Guy rises through the ranks from cavalryman to the literal savior of Rome

Every competent general in the late empire was murdered by rival politicians

Praetorians are cunts, they killed more emperors then they protected.

>disdain for corruption

The Praetorian Guard was the embodiment of deep-state corruption by that time.

> What the fuck were the praetorians doing?

Their job, apparently;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Roman_emperors_murdered_by_the_Praetorian_Guard

>an artist rendered a marble bust of Constantine before and after he disbanded the Praetorian Guard, and it's beautiful

>Aurelian never established a dynasty and made Sol Invictus state religion of Roman Empire btfo'ing christians forever.

This honestly pisses me off

I wish I could go back in time and murder all those fucking praetards

...

>Made Rome Great Again
>BTFO Gaul and Palmyrian sandniggers
>Built a great wall of Aurelian in Rome

A
FUCKING
LIST

The praetorian guard should have been exterminated by Pertinax and replaced by german mercenaries
"Any offer they make you I can outbid them"
Pertinax would continue choosing capable heirs and the empire would gradually have been improved by reforms until reaching diocletian stability levels.
And kill the entire senate too, useless cunts.

>we don't live in the timeline where Aurelian remains emperor for 20 years before naming Diocletian his heir and passing the throne peacefully on his deathbed
fuck this gay earth

The Praetorian Guard was a fucking mistake.

Even during his lifetime Aurelian stood out as an exceptionally successful leader, and everyone knew it. It's pretty telling that immediately after his death, when it was discovered they'd been duped, his officers were distraught and furious. They tortured to death Eros, the secretary responsible for the forged list.

But more importantly, and unbelievably for the 3rd century, nobody immediately took power upon his death. There was a six (6) month interregnum between the death of Aurelian and the accession of Tacitus, during which time Aurelian's wife likely held the reigns of power. The fact is that Aurelian had done such a good job of stabilising Roman politics that he nearly managed to break the cycle of assassination, usurpation, civil war, and on and on. He really was something of a prodigy. If he'd had a few more years he would probably pulled a decade-early Diocletian - but without the retarded financial "reforms" and even more retarded Tetrarchy.

thank god that fucking idiot eros didnt die quickly, at least there is some justice in the world.

seems to me an emperor would have a greater chance of survivng by disbanding the guard and just using a stick to keep murderers t bay

What would a successful Sol Invictus imperial cult look like? Would it have been different to how Christianity took over Roman society?

Isn't much known about Sol Invictus except that Aurelian was basically fanatic of this religion and christians later under Constantine era borrowed a lot from it.

I imagine fully fledged Sol Invictus state religion would be somewhat monotheistic and polytheism combination with sun Gon as a main and most important figure with imperial cult infused.
Mythra(who was connected with Sol) would be warrior deity/figure in it.
It could have added some "saviour/prophet" figure in it like Apollonius of Tyre or the emperor Aurelian himself.
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti(Christmas) would be main hollyday and a festival of the religion.

>ywn sacrifice to the Sol Invictus version of Jesus - Holy Emperor Aurelian - and praise the sun god for another beautiful sunrise over the eternal Roman Empire on this summer day of 2770 Ab Urbe Condita.

Sol Invictus was a mystery cult and probably wouldn't be elevated to public state religion. Christianity also probably started out as a mystery cult, but one that would not be comfy alongside and among the Roman state religion, which Sol Invictus was.

>tfw "Praise the Sun" would have been main european battle chant.
>tfw Eternal Bright Sun will never be your main religious symbol.
>tfw Fire and Light will never be your main weapons against evil darkness of the orient.
h-hold me, user.

>Sol Invictus was a mystery cult and probably wouldn't be elevated to public state religion.
Do you fear the eternal sun, christian pleb?

With the backing of a powerful emperor it could definitely have taken the place as chief deity of the Roman pantheon though

Why do this to me?

>Your year will never start from founding of rome under Romulus... Ab Urbe Condita...
>Your year will always start from birth of some communist jewish pacifist in the desert who loved to turn on another cheek.
Life is like a daily decimation...

Don't worry anons we got Diocletian and his three buddies instead ;^)

Tetrarchy was autistic as fuck.
also
>Julian will never survive the assassination and become new philosopher kang who will make rome greate again.
why live?

Julian was overrated and got what was coming to him by fucking up so badly with the Persians. The Chad Constantine will forever be greater than the Virgin Julian

delete this
Julian was a good boy who had dreams n'shiet. He was trying to restore Roman spirit!

>you were born in the wrong timeline
>the crusaders didn't worship the sun
fug

Constantine was a fucking hack who instilled in his sons a sense of depravity and lust for power which is why following his death they, in true Late-Roman fashion, immediately commenced to hasten the demise of the empire by warring with each other.

