Augustus adopts Arminius as a son and names him heir after the Illyrian Revolt, 9CE

[Chiron]

As the tin says. Augustus doesn't explain the reasoning and nobody wants to fuck with him over it, at least until he croaks.

Arminius is brought to Rome where Augustus explains to him why Rome got to where it was and his hopes that Arminius can bring Germania into the fold of Rome just as his Uncle Julius brought Gaul into the fold and spends his last 5 years tutoring Arminius before croaking.

Augustus dies on schedule, Arminius is the legal heir, not that anyone in Rome gives a fuck about that. Can Arminius survive? Who deposes him? How does this shitstorm get resolved?

 

[Circle of Willis]

I don't see any way that Arminius would be allowed to survive more than a few minutes after Augustus dies, much less actually become the next Princeps. Ricimer and Orestes couldn't seize the Roman throne for themselves in the absolute last days of the WRE and instead had to work through non-barbarian puppets, Arminius hasn't got a prayer in the Rome of 14 AD.

I'd imagine Livia arranges for his poisoning or a totally accidental backward fall into a dozen knives or something, woman seems to have been pretty determined to make her son Tiberius emperor. With a POD of only five years before Augustus' death I think Tiberius is the most senior Julio-Claudian still around anyway, the future Germanicus for example had already been adopted by him. IIRC the closest competitor, Augustus' last surviving grandson Agrippa Postumus, has already been neutralized & banished to Pianosa a few years prior, and was vulnerable enough that the new regime could kill him off as pretty much an afterthought immediately after Augustus' demise.

A republican restoration by the Senate (horrified that their normally wise and benevolent Princeps suddenly had a severe enough lapse in judgment to determine that making a barbarian Teuton into the future master of Rome would be cool, greatly damaging their willingness to play along with the Principate) would present an interesting alternative possibility, though. Then again, the Praetorians may have some rather cutting things to say about that...

 

[Chiron]

Livia poisoning or arranging for an assassination of Arminius is unlikely and the politicking of the Roman Elite over Augustus' decision would shove her aside. No one will give a shit what she has to say and may irrationally blame her for Augustus' decision to adopt Arminius and name him heir. She will simply be shuffled off to the countryside for a comfortable retirement.

Then there is Varus, without the now averted Varian Disaster and the fact he trusted and even loved Arminius means Arminius will have the backing of one powerful and respected Elite that few folks want to fuck with. Tiberius, who didn't even want the job of Princeps in the first place, will give a sigh of relief and support Arminius and tell his mother to knock it off and retire to the countryside.

Germanicus will follow his father's lead.

So any challenge to Arminius will come from others in the Senatorum or the Equites and not the Julio-Claudians.

 

[Circle of Willis]

Seems like a pretty big assumption re: Livia's ostensible powerlessness. Aside from the Senatorial historians like Tacitus who are our sources for the claim that she went around assassinating Augustus' alternative heirs (or even Augustus himself), she was pretty widely respected as Augustus' wife, the ideal Roman matron and a woman of some independent means (Augustus allowed her to run her own finances & businesses) in her own right. (If we are to believe those historians' rumors, then she certainly would not have even waited for Augustus to die to plot Arminius' demise) Certainly she must have maintained positive relations with at least some Senators, as they tried to give her the dignity of Mater Patriae (stopped only by the opposition of Tiberius himself) later in life. Her relationship with Tiberius doesn't seem to have collapsed until 22 AD; and I think she might have more success in persuading Tiberius to take up the Principate if the alternative is literally, as far as they & the rest of the Roman elite can tell, some random Teuton. I think she's absolutely a viable player in a situation this bizarre, especially with Agrippa Postumus already pretty much done for.

Varus has distant marital ties to Augustus - his first wife was Augustus' niece and his second was Augustus' grandniece. He would sooner make a play for the throne himself than support Arminius, even if they are friends, especially as I don't see anyone else stepping up to join him if he commits to such a course. In fact, friend or not, I don't see him trying to make Arminius emperor unless he already thought the latter was a god.

