byzantine

In 695, Emperor Justinian II was dragged before jeering crowds in the Hippodrome and mutilated by the rebel Strategos of Hellas, Leontios. After that, he was exiled across the Black Sea to Kherson, expecting to never be heard from again in Constantinople. But, he came back. After many years...

So, around a year ago, i made a thread with the intent to discuss the effects of a longer-living Byzantine emperor Leo IV, The Khazar. Sadly, it only got one reply, and it's too old to bump, so i decided to create a new thread instead. What are your thoughts? (And yes, i am now aware that the...

I'm currently reading a book titled "The Formation of Christendom" by Judith Herrin and in it she describes how in the 660s (East) Roman Emperor Constans II, father of Constantine IV, chose Syracuse as his imperial residence and even considered making it the formal capital of the Empire (pp...

The POD can be no earlier than 600 AD. How powerful would this Byzantium be on the world stage? Could Greek replace French as the prestige language of Europe? What do you see being the major cities of this empire in the modern day? Would such a strong Eastern Roman Empire delay or accelerate a...

What's the latest realistic PoD for a surviving Byzantine Empire that contains the Pentarchy (Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Rome (south and central Italy)? Would the 12th century (before the sack) be doable? Or perhaps all the way back to Manzikert? I'm assuming that the Byzantines manage to...

Hello guys, today I want you to think about the likelihood and the consequences of some kind of union between the eastern Roman empire and the holy Roman empire, precisely I'm thinking about a unification between the 9th and 11th century. How would this new empire look like?

That title will get your attention :rolleyes: Following the brutal Norman Conquest of England, medieval sources claim that fleeing Anglo-Saxons, led by one Siward (supposedly Earl of Gloucester), sailed to the Mediterranean and came to Constantinople. There, some entered the Varangian Guard but...

Justinian I ruled over the Eastern Roman Empire between the years 527 and 565. During this time he managed to retake large swaths of land including North Africa, Italy, and parts of Spain. However, in doing so, he would squander the Byzantine treasury and weaken it's military, leaving it ill...

I have been wondering this for years since I had a class about the kinds of states, sultanism, democracy, authoritarism and totalitarism, and based on that I came up with this idea: Somewhere between the rise of the house of Makedon in 862 and the battle of Manzikert in 1071 AD the eastern...

The Makedon empire, or Basileía Rhōmaíōn as it was called at the time is one of the sucessor states of the Roman empire, that splitted from the Byzantine empire in the 700s under the macedonian general Alexandros Angelius (later known as the Alexander the great, not to confuse with the first...

So I am thinking of a reality where Euphimius follows the emperor's orders and ditches his nun lady friend. So he doesn't defect, and the Aghlaribs don't gain an inroads onto the island. Can the Romans fend it off say if Crete also doesn't fall? What does this mean for the Tyhrennian...

In the years after the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Manzikert (1071), the Byzantine Empire seemed to be breaking down at the seams. The Turks were invading Anatolia and raided all the way to the western coast, the Normans were raiding Epirus and Greece, and the Pechenegs were raiding the...

What if, as in BasileusGiorgios' Isaac's Empire timeline, Isaac keeps the throne, promotes his nephew, and dies in '75 or so. Alexios, young and inexperienced may possibly have rivals, so perhaps a civil war from some of the eastern portions in Anatolia. Perhaps he wins, learns a few tricks, and...

In my opinion, the Battle of Lalakaon (or Poson) (863 AD) in eastern Anatolia is one of the most underrated battles of Byzantine history. It pitted the forces of emperor Michael III on one side and the forces of the emir of Melitene, Umar Al-Aqta, whose state consistently raided Anatolia, on the...

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-angevin-kingdom-of-albania-persists-remains-joined-to-naples.415943/ A year ago, there was this thread on a successful Angevin Albania after a reverse outcome at the Siege of Berat, and i just wanted to revive the discussion. So, suppose that...

The Byzantine navy never seemed to have held prestige in Byzantine society compared to the army and such. It also nearly disappeared entirely under the Komnenos which left it at the mercy of italian city states. So the challenge is with a PoD from 990 through 1050, find a way to make the...

The ERE/Byzantine army under the Macedonians reached a size of 200,000 soldiers.While its’ understandable that the empire’s ability to raise armies would be impaired by the erosion of the theme system and the loss of territories,much of the land still retained by the Turks following Alexios and...

For an empire ruling from Byzantium, what territories can be held long-term and economically integrated into the state? This question assumes pre-industrial technology, but I am also open to speculations about the size of a hypothetical Constantinople empire with telegraph, railways, and...

Zeno (425-491 AD, reigned from 474) was an emperor of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. His reign was notable for being contemporaneous with the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Odoacer and with a significant monophysite controversy, which he resolved through the promulgation of an act of...

Two of the most important battles in Muslim expansion were the Battles of Yarmouk and al-Qādisiyyah. What if the opponents had won these battles instead? A: Romans annihilate the Rashidun at Yarmouk, including killing all major commanders such as al-Walid. B: The Sassanians destroy the...