Abrittus

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Timeline Development
So far, all the content in this timeline has been created by me (salvador79). It's all still mostly rough sketches, and some of the already more elaborate pages may need re-editing to restore coherence and enhance plausibility. I enjoy conceptualising all the different aspects and relations, and I've tried to put as much time as I can into writing on this timeline, but I have a family and a full-time job, so progress can not be very fast. If you prefer to read perfect timelines, you may have to wait a little. (A couple of years maybe ... )

But if you like a work in progress and find the general ideas or any particular aspects of my timeline interesting, I'm very glad to read your feedback and ideas.

If someone should really be interested in jumping in, changing or adjusting the timeline, taking over a specific topic or anything else, I'd feel very flattered and I'm open for co-operation. I consider new perspectives to be enriching, and I'd love to discuss the effects this or that change might have. Be warned, though, that I'm still rather new to althist and I've never co-operated in a TL. (Oh, and I'm not a native speaker of English, as you have surely noticed.)

Ideas behind the timeline - OTL to ATL differences
Can you imagine a world without the close European ties between church and state, without feudalist Middle Ages and absolutist routes into a modernity dominated by a colonialist Europe?

This timeline aims to experiment with Rome developing and influencing the world as a democratic republic, a large non-slave-owning market economy and a fountain of various cultural, philosophical and religious trends and ideas, all competing against each other.

I've always loved timelines where Rome survives the Germanic invasions and the Huns and continues into the present. After I've read Ætas ab Brian and Superpowers, two timelines that I absolutely love and recommend and whose quality standards I can't hope to achieve, I've wanted to see a Rome that doesn't conquer half the world with its legions and whose influence is felt stronger in other domains, too.

Below, you can find some hints about what how_I_have been imagining the above-mentioned differences to turn out and links to the texts I've written so far. I'd be delighted to hear ideas about other consequences, which would bring other chains of events, other nations, other innovations and other conflicts.

Point of Divergence
Moesia: 251 AD.

Climatic changes, diseases or other reasons we do not know of have caused massive migratory movements in barbarian Europe in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. This threatened especially Rome's most endangered imperial border in the lower Danube region. Barbarian newcomers come into conflict with tribes that had lived in the Dacian and Pontic space before. Toward the middle of the 3rd century, the problem takes on dimensions which the Roman Empire can no longer handle - a great coalition of barbarians attacks the Empire's North-Eastern flank both on land and sea.

Decius, a barracks emperor, who tries to stabilise the institutions of the Roman Empire and persecutes the Christians because they refuse to observe his decree to bring sacrifices to the Roman state deities "pro imperatore", is faced with a simultaneous invasion of Moesia and Dacia by a smaller group of Carpi and also by a larger coalition led by Gothic King Cniva. Defeated at Augusta Traiana, the Romans are unable to defend Philippolis. But the Gothic troops are weakened and seek to negotiate an organised retreat. Decius turns down the offer and chases the Goths back North.

Cniva separates his troops. The Roman legions confront the Goths near Abrittus, Although Decius' son, Herennius, is killed by a Gothic spear, the battle generally seems to go well for the Romans. Decius' general, Trebonianus Gallus, wants to pursue the retreating Goths, but Decius is wary (in contrast to OTL). He orders looking for the rest of Cniva's troops and learns that they are less than two miles away, awaiting a Roman advance into the marshland. Decius sends assassins to kill Cniva while he reorganises his own troops to skirt the swamps and attack the Goths from behind.

Instead of dying in the battle, as in OTL, Decius celebrates a glorious success at Abrittus, driving the Goths into the bog and annihilating Cniva's troops completely.

After that, he rides North with his legions to deal with the rest of the Barbarian nuisance. The news of the resounding Roman victory at Abrittus travel fast. When Decius finally confronts the retreating Carpi at Romula, they quickly capitulate  From these Carpian captives, Decius learns a lot about the reasons behind the frequent barbarian incursions. As always, he sees a strengthening and deepening of the imperial order as the answer. Only, fending off the immediate invaders has, in Decius' view, never solved the problem.

Thus, Decius sends out Carpian envoys to the Roxolani, Costoboci, Bastarnae and other tribes who had come under pressure by the Goths and Gepids and had, prior to the defeat at Abrittus, decided to ally themselves with the latter. The message was sharp and clear: Rome will go to war against the trans-Danubian barbarians, you are either with us or against us. If you are with us, we will integrate you into our imperial system; if you are against us, we will either kill or enslave you.