Regardless, once again I must reiterate: far mightier barbarian warlords commanding the majority-barbarian Roman army in the Western Empire's twilight years could not make a play for the imperial diadem. Not Arbogast, who straight up staged the suicide of the legitimate emperor at the time (Valentinian II) but then tried to make a Senatorial ally of his emperor rather than go for the purple himself, nor Ricimer, who made & unmade multiple emperors in a row.

Even Stilicho, a half-Roman general with a decades-long proven record of diligent duty to Rome (unlike Arminius who's joined the Roman army in 1 AD at the earliest, and thus would have had at most under a decade & a half of such service), who repeatedly saved Rome from Gothic invaders (whereas Arminius didn't even have any wars on the scale of Alaric and Radagaisus' invasions of Italy to fight in) and who was directly married to a Roman princess himself, couldn't pull it off. The mere possibility of him putting his son (who was not only 3/4 Roman but also as closely related to the last uncontested emperor, Theodosius the Great, as Varus' second wife was to Augustus) in the imperial line of succession gave the Italo-Roman elite the pretext to kill him & his entire family in a moment of vulnerability.

Not even Odoacer dared try it, and he was the one who extinguished Rome's light in the West altogether twice - first by disposing of Orestes & his puppet usurper Romulus Augustulus, then by crushing Dalmatia where Julius Nepos had held out. Instead of making himself emperor, he gave the imperial regalia to Zeno and submitted to the authority of the only Romans left (for all the good that would do him a few years later).

To be blunt, I don't see any fucking way whatsoever that Arminius - a barbarian who wasn't born on Roman soil, is barely halfway through his 25-year term of service in the Roman army, and has no real ties to Augustus or his inner circle beyond that friendship with Varus - would have been allowed to become Emperor in 14 AD, when Rome was still the unquestioned #1 power in Europe and very far away from collapse. Not with other claimants who'd be vastly more legitimate in Roman eyes running around (Arminius' sole claim to being Augustus' heir in this scenario seems to have been that Augustus said so, and plenty of other emperors' last wills have been disregarded despite making vastly more sense) and a Senate that both isn't totally toothless yet & still has some memory of a pre-Principate republic. Arminius could just declare himself Rex Romae and it still wouldn't have worsened his position, because after all he can't sink his chances below rock bottom.

You don't necessarily have to have Tiberius still succeed Augustus, but Arminius? I'd put his odds at where Jesus' would be if Tiberius had named him heir and then died in 30 AD.

 

[Chiron]

Seems like a pretty big assumption re: Livia's ostensible powerlessness. Aside from the Senatorial historians like Tacitus who are our sources for the claim that she went around assassinating Augustus' alternative heirs (or even Augustus himself), she was pretty widely respected as Augustus' wife, the ideal Roman matron and a woman of some independent means (Augustus allowed her to run her own finances & businesses) in her own right. (If we are to believe those historians' rumors, then she certainly would not have even waited for Augustus to die to plot Arminius' demise) Certainly she must have maintained positive relations with at least some Senators, as they tried to give her the dignity of Mater Patriae (stopped only by the opposition of Tiberius himself) later in life. Her relationship with Tiberius doesn't seem to have collapsed until 22 AD; and I think she might have more success in persuading Tiberius to take up the Principate if the alternative is literally, as far as they & the rest of the Roman elite can tell, some random Teuton. I think she's absolutely a viable player in a situation this bizarre, especially with Agrippa Postumus already pretty much done for.

Cease quoting the law, we have swords. No really, it is that simple. The Julio-Claudians gained power by the sword and maintained it by the sword as did anyone else who wanted the throne. He who could bring more organized swords to the fight and is ruthless enough wins. The only way he doesn't win is by not killing enough naysayers till the rest get the message which was the later barbarians' main problem, they weren't ruthless enough to kill enough people to make the rest fall in line.

As for Arminius, the alternative is restoration of the Republic and direct Senatorial Rule once more. Which means civil war which the Romans also remember as being bad for business.

