You're challenge is to keep the Byzantine Empire alive well into the Age of Discovery and have it colonize a part of Brazil.

Where in Brazil would the Byzantine Empire colonize?

What would it be called?

How would culture develop there?
 
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It’s a tall order—to beat other European colonizers to prime territory, I’d suggest Byzantium retaining or reconquering its Spanish possessions from Justinian’s time so as to have a closer access to the Atlantic and an interest in the region.
 
It’s a tall order—to beat other European colonizers to prime territory, I’d suggest Byzantium retaining or reconquering its Spanish possessions from Justinian’s time so as to have a closer access to the Atlantic and an interest in the region.

I’d say this is the best starting point.

- Italy is reconquered more easily, foothold in Spain is maintained and ultimately all of Spain is reconquered. Byzantines don’t bother with France, rely on Alps/Pyrenees as a border. Byzantines hold off eventual Arab expansion better.
- Age of discovery ultimately led by non-Byzantine European states, Byzantines try to keep up, and go for Brazil.

From there, anyone’s guess.
 
The hard part is getting an age of exploration. the AoE came about due to specific circumstances that were mutually exclusive with a surviving Byzantium,
  • Muslims never conquer anatolia and Constantinople? great, no need for europe to go around Africa and find the new world
  • justinian's conquests of hispania survive? cool, you just butterflied the major pioneers of the age of discovery
  • some greek rebellion after the Aztec and Inca Conquests is wanked way out of proportion and reestablishes the byzantine empire for like the third time? their hands are full reconverting all their new territory and keeping rebellions down
There's also the issue of why. the age of exploration came about to trade with India and China. But if the Byzantines are in a position to colonize brazil (i.e with a secure holding in north Africa or Spain) they don't need to do that since they're already probably in the red sea or Persian gulf and can trade there. if they don't have a holding in north Africa or spain then they have to deal with Mediterranean rivals at sea that present far higher priorities than New New Rome/New Constantinople ever will.

ultimately, while I'm not gonna call asb, I am going to say that whatever world you create to make this happen will be so radically different you probably wouldn't be able to justify nations like spain or venice existing
 
Instead of a justinian pod why not have basil II borders survive or a conitued kommenian restuaration that the Byzantines become the ottomans of the atl but have a headstart and unlike the ottomans they do conquer morroco and thus colonize Brazil
 

Lusitania

Donor
Instead of a justinian pod why not have basil II borders survive or a conitued kommenian restuaration that the Byzantines become the ottomans of the atl but have a headstart and unlike the ottomans they do conquer morroco and thus colonize Brazil
But why are they going to Brazil. They have no need. Brazil was discovered by ships on route from Europe to India. Columbus discovered Caribbean snd central America because he was trying to get to China.

None of these are required because they will have acess to the Red Sea and therefore you Indian ocean.

So therefore there is no colony in Brazil.
 
But why are they going to Brazil. They have no need. Brazil was discovered by ships on route from Europe to India. Columbus discovered Caribbean snd central America because he was trying to get to China.

None of these are required because they will have acess to the Red Sea and therefore you Indian ocean.

So therefore there is no colony in Brazil.
The ottomans once the Europeans discovered the new world considered taking some colonies from them to weaken the Europeans if this new bigger Byzantine Empire can conquer morroco it has an Atlantic base to do they can try but I can't say it would succed since I don't think a massive empire of that size has enough Greeks to make a stable colony
 

Lusitania

Donor
The ottomans once the Europeans discovered the new world considered taking some colonies from them to weaken the Europeans if this new bigger Byzantine Empire can conquer morroco it has an Atlantic base to do they can try but I can't say it would succed since I don't think a massive empire of that size has enough Greeks to make a stable colony
A Byzantine empire that would spend time and energy to take Hispania or Morocco would be one that controlled Egypt, holy land and almost all or more of the eastern Roman Empire. If it did not it would not be expending energy to west with enemy to East.