Decius' campaign ends with a thorough victory (see timeline 251-300). He has secured Dacia and the Danube for the next decades. Upon his triumphant return to Rome, he continues and intensifies his political agenda:


 * He founds the "Academia Martiana", a university dedicated not so much to grammar and rhetoric, but to military strategy, because he deems superior military strategy crucial for Rome's future. With this move, he lays the foundation for important military successes in the next decades and centuries, which save the Roman Empire and restore the Pax Romana, as well as for the later de-aristocratisation of the military in the Second Republic.
 * He begins a restoration of Rome's decaying institutions, especially allowing the Senate to elect a Censor who conducts a new and more exhaustive census, which was aimed at improving imperial taxation as well as gathering information about religious affiliations, etc. In spite of manifold dangers, Decius invests a lot of energy into this empowerment of the state. Although the new census stirs unrest, it lays the groundwork for the reforms of the early republic, when this office is strengthened even more.
 * He orders his administration to take drastic measures to stop the spreading of the highly fatal smallpox pandemia. His measures find a mixed echo, but they improve the situation temporarily before everything finally falls apart after his assassination.
 * He continues to impose Roman culture even in the remote regions of the empire, persecuting especially Christians, who refuse to venerate Roman gods and sacrifice for the emperor, to a point where the episcopal church breaks apart. His brutal policies radicalise the Christians, some of which follow militant leaders and take to the arms (not unlike Jews 180, 140 and 120 years earlier, but spread all across the Empire instead of concentrated in Iudaea).

Decius is finally killed in a Christian suicide attack. From the years of revolutionary anarchy and social, political and military chaos following his death, a shrunk Second Roman Republic emerges, where slaves become free Roman citizens and the state is neutral against all religious creeds. Secured against threats from the North, this Roman Republic manages to stabilise itself.

Overviews
Abridged comparison of OTL and ATL developments in the first 500 years after PoD (251-750)

Comparison of the two Roman Empires 100 years after the secession (257-357)

Developments in Slavia and Germania Magna 251-750 OTL vs. ATL (will be edited soon)

Wars and conflicts

Religious groups and political structures

Detailed Timeline (work in progress; open for alternative suggestions)
251-300 - Imperial Crisis and Second Roman Republic

300-399 - Waterwheels and Defeated Huns: European Power

400-499 - Rome's Two Neighbors at Their Imperial Peak - and at the Verge of Crisis

500-599 - Appearance of Three Great Equalisers: Mazdakists, Natural Sciences and the Plague

600-699 - Learning from China

700-799 - The Bridge Between West and East

800-899 - Guns Appear

900-999 - The Golden Age of City-States

1000-1099 - Black Death

1100-1199: Age of Explorers and Atheists

1200-1299: Building Up Steam (and Bourgeois Society)

1300-1399: Railroads, Steamboats and Class Wars

1400-1499: Imperialist Wars and Ethnic Nationalism

1500-1599: Electric Revolution

1600-1699: Climate Catastrophe

1700-1799: Painful Conversion

1800-1899: The Global Village

1900-2014: The Quest for Social Healing

Nations of Europe
Europe is the most affluent continent, but is politically shadowed by the world's leading power, China. Ideas and innovations from Europe shape much of today's world: democracy, the dual credit system, chemical and pharmaceutical industry, the steam engine, railroads ...

Europe's power and wealth have remained concentrated in the Mediterranean region. Germanic, Slavic and Baltic nations are the periphery of the two large empires. They have never become important geopolitical players and depend (at least economically) on the two large empires: the Roman Empire and the Celtic Empire.

Germanic-speaking nations are Saxony, Burgundy, Franconia, Southern Federation, Frisia, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. In Corvatia, Slavonia, Venedia and Moravia, Slavic languages are spoken. A number of small Baltic republics united in the Baltic Treaty Union. While these countries and societies have developed after the Roman (or Celtic) model to a great extent, the Ugro-Finnic peoples further to the north-east co-operate with the Union of Atlantic Nations in their common struggle to pursue an alternative path of social and economic development, which preserves their cultural and ecological heritage.

Scattered across several islands in the Mediterranean and Black Seas and the Atlantic Ocean are the Ostrogoths, a Judaic sea-faring nation.

