Under what circumstances would it have been possible to save the Western Roman Empire after 400 A.D? What changes must've been done?
If Majorian had managed to recapture Africa from the vandals I would say that the western empire could have lived for a while longer, but Ricimer's time as generalissimo in the western empire destroyed its relations with the eastern empire and weakened the western empire even further, hard to think that was even possible xD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorian
Maybe a while longer, but I'd say it requires something extraordinary to make it more than that; clearly, in his time, the whole region was in flux with much of his realm recently reconquered. It'd only take another Emperor falling, or a mistimed uprising, and everything would fall apart again as it did when Majorian died. Now, had he lived to a ripe old age, retaken Northern Africa, and installed a competent and secure successor for a few more decades I think things would start to look up for getting the empire past 600 AD, but how likely is that, given what was going on in the western empire at the time?
I don't think that sort of thing ever happened-- officially giving the imperium to a barbarian. Even at the end, when it was basically entirely controlled by barbarians, it would have been considered improper for Odoaker to become the emperor, which is why he (and his predecessors) supported puppets instead.
Depends on what you mean by "barbarian". Odoacer certainly wasn't a good candidate, from the way he's portrayed in history books. However the empire had had plenty of emperors from the provinces... Syrians, Spaniards, Illyrians, Thracians, you name it.I agree. A barbarian could never have become emperor.
Removing the concept for an absolute monarch would be a start, and spread out the power to the subordinates, in order to remove these dangerous succession crisis. Or is that too unrealistic?
I see.Too unrealistic.
I see.
Correct me if I'm wrong. But Rome was a monarch by the time of Diocletian, replacing Augustus' Princepate. Which wouldn't help with this "Everybody wants to be an emperor" disease.
So, you would say that the aristocratic nature of Rome is more of a problem rather than the too much centralisation of power?
To be fair, the system worked quite well before the professionalisation of the army. The Romans managed to dominate the western and central Mediterranean and dealt with all the major powers in the region decisively. There was no shortage of slaves, no lack of external enemies and the armies weren't as dangerously loyal to their generals as during the late republic, so the Romans weren't so focused on fighting each other.The aristocratic nature of Rome were the reasons for the civil wars in the Republic time. The establishment of provinces with standing armies and governors completely wrecked the internal power balance both in the Roman society as a whole and especially between the large aristocratic families. In a period of less than 100 years Rome had to endure the Gracchi brothers and the bloodshed when they and their supporters were killed off, the war between Marius and Sulla and then Ceasar.