Julius Nepos isn't driven out of Italy in 475. How does this change history?
- Thread starter Count Romanus
- Start date
From what I know of Nepos he was a generally standard Western Roman Emperor in the sense that it was on fire and nobody short of Aurelian could restore it his dethronement was a case of him appointing Orestes into a position of power and giving his foederati any land. To prevent him from being driven out just don't give Orestes power and keep Ecdicius as magister militum or better yet have Ecdicius arrive on time and kill Orestes. After that debacle, he will still have to deal with the fact he is the Western Roman Emperor and not just a Roman Emperor. Going with the latter scenario the aftermath of the revolt would warn Nepos that his foederati are getting disloyal, a death sentence, he would have to find a way to give them land or reward them to keep them loyal.
The most likely way to keep them loyal would be giving them land the thing they wanted in the first place and what better place than a minor kingdom in the east at this time the Ostrogoths it would probably annoy the Eastern Empire considering most of their military was Gothic at this time but it would be the fastest way to temporarily solve the loyalty crisis although causing some problem in that the future Theodoric the Amal would still be around. After that, he would most likely try to focus on centralizing his holdings in the peninsula and probably try to conquer Africa from the Vandals. Using his alliance with the Visigoths he could use the displaced Ostrogoths and the unsettled foederati to take over the Vandal Kingdom around this time the Vandals and the Eastern Empire were in a truce however this invasion could spur the empire to aid the West but I doubt it.
The success of the war is up for debate but if it does work out for Nepos I would expect that it may keep him from getting usurped and may give him enough prestige to keep his realm together at least for a while. After that, if he is still alive Clovis I will begin to rearrange Gaul including the Visigoths and if Nepos is smart he could probably get some land in Gaul most likely from the Burgundians.
Yeah Idk what else to write the Western Roman Empire was dead at this point and everything I wrote was just delaying the inevitable end when either the Visigoths, Franks, a Germanic tribe, or the Rashidun come knocking and send the Italian peninsula to kingdom come or something like that.
The most likely way to keep them loyal would be giving them land the thing they wanted in the first place and what better place than a minor kingdom in the east at this time the Ostrogoths it would probably annoy the Eastern Empire considering most of their military was Gothic at this time but it would be the fastest way to temporarily solve the loyalty crisis although causing some problem in that the future Theodoric the Amal would still be around. After that, he would most likely try to focus on centralizing his holdings in the peninsula and probably try to conquer Africa from the Vandals. Using his alliance with the Visigoths he could use the displaced Ostrogoths and the unsettled foederati to take over the Vandal Kingdom around this time the Vandals and the Eastern Empire were in a truce however this invasion could spur the empire to aid the West but I doubt it.
The success of the war is up for debate but if it does work out for Nepos I would expect that it may keep him from getting usurped and may give him enough prestige to keep his realm together at least for a while. After that, if he is still alive Clovis I will begin to rearrange Gaul including the Visigoths and if Nepos is smart he could probably get some land in Gaul most likely from the Burgundians.
Yeah Idk what else to write the Western Roman Empire was dead at this point and everything I wrote was just delaying the inevitable end when either the Visigoths, Franks, a Germanic tribe, or the Rashidun come knocking and send the Italian peninsula to kingdom come or something like that.
Hmn ... if only someone didn't have a timeline about that right @Flavius Iulius Nepos? *wink wink nudge nudge*
From Exile to Triumph: a Western Roman Timeline
Hi everybody, and welcome to my new timeline “From exile to triumph”, a story based on the roman emperor Julius Nepos and how he was able to reverte the destiny of his empire. Feel free to post any comment, suggestion or idea and please forgive me for any error you will find in the story or in...
www.alternatehistory.com
In all likelihood, the rump WRE just stumbles on for a few additional years and the watershed date of the end of Antiquity is moved to 480 (as some already do for the end of the WRE) or what have you.
If Nepos could maintain a loyal, functional military, a rump WRE could go on for much more than a few additional years.
Many people underestimate Nepos and the situation he was in. He was a competent Emperor ruling over an Empire that was really a dying shadow of it's former self. Most of the WRE's provinces had been lost to barbarians, the treasury was crippled, the Army suffered from a lack of manpower while the Imperial administration was riddled with corruption, and his own position and power as Western Emperor was often limited and had become very unstable. Previous Emperors such as Majorian and Anthemius had sought to restore the balance by launching Military campaigns to recover the lost territories. Now in Nepos' time, the economy is weakened to the point where any largescale Military campaign would cost a decent amount of the Empire's financial resources and even if one is launched, the success of it is undeterminable and even improbable. So if Nepos truly wants to keep the WRE (or what's left of it) from collapsing, he probably has to change his tactics to a policy more focused on Italy and it's recovery. If he succeeds, we'll have a Roman Italy under a Roman ruler, which, if it survives long enough, could be called the Italic Empire as the ERE came to be called the Byzantine Empire.