
Shocks to military support and subsequent assassinations in Ancient Rome - diodorus
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176518302532
======
zhdc1
People seem to forget that the final collapse of the Han Dynasty, the collapse
of the Parthian (Iranian) Empire, and the Crisis of the Third Century in the
Roman Empire all happened within a fifteen year period (220-235CE).

Although the Han Dynasty started coming undone in the 180s, there was a
cooling period in East Asia and North East Europe that started around 200CE
and lasted for most of the century. It isn't difficult to imagine a macro
linkage between cooling -> agricultural output -> instability that was
exacerbated by a similar reduction in Eurasian trade due to the global
transition of power (in 200CE, the land route for the Silk Road was
effectively controlled by four powers - the Roman Empire, the Parthian Empire,
the Kushan Empire, and the Han Dynasty... this fragmented dramatically,
particularly in East and Central Asia, by the end of the century).

~~~
wonderbear
It's so easy with all the stories of "discovering" around the 1300s/1400s to
not realize that earlier cultures were actually interconnected and had
appreciable impact on each other.

~~~
zhdc1
It's also interesting once you realize that parts of the early modern era were
shaped by the efforts of various European kingdoms to reestablish trading
routes that were lost after the breakup of the Mongol Empire and, later on,
the capture of Constantinople by the Turks.

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orf
If anyone here is interested in this kind of thing then I highly, highly
recommend "The history of Rome" podcast by Mike Duncan[1]. It's a fantastic
look at the history of Rome, from before the republic to the fall of the
western empire.

I haven't read the paper, in the 100s-200s there was a vicious cycle where the
Emperor would keep his armies close for fear of a mutiny and because that is
how his legitimacy was based. This would weaken the defenses of the empire,
somewhere else some general would win a victory due to an attack on the
weakened empire and his troops would declare him Emperor. Civil war ensued,
rinse and repeat.

If I remember correctly Constantine saw an amazingly clever way out of this by
basing the legitimacy of the emperor not on the army, but on divine right, so
it's not the armies who declare an emperor but God. This set the stage for all
that followed in Europe.

The Romans where freaking crazy.

1\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Rome_(podcast...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Rome_\(podcast\))

~~~
thaumasiotes
> If I remember correctly Constantine saw an amazingly clever way out of this
> by basing the legitimacy of the emperor not on the army, but on divine
> right, so it's not the armies who declare an emperor but God. This set the
> stage for all that followed in Europe.

This may have been innovative for Rome, which hated the idea of kings since
before it started recording history, but it is totally normal everywhere else
beginning many centuries before Rome. China, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia are
all quite explicit about the ruler deriving authority from heaven.

Constantine was the formal ruler of Egypt and controlled Mesopotamia; it seems
vanishingly unlikely that he wasn't aware of this.

~~~
vondur
It actually was started by a predecessor, Diocletian, who actually put an end
to the crisis of the 3rd century. Diocletian styled himself after Jupiter and
adopted a colleague, whom was styled after Hercules.

~~~
orf
You're right, it was Diocletian!

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dev_dull
> _These results suggest that an emperor relied on his military for support._

The is obvious to even the laziest Roman history reader. The emperors knew
this well, and bankrupted the state to shower donatives on troops.

Now you know one of the reasons the army is forbidden from being deployed on
US soil. The founders understood the risk of a military dynasty taking over.

~~~
azernik
This is not the case for the US, but actually _is_ the case (constitutionally)
in Germany

~~~
hutzlibu
Also not totally forbidden. In an emergency the german army can be and has
been deployed. Emergency like a flood. But also to help secure conferences,
like the G20 in Hamburg.

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not_that_noob
The parallel to the fall of the Soviet Union is interesting. The state slowly
ran out of money, and couldn’t pay the military complex, including the army.
The army’s loyalty to the leadership essentially disappeared, and then the
empire fell.

Also note that the militaries of Burma or Venezuela are always well provided
for, even when the people are repressed or starving. I feel successful
dictators have an instinctual grasp of this relationship.

~~~
sonnyblarney
The most 'militarily industrialized' economies are Cuba, North Korea I'd
imagine ... where the Army essentially and literally is the bureaucracy.

~~~
vkou
Finland and South Korea both have more, per capita, military then Cuba.
Closely followed by Mongolia, Singapore, Armenia, Taiwan, and Israel.

I think this has more to do with being within spitting distance of much
larger, potentially belligerent neighbours.

~~~
sonnyblarney
I don't see how your measure is useful at all in this reference.

%GDP spending in those countries are small.

In Cuba the military literally runs the economy. Many of the hotels you stay
in are operated by the Army. Any of the remaining bits of 'free' economy are
all dependent on the military state.

This is not even remotely the case in any of the nations you listed.

~~~
bilbo0s
"... In Cuba the military literally runs the economy. Many of the hotels you
stay in are operated by the Army..."

???

This is just not true. The hotels are run by the party, usually in partnership
with some European nation depending on which one you stay at. And believe you
me, the Party ain't talking about "sharing" with ANYBODY. Army or No Army.

Now of course this is in the process of changing. Naturally the constitutional
reforms will give private citizens some ownership in business, but the Party
will still essentially "own" 51% of everything. (And to be perfectly frank, my
own bet is that the party isn't going to allow private ownership in the big
hotels by anyone else anyway. They don't care if you're the Army, the people,
or even the doctors.)

Generals, are just as broke as everyone else in Cuba.

Now...

if you want to talk about where the money is...

let's talk about the jinateras. (Sorry if that offends anyone, I'm just being
real about what it's like in Cuba.)

~~~
sonnyblarney
See my note above. The hotels are owned by GAESA which is a wing of the
military.

------
idoubtit
I've read the draft[^1] of the article, and I'm not convinced. The hypothesis
is simple : less rain in Germania caused more Germanic raids on the Empire
Empire, which caused political instability, which caused imperators'
assassinations.

When I look of some of these assassinations, I doubt the Germanic provinces
had any impact on them. The Roman Senate got rid of Caligula for internal
reasons. Claudius was (probably) poisoned to make place for Nero. The
historical drought of 69-70 that Tacitus mentioned did not cause any
assassination. The year of the 4 emperors was not following any kind of
Germanic instability. Later on, many rebellions came from the East. In the
later centuries, the eastern emperors had little to to with rain in western
Europe.

Reading the article, the correlation doesn't seem very strong. To my untrained
eyes, it looks like the years 220-300 are the main factor of correlation. It
was a period of drought Gaule and Germania, and political instability in Rome,
but I'm not convinced of the causality.

It's always seducing to discover a causal logic in historical events. Theories
that can explain history have a high power of seduction, so I am even more
cautious.

[^1]:
[https://brocku.ca/repec/pdf/1703.pdf](https://brocku.ca/repec/pdf/1703.pdf)