Nations of Africa
Africa has developed slowly and steadily. Its colonisation by foreign powers has remained limited to the Mediterranean Coast, which has been a part of the Roman Empire for a very long time and is among the wealthiest, most highly urbanised and developed parts of the empire, providing intellectual and industrial products for the world market as well as petrol and maintaining its close links to Europe, some towns at the East Coast, which have been founded by Saba and gained their independence in the 17th century, and Madagascar, which is shaped by Persian influences.

The Sahara is controlled by a highly organised, stable and peaceful nomadic society - the Imaziyen. They practice a radical, Communist variety of Christianity (Simonism) and are closely allied to the communities of the Sahel (Wagadu and the cities of the Hausa, Banza and Sao), who are sedentary but culturally and politically similar.

The north-east and east of the continent is controlled by Aksum. Not being cut off from Europe and Arabia, it has developed a highly stable, liberal, parliamentary monarchy and become an economic powerhouse both in the agricultural, industrial and commercial domains with intense trade contacts with Asia, Europe and the rest of the continent. Aksum has served as the moderate counter-model of social, political and economic organization in Africa (in comparison to the Communist Simonists and ultra-capitalist Liberia), which was copied widely in central and southern Africa. Along the Indian Ocean Coast spans a string of wealthy independent city-states with close links to Sheba, which had founded and controlled them for more than a thousand years. Between Aksum and these city-states lies the (democratic) Kirinyaga Alliance, the world's number one producer of coffee.

The West Coast is controlled by Liberia, the southern and south-western half of the continent are ruled by Yoruba, Congo, Kitara, Munhumutapa and the Khoisan Federation. On Madagascar, Persians have established a radical Mazdakist society, which in the last centuries has come to include the various indigenous peoples, too.

While the northern half of the continent is more or less Christian, the southern half has remained animist. Their agriculture is highly developed; their industry is focused on the extraction of the vast treasures of the soil (copper, gold, petrol, diamonds etc.).

Nations of Asia
Asia is the geographically and culturally most diverse continent and home of the world's four most widespread religions (in order of number of followers): Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism. South and East Asian nations rival the two European empires in political, social and economic development. Because of a greater strength and co-operation of the empires at its shores, invasions from the Central Asian steppe have not been able to overthrow Eurasian order to the extent that they did in OTL. Instead, the Central Asian steppe has been the object of imperialist control and international co-operation to keep trade routes open. Along the most important of these - the Silk Road - modern capitalism develops in the last third of the 1st millennium in Sogdian-dominated oasis city-states (instead of Italian city-states in OTL).

In Western Asia (i.e. the Middle East), four old Christian kingdoms are caught between the Roman and the Persian Republics: Sheba, a very wealthy constitutional monarchy controlling the Arabian peninsula, which has long profited from its huge oil deposits and now, after the global climate crisis, houses the world's largest solar power plants, Armenia, Lasikia, and Iberia, the latter three nestled in the valleys and mountains of the Caucasus.

Its equally wealthy and industrially developed eastern neighbour is the Persian Republic,. successor state to the Sassanid Empire, which for a while united the Middle East and India and brought forth the proto-Communist, emancipatory movement of the Mazdakists, who influenced philosophy and politics toward egalitarianism from the Celtic West to Nihon in East Asia and across Eastern Africa, too. Persia still perceives itself as an economic and cultural bridge between the Mediterranean and East Asia and between Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. Persia is closely allied to his Northern neighbours, a dozen small states whose history was long shaped by their location along Euro-Chinese trade routes and whose present is dominated by their wealth in energy resources, the larger ones among them Choresmia, Bactria, the Sogdian cities and Buddhist Gandhara. Further to the North lies Türkestan, a constitutional monarchy controlling a large and sparsely populated steppe to the north of Persia and China. Its culture is deeply influenced by a mixture of Tengrism and Buddhism, its society presently shaken by conflicts between the Turkish-speaking majority and a separatist Mongolian minority.

The world's most populous and most powerful country is China. Many economic innovations and inventions, political philosophies and principles of state organisation stem from here. China's leading role in world politics has developed from the times of the Sui dynasty and has been undisputed ever since China's pivotal role in finding a way out of the intertwined dilemma of the global climate crisis and chaos in Atlantis in the 15th and 16th centuries. China is a parliamentary monarchy; religious and cultural diversity are cherished; Buddhism and Daoism are still very influential. China has established the world's most exemplary welfare state and sustains its continuous economic growth through ever-increasing domestic demand, but it also exports the products of its extremely diversified industry across the globe. China has also been the spearhead of women's emancipation and equal rights. All East Asian nations depend on China to a greater or lesser degree. China has also established new provinces on the Atlantis East Coast.

