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  1. #101
    julianus heraclius's Avatar The Philosopher King
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    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    Quote Originally Posted by Magistri Militum FlaviusAetius View Post
    The Illyrian control over the empire in the 3rd century was appaulinag. They had almost total control until diocletian
    If you mean the Illyrian Emperors, they saved the Roman Empire. Without them you wouldn't have had Flavius Aetius.

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  2. #102
    Magister Militum Flavius Aetius's Avatar δούξ θρᾳκήσιου
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    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    Yes that's true, but they were in away out of control too. I fact most of the Illyrians were high ranking officials, with the power behind the throne concept at work.

  3. #103

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    I confused just because they had control they were bad? I mean they weren't all good emperors by a long shot but they were a mixed bag, in fact they had a stretch of pretty decent to good ones, the only problem is they never reigned for long.



  4. #104
    Julianus Flavius's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    I was under the impression that the Illyrian Emperors were actually pretty good. However, as always, I am ready to be corrected.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    What have the Romans ever done for us?? apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?
    Some of my favourite quotes:
    "Your god has yet to prove himself more merciful than his predecessors" ~ Hypatia, as represented in the film 'Agora'
    "If you choose to do nothing, they will continue to do this again and again, until there is no-one left in the city, no people for this governement to govern"
    ~ Hypatia, as represented in the film 'Agora'

  5. #105

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    In fact I (and many others) would argue that it was actually Virtus Illyrici - the Virtue of the Illyrians - that saved the Empire. But I'd take that one step further and argue that in fact Virtus Illyrici = Virtus Gallieni.

    When I studied the evolution of the Roman Army during this period, a clear pattern emerged, best exemplified by Philip the Arab and Decius. Decius advised Philip to intercept the Goths in Illyricum and defeat them, but Philip sent Decius instead. As Decius predicted, his army responded by proclaiming him Emperor and forcing him to march on Rome, where he ousted Philip. And that pattern kept on being repeated: any successful Senator would immediately be proclaimed emperor by his troops and fight a civil war for power, stripping the frontiers and further destabilising the Empire.

    Then Gallienus inherited the rump of an Empire after the rebellions triggered by the capture of his father by the Persians. He had very few troops - most of them vexillated detachments from other provinces that just happened to be in the core area when everything went to Hell in a handcart; and he knew he couldn't trust the Senatorial elite, because any successful Senator would rebel against him.

    So he used the pre-existing Protectores (and despite what anyone tells you, the Protectores were NOT invented by Gallienus, there's good inscriptional evidence that they pre-existed him by at least 40 years) to create an accellerated promotion scheme to get career soldiers from the Equestrian Order into positions previously reserved for Senators. These were called 'Protector Augusti Nostri' under Gallienus, though their title and status was changed by Claudius immediately after Gallienus' death. This is why the Senatorial tradition hates him.

    It's also what saved the Empire. These career soldiers came largely from the Illyrian provionces, because that was Gallienus' main source of manpower (hence the Equites Dalmatae). After about 10 years, most of his senior officers were Illyrian career soldiers, and they were beginning to realise that they didn't need him any more - in fact, his blind trust in the likes of Aureolus was turning into a liability. So they assassinated him in AD268. Claudius Gothicus became the first Illyrian Soldier Emperor, defeated the Goths and died a year later of the Plague.

    But it didn't matter, because the man who succeeded Claudius was another Illyrian career soldier called Aurelian - who had learned his craft under Gallienus and risen to become his second cavalry commander. And Aurelian's successor, Probus, had also seen service under Gallienus. It's even possible that Diocles - who was to become Diocletian - may have first joined the army at that time, though his early career is very uncertain.

    The point is, after Gallienus, we see a progression of Soldier Emperors who all either rose to prominence under Gallienus, or learned under the command of his generals. Emperors still came and went: Claudius lasted less than 2 years, Aurelian 5, Probus 8 (from memory), but it no longer mattered, because they were all following the same ad-hoc strategy that they had first begun under Gallienus. That helped stabilise the frontiers enough that by the time Diocles came along and replaced Carus and Numerian, the Empire had recovered enough stability for Diocletian to implement his reforms. And what was his biggest reform, designed to prevent ambitious generals from rebelling? He divided the Empire into east and west, and nominated an heir for each Emperor. The last time that had happened was when Valerian divided the Empire with his son Gallienus, who deignated his son Saloninus as his heir.

    So, far from destabilising the Empire, the Illyrian Soldier Emperors, by the sheer accident of being the ideological heirs of Gallienus, succeeded in re-stabilising it enough for Aurelian, Diocletian and eventually Constantine to put it back together again.

