How would u have saved the western Empire?

[NineinchNails2010]

How would u have kept the empire at its peak and prevented the barbarian incursions? Personally i wouldnt have just cleanly split the empire like it was. I would have forced some kind of mutual co-operation. I.e. The west helps out and sends military aid to the east in return for economic aid.
Further, Come up with some clear line of sucesion to avoid civil war. Maybye establish two legions under the emperors direct command to act as a detterent to any ambitious generals. (though admitadly they may end up like the pratorian guard)

These r just a few of the top of my head, what about u?

[SovietInsurgent]

The Western empire had many disadvantages but none that couldn't be overcome with good leadership. Western politicians had become corrupt and weak, if they were blessed with successive Alexander's and Julius's the Western Roman Empire would rule the world today.

[HomerReborn]

Saved the Western Empire from which angle?

If I was an Emperor, I would have ignored the east (it can split if it wants), and focused on many things, including:

-Restore the power to the Senate.

-Set in place motions to end the Emperor.

-Protect all borders as necessar, but if needed, withdraw to Italy and protect AT ALL COSTS.

-Used my personal (giant) wealth to pay philosophers to spread the word of Paganism and help restore the spirit of Paganism and morality within the Empire.

This above I consider the most important: the Roman Empire would need to restore her morality by abandoning Christianity in favor of the Ancient/Republican Roman values and ideals. This could be spread by teaching history of the Republic, venerating it, etc.

[MoROmeTe]

I would have gave ample powers to the Emperors and generals, I would have purged the Army of all or almost all of the barbarians in its ranks, I would have abandoned the Eastr and concentrated on the defenses on the Rhine. Seeing as these would eventually fall I would have created a new line of defense on the Alps with the aim of protecting Italy. Also I would have protected Spain and Gallia, if possible...

[VandalCarthage]

Well, due to my name, I feel that I'm magically endowed with extra insight into this particular question...

I would have:

1) elevated three leading senators to positions of military authority, and create circumstances of blood lust and desire for the reclamation of glory within the general populace, leading to the same sort of thing that Caesar had: popularity, by conquest.

2) modernize the legions with thicker, more substantial armor, and make it more fluidic by supporting it with heavy cavalry with rear mounted velites to support them during cavalry engagements - a very useful trick the Romans never picked up on. As well, I would have advanced the independent idea of knights by promoting a new social patrician class with authority and provincial power based on their political coinage received via association with lordly senators and generals.

Though the question is, how do you go about creating an entirely new social class, by your own conscious efforts and machinations? By glorifying your own planned individual cases, starting a new social program of grants of equipment and weaponry for maintaining individual expeditions of plunder. Have parades, associate leading personages with rising personages, so that a later generation might take up the mantle and proceed onwards, sword and serfs in hand and in trail, respectively.

A system of plundering Gallic villages would create a buffer zone along the frontier, preventing major incursions, as long as you can back up your antagonism with major military offensives when necessary.

Also by promoting disharmony among the Gallic tribes; refracturing the newly confederating groups by resurfacing tribal feuds and bribing particularly antagonistic groups into your service or enticing them into allies by promising aid against their tribal neighbors

3) begin re-Romanizing older regions. Bargain with Byzantium for the Dalmatian coast perhaps. Make an effort to re-occupy Iberia via the Southern coast, and use the incredible mines there the same way Hannibal did: for direct profit.

4) educate a new generation of generalisimmos in North Africa by re-arming the province around carthage. The region at the time mostly provided wheat, in fact almost exclusively wheat, for Italy. Expand this operation to support new legions of local levies and mixed legions of Italians and North Africans, in order to resecure Egypt and make it the compact province that it was under Ptolemy. Ptolemy fortified the single land route from Asia into Egypt making it very secure; just as an active Roman frontier there would.

Actively promote Roman culture in new acquisitions and abroad by harmonizing local religions with the Roman one, and sowing the seeds of transference by passively promoting the Roman god as the same or superior one. This converts the Pagans, and gives the pious Muslims of the time the impression that Romans just have a different name for God, and to fight in their legions is equivalent to spreading God's word. By harmonizing these two major religions, the major cause of the eventual fall of Byzantium could be averted, giving them resources to focus on Bulgaria and reclaiming their Empire in Asia Minor and Europe.

5) control the Papacy. Rome probably wouldn't have had so much of it's resources frittered away had the Popes of the time not been such incredible schemers, so control the office by whatever means necessary.

6) pacify the Vandals. Settle the Vandals yourself around the area of Hippo Regius and give them carte blanche for use of the land, with some natural levies of the troops for service abroad. Station mixed legions there to replace the levied ones to promote fraternity!

