Diamond
Banned
…One cannot, with any certainty, pinpoint the exact instant in which the Eastern Romans inevitably slid toward their doom. Internecine conflicts, wave after wave of assassinations and political cullings, exceptionally poor leadership, xenophobia and the breakdown of trade, increasing migrations of barbarians – all of these and more combined to seal the East’s fate.
Constantine the Great could hardly have guessed that less than three centuries after he made the sleepy fishing village of Byzantium his capital that the last of the great Roman states would be no more. Just as the Western Empire fell to Huns, Vandals, Goths, and other tribes that many Romans considered to be their inferiors, so too did the East fall.
The final defeat may have come in 603 AD at the hands of the Persians and their Avar allies, but for decades before that, the Empire existed as little more than a ghost of its former self. Gone were her possessions in Egypt, Anatolia, and the Balkans, leaving only parts of Greece and the great city of Constantinople itself, tenaciously holding onto a narrow strip of territory along the Aegean coast and in the southern Balkans.
On many occasions, it seemed as though a return to glory was at hand for the Empire. The emperor Justin thought to name his nephew Justinian as his heir, but for reasons still debated, this step was never taken. Who can say how the Empire might have flourished under Justinian? Little is known of him; after his suicide in 529, most official records pertaining to him seem to have been expunged.
We today think of the Eastern Romans as decadent and inbred shadows of the glory that once was Rome, but it need not have been thus…
Vater Pieter Harmann, Letters from a Germanic Priest to the Temple in Khusropolis
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So what do you think Europe and the world in general might develop into if Byzantium fell to the Persians in the 7th century? In my narrative, I'm assuming a weaker overall Empire, with more disorganization, few great generals and leaders (no Justinian, etc.), so as to help give Persia a bigger boost. I'm assuming here too that the Vandals and Ostrogoths are still around in 603 AD (the date of TTL's fall of the Empire to the Persians and Avars).
I don't necessarily think that Persia would've survived too many centuries longer, but with a few decades between the fall of Byzantium and the rise of Islam, could Persia have held their own? Would Islam be just another strange Arabian desert sect? Would Zoroastrianism have spread amongst the Avars, and then into Germania and the north?
Constantine the Great could hardly have guessed that less than three centuries after he made the sleepy fishing village of Byzantium his capital that the last of the great Roman states would be no more. Just as the Western Empire fell to Huns, Vandals, Goths, and other tribes that many Romans considered to be their inferiors, so too did the East fall.
The final defeat may have come in 603 AD at the hands of the Persians and their Avar allies, but for decades before that, the Empire existed as little more than a ghost of its former self. Gone were her possessions in Egypt, Anatolia, and the Balkans, leaving only parts of Greece and the great city of Constantinople itself, tenaciously holding onto a narrow strip of territory along the Aegean coast and in the southern Balkans.
On many occasions, it seemed as though a return to glory was at hand for the Empire. The emperor Justin thought to name his nephew Justinian as his heir, but for reasons still debated, this step was never taken. Who can say how the Empire might have flourished under Justinian? Little is known of him; after his suicide in 529, most official records pertaining to him seem to have been expunged.
We today think of the Eastern Romans as decadent and inbred shadows of the glory that once was Rome, but it need not have been thus…
Vater Pieter Harmann, Letters from a Germanic Priest to the Temple in Khusropolis
_________________________________
So what do you think Europe and the world in general might develop into if Byzantium fell to the Persians in the 7th century? In my narrative, I'm assuming a weaker overall Empire, with more disorganization, few great generals and leaders (no Justinian, etc.), so as to help give Persia a bigger boost. I'm assuming here too that the Vandals and Ostrogoths are still around in 603 AD (the date of TTL's fall of the Empire to the Persians and Avars).
I don't necessarily think that Persia would've survived too many centuries longer, but with a few decades between the fall of Byzantium and the rise of Islam, could Persia have held their own? Would Islam be just another strange Arabian desert sect? Would Zoroastrianism have spread amongst the Avars, and then into Germania and the north?