WI: Roman Empire collapses during the Crisis of the Third Century?

jmberry

Well, one of my first timelines was an attempt at this.

The first and second versions can be found here:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=125563

While the third version can be found here:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=182157


Some notes I had for later events:
-Christianity would remain a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern religion + Ireland, while Invictism would dominate Northern Europe
-The Gallic Empire would fall, eventually, resulting in Vandal Italy, Burgundian Gaul, and maybe I was going to throw the Lombards into Spain, I forget. Britain would remain Sub-Roman and develop similar to OTL's Byzantine Empire.
-No, wait, it was the Franks who were going to go to Spain, and then Africa. Then the Lombards show up.
-I've since forgotten were else I was going, or even if I had a set plan
 

Mikestone8

EnglishCanuck said:
The problem is that Christianity was very easy to disseminate amongst the lower classes, slaves, and generally downtrodden. The reasoning behind many kings conversions after the Roman Empire was because a) it seemed Roman and b) many of their subjects had adopted it.

However, should they persecute the Christians that will also be a problem as the early Christian church thrived under the persecution and the martyrs made people much more likely to convert after seeing their zealous sacrifice for their faith. Stamping out the Christian church just really can't be done that way and it is demographically destined to become dominant in at least one of the successor states (probably around the Mediterranean IMO) and a smaller religion amongst the northern states.
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And, of course, if persecuted in one place it will be a simple matter ofr Christians to moive across the border into some other petty kingdom. For that reason alone persecution by Barbarian rulers (if it happens at all) won't be a tenth as effective as persecution by the Roman government - and even that failed.
 

Mikestone8

Alkahest said:
Christianity found broad support among slaves and the lower classes, absolutely. But without Constantine, I doubt it would be all that popular among people with actual power. Sadly enough, the wishes of people who don't even own themselves are seldom enough to steer history.
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Christianity converted Roman citzens from quite early. St Paul is the best known case, but the Acts refers to him and at least one of his companions being "Romans", so evidently he wasn't the only one.

As for Constantine, he had only got where he was because his father, Constantius Chlorus, was already a Tetrtarch - and married to a Christian. So the Church was evidently making gains among the ruling class at least a generation before The Milvian Bridge - probably much earlier.
 

Mikestone8

jmberry said:
-Christianity would remain a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern religion + Ireland, while Invictism would dominate Northern Europe.
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Why Invictism? It's at least as closely tied to the Roman State as Christianity became under Constantine, so if the Empire's fall handicaps Christianity it handicaps Invictism as well - probably more. If it makes any converts surely they'll be among Barbs who've settled within the former Inperial borders, rather than up in the northern wilds.

Incidentally, if Ireland still goes Christian, presumably Irish monks do missionary work as they did OTL. No doubt many Germanics will be resistant to it, but if so they'll presumably stick to their traditional Paganism rather than turn to some sect once popular in the now defunct Roman Army.
 
SlyDessertFox

SlyDessertFox

Mikestone8 said:
Why Invictism? It's at least as closely tied to the Roman State as Christianity became under Constantine, so if the Empire's fall handicaps Christianity it handicaps Invictism as well - probably more. If it makes any converts surely they'll be among Barbs who've settled within the former Inperial borders, rather than up in the northern wilds.

Incidentally, if Ireland still goes Christian, presumably Irish monks do missionary work as they did OTL. No doubt many Germanics will be resistant to it, but if so they'll presumably stick to their traditional Paganism rather than turn to some sect once popular in the now defunct Roman Army.
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I think in his TL it becomes dominant in the Gallic Empire and spreads from there.
 

