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Notes -
If we're doing Rome analogies, I find the Crisis of the Third Century to be more apt.
The warrior emperors did not really have a great time in the Dominate era of Rome. Emperor Aurelian took back the seceding provinces in the 270s, sure, but then he was assassinated by the political system he left festering, and Rome was right back into crisis. If you're really intent on sticking to the 5th century, Emperor Majorian was another one of these types. He did basically the same thing as Aurelian in the 450s, and then got assassinated by one of those Gothic warlords you were pining for. So be careful what you wish for.
What truly saves a declining empire is not the great warrior and his army, it's the great reformer who cleans his room. The empire was lucky that Diocletian saved the empire with his pen after Aurelian failed with his sword. Nobody like that came after Majorian.
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