WI: A Peaceful 7th Century for Rome

When people think of the Roman Empire at the turn of the 7th century, they often get a very specific image in their head: an overstretched, financially strained giant, beset on all sides by foes due to indefensible borders and wracked by internal religious division. A paper tiger, some might say. Even those being kind would describe it as a difficult beast to manage.

But I think that's being a bit unfair to Rome, which had survived far worse than this. While it suffered from numerous problems, there was no reason to assume that all of these would add up to cause the whole Empire's ruin and lead down a path that would eventually lead to losing everything outside of Anatolia and parts of the Balkans and Italy. In OTL, they were dealt a very bad hand, from the end of Maurice's reign all the way to the dazzlingly successful Arab Conquests. But there's no reason an alt-7th century would necessarily have to go the same way, or even similarly.


Roman Empire at the turn of the century

In order to have a much better 7th Century for Rome, we really need to go back to the beginning of their unceasing troubles-the rise of Phocas. Now, Phocas is an interesting figure, and I do believe he has been unfairly demonized. Yes, he was brutal, and yes, he was ambitious, but so was everyone in his position, and he had his reasons for revolting. But regardless of his justification, his usurpation of the Imperial Throne completely destroyed the unbroken chain of peaceful succession that had been in existence for over 100 years as this point, and led to a series of events that would be counterproductive to my goal here. So we need to avoid this.

For decades, really, the Romans have been at war with the Slavs and Avars over the Balkans*. By 602, however, the Romans finally have the upper hand. Thanks to smart policy on the part of Maurice, clever tactics on the part of Priscus, and above all the experience and discipline of the Danubian Army, the Romans have finally gone north of the Danube and have decisively defeated several Slavic and Avar armies. Slavic settlers have mostly pulled out of the Balkans at this point, and the Danube frontier is fairly secure.

But upkeep remains a major issue for Maurice. In order to pay for this army that's won so many victories, as well as to fortify the East and just generally keep the Empire and its allies together, Maurice has had to be very careful about the Imperial economy. Taxes are already high, and he's not about to go into debt or deplete what little gold the Empire has left. So he decides to cut some funds to the army by ordering it to winter over the Danube.

In theory, this shouldn't be that big of a deal for the army, as the Slavs in the area they would winter in have been more or less pacified. But this isn't the first time he's been at odds with the Danubian army, and they revolt. Phocas becomes their new leader, and they start issuing demands, specifically for Maurice to abdicate as Emperor.

In addition to all of this, Maurice isn't exactly loved by the Roman people themselves. They've been living under high taxes for a while now, and wouldn't really mind a change in the establishment. Meanwhile Maurice doesn't really have an army he can raise anywhere near him that can match up to the professional force that is the army of the Danube.

IOTL, Maurice fleed the city, Phocas crowned himself, and later Maurice and all his sons were killed in the countryside. This led to war with the Persians, a breakdown of the Danubian front, economic and political displacement, and many other bad things for the Romans. So how do we get out of this standoff and keep Rome at peace? The answer is deceptively simple. Maurice has to die.

Now, I would feel bad about giving one of the better Roman Emperors an inglorious end, but considering Maurice's OTL fate, I'm sure he would thank me if he could. It won't be that hard to do: Apparently, he was suffering from gout at the time, and he wasn't exactly young anymore (He was 63). So the stress of the situation killing him is by no means inconceivable.

So what happens next? Well, Phocas is at this point on his way to Constantinople, and he has presented two Imperial candidates he and the Danubian Army will accept: Theodosius, who's Maurice's eldest son and already Caesar, or Germanus, a general and Senator. Considering how suddenly Maurice has died ITTL, and how pressured those in Constantinople would be by the oncoming advance of Phocas, it's probably safe to assume that Theodosius had a better chance of being elevated to the purple.

