I agree.
The main problem the Romans had was internecine warfare. The Empire spent much of the third century engaged in civil wars between a patchwork of quasi-imperial pretender states. And it still endured. My favorite of the 3rd c emperors is Aurelian — had some crook on his staff not murdered him, he’d have been better remembered for the things he never got to do as a consequence (whatever those would have been).
During his five year reign he defeated (basically destroyed, in some cases) invading barbarians, reunified the empire, built the city wall around Rome, and abandoned Dacia which was n of the Danube, hard to defend, and probably well-stripped of wealth by his predecessors. The conquest of Dacia by Trajan during the 2nd c had marked the economic high point of the old empire, but those days were behind it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelian
Thanks for the ping. That’s some fascinating stuff.
Aurelian was indeed an interesting guy.
He died because he figured out one of his freedmen, who acted as staff because the Romans never really developed much of a bureaucracy or army staff, was a crook, and planned to execute him.
So the guy wrote up an execution order with the names of a bunch of Aurelian’s officers on it whom he had no intention of killing. They bought the forgery because A had a well-earned reputation for killing officers he saw as a threat.
As you say, the biggest problem the Romans had was that they never developed a coherent rule of succession, and neither did the Byzantines. That’s 1500 years without a way of determining who’s up next.
This meant that while the Empire desperately needed good generals, the Emperor had to consider any successful general a great threat, and was constantly tempted to execute him in self-defense. After all, that was how he, or possibly his father, had gained the throne. Meanwhile, any competent general knew he risked execution, and was tempted to revolt in self-defense.
“The King is dead, long live the King!” of later Europe at least had the advantage of allowing generals to do their thing. With rare exceptions like Cromwell, generals couldn’t take power because people just wouldn’t follow them. Kings were still murdered with regularity, but were the throne was handed down by a pre-determined line of succession.