Tiberius never wanted to be Emperor and if his adoptive father is pulling this stunt, he can either support it or just slink away off to the frontier and fight barbarians while staying out of this mess. He is after all no longer the heir and that is a load off of his back that he never wanted in the first place.

As for Arminius his choices are play along and hope Varus backs him or make sure he has an exit strategy ready so when Augustus croaks, he turns power over to the Senate and skips out of town back to Germania and let the Roman Senate backstab each other. He after all gets a vote as well. And depending on his ambitions, he will likely be back channeling the Senate and making deals to transfer power to them in return for being allowed safe passage out of Rome or he could use this as a chance to throw gasoline on the fire and ensure a brutal civil war is inevitable.

Again for Livia, who gives a fuck about her if Augustus chooses Arminius, she will be seen as worthless and can count herself lucky she gets to retire to the countryside with no official stain of disgrace. She had one job and in the eyes of others she failed it. Upsetting other families' own hopes of securing their fortunes in a future Tiberius reign in the process.

 

[Circle of Willis]

The source of that quote was himself put down first by Caesar's sword, then by Egyptian knives. Augustus then went out of his way to build his reign on a reputation as the kind of guy who (initial civil wars and proscriptions aside) was now well above that shit - a restorer of good order to Rome, a leader who defers to law & tradition and would never think of quoting his adoptive father's ultimate archrival Pompey in relation to either. So, he violates all that to make a literal random Teuton the future Princeps, and then that Teuton thinks he has enough swords - in the heart of Rome itself! - to make the rest of the Roman Empire near its zenith bow to him based on the will of a sage emperor who has, unfortunately, clearly gone insane in his old age by naming him heir? All I have to say is: lol. Good Freya-fucking luck with that. Do you think any one of the later barbarian generals I mentioned lacked swords too?

No, the first alternative to Arminius is some other reasonably important Roman aristocrat with a somewhat plausible claim to the Principate and a gaggle of backers. Could be Tiberius, could be Varus, could be Germanicus (skipping over Tiberius), it doesn't really matter. The Praetorians have a vote as well and the odds that it will go to Arminius are about as low as the Senate thinking the same way, IMO.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Tiberius really was as unambitious as portrayed by contemporary historians to the point that he will willingly step aside as a barbarian is designated heir to the empire, no exaggeration whatsoever. Great. Now Germanicus gets to step up in his adoptive father's stead as the next most logical Julio-Claudian heir and unlike Tiberius, he had historically shown no aversion to being the heir to the empire, plus he already has children of his own who he might want to succeed him someday. You wanna talk about swords? I don't think the guy who started his military career by helping to crush the Great Illyrian Revolt and who historically kicked Arminius' ass is going to have to worry overmuch about lacking those. And are we also to assume he will never be tempted by anyone (dear grandma Livia, the Senate, the Praetorians, all of the above...) asking him to assume power instead of the literal-who Arminius? Again - lol.

Assuming he has the good sense to just get out of dodge & go home while he still can, Arminius isn't gonna be setting off any civil wars in Rome; the worst that will happen is a Senatorial-Praetorian coup (if he's dumb enough to try staking a claim, and worse still if Varus decides it is not in fact an insane proposition to support him) and some horse-trading until the dust settles. The Empire has just emerged from the civil wars which destroyed the Republic and nobody was going to throw down in such a fashion if it could at all be avoided, which it most certainly could here since all anyone with sense has to do is to disregard Augustus' clearly nonsensical attempt to will the Principate off to a literal-who barbarian who isn't even from Rome. Do note that although there certainly were violent coups and intrigues (as we can see between the ascent of Claudius and Nero), the early Empire historically didn't have a proper civil war until the Year of Four Emperors, fifty years after Augustus' death and well after the last of the Republican civil war generation had died out.