  6. #106
    Julianus Flavius's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    That seems agreeable to the truth I think.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    What have the Romans ever done for us?? apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?
    Some of my favourite quotes:
    "Your god has yet to prove himself more merciful than his predecessors" ~ Hypatia, as represented in the film 'Agora'
    "If you choose to do nothing, they will continue to do this again and again, until there is no-one left in the city, no people for this governement to govern"
    ~ Hypatia, as represented in the film 'Agora'

  7. #107

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    Exactly what I think although I thought it was a revolt that decius was sent to put down, then the legions ousted the usurper and proclaimed decius emperor. I also thought he was the first emperor from Illyrian emperor and in my opinion a failure, his prosecutions in a time when strife was already high, made the matters worse plus his complete failure against the goths was also bad. I agree also that the following Illyrian emperors were great but sadly their reigns were really to short I mean claudius II two years 268-270 and Aurelian five 270-275. Think how great the empire could have been if either would have survived longer. Aurelian would have been my choice because after I read Aurelian and the third century I have really grown to him becoming my favorite emperor, I mean all he did with what he had available and in such a short time it makes me really sad.



  8. #108
    Lionheart's Avatar Decanus
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    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    But the Illyrians emperors are also members of the equestrian order. Since the time of Septimius Severus if i'm not wrong all emperors come from a backgroud of the equestrian order.
    So the power in the empire shifted from members of the old aristocratic order to members of the equestrian order. I think that this is worth of telling.
    Proud member of EB: Novus Ordo Mundi





  9. #109
    juvenus's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    @ M. Licinius Ibeii
    You seem tending to give too much credit to Gallienus. I agree on most you said, and yes, he had started it all, however, the Virtus Illyrici still stands. For the one simple reason: the Illyrian emperiors had something that Gallienus never managed to do-the success in combat. Yes the ideas are cool, but as long as you have the bloody Goths ravaging the Balkans you can make a reform after reform and you'll still have nothing, for it will ultimately take someone else to get out and do the hard work-to expel the invaders.


  10. #110

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    Quote Originally Posted by Lionheart View Post
    Since the time of Septimius Severus if i'm not wrong all emperors come from a backgroud of the equestrian order.
    Actually Valerian, father of Gallienus came from old senatorial family. (DIR)

  11. #111

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    A lot of points to address here, but I'll stick to the main ones:

    It's always worth remembering that a Senator is technically an Equestrian who has been made a vir Clarissimus (I think, I can't quite remember whether it's VC or VP off-hand) and who can prove that he has a property qualification of 1 million sesterces. So all Senators initially come from Equestrian stock, albeit very old Equestrian stock in most cases. However, during the Third Century, you see the rise of military Equestrians from non-aristrocratic, peasant stock, who use the army as their conduit to the top, completely bypassing the Senatorial cursus honorum.

    Septimius Severus instituted several reforms which led to the so-called 'Rise of the Equites' outlined by Keyes in his seminal work. However, the first Equestrian Emperor was not until Maximinus Thrax. Philip the Arab was also an Equestrian.

    Decius was an Illyrian, but he came from senatorial stock. His mother, if I remember rightly, could trace her lineage back to the Etruscans. He served both as a senator and a provincial governor before Philip dispatched him to BOTH put down the revolt of Pacatianus and oust the Goths. Decius, however, didn't want to go and stood up in the Senate and said so - his main argument was that if Philip didn't do it himself, whoever he sent would be forced to rebel.

    It would (and did) take me about 89,000 words to explain why Gallienus failed to succeed where those who followed didn't. In a nutshell, it was bad timing and circumstances. Gallienus failed to reconquer the East because, with the rump Empire he had and the Gallic Empire as a constant threat, he could never commit enough resources to it; and his every attempt to reconquer the Gallic Empire was thwarted either by treachery (Aureolus) or rebellion elsewhere in the Empire, forcing him to abandon the campaign on the verge of victory. By the time Aurelian was compelled to face Zenobia, the Empire was in a more stable position: Claudius Gothicus had defeated the Goths and the Gallic Emperor Postumus was dead, making it a much lesser threat. So Aurelian could commit all his resources to the conquest of Palmyra - and then had the Gallic Empire handed to him on a plate by Tetricus.

