caesar's death. Octavian, who was named Casear's adopted son in his will and given a large percentage of Caesar's fortune, made public orations of the man called "The Greatest of the Great." His reforms, including a police and fire fighting service for Rome, the unification of the provinces to an equal status, and his generosity and charisma all endured him to the people of Rome for a long time to come, with statues, poems, plays, and even a religious cult all based on Caesar springing up all over.

Birds all over Europe liked Caesar as well: they got a thousand new resting places.

After the funeral, what to do with Germania, Parthia, and the ever persistent Sextus Pompey, the son of Caesar's old foe Pompey the Great, became the major political issue of the time, not to mention the simmering feud between Brutus, who had allies in the Senate and the higher classes, Mark Antony with his support in the East (and with Queen Cleopatra of Egypt) and Octavian who assumed the fortune and name of his Great Uncle Julius Caesar and the adoration of the masses in Rome, were on the verge of a massive civil war within months of Caesar's death. However, an illness (some say poison or an assassination as well, but no evidence was found) that took Octavian in 38 BC, at the young age of 25, finally brought the Civil War that had been long brewing to a roaring inferno. As Octavian had died without a will, what to do with the enormous fortune left behind, and the name of Caesar, became a brutal, bitter battle between Brutus and Mark Antony. Brutus, in control of the West, and Antony with his support in the East, engaged in a long series of battles between 37 BC and 29 BC, destroying huge stretches of Italy, Greece, Sicily, Egypt and Gaul. Father turned against son, and entire towns were leveled by troops.

By 29 BC, with the people rioting for peace as war, inflation and poverty spread and both Antony and Brutus having exhausted their supplies of men and money, eventually the Peace of Rome was signed. In this, the Republic was to be divided in two: Brutus claimed the West, Antony retained the East, while Italy would remain a buffer state between the two. The Peace was marked with great celebrations, but little did people know that this was the end of the Roman Republic as people knew. The Senate in Rome was left in charge of Italia, but without a strong leader like Brutus or Mark Antony, they were unable to raise large numbers of legions or try to unify the republic, so both sides began to drift apart. By 24 BC, with the death of Cleopatra in childbirth (another son to Mark Antony), Mark Antony was crowned Pharaoh of Egypt, and he claimed the title of Consul of the East, and the new Eastern Roman Republic based in Alexandria.

"Remind me again why I have to wear this blue and gold thing?"
"I thought it was black and white!"

From his new capital in Massilia, Brutus, the Consul of the West, began to reform his territory which was increasingly called the Western Republic, which included Germania, Hispania, and a large portion of Africa, into a new oligarchic Republic with the basis on the older Roman body. But Brutus would not allow power to be as consolidated under one person, as it was under Caesar or increasingly under Mark Antony, so he and the Senate he established formed a delicate series of checks and balances that served the new Republic well long after Brutus died in 16 BC at age 69. Antony himself would continue to rule the East until 4 BC, at the old age of 79.

The two nations, increasingly distant but calling themselves Rome, would fight for the decades and centuries to come. The East would grow more Greek and Persian as Parthia was finally defeated time and again, while the West more Gaulish and German, until by 200 AD, few could tell that they had even been one single nation. Christianity, which started in Palestine, found a more welcoming home in the West than the East, where it was brutally repressed for threatening the stability of the Empire. Both halves had to deal with Barbarians, which the west handled with diplomacy and wealth, the East through brutal repression, until 259, when the last "Caesar of Rome," Marcus VII, was assassinated and his empire fell apart into several competing kingdoms, and the next several centuries featured wannabe dictators and kings trying to rebuild the Eastern Empire while facing each other, Persia and various barbarian assaults.

Italy, long a declining has-been center of the world, was easily reclaimed The Western Republic in 186 AD, and the Republic also claimed Britannia, Caledonia and Hibernia and began to travel across of the Atlantic Ocean. However, the problems of the old Roman Republic: the concentration of wealth in too few hands, the political machinations, the unchecked destruction of multiple families competing for power and prestige, lead to a declining and moribund state by 300 AD. The barbarians, pushed west by the Huns, took over the vast provinces of Germania, while northern seafarers raided Britannia and northern Gaul. Desert tribes in Africa also began to push north. While several great politicians and generals held the line and even managed temporary restorations and growth, more ineffectual and self-aggrandizing leaders continued to let the Western Republic crumble, until the occupation of Massilia in 404 AD lead to the final break of the Republic. While some of the nations that were born of the Western Republic, like the Republic of Britannia and the Kingdom of Hispania all claimed to be Roman afterwards, the true end of Rome came when the long depopulated and crumbling great city was destroyed by Barbarians in 439, and the city was never rebuilt to it's former glory and stature.

And not a single mad Emperor with a fiddle nearby.

But what do you think? What would have happened had Caesar not met the blades of his assassians? Or if you have a topic or idea you would like me to talk about, please leave comments below, email me at tbguy1992@gmail.com, or tell me on Twitter @tbguy1992.