It's interesting to think that Julian's disdain for Christianity likely came from his miserable, guarded upbringing among a family of Christians intent on purging and killing one another whilst forcing Christian education on Julian and his half-brother. In a sense, Julian isn't unlike modern brainlets that check out r/athiesm one day and proclaim themselves euphoric and renounce their Christian upbringing to their family at dinner.

He was the hero they needed, not the hero they deserved.

How is he anything like the spergs at r/atheism? He had Christianity driven into him from the moment he was born. He was raised by Bishops who taught him the Gospel since the time he could talk all the while seeing his family and friends butcher each other over religio-politics.

If we're making any shitty analogies a closer one would be that he was a kid raised in a cult that hopped onto MUH AMERICA after getting away from his whack-job family.

>The empire ever owning Persia
What is that map

As an organization the Praetorians were definitely by and large corrupt. More than one emperor they turned on or developed antipathy for because they were late on paying the Praetorians their "donative bonuses" (i.e. bribes). In fact they killed Pertinax because not only did they not like the "bonus" he gave them but didn't like that he was going to curb corruption and enforce discipline in the Praetorian ranks. It's why they auctioned the throne off.

Now there were individual Praetorian Prefects who were good or noble, most notably Timesitheus who was Gordian III's Prefect and father-in-law, but for every one like him you had more that were like Sejanus or Philip the Arab and his brother Priscus who were treacherous and power hungry.

Timesitheus is probably the single most unsung hero in Roman history by the way. He did a great job in helping to run the empire for Gordian, was kicking the shit out of the Persians in the east as well. He gave the empire the stability it needed after the Year of the Six Emperors. It's interesting to think how different the third century (and thus Roman history) would've gone if Timesitheus hadn't died on campaign (of what nobody knows; may have been murdered by Philip and Priscus) allowing Gordian to grow into the role of emperor as a man and provide a long, stable rule under his father-in-law's guidance.

AURELIAN WOULD'VE DONE IT

Would he have conquered that autistic looking Danube border as well?

They did hold that for some time, but Aurelian was the one who abandoned that place because he believed it to not worth defending despite being so expensive to protect, probably not. Depends what the world is like when most of Rome's enemies are conquered and gone.

>Julian
>assassinated
What are you talking about nigger? He rushed into battle without putting his armor on and took a spear through the chest. The entire Persian campaign was a fiasco from start to finish and is probably the single stupidest military venture in Roman history.

They held Dacia, not this weird danube looking thing.
Dacia looks more like pic related.
A good move anyways though. While Dacia had large gold and mineral reserves, for all the time it spent being constantly and easily invaded and overrun, it might as well have not been a province. By Aurelian the gold had dried up anyways.

I thought it was obvious that I was being hyperbolic but the point of the matter is that Julian rejected his hardline religious upbringing the moment he had an opportunity to do so, a rejection that was partly born from his intellectual ventures and studies of the past.

Thats not Persia it's Roman Mesopotamia

>tfw we missed out on praising a literal God-Emperor. A strong, brave, and just king as our lord and savior instead of a hippie jew cuck
FUCK THIS TIMELINE

>persecuted Christians
>wanted a cult that worships him instead of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Fucking deserved everything he got.

This

The fucker deserved it.

triggered christ cucks

Zenobia's yet another example of an anti-Roman woman who was way out of her depth. When the Romans weren't able to pay attention to her she could march into Egypt (after the top military commander of the area was gone) and was able to hold it thanks to the treachery of locals. Soon as Aurelian got done smashing Germans though she was toast.

The fucking Sun spits on your weak deity.
AVE SOL INVICTUS

Zenobia was a treacherous whore who betrayed both Rome and everything her husband worked to achieve, instead throwing it all away in a vain pursuit of personal power and glory. And now Aurelian is widely regarded as a hero while she's little more than a footnote in history.

it wasn't even self interest tho the guy made a minor error and sperged out hardcore. It's like being too awkward to say hi to your room mates so you get the cops to shoot them.

>>are we talking about stilicho
We don't speak sacred names in this unworthy place.
He was too good for us.

Maybe he did want to have them killed as part of fixing Rome. Or at least he should have.

These Roman imperial names were ridiculous. Just look at Commodus

Imperator Caesar Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Herculeus Romanus Exsuperatorius Amazonius Invictus Felix Pius Augustus, Germanicus Maximus

>t. namelet.

He EARNED those names namelet!

RESTITVTOR.ORIENTIS
RESTITVTOR.ORBIS

>guy with a long history of extraordinary feats in service of Rome
>Praetorians instantly kill him when a guy shows them a list
>don't even second guess it just totally trust it and kill him disregarding all of his achievements as if they meant nothing

Sounds a little too good to be true that they'd torture him, I'm starting to think they wanted to kill him and then went WOE IS ME WE HAVE BEEN BETRAYED TO KILL A GREAT MAN!
LOOK WE TORTURED THE RANDOM GUY WHO TOLD US TO KILL HIM SEE? WE GOT REVENGE WE'RE THE GOOD GUYS!