I think you're underselling Livia as hard as you undersold the Mongols, Jin and Khwarazm the last time we debated. Anyway, even if Tiberius were to maintain the absolute aversion to power of an early Christian disciple and stubbornly remain out of her grasp at all costs, the empress dowager isn't out of cards to play on account of her grandson Germanicus. I'm sure a woman as cunning and well-connected as her will find ways to stay afloat, even given the road-block of losing out on her first choice of heir; she's survived and risen to Augusta in spite of being on the losing side of both the Liberatores' civil war and the collapse of the Second Triumvirate, navigating the fallout of her husband's biggest blunder with a barbarian nobody but possibly Varus cares about as her first competitor should be a cakewalk by comparison.

 

[Chiron]

The source of that quote was himself put down first by Caesar's sword, then by Egyptian knives. Augustus then went out of his way to build his reign on a reputation as the kind of guy who (initial civil wars and proscriptions aside) was now well above that shit - a restorer of good order to Rome, a leader who defers to law & tradition and would never think of quoting his adoptive father's ultimate archrival Pompey in relation to either. So, he violates all that to make a literal random Teuton the future Princeps, and then that Teuton thinks he has enough swords - in the heart of Rome itself! - to make the rest of the Roman Empire near its zenith bow to him based on the will of a sage emperor who has, unfortunately, clearly gone insane in his old age by naming him heir? All I have to say is: lol. Good Freya-fucking luck with that. Do you think any one of the later barbarian generals I mentioned lacked swords too?

And you just proved my point, Caesar had more organized swords and more ruthlessness. At this point you do protest too much.

No, the first alternative to Arminius is some other reasonably important Roman aristocrat with a somewhat plausible claim to the Principate and a gaggle of backers. Could be Tiberius, could be Varus, could be Germanicus (skipping over Tiberius), it doesn't really matter. The Praetorians have a vote as well and the odds that it will go to Arminius are about as low as the Senate thinking the same way, IMO.

Assuming they could all agree and not use this as a pretext to push their own agendas. Especially as Tiberius' early reign had several legions revolting.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Tiberius really was as unambitious as portrayed by contemporary historians to the point that he will willingly step aside as a barbarian is designated heir to the empire, no exaggeration whatsoever. Great. Now Germanicus gets to step up in his adoptive father's stead as the next most logical Julio-Claudian heir and unlike Tiberius, he had historically shown no aversion to being the heir to the empire, plus he already has children of his own who he might want to succeed him someday. You wanna talk about swords? I don't think the guy who started his military career by helping to crush the Great Illyrian Revolt and who historically kicked Arminius' ass is going to have to worry overmuch about lacking those. And are we also to assume he will never be tempted by anyone (dear grandma Livia, the Senate, the Praetorians, all of the above...) asking him to assume power instead of the literal-who Arminius? Again - lol.

If by kicking Arminius Ass you mean getting fought to a stalemate in one battle, failing to close a trap on Arminus in another and suffering unsustainable losses which even Tiberius had to point out to him as he ordered him out of Germania. Sure he got 2 legionary eagles back, but the amount invested did not gain the return expected and the Status Quo remained.

And again if Augustus is out of the blue choosing Arminius with no explanation over his own relatives, would the Senate and Legion Commanders even trust the Julio-Claudians further than they can throw them? They could ignore Caesar's dalliance with Cleopatra as he was never so foolish to marry her or make Caesarion heir. But Augustus declaring a barbarian an heir, at this point they are probably thinking something is wrong with the bloodline, time to find others or once again go back to Senate Rule but try to make it work this time as it did in the old days.

And it is not like there is a shortage of other prestigious families with a good head on their shoulders that can use this to their advantage to rise to power.

 

[Circle of Willis]

And you just proved my point, Caesar had more organized swords and more ruthlessness. At this point you do protest too much.

Caesar also got fucking assassinated because he couldn't convince people (including Brutus, one of his closest friends and lieutenants) he wasn't going to become a tyrant, despite being a vastly more palatable candidate for leadership to the Roman elite (an aristocrat from an ancient & storied patrician family, a highly experienced & popular war leader and statesman, and even a more merciful man in victory than many of his predecessors and rivals in the previous civil wars) than Arminius could ever have been. You can't hold power without political legitimacy and that stuff doesn't exactly grow out of the sword you used to take power in the first place, who knew?