Alkahest

Banned
slydessertfox said:
I don't see how they could be kept out of Italy. The only thing that I can see keeping them out of Italy is the legitimate Roman Empire. The various confederations aren't strong enough yet to accomplish what they did in the late 4th and 5th centuries.
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Yeah, agreed. I was just hoping to take the lazy route.
katchen said:
Very good timeline . Please develop it.
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Thanks for the confidence, but I think I need to do a lot more research before I dare write my first honest-to-Sol-Invictus TL. I only started reading more seriously about this period of history last week, and I can already see the "You fail at history please die in a fire"-comments. :eek:
Hörnla said:
For a long time I have assumed that an earlier fracturing of the Roman Empire into more manageable units would have been better in the long run. That way, the permanent succession crises could have been avoided, and the smaller empires be run and defended.
If these empires over time even accomplish some sort of "Romanitas Agreement", that they avoid war among each others, or at least co-operate against Barbarians as a rule, then that might be very interesting.
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While I think that a Roman EU might be too much to hope for, I definitely see earlier, more powerful Roman successor states as a good sign for the survival of Roman culture.
slydessertfox said:
Maybe have the stalemate in the west and east last a generation or two so they stop trying to take over each other as the true roman empire?
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The Palmyrene Empire I see accepting such a state of affairs painlessly, but it would be hard for the Gallic leader to resist the temptation to just take Rome and declare himself the One and Only Emprah. Someone weak enough to be unable to conquer the Gallic and/or the Palmyrene Empire but strong enough to keep the Gallic army out needs to be in charge of Italy. I don't think such a situation would be much of a stretch, actually. Aurelian was definitely one of a kind, and I don't think the achievements which led to the reunification of the empire could have been accomplished by just any Roman general.
jmberry said:
Well, one of my first timelines was an attempt at this.

The first and second versions can be found here:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=125563

While the third version can be found here:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=182157
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I actually found your TL while I was doing research yesterday, but I purposefully avoided reading too much of it since I don't want to consciously or unconsciously steal your ideas. ;)
Mikestone8 said:
Christianity converted Roman citzens from quite early. St Paul is the best known case, but the Acts refers to him and at least one of his companions being "Romans", so evidently he wasn't the only one.

As for Constantine, he had only got where he was because his father, Constantius Chlorus, was already a Tetrtarch - and married to a Christian. So the Church was evidently making gains among the ruling class at least a generation before The Milvian Bridge - probably much earlier.
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Sure, but its dominance among the upper as well as the lower classes only came about after Constantine.
 
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Alkahest

Banned
As for the worship of Sol Invictus, I actually don't know how well it would fare in my TL. For the sheer fun of it I'd love for it to spread, but since I am prematurely killing one of its greatest benefactors (Aurelian), I might actually do it a great disservice. Does anyone know how popular Sol Invictus was before Aurelian decided to make him the number one god of the empire?
 

Hörnla

Even in OTL it took until ca. 600 AD to achieve thorough Christianization, regardless what the imperial edicts say. If the Empire fragments before it receives an official recognition, the path will certainly be bumpier.

But: eventually it will come out on top. Time was ripe for monotheism, and even if only perhaps 10% of the Roman population identify as Christian before 300, that's a good start. There was a lot of appealing philosophy in Christianity, so it would have increasing influence in such a timeline.

However, the lack of central imperial authority will probable cause a more fragmented church. Perhaps there will not even be a Papacy with Rome ceasing to be the world's capital that early.
Best case scenario would be general tolerance between traditionalists, Christians and the followers of philosophical schools.

Interesting idea: if Mohammed isn't butterflied away, how would a different Christianity influence his religious views?
 

Alkahest

Banned
Hörnla said:
But: eventually it will come out on top. Time was ripe for monotheism, and even if only perhaps 10% of the Roman population identify as Christian before 300, that's a good start. There was a lot of appealing philosophy in Christianity, so it would have increasing influence in such a timeline.
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I'm not sure what you mean with "time was ripe for monotheism", it honestly seems like an OTL-chauvinistic perspective. Monotheism is not inherently more appealing or philosophically superior to polytheism, and the two most advanced cultures outside Europe and the Mediterranean, India and China, have done just fine without it. (Let's leave the minutiae of the four million Hindu schools of philosophy aside for a moment.)
 

Blackfox5

I just want to note that by the time of the First Nicean Council, Christianity had already formalized much of its doctrine. The exact relationship between the Father and Son still had to be ironed out, but there was already broad consensus of what Christianity meant. The Catholic, Orthodox, Syrian, and Monophysite Churches had a lot of similarities. Gnosticism had been defeated. The four Gospels had become canon over others. Attempts to remove the Old Testament had been lost. The idea that Constantine eliminated the diversity in Christianity is wrong, that "diversity" (which was actually attempts by those outside the Jesus tradition to usurp the followers of Jesus IMO) had already collapsed. Under Constantine the things that had already been decided simply became official codified.