    I'm not sayng that Gallienus was better than Aurelian - far from it. He never had the opportunity to be. But I can demonstrate that he laid the groundwork for what came after. You only need to analyze the battles of Sirmium, Naissus and Emesa as described by Zosimus to see that the cavalry tactics he adopted were re-used wholesale by Aurelian (who was his secondary cavalry commander after Aureolus). And the same is true for a lot of other military 'innovations' used by the Illyrian Soldier Emperors - from increased use of Foederati to semi-permanent vexillation to defence-in-depth. Personally, I think the so-called 'Independent Mobile Field Army' is a figment of Alfoldi's imagination, but there's no denying that cavalry played a much more prominent role from the time of Gallienus onwards - because the Equites Delmatae and the Equites Mauri were one of the few sources of manpower he had.

    My point is that Virtus Illyrici can be quantified. It's not some magical ability found only in Illyrians. It's a unity of purpose that translates from Emperor to Emperor because they all learned it under the same commander. So instead of Philip doing one thing, then being replaced by Decius who does another, you get a sequence of Emperors all following roughly the same agenda of strategic defense-in-depth and military reform, until Diocletian is in a position to regulate all of that on a formal basis. So yes, Aurelian could have been even more awesome if he'd survived, but Diocletian WAS awesome because Claudius, Aurelian and Probus all built the groundwork for him to be so - with a minor hiatus under Carus and Carinus. And the fact that they were an Illyrian mafia (as opposed to a Gallic or a German one) is an accident of history based on the fact that Illyricum was the only real place that Gallienus could draw on for good officers. Hence, Virtus Illyrici = Virtus Gallieni, because without Gallienus, you would never have had the Illyrians.

    In game terms (and surely that's what this is ultimately all about), it would be like changing the goalposts with the Rise of the Illyrians. Suddenly, all those stupid Senatorial missions that waste time and resources go away, and in their place you get a whole new set of troops initiated by the Military Reform program, which gives you access to Equites Delmatae, Mauri, Cataphracts, Barbarian Foederati and Palestinian Clubmen. Suddenly, you can concentrate on creating a proper limes with defence-in-depth, rather than scraping together troops for another futile invasion of Dacia (which Gallienus tried & failed to abandon from a position of weakness, and which Aurelian managed to abandon from a position of strength). As a player, the game switches from forcing you to do several contradictory things to permitting you to apply a unity of vision to your strategy. Governors still rebel, and Emperors still get assassinated on a regular basis, but you are no longer fighting against the system. Instead, it is working for you.

  12. #112

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    I totally agree, I feel that Claudius II gothicus and Gallienus were underrated as emperors. To bad their reigns were so short. It is just to bad Aurelian died the way he did he could have done so much, and he was killed for such stupid reasons if you believe the story.



  13. #113

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    Quote Originally Posted by M. Licinius Ibeii View Post
    A lot of points to address here, but I'll stick to the main ones:

    It's always worth remembering that a Senator is technically an Equestrian who has been made a vir Clarissimus (I think, I can't quite remember whether it's VC or VP off-hand) and who can prove that he has a property qualification of 1 million sesterces. So all Senators initially come from Equestrian stock, albeit very old Equestrian stock in most cases. However, during the Third Century, you see the rise of military Equestrians from non-aristrocratic, peasant stock, who use the army as their conduit to the top, completely bypassing the Senatorial cursus honorum.

    Septimius Severus instituted several reforms which led to the so-called 'Rise of the Equites' outlined by Keyes in his seminal work. However, the first Equestrian Emperor was not until Maximinus Thrax. Philip the Arab was also an Equestrian.

    Decius was an Illyrian, but he came from senatorial stock. His mother, if I remember rightly, could trace her lineage back to the Etruscans. He served both as a senator and a provincial governor before Philip dispatched him to BOTH put down the revolt of Pacatianus and oust the Goths. Decius, however, didn't want to go and stood up in the Senate and said so - his main argument was that if Philip didn't do it himself, whoever he sent would be forced to rebel.

    It would (and did) take me about 89,000 words to explain why Gallienus failed to succeed where those who followed didn't. In a nutshell, it was bad timing and circumstances. Gallienus failed to reconquer the East because, with the rump Empire he had and the Gallic Empire as a constant threat, he could never commit enough resources to it; and his every attempt to reconquer the Gallic Empire was thwarted either by treachery (Aureolus) or rebellion elsewhere in the Empire, forcing him to abandon the campaign on the verge of victory. By the time Aurelian was compelled to face Zenobia, the Empire was in a more stable position: Claudius Gothicus had defeated the Goths and the Gallic Emperor Postumus was dead, making it a much lesser threat. So Aurelian could commit all his resources to the conquest of Palmyra - and then had the Gallic Empire handed to him on a plate by Tetricus.