If he had been allowed to like like another 5 years who knows what would've happened, but he clearly knew his shit on the battlefield and in administration. He apparently already knew to start fixing the currency and eradicated the corrupt Roman Mint, by literally killing many of them. And would've easily mobilized to destroy Persia during his reign.

Pagan religions were never going to beat monotheism

>I'm starting to think they wanted to kill him

You might be right, but I think it's unlikely simply because none of the officers present at the time of his death took power for themselves. Typically in the 3rd century an emperor would be assassinated by his troops and then one of his officers would immediately be acclaimed as his successo, but that didn't happen. It took half a year for a successor to emerge, and in the meantime his army gave Aurelian a lavish burial and sat around moping instead of doing the normal thing of rushing to grab as much power as possible during the chaos. That speaks volumes in itself.

Aurelian's second-in-command (it appears) was a Praetorian officer named Mucapor, who was probably Thracian by birth. If anybody in the army was going to become the next emperor after Aurelian's death it would have been him, but for some reason he never took power. Eventually he was put to death a year later along with all the other officers by Tacitus and Probus.

>And would've easily mobilized to destroy Persia during his reign.

Probably. The Sassanids had already had their shit kicked in numerous times by Odaenathus and were in 275 ruled by the unpopular Bahrām II. Best case scenario in reality would be a swift decisive campaign in Mesopotamia, a sack of Ctesiphon and a shit ton of loot to bring back to Rome. I think had he lived another few years he'd have focused on implementing serious reforms similar to what Diocletian did (but in a less retarded way).

>Aurelian didn't try to execute the praetorians, but he should have

>*blocks your path*
Sol invictus was based on Zoroastrianism with greco-roman pagan influence.

I don't know much about Zoroastrianism but no pagan religion ever gave people the same hope, drive and peace of mind that Christianity and Islam does. That's why all these pagan "revivals" are nothing but athiests larping or kinky sex parties

This is all just what I'm theorizing.

>I think it's unlikely simply because none of the officers present at the time of his death took power for themselves

That wouldn't have been the goal, the lie was that Aurelian was going to punish them by having them executed.
(assuming the list was actually fabricated by the secretary and it wasn't all just a scheme devised by the Praetorians to have Eros be the scapegoat when they kill Aurelian)

Now if they've been following this guy around for a long time, and if they were truly upstanding men they could've simply said "That's bullshit, he wouldn't randomly punish us."
But in this narrative they instantly believed it and killed Aurelian, then they pointed at Eros and said it was his fault. Going by this, they would've have killed Aurelian not to seize power, but to protect themselves. All they'd have to do from then on is feign loyalty and never speak of it or face the wrath of Aurelian's pissed off followers.

That and, they probably WERE doing shit that was worthy of death so they wanted to get rid of him asap, and could've fabricated the story that Eros fabricated the list, to be the fall guy.

Aurelian had a wide reputation as being very severe, quite draconian in his punishments towards any sort of corruption or dishonesty. It's likely that if they knew him well they might very well have believed the list if he tended to deliver harsh punishment to any perceived crime. In the paranoid context of the crisis, I find it believable that they simply feared for their lives and took drastic action to prevent being executed. Then following his death there should have been a free-for-all grab for power, but it didn't happen.
Valerian's death wasn't planned, and neither was Claudius', but both led to immediate usurpation by someone in the army, followed by civil war. Same with Herennius Etruscus and others. It was Aurelian's death that didn't fit the pattern.

>no pagan religion ever gave people the same hope, drive and peace of mind that Christianity and Islam does.
Yeah especially when they burn ancient libraries and people while destroying ancient relics and customs like Olympic games...
>I don't know much about Zoroastrianism
Seems about right from an abrahamic worshiper who is ignorant of other religions and practises that isn't derived from ancient judean tribes and people who larp it in their own way.
>That's why all these pagan "revivals" are nothing but athiests larping or kinky sex parties
I agree, "neopagans" are faggots who don't even understand what their "religions" even are, so they obsessed like complete /pol/tards about "muh ancestors believed this"

> Implying that isn't happening today

Read up on polytheist religion in ancient greece and egypt. Religion was as important to those guys as to later mono-theists.