Rome breaking down into separate states probably won't be too different than what happened in China around the same time in the Three Kingdoms period. Christianity will still spread and become dominant.

The old pagan religion was dying in the Classical World and had been for some time. Intellectually, the philosophers had abandoned the Homeric gods. Cults born out of a time when mankind was still very ignorant about the world simply did not have the intellectual heft to survive. We see the same process all over the world at this time. Hinduism survived only by abandoning the old style Vedic worship and became something quite different, athough inspired by it. A similar phenomenon can be seen in the West by neo-Platonism turning the Greek cults into something different.

Christianity just seems to have won out in the marketplace of ideas over its main competitors of Manicheanism and neo-Platonism. It was able to develop a doctrine that appealed to the poor, the middle class, and intellectuals. This is something that none of the others were able to do.

In addition, Christians were a large literate population, and a primary reason why they became the official religion of the empire from being an despised minority was that eventually the imperial bureaucracy was filled with Christians because they had the skills to do the job.

The only thing Christianity loses is the exclusivity they would have after Theodosius. It would also make the Church more collegial since neither a Pope nor an Emperor would make one specific interpretation dominant. so there would be more religious diversity making Europe a bit more like China in that respect which had Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. However, I still think Christianity will become more dominant than its competitors. And as Christianity dominates more and more, the likelihood of barbarian conversion increases as well.
 

katchen

Banned
What would be VERY different in the West would be that Christianity would not be a CORPORATE Church. The Church would not be a business per se, with the Pope as CEO as we have today. Instead, it would be like Buddhism in East Asia, with many different sects contending and competing with one another and having to coexist with paganism--and Judaism.
Don't count the Jews out. Without an Emperor like Constantine or Theodosius or Justinian to forbid them to accept converts, you will see Judaism grow much larger than it does ITTL and have much more credibility, though the Jewish path is too rigorous and makes too little sense from the outside initially to appeal to most Gentiles.
What we might see in Christianity is a situation developing similar to that of countries like Haiti or some parts of Latin America, where people practice Christianity on top of traditional faiths--as they practice Buddhism on top of taoism in China and shinto in Japan. And a much more sectarian, rigorous Protestant or Puritan type Christianity developed a thousand years sooner for those who want their Christianity straight, just as Japan developed Nichiren Buddhism by the 1200s that opposed itself to Shinto and all other forms of Buddhism.
 

bill_bruno

Greco-Roman culture

slydessertfox said:
It was entirely reliant upon their being a Roman Empire there. That's what allowed Christianity to spread across the empire to begin with.
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It wasn't entirely dependent on there being an empire so much as a Greco-Roman culture. That culture tremendously impressed Rome's barbarian conquerors, hence the initial conquerors often seeking an imprimatur even from powerless emperors such as Honorius and Arcadius. Christianity was able to "sell" itself as part of that package.
 
SlyDessertFox

SlyDessertFox

bill_bruno said:
It wasn't entirely dependent on there being an empire so much as a Greco-Roman culture. That culture tremendously impressed Rome's barbarian conquerors, hence the initial conquerors often seeking an imprimatur even from powerless emperors such as Honorius and Arcadius. Christianity was able to "sell" itself as part of that package.
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IIRC the Trevingi were required to convert to Arianism to be allowed access into the empire. Also if the empire collapses before Christianity becomes the state religion under Constantine, then the western half of the empire isn't even mostly Christian yet. So there'd be even less reasons for Germanic confederations to become Christian.
 

bill_bruno

One case

You've cited one case, most barbarians weren't forced to convert to come into Rome. The argument that Christianity would be slower to spread isn't one that I'm contesting; only that the perpetuation of the Roman Empire is a prerequisite for it doing so.
 
SlyDessertFox

SlyDessertFox

bill_bruno said:
You've cited one case, most barbarians weren't forced to convert to come into Rome. The argument that Christianity would be slower to spread isn't one that I'm contesting; only that the perpetuation of the Roman Empire is a prerequisite for it doing so.
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For it to spread to places like Gaul I don't see how it can spread there without an empire.
 
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