Assuming they could all agree and not use this as a pretext to push their own agendas. Especially as Tiberius' early reign had several legions revolting.

You said it yourself earlier, even the Senate doesn't particularly want power back unless they have no other option due to bad memories of the late Republican years. Germanicus is the next most obvious heir to the Julio-Claudian dynasty after Tiberius, a proven leader, and hardly seems an offensive choice to them or the Praetorians if all the accolades about his virtuous character are even close to accurate, nor has he done anything in history that we can point to as a sign he'd anger either faction to the point of becoming his intractable opponents. Nobody in 14 AD could possibly foresee him dying in five years' time (if that even still happens ITL) without an actual gift of prophecy and with him assuming the purple, they can push any further jockeying for power behind the scenes once he's enthroned.

Germanicus also handled the 14 AD mutiny fairly smoothly and without having to engage in pitched battle or a massacre, so well in fact that the mutinous legionaries wanted to declare him emperor - and unlike with Tiberius, he certainly has no reason to say no if his nearest rival for the purple is Arminius. So I'd say that's yet another point in his favor.

If by kicking Arminius Ass you mean getting fought to a stalemate in one battle, failing to close a trap on Arminus in another and suffering unsustainable losses which even Tiberius had to point out to him as he ordered him out of Germania. Sure he got 2 legionary eagles back, but the amount invested did not gain the return expected and the Status Quo remained.

And again if Augustus is out of the blue choosing Arminius with no explanation over his own relatives, would the Senate and Legion Commanders even trust the Julio-Claudians further than they can throw them? They could ignore Caesar's dalliance with Cleopatra as he was never so foolish to marry her or make Caesarion heir. But Augustus declaring a barbarian an heir, at this point they are probably thinking something is wrong with the bloodline, time to find others or once again go back to Senate Rule but try to make it work this time as it did in the old days.

And it is not like there is a shortage of other prestigious families with a good head on their shoulders that can use this to their advantage to rise to power.

Germanicus also mauled Arminius' forces, captured his family and prevented him from ever putting together a coherent, permanent anti-Roman coalition among the Germanic tribes. (Hell, not only was Arminius himself eventually killed by his fellow Teutons historically, but the Romans would eventually put his honestly pro-Roman cousin Italicus on the throne of their tribe) I'd rate that a solid ass-kicking success overall even if he couldn't literally parade Arminius himself in chains in a triumph back at Rome, especially since the Germanic peoples no longer posed a serious threat again until the Batavian revolt many decades afterward.

The Julio-Claudians survived the much more obviously & consistently nutty Caligula not even a full three decades down the road and even in far later, far harder times the Severans survived the downright psychopathic Caracalla. As severe a lapse in judgment as Augustus' last act in this life might be, it's not necessarily an insurmountable obstacle that is certain to destroy the dynasty, especially not given Germanicus' credentials and excellent reputation.

 

[Skallagrim]

My dear @Circle of Willis, you are wasting your well-reasoned arguments on a person who has abdicated reason. @Chiron is the kind of person who only pretends to asks a question in the OP. He doesn't want actual arguments against his scenario, he only wants complete agreement. Whatever you say that goes against his preconceived notions, he'll simply try to dismiss again and again. It doesn't matter how ludicrous his non-aruments have to become -- he'll keep going, endlessly, because to him, the point of a discussion isn't to learn, but to badger the other party into giving up. Then he has "won", which means he is "right".

In any event, you are correct about everything in this thread, Chiron doesn't have the faintest clue about Roman cultural mores and social dynamics, his scenario is completely unrealistic, there is absolutely no reality in which Augustus would do this kind of thing, and anyone who knows anything at all about the matter can see this.

Again: you're wasting your time here, because you are trying to engage in a good-faith discussion with someone who who wouldn't recognise good faith if it kicked him in the balls; someone whose intentions are exclusively disingenuous.