>I don't know much about Zoroastrianism but no pagan religion ever gave people the same hope, drive and peace of mind that Christianity and Islam does.
The Absolute state of christian ignorance.

that's the Trajan map, user

>tfw Lawful Neutral

Majorian and Augustus should be switched imo. Augustus was more of a skulduggery and intrigue type guy while Majorian went around bopping barbars on the head

>Hi user allow me to introduce you to His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty Franz Joseph, by the Grace of God Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Illyria; King of Jerusalem, etc.; Archduke of Austria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Bukovina; Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Auschwitz and Zator, of Teschen, Friaul, Ragusa and Zara; Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia and Gradisca; Prince of Trent and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria; Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg etc.; Lord of Trieste, of Cattaro and on the Windic March; Grand Voivode of the Voivodeship of Serbia etc., etc.
>The kindly old man smiled. "Please," he said, "call me Your Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty"

This
Also Commodus might be more deserving of chaotic evil. Caracalla was a cunt but Commodus did more damage and was even more unstable imo

>competent
>gets assassinated
wat?

Would you rather your generals were great at commanding armies but shit at surviving assassinations or the other way around?

Pertinax, Macrinus, Gallienus, Claudius II, Aurelian, Stilicho, Aetius, and Majorian were all competent generals who were assassinated.

if you command an army and get assassinated you are pretty incompetent

Was Stilicho assassinated? I'm fairly certain they executed him, with which he willingly complied to, cause he didn't wanna weaken the Empire further by revolting.

How many titles are you on my dude?

>His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty Franz Joseph, by the Grace of God Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Illyria; King of Jerusalem, etc.; Archduke of Austria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Bukovina; Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Auschwitz and Zator, of Teschen, Friaul, Ragusa and Zara; Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia and Gradisca; Prince of Trent and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria; Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg etc.; Lord of Trieste, of Cattaro and on the Windic March; Grand Voivode of the Voivodeship of Serbia etc., etc.

You are like a little baby.

Watch this...

>Charles, by the grace of God, Holy Roman Emperor, forever August, King of Germany, King of Italy, King of all Spains, of Castile, Aragon, León, of Hungary, of Dalmatia, of Croatia, Navarra, Grenada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Majorca, Sevilla, Cordova, Murcia, Jaén, Algarves, Algeciras, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, King of Two Sicilies, of Sardinia, Corsica, King of Jerusalem, King of the Western and Eastern Indies, of the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, Lorraine, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Limburg, Luxembourg, Gelderland, Neopatria, Württemberg, Landgrave of Alsace, Prince of Swabia, Asturia and Catalonia, Count of Flanders, Habsburg, Tyrol, Gorizia, Barcelona, Artois, Burgundy Palatine, Hainaut, Holland, Seeland, Ferrette, Kyburg, Namur, Roussillon, Cerdagne, Drenthe, Zutphen, Margrave of the Holy Roman Empire, Burgau, Oristano and Gociano, Lord of Frisia, the Wendish March, Pordenone, Biscay, Molin, Salins, Tripoli and Mechelen.

They should've known who he was and vice versa, they should've had no reason to believe he was randomly going to kill them all. They could've set up Eros, because what if he was eventually going to see some corrupt shit they were doing and prosecute them? It's not hard to devise a plan like that, it's exactly the right one to kill an idolized competent commander and be alleviated of the consequences.
"We were FOOLED into killing him! We killed the guy who gave us a list that we instantly believed so don't worry we enacted vengeance!"

Praetorians were the kind of cunts to do it, this is one of those things like "we'll do this and no one will ever know it happened in history".

There would be no crusades because there would be no Islam

Yes but it was on false charges or something like that. And Majorian was emperor when he was killed on Ritchmer's orders

If they were going to do that and planned to kill him at the earliest possible opportunity, and let's just say Eros provided just the sort of excuse they needed to get rid of him, why did they not then decide to replace him as emperor with one of their own.
As Praetorians they would have been acutely aware that their best chance of survival following the assassination would be the elevation of a replacement emperor who they could be sure was going to dance to their tune. What better way to ensure that than by acclaiming a fellow officer the new emperor?

Why then did they just sit around doing nothing except giving Aurelian a spectacular funeral and crying about how tragic his death was? Then, to nobody's surprise, when a new emperor did eventually come to power, he killed everyone involved in the assassination.

Go ahead and explain yourselves

>The games were in decline for many years but continued past AD 385, by which time flooding and earthquakes had damaged the buildings and invasions by barbarians had reached Olympia.[32] In 394 Theodosius I banned all pagan festivals, but archeological evidence indicates that some games were still held.

>that germanic fat pig LARPing as roman

I was wondering how long it would take for your rabid autism to infect this thread

>Praetorians kill him for no gdod damn reason
>Praetorians realize that putting one of themselves on the throne will piss off every single person who liked Aurelian
>pretend to give a shit for a while
>enjoy continuing your corruption for the rest of your life

t.Shapur Barca Mithridates Hormazd Arsacid