So now a newly-christened Theodosius III, who is only 19, now has the unenviable task to calm down Phocas. He'll be able to do so, but he'll have to concede quite a bit: Phocas will of course want to keep his new position as head of the Danubian army, the army itself will want a pay raise rather than a pay cut that Maurice wanted to give them, and they'll make damn sure that they're not ordered to winter North of the Danube again**. They're not very good terms from Theodosius' perspective, but he doesn't really have much of a choice. Any armies that can help him are miles and miles away, spread out in Italy, North Africa, and the border with Persia. Honestly, he's just relieved that this Phocas guy wasn't mad enough to try to take the Throne for himself. That sure would've been a nightmare.

Phocas and the Danubian army return to the Danube. When fall fades into winter next time, they winter in Northern Thrace.

Meanwhile, Theodosius III has many, many problems in Constantinople. From an almost empty treasury to political dissent, this new reign won't be easy. But we can at least be sure that Rome isn't going to have to suffer a civil war when it needs a period to recover.

*: Yes, I know that's the Arabic word for it and not what the Romans would call it, but for the sake of simplicity I'm going to be using the term "Balkans".

**: I want to be clear this doesn't include fighting over the Danube. Soldiers love that, because more often than not they end up with a lot of slaves and loot.

I'm not really considering this thread as a TL. It's a discussion about a Roman Empire that gets a breather in the early 7th century, and what I'm going to write to continue this will be fairly broad, basic and concise, only dealing with a few decades of time. There are some amazing TLs out there about a chaotic Late Antiquity, where Rome expands like a juggernaut and suffers good times and bad. This is not one of them. The premise is more boring- avoiding a time of excitement and bloodshed and instead focusing on making sure a state lasts.

I'd be interested to hear any criticisms or thoughts on the matter. Is there anything I've written so far that is implausible or jumps out at you? Do you have concerns about the Roman economy or military situation that you think won't just be fixed by avoiding a civil war?

I hope to develop this scenario a little bit more, and criticisms mean I can make this scenario more realistic and possibly interesting. I'm not trying to create a Roman-wank here- I just want to set up a scenario where the transition from Late Antiquity to the Medieval Era is more smooth, and the older powers (Rome and Persia specifically) survive and evolve into new times without being nearly broken or destroyed altogether.

Phocas gives his seal of approval. I'll be releasing a new update this Sunday, discussing keeping the Roman economy together, keeping the borders secure, and re-settling the depopulated Balkans.

Khosrau will still probably find an excuse for war and cause a lot of problems for the Romans. And even if he doesn't will anyone think to stop the rise of Islam?

Loving this, please continue.

Some thoughts: A big problem isn't the Roman side of action- but the Persians. Following the reign of Khorau I, the Sassanids had become a much more dangerous threat. They were wealthier and more centralized, and their eastern front had been much calmer with the implosion of the main Hephthalite Empire into a series of much more manageable statelets.

I fear that if Rome is to have a peaceful century, Persia must be neutralized somehow. The question of course, is how? Could the Caliphate be redirected to pursue Persia and only Persia? What of the Gokturks? Is there a way to cause internal dissent and neutralize the Persian threat? And so forth.

I'd say the Gokturks are your best bet. If you let the Muslim invasions out of the bag its too easy, imo, to see Rome seriously challenged/threatened. And if you're interested in continuity between the old and the new, well Islam shakes that up pretty hard, no?

If you want to take the Sasanians out of the picture as a direct challenger, make them too busy with the east to deal with anything in the west. The back-and-forth wars they fought were counterproductive anyways, so it wouldn't be hard to create a Sasanian state that didn't want to fight them.

t0m1991 said:

Khosrau will still probably find an excuse for war and cause a lot of problems for the Romans. And even if he doesn't will anyone think to stop the rise of Islam?

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Soverihn said:

Loving this, please continue.

Some thoughts: A big problem isn't the Roman side of action- but the Persians. Following the reign of Khorau I, the Sassanids had become a much more dangerous threat. They were wealthier and more centralized, and their eastern front had been much calmer with the implosion of the main Hephthalite Empire into a series of much more manageable statelets.

I fear that if Rome is to have a peaceful century, Persia must be neutralized somehow. The question of course, is how? Could the Caliphate be redirected to pursue Persia and only Persia? What of the Gokturks? Is there a way to cause internal dissent and neutralize the Persian threat? And so forth.

Click to expand...