    I'm not sayng that Gallienus was better than Aurelian - far from it. He never had the opportunity to be. But I can demonstrate that he laid the groundwork for what came after. You only need to analyze the battles of Sirmium, Naissus and Emesa as described by Zosimus to see that the cavalry tactics he adopted were re-used wholesale by Aurelian (who was his secondary cavalry commander after Aureolus). And the same is true for a lot of other military 'innovations' used by the Illyrian Soldier Emperors - from increased use of Foederati to semi-permanent vexillation to defence-in-depth. Personally, I think the so-called 'Independent Mobile Field Army' is a figment of Alfoldi's imagination, but there's no denying that cavalry played a much more prominent role from the time of Gallienus onwards - because the Equites Delmatae and the Equites Mauri were one of the few sources of manpower he had.

    My point is that Virtus Illyrici can be quantified. It's not some magical ability found only in Illyrians. It's a unity of purpose that translates from Emperor to Emperor because they all learned it under the same commander. So instead of Philip doing one thing, then being replaced by Decius who does another, you get a sequence of Emperors all following roughly the same agenda of strategic defense-in-depth and military reform, until Diocletian is in a position to regulate all of that on a formal basis. So yes, Aurelian could have been even more awesome if he'd survived, but Diocletian WAS awesome because Claudius, Aurelian and Probus all built the groundwork for him to be so - with a minor hiatus under Carus and Carinus. And the fact that they were an Illyrian mafia (as opposed to a Gallic or a German one) is an accident of history based on the fact that Illyricum was the only real place that Gallienus could draw on for good officers. Hence, Virtus Illyrici = Virtus Gallieni, because without Gallienus, you would never have had the Illyrians.

    In game terms (and surely that's what this is ultimately all about), it would be like changing the goalposts with the Rise of the Illyrians. Suddenly, all those stupid Senatorial missions that waste time and resources go away, and in their place you get a whole new set of troops initiated by the Military Reform program, which gives you access to Equites Delmatae, Mauri, Cataphracts, Barbarian Foederati and Palestinian Clubmen. Suddenly, you can concentrate on creating a proper limes with defence-in-depth, rather than scraping together troops for another futile invasion of Dacia (which Gallienus tried & failed to abandon from a position of weakness, and which Aurelian managed to abandon from a position of strength). As a player, the game switches from forcing you to do several contradictory things to permitting you to apply a unity of vision to your strategy. Governors still rebel, and Emperors still get assassinated on a regular basis, but you are no longer fighting against the system. Instead, it is working for you.
    Althought in regards to your point about defence in depth, I believe that a fair number of historians viewed that such a system did not exist during the late Empire.

  14. #114

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    Quote Originally Posted by charles the hammer View Post
    I totally agree, I feel that Claudius II gothicus and Gallienus were underrated as emperors. To bad their reigns were so short. It is just to bad Aurelian died the way he did he could have done so much, and he was killed for such stupid reasons if you believe the story.
    Even then, I won't call their reign short. A fair number of things could be carried in a matter of 2-3 years.

  15. #115

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    Really, in a empire that big with all problems it had it would take a long time I mean if you combine thier reigns militarily they got things done but they were unable to do an indept economic reform even though Aurelian did succeed to a small degree.



  16. #116
    Julianus Flavius's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    Whoa this is getting far beyond my comprehension. Could someone dumb it down for me?
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    What have the Romans ever done for us?? apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?
    Some of my favourite quotes:
    "Your god has yet to prove himself more merciful than his predecessors" ~ Hypatia, as represented in the film 'Agora'
    "If you choose to do nothing, they will continue to do this again and again, until there is no-one left in the city, no people for this governement to govern"
    ~ Hypatia, as represented in the film 'Agora'

  17. #117

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    I do not know exactly where we lost you but if its the economic reform I was talking about Aurelians reform to the minting system. He opened several new mints closer to the frontiers in order for the emperor to have access to money while on campaigns. He also attempted to standardize the debased currency in order to make it worth more but it never really took on the population. It did stay the standard for most of the empire but some parts still used the old debased currency methods. So if he had time, he might have been able to reform the economy to a great degree, but with the assassination he just did not have time to do enough to make a great impact economically.



  18. #118

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    Quote Originally Posted by ray243 View Post
    Althought in regards to your point about defence in depth, I believe that a fair number of historians viewed that such a system did not exist during the late Empire.
    Quite right, and I'm one of them (though I never published - I went off to make TV instead).

