What if the Plague of Justinian never spread to the Byzantine Empire? How would that affect the Empire?
WI: No Plauge of Justinian
- Thread starter ThatOneGuy
- Start date
Certainly it keeps them in a better position regarding Italy, although it was already impacted by the war (the destruction of the infrastructure was much more detrimental to the post-war recovery than the plague itself). I'm not sure if this outright prevents the Lombard invasion, but probably prevents them from overruning the entire peninsula (perhaps they manage to wrestle Istria/Trieste or even settle in Dalmatia).
About the medium/long-term effects, difficult to say. This scenario won't butterfly away the Slavic, Bulgar and Avar invasions, which were disastrous to the Empire in the Balkans, neither it necessarily affects the rise of Islam, so it will still be facing wars on all the fronts.
Also, I don't think the reconquest of the entire Western Empire would be feasible, with the sole exception of Africa, because of its interesting cost-benefit. The retaking of Italy itself was extremely costly, and no (serious) Emperor would risk far away campaigns in the West every time the perpetual hostilities Persia heat up into warfare. The "Spania" province was a fortunate accident on the benefit of Justinian, but it could not be maintained. Reconquering the whole of Gaul and Hispania is very implausible.
About the medium/long-term effects, difficult to say. This scenario won't butterfly away the Slavic, Bulgar and Avar invasions, which were disastrous to the Empire in the Balkans, neither it necessarily affects the rise of Islam, so it will still be facing wars on all the fronts.
Also, I don't think the reconquest of the entire Western Empire would be feasible, with the sole exception of Africa, because of its interesting cost-benefit. The retaking of Italy itself was extremely costly, and no (serious) Emperor would risk far away campaigns in the West every time the perpetual hostilities Persia heat up into warfare. The "Spania" province was a fortunate accident on the benefit of Justinian, but it could not be maintained. Reconquering the whole of Gaul and Hispania is very implausible.
RousseauX
Donor
Some sort of plague hitting is inevitable because that's how ancient agrarian societies worked: without modern technology agriculture does not increase in productivity in proportion with population. Which means eventually your population starts to suffer form malnutrition and are vulnerable to plagues.
Granted you can change the timing of said plagues.
I suspect that the timing of that plague was very significant.
If it happened a bit later, when the Roman Empire had had a chance to re-absorb her western provinces, they might have stayed with the Empire a lot longer.
Having a massive, expensive, mankilling war immediately followed by a major plague is a total recipe for disaster. Having them be two separate events lets the tax base recover, for instance.
And that tax base can then go towards the rebuilding of the destroyed fortifications, cities walls torn down along with any number of things beaten to nothing during the war. Plus an upside to having more people is just that it makes the West more defendable. You keep out the plague maybe the army of Italia can repulse the Lombards. Either of the two is a setback, years long, but recoverable; both at the same time make Italy worthless. Not to mention the rest of the Empire's in no shape to make up for losses not only in the new acquisitions but the costs of the war itself.
The timing is VERY important. At the time the Plague hit, the Gothic Wars had only been going on for 5 years. Italy was not totally wrecked at this point, it was the next 14 years of warfare in Italy that ruined it.
With no Plague, one of the two factors that led to the Ostrogoths making a comeback (The other being the Roman war with the Sassanids) is gone. No plague means the Romans may (or may not) repulse the Ostrogothic counteroffensive and thus secure Italy 14 years earlier.
If the next 14 years of the Gothic Wars are averted, the Roman Empire is in a FAR better position. Its manpower can be more focused on the Sassanids, and the treasury would not be emptied.
On the contrary, the Italian war was fought very much on the cheap, precisely because Justinian did focus on Iran. Only towards the end were serious resources dedicated towards Italy, and once that happened, Gothic resistance collapsed very quickly.
See above: the western wars were fought with minimal resources in terms of gold and manpower. The major wars of the period were those on the Iranian front, which happened after 542.
Don't forget that the Sasanians were also badly affected by the plague, which devastated all urban societies from Gaul to Iran.