Fortunately with Persia, Rome does have a bit of time. The new Khosrau owes his reign to Maurice, and with Theodosius on the throne, he's going to have a hard time finding a valid casus belli. Now that Maurice is dead, he's not going to have to worry as much about living under his shadow, because in many ways Theodosius is in the same position. So at least temporarily, the two great empires could probably remain at peace, as the two 'brothers' "respect" each other, and their 'father.' That's a lot of quotation marks. But it's true that as time goes on, this isn't going to be the case forever. Khosrau wants to make a name for himself, and "Roman puppet" isn't one of them.

I've considered two scenarios to fix this, and I'm leaning towards the first one. That is to have a short war break out over territory in Mesopotamia, and despite a few Persian victories, it quickly devolves into a stalemate. Khosrau and Theodosius then meet and agree to a border that is essentially what the border looked like before Maurice helped Khosrau the younger took the throne. Khosrau gets to save face, and Theodosius will be fine because I want him to do well in getting the Lombards under heel. For most of the 5th century, Rome and Persia were at peace (for different reasons than exist now, obviously). Why can't it happen again for a couple decades?

My second idea is to have a more active Gokturks that keeps Persia distracted, as you guessed. Regardless, I want both Persia and Rome to survive and remain powerful for the duration of this whole quasi-TL (So until about 750). I guess I could take some from both of these ideas as well.

As for Islam and the Arabs, I plan to have it go much differently than OTL. This, too, might be an opportunity to get Persia and Rome a little friendly with each other, or to cripple Persia. There were a lot of Pro-Roman Arabs, after all, and without the Roman-Persian War they're not all getting their subsidies cut off. Islam could be quashed, be a heresy of Christianity, have much different aims, really a lot of things. My whole idea for this TL was based off an earlier idea that I had of Muslim Conquests that, while still impressive, are a lot more work for the Muslims with their enemies putting up more of a fight and them never entering Europe. So that's coloring how I look at things.

And thanks for the praise.

Practical Lobster said:

I'd say the Gokturks are your best bet. If you let the Muslim invasions out of the bag its too easy, imo, to see Rome seriously challenged/threatened. And if you're interested in continuity between the old and the new, well Islam shakes that up pretty hard, no?

If you want to take the Sasanians out of the picture as a direct challenger, make them too busy with the east to deal with anything in the west. The back-and-forth wars they fought were counterproductive anyways, so it wouldn't be hard to create a Sasanian state that didn't want to fight them.

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Keep in mind that the Arabs are not some unstoppable juggernaut. They managed to exploit a situation that you'd almost think was perfectly crafted just for them IOTL, they will not have as much luck here. But what I really like about the whole situation with the Arabs and Islam is I can go a number of ways with this.

True, true, but they also had a lot of demographic advantages and things that are difficult to butterfly with this late of a PoD.

Regardless, I'm very excited to see what you do with this! I very much enjoy late antiquity timelines. It's such an exciting era and so much can happen.

Practical Lobster said:

True, true, but they also had a lot of demographic advantages and things that are difficult to butterfly with this late of a PoD.

Regardless, I'm very excited to see what you do with this! I very much enjoy late antiquity timelines. It's such an exciting era and so much can happen.

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You're definitely right there. Time is, however, on the side of the Romans and Persians. As they begin to recover from Justinian's Plague, their populations will dwarf anything the Arabs can throw at them once again. No conquest is inevitable, and with both the Romans and Persians meddling in Arabian politics instead of being pre-occupied fighting each other while Muhammed is preaching and bringing Arabs together, a lot of things could change.

And thanks for the excitement! Late Antiquity is quite a fun time, I agree. It's so interesting that there's been a recent surge of interest in here on this site (such as your excellent TL).

