The Western Flame Burns On: A Majorian timeline

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    Flavius Iulius Maiorianus

    Interlude I​

    Historians see things in trends. They try to draw lines between events and connect everything into one large narrative. This is partially a reaction to the old tendency to place a few “great men” on pedestals, as if the entirety of history revolved around them. Nowadays, we tend to place economics, societal, cultural, and ideological beliefs and shifts, and the environment as the primary drivers of historical events. This, while more helpful for our understanding of history than the Great Man theory, also has flaws, as it deprives humans a say in how things happen. And while history doesn’t revolve around great men, it is undeniable that actions taken by humans have a great impact on the course of history. Perhaps no better example of this is the emperor Majorian.
    By the time he took the throne in 457 AD, decades of poor leadership had hollowed out the Western Roman Empire. What had once been the superpower of western Eurasia was now a husk, rapidly losing territory, and with it population and revenues, to waves of Germanic invaders, enabled by seemingly constant civil wars. By all means, the Western Roman Empire should have been either fully conquered or rendered inert or defunct before the turn of the century. And yet, Majorian reversed this trend. His competent management and military genius turned the tide for Rome, even in the face of the environmental, demographic, and economic trends we love to point to. There was nothing inevitable about Rome’s fate in this period. This was one of the relatively few cases where the course of history turned on the actions and choices of a great man.
    -Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome*

    *Obviously not OTL's book, but an ATL book of the same name
    Yeah, I'm ass at writing. I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been suffering from a serious case of writer's block, along with a somewhat messy home life, three AP tests, and plain laziness. I also went into this without very much research, so I've gathered a list of books to read. Hopefully I'll start updating more frequently soon. I created a spoiler/planning thread here if anyone wants to pop on over and help me out. Thank you all so much for your patience :)
     
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