AHC: Roman Empire fell not with a "whimper" but with a "bang"

It would not fit exactly the criteria that you want I think, but the Romans were wide open after their series of defeats at the hands of the Cimbri and Teutones, which culminated in the slaughter at the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC. If they had continued down into Italy at that time, they would quite possibly have taken Rome itself - unprecedented since the Gallic sack in 390 BC. There would still have been Romans of course, and I am sure that the res publica would have continued in some way, shape, or form, but that would have been quite something to have come back from.
 
It would not fit exactly the criteria that you want I think, but the Romans were wide open after their series of defeats at the hands of the Cimbri and Teutones, which culminated in the slaughter at the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC. If they had continued down into Italy at that time, they would quite possibly have taken Rome itself - unprecedented since the Gallic sack in 390 BC.

The problem is that the Cimbri and the Teutons won't permanently occupied Italy. When they had gone, the legions from Greece, Africa, and Spain would simply rebuilt Rome...
 
Yuan-style Rome would be pretty damn awesome indeed. Might end up with the centre of the empire being moved to the central plains and the Mediterranean system being neglected, though...

Errr, actually it would be the opposite: the Mongols saw the centre of their empire moved to Persia and China, and the "steppe system" was neglected...
The centre of empire would always end up in the richest part of it...as was the case of Roman/Byzantine Empire.
 
The problem is that the Cimbri and the Teutons won't permanently occupied Italy. When they had gone, the legions from Greece, Africa, and Spain would simply rebuilt Rome...

Why wouldn't they occupy Italy? They were after all lookig for fertile land to settle.
 
Why wouldn't they occupy Italy? They were after all lookig for fertile land to settle.

Well, IMO there are some major reasons:

1. 2nd century BC Italy was more populated and moreover, Italian peoples won't simply accept the barbarians as their overlords...especially compared with 5th century AD Italy, when there was little population and the people didn't really care who their rulers were... (mainly caused by proto-feudalism) Thus the Ostrogoths were able to gain control of it.

2. The Cimbri and the Teutons were VERY different compared with the Ostrogoths, who were able to conquer Italy. The Ostrogoths have been undergoing Romanization by decades of contact with the Empire, they were familiar with Roman military organization, Roman system of government, etc, so they could simply use the existing Roman bureaucracy to govern Italy. Even their king, IIRC was unrecognizable with the common Roman at that time.

3. Like I've said before, the remaining Romans in Greece, Africa, and Spain won't let barbarians took their homeland...
 
Well, it is still a "whimper" not a "bang"...

If the sundering of the Empire is caused by something really scary, like a Hunnic occupation of Italy and various attempts at reconquista by Romans in Spain, Africa, etc. repeatedly fail and then the non-Italian Romans start fighting each other...

Bang = fall of Italy to the Huns.
 
260-70 would be a good opportunity, it seems to me. The emperor was caught by the Persians, his son didn't care much about him, Shapur I was a very competent opponent, and even when the Romans defeated him IOTL, there were still many rebellions - Postumus and his Gallic empire (who also killed Gallienus' son), Aemilianus in Egypt, Macrianus in Asia Minor, Ingenuus in Pannonia, Regalianus in Illyricum - and also the Alemanni advancing almost towards Rome, the Palmyreans acting almost independently... it's a sheer miracle that Gallienus didn't break down crying. Give Rome's enemies just one little advantage, and they'll succeed, Shapur gets the Greater Persian empire he wanted (that is, with the west borders of the first Persian empire), and there'll be two successor empires left (in Gallia plus something, and North Africa respectively) which squabble over who's the rightful successor. Yep, that should do it.
 
Not possible, I don't think. Romanisation was going on at various degrees throughout the Empire from pretty much the moment of conquest. Whatever happens, you're likely to get things that resemble Roman succesor states, at least in the West. In the East, a Persian conquest is perhaps plausible which really will wipe out Graeco-Roman civilisation, though this will take several centuries to achieve. But in the West, there are no alternatives available to a Latin based, Roman-style administration for any new conquerors- which will mean successor states.
 
The problem is that the Roman Empire was in a great strategic position yto defend against external invaders, but a terrible one to hold against rebellion. To have any hope of defeating rome in a short time, an invader would have to have a fleet in the mediterranean- which was totally encircled by Rome, so you'll have to have a land invasion. Which will have to start in the east or northeast and work it's way westwards, as rome had the Sahara to the south and the Atlantic to the northeast, neither of which are likely sources of an invasion. So even if there was some empire big enough to stand up to Rome in a straight fight located nearby, I doubt they could easily take all that strung-out land.
 
Not possible, I don't think. Romanisation was going on at various degrees throughout the Empire from pretty much the moment of conquest. Whatever happens, you're likely to get things that resemble Roman succesor states, at least in the West. In the East, a Persian conquest is perhaps plausible which really will wipe out Graeco-Roman civilisation, though this will take several centuries to achieve. But in the West, there are no alternatives available to a Latin based, Roman-style administration for any new conquerors- which will mean successor states.

But...Vandalic Africa, Visigothic Spain, Frankish Gaul, and Ostrogothic Italy in OTL weren't Roman successor states...were they?
 
But...Vandalic Africa, Visigothic Spain, Frankish Gaul, and Ostrogothic Italy in OTL weren't Roman successor states...were they?

Ostrogothic Italy certainly was, while the others all probably were to varying degrees. Vandal Africa was probably the least Romanised of the lot, but that's because the Vandals had their own faith, and had established themselves as something other than Roman from a relatively early date. The Visigoths always portrayed themselves as a legitimate successor state to the WRE, since they had been its allies until the very end. The Franks, meanwhile, had to deal with the powerful Roman millitary aristocracy of northern Gaul, and later on, the Church in the south, which led to them also becoming Romanised relatively rapidly.

Of course, none of these were able to create miniature Roman Empires, but that wasn't down to lack of trying. The very fact that Charlemagne, three centuries after the fall of the West, was calling himself Emperor of the Romans testifies eloquently to the inability of the former Roman provinces, especially Gaul and Italy, to concieve of a world without the Empire.
 
Exactly. The "Fall" of a state is when there is no one who want to re-establish it again...
My own scenario for this challenge was actually the joint Hunnic-Germanic-Sassanid invasion of the Roman Empire. When their Germanic allies/vassals overran Italy, Gaul, Hispania, and Africa, the Huns themselves (together with the Sassanids) besieged Constantinople...and voila, Rome has fallen.

That sounds almost like otl, except replace the Sassanids with Muslims (a lot of whom are just Islamicized Persians) and the Huns with Bulgars and Turks (e.g. steppe nomads).

The Roman Empire was killed by almost the same people.

Afterthought: Possibly this TL could end up with Muslim Huns somewhere down the line...like an earlier Golden Horde.
 
The problem with Hunnic-invasion scenario is that they didn't have any navy to speak of. What if the Western emperor, or his relative, along with some of Roman nobility, established a government-in-exile in Africa?

Well, the Vandals didn't have one either, but got one.

And I can't see the Huns conquered places as far as Syria or Egypt...

Well the "Hunnic" scenario being discussed involves a much larger Hunnic invasion. Possibly groups like the White Huns and the Red Huns who, in OTL, split off from the main Hunnic migration and headed south into Persia and India instead stay with the main Hunnic migration west, only splitting away at the Caucasus to head south into Syria and Egypt.

Meanwhile, the Sassanids, who because they are not being attacked by the White Huns as per OTL, are much more powerful at this period, launch a major invasion of the Roman provinces in Asia and North Africa in the wake of the White Hun assault.
 
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