That's my basic impression in a nutshell and with an incredible lack of expansion and real explanation. I believe if Rome had modernized more quickly, and started to take hold of the enterprising individuals in and around the empire, it could have endured for longer. But, it must endure through it's old expansion, but with more active leaders in the provinces, with many more balances from the imperial government on them. A class of provincial leaders would be positive as well, as long as competition for power with the Senate was avoided, but that could be done easily enough by limited their authority and stationing them in a vast circuit of the empire.

[Pompeius Minus]

Good question! I would try to put an end to the civil wars somehow. I have no idea how though.

Maybe I could turn the Empire into some kind of federation and keep everyone happy that way? But then of course it wouldn't be the Empire anymore, so it's doubtful if I would really have saved it.

[HomerReborn]

You can't do anything to the Empire without changing the people.

Think back to the Punic Wars. Every single man, woman, and child in Rome was strong. No matter who invaded (And Hannibal was right at their doorstep), they functioned and fought back. The late Empire was a period of decline and moral failure, where a tendency to excess, a negation of their ancient Pagan Ways, and a spread of the Christian religion destroyed the very soul that was Rome.

Marcus Aurelius understood this (and perhaps was the last Emperor to do so?). What was needed was not a stronger army, a better government, etc. because those are all consequences of the morality of the people. But with no great leader, no great man of moral action; with the people forgetting their roots, the empire decayed from within.

It is this reason that Will Durant said, "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has first destroyed itself from within. The essential cause of Rome’s decline lay in her people and her morals."

[Trajan]

I don't think you could have done anything to save the Roman Empire. It was meant to fall and nothing could have ever saved it. All Empires rise and fall, that's just the way of the world.

[O'brien the Protector]

yes, but they dont fall beecuaes the decide its time top pack up and relax for a while, ther are preventable reasons for the fall of empires, but most of the time its eather a process that goes over a long preoid of time, therby (nearly) impossible to detect at the time, a sudden catastrphe that cant be prevented , or long peroids of bad leadership that lead to certian conditions that cant be corrected by anybody at the time ( becuase they dont know whats wrong at the time, or its very hard to chage the conditions, like the collapse of old values and morales that wer5e the foundation of the empire).

anyways

The first thing i would do would be to update the buerocracy and purge it off currupt officials.

i would try to break up all the gallac and germanic towns and try to promote fihgitng between them,

I try and create false enimies ( thorugh propaganda) to create a wave of paranoia thorughout the empire, and try and monipulate the fear to wake the old ambitous values/ mentality of the old empire, and try to use the fear, and after a whil;e anger, to try and get everybody to rally around the emporor ( i guess it could be though of as a mix of Bismark and hitlers stratageis).

[IronBrig4]

I would have accepted Christianity, but would have held it subordinate to paganism. The buffer zone in Gaul may have been a sound strategy. The plunder from those raids would have given young men a reason to join the army, and from there to administration and politics.

[ChiTuMa]

Strong, dictatorial policies. I would have made it a punishable offence to produce less than you consumed. Also, the army would have to undergo another reform. Generals would be required to live a strict, Spartan lifestyle and would be punished with death for dereliction of duty. Basically, bring back the old standards that had been forgotten with the slide into decadence.
I would have abolished the papacy and guaranteed religious freedom with governmental protection and tax exemption for churches. If necessary, I would have consolidated forces and slightly reduced some lands so that internal problems could be properly worked out. Obese citizens would be publicly shamed as would drunks and the like. The rest of the world would have been divided into regions that were ruled in part by their own elected senates, as long as they paid tax and obeyed the greater law of Rome.
The military would bring back the old training standards. Competition between units would be renewed and encouraged. A military academy would be established in order to screen and properly train veterans or exceptional youths for officer training. The cavalry would have been reorganized and the stirrup invented. Border regions would be constantly patrolled by cavalry platoons consisting of three swallowtail units (three lancers each), a horsearcher, a signalman, and a commander.

[Trajan]

yes, but they dont fall beecuaes the decide its time top pack up and relax for a while, ther are preventable reasons for the fall of empires, but most of the time its eather a process that goes over a long preoid of time, therby (nearly) impossible to detect at the time, a sudden catastrphe that cant be prevented , or long peroids of bad leadership that lead to certian conditions that cant be corrected by anybody at the time ( becuase they dont know whats wrong at the time, or its very hard to chage the conditions, like the collapse of old values and morales that wer5e the foundation of the empire).

You have clearly misread my post. Of course a whole lot of events and choices contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire but what I said is that, the fall of Empires are natural, it's fate. Can you name one Empire that has survived to this day and I'm talking about past Empires and not recent ones. Just read my sig and it tells you how great civilizations fall.