Therefore it would have extensive trade with India through red Sea. Europe would be vastly different. Hispania be under Germanic tribe control or its replacement.

Without Portugal the age of Discovery will not happen. Brazil and new world will not happen in the same time.

So we can’t have Byzantine empire survive and everything else stay the same and then it thinks of colonizing. That not how history works.
 
But why are they going to Brazil. They have no need. Brazil was discovered by ships on route from Europe to India. Columbus discovered Caribbean snd central America because he was trying to get to China.

None of these are required because they will have acess to the Red Sea and therefore you Indian ocean.

So therefore there is no colony in Brazil.

I've heard from this one site that Brazil had a type of wood called brazilwood which was a valuable red dye used for clothes for the French Court.

 
The hard part is getting an age of exploration. the AoE came about due to specific circumstances that were mutually exclusive with a surviving Byzantium,
  • Muslims never conquer anatolia and Constantinople? great, no need for europe to go around Africa and find the new world

Even if the Roman Empire still exists, there is still a hostile Persia just to the east. It is worth it to the Europeans to try to explore to the west once they have developed good enough ships.

Plus, ever since the east-west schism in the church, relations between the Latin Christian states and the Romans are not great, anyway.
 
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A Byzantine empire that would spend time and energy to take Hispania or Morocco would be one that controlled Egypt, holy land and almost all or more of the eastern Roman Empire. If it did not it would not be expending energy to west with enemy to East.

Therefore it would have extensive trade with India through red Sea. Europe would be vastly different. Hispania be under Germanic tribe control or its replacement.

Without Portugal the age of Discovery will not happen. Brazil and new world will not happen in the same time.

So we can’t have Byzantine empire survive and everything else stay the same and then it thinks of colonizing. That not how history works.
I stated that have basil II borders or kommenian restuaration pod I don't know what germanic tribe you are referring to since if you take a a 11th ,12th or 13th century pod like I mentioned castile , Leon and the other kingdoms are there (again I didnt say justinian pod) Portugal might not exist if you take a 11th century pod since maybe they don't rebel like the in otl.
You can replace Portugal by castile doing the discoveries depending how bad venice and the Byzantines tax the trade
And if you take a 12th century pod Portugal is already there.
Speaking of the enemy of the east depends on how Persia does to stop Byzantine expansion
 
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Even if the Roman Empire still exists, there is still a hostile Persia just to the east. It is worth it to the Europeans to try to explore to the west once they have developed good enough ships.

Plus, ever since the east-west schism in the church, relations between the Latin Christian states and the Romans are not great, anyway.
It depends on how the ERE lives- one with egypt would probably be perfectly fine to use that for their red sea-indian ocean trade. But I'll give you that with the schism
 
Let's say Byzantium doesn't suffer a 11th century collapse and stabilizes around its 1025 borders or so. Meanwhile Iberian history proceeds more or less along the lines of OTL.

Portugal gradually starts exploring around Africa and breaks into the Indian Ocean trade, discovering Brazil in the process. Portugal and Byzantium then form an alliance because they share a common enemy in Muslim Egypt (which launches counterattacks against the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean as the Mamelukes and Ottomans did IOTL) and also Spain, which threatens Portugal at home and clashes with Byzantium in southern Italy.

The Portuguese meanwhile are starting to colonize Brazil but with a population of just over a million, they don't have the numbers for it. Meanwhile Byzantium has a population of 15 million (extrapolating from an estimate of 12 million for the Byzantines in 1025 IOTL) and is suffering from overpopulation and environmental degradation. So, with the approval of both Lisbon and Constantinople, large numbers of Greeks end up settling in Brazil. Politically, the colony is Portuguese, but culturally and ethnically it is majority Greek.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Let's say Byzantium doesn't suffer a 11th century collapse and stabilizes around its 1025 borders or so. Meanwhile Iberian history proceeds more or less along the lines of OTL.