I think they could definitely see some success, though the empire would shrink. It would slowly crumble even with these changes through infighting, small rebellions, and general corruptions based on the history of all empires. I could see the loss of Aegyptus, Hispania, any remains in Gallia, and northern Italia, but it could remain strong as a power centralized in Italia and North Africa (don't know the Roman name for the area). I think that over time, however, the East and West would become more and more distinct and eventually separate, the East winning some war, and there being a "Roman Empire" in the East and "Italia" in the West (including N. Africa, Sardinia, Sicily, etc., of course). This could be an interesting timeline. Imagine a Northern Europe interacting with this Empire (or two empires). But there is absolutely no reason for regaining lost territory in any Trajanic amounts. The Empire would be permanently crippled and would probably break into East and West somewhere down the line due to those differences. A definite "good-sized Christian Middle Eastern empire" and "always unified Italy/N. Africa situation. My two and a half cents and probably completely wrong in every way as I am typing this half asleep.

EDIT: I meant to say that they would reconquer most of southern Italia with help from the East.

CtrlAltHistory said:

I think they could definitely see some success, though the empire would shrink. It would slowly crumble even with these changes through infighting, small rebellions, and general corruptions based on the history of all empires. I could see the loss of Aegyptus, Hispania, any remains in Gallia, and northern Italia, but it could remain strong as a power centralized in Italia and North Africa (don't know the Roman name for the area). I think that over time, however, the East and West would become more and more distinct and eventually separate, the East winning some war, and there being a "Roman Empire" in the East and "Italia" in the West (including N. Africa, Sardinia, Sicily, etc., of course). This could be an interesting timeline. Imagine a Northern Europe interacting with this Empire (or two empires). But there is absolutely no reason for regaining lost territory in any Trajanic amounts. The Empire would be permanently crippled and would probably break into East and West somewhere down the line due to those differences. A definite "good-sized Christian Middle Eastern empire" and "always unified Italy/N. Africa situation. My two and a half cents and probably completely wrong in every way as I am typing this half asleep.

EDIT: I meant to say that they would reconquer most of southern Italia with help from the East.

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As I said, the Romans aren't going to be expanding very much at all. The only thing Theodosius might be doing is re-securing Italia (which actually makes the Empire less overextended, not more because of less fronts to worry about).

And are you thinking of the wrong century? The Romans only have a few small holdouts in Hispania at this point, with nothing in Gaul (might as well be Francia by this time). Their control of Italia is shaky, but not lost, and that would be the only "expansion" they would worry about. Meanwhile, Africa (that is the actual Roman name for North Africa, btw) and Aegyptus are firmly under Roman control, and that won't erode anytime soon. Only in a doomsday scenario would Egypt fall, because that means that the Levant has already fallen as well. Or something crazy like Berber expansion, I guess.

Please refer to the map in the OP if you're confused- the Balkan borders will be a little larger for the Empire, but otherwise it's the situation that's on the ground right now.

I was referring to the map at the top of the page. I was simply stating the obvious about the losses that will occur in what's left of Hispania and the small sliver that seemed to be in Gaul. Sorry for confusion. And, that "doomsday scenario" could possibly be the Arabs? They would, it seems, even against a strong and united Empire, be able to take at least most of Aegyptus. Just a thought. But I see what you mean, that would be a bad spot for the Empire, but after a temporary loss in the Levant, Aegyptus I believe would still remain either Arab or a separate dynasty of some kind. No Roman reconquistas there IMO. (And I say they could retake the Levant because the Empire could "crusade" for it, not only using this united Empire's strength, but that of Francia and any other powers as well. )

"Sir, the Franks won't help us take Aegyptus."
"But...grain..!"
"However, they could be convinced to take the Levant if the Pope tells them they'll burn in Hell otherwise."
"Really?"

3 months later...
"FOR JERUSALEM! FOR JERUSALEM! FOR JERUSALEM!"

CtrlAltHistory said:

I was referring to the map at the top of the page. I was simply stating the obvious about the losses that will occur in what's left of Hispania and the small sliver that seemed to be in Gaul. Sorry for confusion. And, that "doomsday scenario" could possibly be the Arabs? They would, it seems, even against a strong and united Empire, be able to take at least most of Aegyptus. Just a thought. But I see what you mean, that would be a bad spot for the Empire, but after a temporary loss in the Levant, Aegyptus I believe would still remain either Arab or a separate dynasty of some kind. No Roman reconquistas there IMO. (And I say they could retake the Levant because the Empire could "crusade" for it, not only using this united Empire's strength, but that of Francia and any other powers as well. )

"Sir, the Franks won't help us take Aegyptus."
"But...grain..!"
"However, they could be convinced to take the Levant if the Pope tells them they'll burn in Hell otherwise."
"Really?"

