Ah challenge: Byzantine Persia, or Sassanid Byzantium

With a POD before the rise on Islam, have either the Byzantines capture Ctesiphon, or the Sassanids capture Constantinople, and have them keep it.
 
ASB- such an Empire would be impossibly overreached, and would collapse within a generation or so.


Could a strongly byzantine influenced state in Persia be considered ASB?

And does it have to be part of the empire or could it be just it's own country just byzantine in it's state language, religion, and administration.
 
Maybe is more plausible a Byzantine Mesopotamia than all of Sassanid Persia under ERE control, or most of ERE Asian possesions (Syria, Palestina, part of Anatolia) under Sassanid control.

The POD could be in the war between Eraclius and Cosroe II, when one of the two obtained a more astonishing victory respect to OTL: the possible winner with the strenght of the new territories could stop the Arab invasion.
 
Maybe is more plausible a Byzantine Mesopotamia than all of Sassanid Persia under ERE control, or most of ERE Asian possesions (Syria, Palestina, part of Anatolia) under Sassanid control.

The POD could be in the war between Eraclius and Cosroe II, when one of the two obtained a more astonishing victory respect to OTL: the possible winner with the strenght of the new territories could stop the Arab invasion.

At Heraclius' time it's already too late IMO: both empires have already exhausted themselves, Byzantine holds in Syria and Egypt were loosened by years of Sassanid occupation, while Persia was on the verge of chaos because of Khosrau II's overtaxation to funds his wars of conquests...
And anyway, Heraclius DID capture Ctesiphon during his counter-invasion...but then surrendered it again to the Sassanids after a peace term is reached. It looks like that the Byzantines simply didn't want to get additional problems by a long-term occupation of Persian territory...
 
At Heraclius' time it's already too late IMO: both empires have already exhausted themselves, Byzantine holds in Syria and Egypt were loosened by years of Sassanid occupation, while Persia was on the verge of chaos because of Khosrau II's overtaxation to funds his wars of conquests...
And anyway, Heraclius DID capture Ctesiphon during his counter-invasion...but then surrendered it again to the Sassanids after a peace term is reached. It looks like that the Byzantines simply didn't want to get additional problems by a long-term occupation of Persian territory...

So maybe is more plausible an early peace in 618, were the Persian conquered all Byzantine holdings in Asia and Egypt...
 
The Romans captured Ctesiphon many times (including but not restricted to) the final war in the 600s. So that's not very significant!
 
The Romans captured Ctesiphon many times (including but not restricted to) the final war in the 600s. So that's not very significant!

Indeed they did:
Because of its importance, Ctesiphon was a major military objective for the leaders of the Roman Empire in its eastern wars. The city was captured by Rome or by its successor state, the Byzantine Empire, five times in its history, three times in the second century alone. The emperor Trajan captured Ctesiphon in 116, but his successor, Hadrian, decided to willingly return Ctesiphon, in 117, as part of a peace settlement. The Roman general Avidius Cassius captured Ctesiphon during another Parthian war in 164, but abandoned it when peace was concluded. In 197, the emperor Septimius Severus sacked Ctesiphon and carried off thousands of its inhabitants, whom he sold into slavery.
Late in the third century, after the Parthians had been supplanted by the Sassanids, the city again became a source of conflict with Rome. In 283, emperor Carus sacked the city uncontested during a period of civil upheaval. In 295, emperor Galerius was defeated outside the city. However, he returned a year later with a vengeance and won a tremendous victory which ended in the fifth and final capture of the city by the Romans in 299. He returned it to the Persian king Narses in exchange for Armenia and western Mesopotamia. In c.325 and again in 410, the city, or the Greek colony directly across the river, was the site of church councils for the Church of the East.
Emperor Julian was killed following a battle outside of the city walls, in 363, during his war against Shapur II. Finally, in 627, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius surrounded the city, the capital of the Sassanid Empire, leaving it after the Persians accepted his peace terms.


That's not the question. The question is, could they capture it AND HOLD IT.


How long that you want, exactly?
 
Answer

Can they take Ctesiphon and hold it? No. Why? by the time of Heraclius, the Arabs have been fired up with the new religion of Islam. They had a 'religious duty' to convert the heathen .....Dar Al-Hab, if I'm correct, and turn it into one big Dar Al-Islam. Even if by conquering Ctesiphon and at least 4 other major Persian cities, Heraclius conquered or destroyed Sassanid Persia, the Arabs would've took Ctesiphon in a year's time.

Keep in mind that nationalism (a later 18th century occurance than this TL) wasn't the only motivator to conquest. Religion also played a BIG part...which was how Islam spread as far and as fast as it did...compared to Christianity
 
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