[Pompeius Minus]

I see we have a lot of candidates for military dictator and religious ayatollah in here. :)

Now that I think of it, maybe I would try the opposite strategy. I would adopt liberal policies that aimed to integrate the barbarians. Under my rule the Empire would become pluralistic and multicultural. I would appoint Gothic senators, and maybe even take myself a Gothic wife or two. In the name of peace I might even marry a Persian princess as well, provided a suitably young and good looking one can be found. With my integrated, loyal Romano-Gothic army I would secure the borders and focus on getting the economy back on track again.

Either that or the people of Italy would call me "Gothicus" and assassinate me along with my entire family!

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

I would have abolished the papacy.

And what exactly would that have achieved? The Pope was merely the Bishop of Rome - one of a number of senior patriarchs in the Empire at this time. There was no 'Papacy' in anything like the modern or even the medieval sense.

Most of the solutions in this thread are totally pointless anyway. The Western Empire didn't fall because it was defeated by 'barbarians' (it wasn't). It was an economic collapse substantially caused by population decline. 'Strong dictatorial policies', 'thick armour', 'buffer zones' etc would all be peeing in the wind. The economy would still decline and the Empire would still collapse.

[Pompeius Minus]

Exactly. At least I would have fun with my young, sensual Gothic and Persian princesses. The rest of the posters would just spend their miserable and (in all likelihood) short lives in some damp army camp fighting against events that they can't control anyway. :)

[JAN]

Going back to the original question and assuming all would be well if you were able to keep the invading barbarians out, (ignore the fact that it wasn't the barbarian invasions in themselves that really brought the empire down) I believe that it was impossible to keep the barbarians out as the Roman army was not large enough to do the job.

Generally the Roman army during the Empire was around 500,000 strong. Because of the size the Empire you would need something around 3 million troops to protect it effectively. The existing troops were all largely placed on the frontiers which meant that if a barbarian breach of the frontier occured then there was no defence between the frontier and Rome.

For the Roman State to keep 500,000 troops under arms was crippling enough financially, to employ 3 million would have been impossible. Conscription was tried on several occasions but was largely a failure to increase numbers. Most of the army by this time was not Roman or Italian anyway but drawn from the rest of the Empire as these were the only people who wanted to serve in the army.

The Empire reached the point of economic overstretch when the technologies that built it reached the end of their development and began failing to pay for it. As no radical new technologies were in line to replace them it was all down hill economically. Because the State had by then become so invasive into the people's lives and so set in it's old ways bringing in new technologies was impossible.

This is just human nature and the way the world works which is why civilisations rise and fall. Luckily the cycle usually takes place over many lifetimes but is bad news if you happen to be living towards the end of each cycle.

JAN.

[Dromikaites]

Before giving my solution for saving the Western Roman Empire let's look at some issues:
1) The Eastern Roman Empire (ERE) survived for 1,000 years more. During all that time it fought enemies who were more formidable than anything the Western Roman Empire (WRE) had to face. So in order to find a solution for the survival of the WRE we need to see what were the things the ERE did right. We should, however, restrict our analysis to the period of time during which WRE was stil in existance. Therefore it won't be correct to suggest that dividing the West into themes would have been a correct solution since the themes were created in the East some 400 years after the fall of WRE
2) ERE and WRE were allies. During their brief existence side by side, most of the time they were supporting each other even though occasionaly they had their diferences. This reality needs to be factored in any solution for the survival of WRE.
3) Both empires at that time ended by being dominated by the barbarian generals (Germans and Alans mostly) yet the ERE managed to get rid of those uneasy allies eventualy. In order to figure out a realistic solution for saving the WRE, we also need to look closely at how the ERE dealt with the danger of losing completely the controls to the Germans and Alans.

To be continued...

[Burns]

One of the great mistakes of the Emperors was the disunification of the Empire. Had it remained unified then the deficiences of the Western half could have been mitigated by the resources available in the Eastern half. The Barbarians, while they did not destroy the West did speed it along its road to collapse by simply being there. They took land and land was the key factor behind all ancient economies. Without land (and taxes that it generated) the Western Half was basically starved where it could not raise armies. To save the western empire, those barbarian migrations would have had to be stopped. Flavius Vegetius believed that the Legion had declined and he wanted to reverse that process. The defence of the border should have been revised. Instead of stretching it out and placing troops all along it, a strong central core far behind the borders may have been better. If the border was breached then there would be this strong force to repel it in the rear. I think they tried something like that, but it was never as numerous as it could have been.

[NineinchNails2010]

Yeah i agree that consatantines split was the biggest one but from what i understand the empire was fracturing anyway. On occasion even forming its own seperate empire (gallic empire).

I reckon because of this they needed to find some quiker way of communication. It was easily within their capability (the mongols managed it to amazing success) and they had the best at the time but i think it would have helped to keep the provinces feeling like they were under the authority of a close overlord and not some distant land. Maybye have even helped prevent civil wars.

[al-caid]

As a descendant of a former barbarian folk, I am glad Rome is out and we have free space for own, even greater empires ;D