3 months later...
"FOR JERUSALEM! FOR JERUSALEM! FOR JERUSALEM!"

Click to expand...

I have my doubts Egypt would break away on its own. It'd be Roman by now for a good 600 years, and that identity would be really reinforced. Its worth noting that historically, the largely monophysite population never attempted to succeed from the empire, just to force change in its policies.

Yea, unless you have foreign invaders, Egypt is not leaving the empire. The Roman identity is too firmly entrenched at this point.

Spain is a logical point of eventual expansion; Carthage to Numidia to Mauritania to Lusitania and Iberia

The Romans oughta ensure the Franks do not get hostile as the ownership of Gallia and Germania makes them quite a juggernaut when unified. Lots of infighting at that time, though, so it won't be easy, but they could deal with Dagobert when he pops up.

Looking good so far!

Great background research, I'm Looking forward to more!

Yeah I was half asleep and excited when I posted those posts a little while ago and I'm in a hurry now so forgive the unconnected thoughts please. I agree that Aegyptus would not secede on its own. I am simply saying that with the Arabs, Seljuks, etc. eventually the Levant will fall. Mainland Europe did not concern themselves with Rome IOTL and there is no reason to say it would IITL. (except for plunder and calling themselves Rome.) I would say that however, they could be convinced into a sort of Crusade for some small amount of land recovery near the Levant. But Rome would continue to crumble, and would probably split into two later down the road. Then again, that could be the writer in me looking for a little drama. I suppose that the Arabs and Rise of Islam *could* be butterflied away, but I can't see that for the Seljuks, and, even if they were, there would still be a powerful Persia.... Basically, I'm saying that Rome would lose the Middle East and possibly Aegyptus and/or Anatolia, and that only the Levant could be feasibly rewon if they don't somehow birth a Super-Emperor in exactly the right time or have extreme good-guy-Franks. But, the famous Roman intrigue would still remain unless they revamped their government, which will hurt as they continuously backstab themselves. They may be able to hold on to Jerusalem and surrounding areas (maybe Syria, etc., depending on the strength of the Crusade) but they would have problems closer to home with a large and possibly aggressive Francia/Frankish states and the Germanic and Slavic "barbarians". Their attention would not be towards Aegyptus and the Levant until it is too late and by then they could only convince the other European powers to help in the name of a "holy war". And, if Egypt would be still majorly Roman like you are saying, they may rejoin the Empire or they may become their own nation, or they may like OTL become a center of Islam, completely ignoring their pasat Roman-ness. This could honestly go a lot of ways but, judging on the importance of the Frankian front, Rome would most likely be caught unprepared and lose some more Easterly possessions.

EDIT: Just realized that the whole point is a peaceful seventh century so I guess no Arab problems. Still, the Seljuks may be a problem, or someone else down the line unless I don't know my history as well as I think.

If you want to have peace for a full century, then you want a freak accident which leads to the Sassanids collapsing. Inopportune rockslide, choking on food, broken balcony, etc - assuming that Khosrau is unable to ensure a smooth succession to follow him, catastrophe.

Assuming that Mohammed comes into play - Persia becomes a nice and squishy target, diverting them from Rome - which hasn't been fighting Khosrau's Persia.

The alternative could be that a collapse leads to the Lakhmids making a play for Mesopotamia - creating an Nestorian Christian Arabic state in Mesopotamia - whilst not on good terms because of the Roman-Persian rivalry previously, if the Persians aren't in power, and the Romans act reasonable to maintain the peace, the Arabs may well choose to unite under the Lakhmids instead of Mohammed - and take over Persia in the process.

I couldn't see the Arabs uniting under anything other than either

A) A religion

B) Outside influence (such as colonization) forcing them into one nation

(At least not to the point of threatening Rome or Persia. So I don't believe they could be a threat without Mohammed.