Portugal gradually starts exploring around Africa and breaks into the Indian Ocean trade, discovering Brazil in the process. Portugal and Byzantium then form an alliance because they share a common enemy in Muslim Egypt (which launches counterattacks against the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean as the Mamelukes and Ottomans did IOTL) and also Spain, which threatens Portugal at home and clashes with Byzantium in southern Italy.

The Portuguese meanwhile are starting to colonize Brazil but with a population of just over a million, they don't have the numbers for it. Meanwhile Byzantium has a population of 15 million (extrapolating from an estimate of 12 million for the Byzantines in 1025 IOTL) and is suffering from overpopulation and environmental degradation. So, with the approval of both Lisbon and Constantinople, large numbers of Greeks end up settling in Brazil. Politically, the colony is Portuguese, but culturally and ethnically it is majority Greek.
If we have a portugal and Spain form iotl then it means we have islamic Arabs controlling Iberian peninsula and North Africa and gradually reconquista.

So therefore we now have Portugal and Spain form and age of exploration start. What makes us think that Byzantine able to or interested in exploring new world any more than Venice or Genoa did.

They not have the technology. Their main political and military objective be retake holy land and Egypt back from Muslims.

Every so often we get the question about Italian states or Ottoman Empire trying to be colonizers. For them to do anything of the sort they need to invest huge amount of resources to learn new sailing technologies and then build right type of ships. They then would need to send their inexperienced ships to the Atlantic to take on both Portugal and Spain in their own turf.
 
As pointed out by several others, there isn't really a need for the Roman Empire to colonize Brazil because the resources that are needed for that, would mean that it probably controlled large parts of the Eastern and at least part of the Western Mediterranean. And as stated, the Age of Exploration and the subsequent discovery of America were all in search of another way to India and China, so with the RE controlling that large of territory, the trade with India and China would pass through its own territory or it's merchants would trade directly with India/China. If the RE would colonize it would be in the East, not the West.


The only way that a colony might happen is pure luck.
The Goths settling in the Balkan instead of moving into Italy which provides the RE with manpower for its army, the Justinian conquests succeeding quicker and less brutal, especially in Italy and don't utterly devastate the countryside and cities. With that extra manpower and money, the RE recovers from the Plague much better. The Perpetual Peace might last for way longer than it did in otl, giving both sides to recover and maybe even seek out better relations against each other. the rise of Islam might be countered or even completely avoided and the RE holds on to all the Justinian conquests. Several centuries later the RE still controls the Eastern Mediterranean, Italy (and islands), Carthage and hinterlands, Iberia. Overpopulation might have some crazy dude search for new or better places to go, eventually discovering a new continent to the west,
 
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When you're a Byzantine prisoner in Constantinople and some official comes to you offering you to reduce your prison sentence by labor in some tropical colony on the other side of the Great Western Sea:
370.gif
 
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Lusitania

Donor
When you're a Byzantine prisoner in Constantinople and some official comes to you offering you to reduce your prison sentence by labor in some tropical colony on the other side of the Great Western Sea:
370.gif
It has nothing with sending prisoners. It has with both having ships that can traverse the Atlantic, it has with not having the technology required to sail in open ocean. It has with having to spend $$ on an endeavor that you need to cross enemy or adversaries water to get to. It has to do with I nee to spend $$ on fighting my enemies here close to home. So on and so on.
 
You're challenge is to keep the Byzantine Empire alive well into the Age of Discovery and have it colonize a part of Brazil.

Where in Brazil would the Byzantine Empire colonize?

What would it be called?

How would culture develop there?
They could buy some land and hire contractors for the shipping.
 
As many people already pointed, the byzantines don't have the same conditions Western Europe had for colonization. A PoD I thought would be if the romans to reconquer and keep Italy, Spain and North Africa, but lost the Eastern parts of the empire centuries later. The remaining Roman Empire (Italy, Spain and maybe North Africa minus Egypt), now deprived from the Eastern trade rotes and resources could be interested on the exploration of the Atlantic. However, there's a problem: is it still the Byzantine Empire, even if Constantinople (Byzantium) is already lost?
 
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