Close, but not always friendly ties exist between China and its Eastern (Silla and Nihon) and Western neighbors (Tibet and Minyak). All four are deeply influenced by different Buddhist schools of thought, mixed with local (often animinist) traditions. Silla, a socialist republic with close ideological ties to Bangladesh and friendly relations to Sri Vijaya, is economically dependent on China; Minyak has a social, economical and political system very akin to China's, while Nihon and Tibet are socially and politically considerably more conservative than China.

China's cultural, political and economic influence is also felt in the (predominantly Buddhist; mostly constitutionally or parliamentary monarchic) countries of south-east Asia (Vietnam, Kambuja, Muan Thai, Dvaravati and the Pyu Federation). The largest and most powerful country in this region is the federal and democratic Republic of Nusantara, which stretches from the Malakka mainland in the West to Mindanao in the East. During the height of industrial expansion, one of its many predecessor states, Sri Vijaya, colonised much of Asambadha Anuttara (OTL: Australia), parts of which are now loosely allied to Nusantara.

The Indian subcontinent is the source of Buddhism and Hinduism. Influenced by the Sassanid rule over its Western third in the 3rd-6th centuries and never cut off from trade with Europe, India has undergone  deep-reaching change and development based on a mix of its own cultural, political and philosophical traditions with those imported from Europe and from the 7th century on also from China. India has in turn exerted a great influence on South-East Asia. India's numerous competing and warring principalities, kingdoms and empires gave way to a myriad of small republics and petty kingdoms in the late 1st and early 2nd millennium AD, which were connected with each other in manifold cross-cutting alliances. This network was torn apart in the extreme social conflicts caused by the industrial revolution, out of which have emerged four large states (Mahabharata in the North, Tamilakam in the South, Anuradhapura on OTL Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh in the East) and a number of small kingdoms in the valleys of the Himalaya, which lie between the Indian, the Gandharan and the Tibetan cultural sphere (Mun Tan, Thak, Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh, Guge, Zhang Zhung). India still suffers a lot from the ecological consequences of industrialisation, especially global warming, which aggravated aridity in central India.

Nations of Atlantis
Atlantis (OTL: North America) has been discovered by Europeans as early as the 9th century. Contacts began slowly and not as intense as in OTL. There was no competition for colonial expansion and at first little economic interest in what Atlantis had to offer. Imported diseases and technologies disrupted indigenous societies from the North to the South, but they were able to recover and consolidate before the industrial revolution turned the attention of European, African (Liberia) and Asian (mostly China) powers toward Atlantis.

The quest of various indigenous nations to protect their ancestral natural resources from exploitation by the developed nations, to preserve their culture and their independence has led to the formation of the Union of Atlantic Nations, which comprises more than 1000 nations, from tiny chiefdoms to large urbanised states. The UAN attempts to further foster a common cultural identity of the very varied Atlantic peoples. It is a major geopolitical factor, forming alliances not only with other indigenous federations.

Smaller parts of Atlantis are controlled by China (Pacific Coast) and the Celtic and Roman Empires (Atlantic Coast).

On its tropical islands, Taino people have mixed with Ostrogothic and other European settlers and formed one of the wealthiest societies in Atlantis. Most of these islands belong to the Ostrogothic Commonwealth.

The tropical mainland is - - - currently being rethought - - - 

Nations of Caribia
Caribia (OTL South America) is dominated by its two major powers: Chimú on the West Coast and Tawantinsuyu in the centre. In the South, the Mapuche have established a republic. Several African and European countries hold small ports on the continent's East Coast, while remote regions in the jungle are still inhabited by people following the same indigenous lifestyles for millennia.

Nations of Asambadha Anuttara
OTL Australia saw only infrequent contacts with the rest of the world before the advent of industry and steamboats. The 14th century is marked by a race between China, Sri Vijaya and several Indian empires to gain control over the continent. The legacy of this era are various states who have gained independence from their respective motherlands, but maintain close relations with them. The indigenous population has been marginalised for a long time, but especially in the Sri Vijayan and Chinese successor states, things have improved over the last 100 years.

Nations of the Taipingyang
(OTL Oceania)

Abrittus

Salvador79 (talk) 14:25, February 27, 2014 (UTC)