    But it does rather depend on what you're talking about. There is no denying that during the Third Century, we see a switch from what Edward Luttwak described as a projection of Power across the frontiers to a more reactive situation, in which the Roman army found itself chasing barbarian invaders after they had crossed the frontier. But that was more due to circumstances than a cohesive strategy: the Empire had simply got too big to defend at the frontiers. So, Decius got ambushed by Kniva because the Goths had penetrated into the Illyrian hinterland and he was desperately chasing after them - not because of any change in strategic thinking.

    From my studies, it looks as if Gallienus had come to realise this. He accepted that he could no longer hold the frontiers, but needed a way of funnelling barbarian incursions towards the Imperial Army, where he could engage it on the field. For that, he turned to cavalry. Reading between the lines of Zosimus and Zonaras' descriptions of Naissus, Sirmium, Immae and Emesa, you can see that the cavalry at this point is actually quite lightly-armed (it can't stand up to the Palmyrene cataphracts, for instance), and is being used in a harassing role: hit-and-run, interdicting choke points and nudging or luring the enemy army in the direction of the main Roman force.

    Unfortunately, several eminent German historians during the 40s and 50s (most notably Alfoldi) conflated this with later 4th and 5th century descriptions of the Late-Roman Comitatus, and came to believe that a so-called pre-comitatensian army made up of independently operating cavalry brigades had come into existence around this time. It hadn't. Interrogate the evidence, and it becomes pretty clear that of Gallienus' two cavalry commanders, Aureolus was actually in charge of a standard Roman force of vexillated legions (possibly including cavalry) garrisoned in Milan when he rebelled, and Aurelian was operating as part of the Imperial Army under Gallienus in Illyricum. Any so-called 'defence-in-depth' that Gallienus carried out was more an ad-hoc response to circumstances than a coherent strategy - it just looks like defence-in-depth because he couldn't stop the Goths crossing the frontier in the first place.

    The idea of dividing the Roman army into Limitanei who guard the frontiers and Comitatenses who are garrisoned in the hinterland ready to intercept invaders, doesn't really appear until the Fourth Century - though I have a sneaking suspicion that it may have been first tried out by Diocletian (but the evidence can't prove that).

    Diocletian is also the one who really reformed the coinage, by the way. Aurelian's attempts were pretty ineffectual. The XX-I Antoninianus, 20 of which were supposed to have the same silver content as a denarius, was being debased almost as soon as it was minted, and there was never much faith in it. Even Diocletian got it wrong at first - his Price Edict was a disaster. But his introduction of the solidus - a gold coin that was not debased - helped establish enough trust in the monetary system to slow down the rampant inflation of the time. Once again: we see similar strategies being used by the Illyrian Emperors across different reigns. And that's what I think ultimately saved the Empire at the time.

  19. #119

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    I agree Ibeii and I did say that while Aurelian's reforms were big for the time, they were rather ineffectual. If he had reigned longer he might have made more reforms that would have had a rather large impact. Sadly it was not so and the reforms did little, especially the standardization of the money which the traders did not use and even some of the mints did not use.



  20. #120

    Default Re: Restitutor Orbis overview/preview

    Quote Originally Posted by M. Licinius Ibeii View Post
    Quite right, and I'm one of them (though I never published - I went off to make TV instead).
    Diocletian is also the one who really reformed the coinage, by the way. Aurelian's attempts were pretty ineffectual. The XX-I Antoninianus, 20 of which were supposed to have the same silver content as a denarius, was being debased almost as soon as it was minted, and there was never much faith in it. Even Diocletian got it wrong at first - his Price Edict was a disaster. But his introduction of the solidus - a gold coin that was not debased - helped establish enough trust in the monetary system to slow down the rampant inflation of the time. Once again: we see similar strategies being used by the Illyrian Emperors across different reigns. And that's what I think ultimately saved the Empire at the time.
    Diocletian"s wage and price controls are really an interesting part of history. It was pretty radical and was supposed to be enforced.But there are always ways to get around such things such as straight barter etc. http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/14/ven...-bartlett.html
    Last edited by Kritic; May 09, 2010 at 06:40 PM.
    “Plunderers of the world, after they, laying everything waste, run out of land, they probe even the sea: if their enemy has wealth, they have greed; if he be poor, they are ambitious; neither East nor West has sated them; alone of mankind they covet poverty with the same passion as wealth. Robbery, butchery, rape they misname empire: they make a wasteland and call it peace” Tacitus

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