AHC/WI: Bilingual Byzantine Empire (Greek/Latin) without Italy and/or North Africa

[TheWitheredStriker]

Consider these two maps of the Roman Empire in 330, plus some important info on the first three Justinian emperors. We can discern the following:

• The Eastern Roman Empire is a mostly Greek-speaking empire since forever (read: Alexander the Great), but its northwesternmost territory is Latin-speaking. The majority of Latin-speaking Byzantines were from northern Thrace and North Macedonia, with a smaller proportion hailing from modern-day Montenegro, south Serbia etc.
• The first Byzantine emperor who spoke Greek as his native language was Tiberius II Constantine, according to Edward Gibbon. His three predecessors – Justin I, Justinian I, and Justinian II – all spoke Latin as their mother tongue. Justin I was, indeed, a Thraco-Roman by birth, and his birth name was Istocus (Istok in Thracian). He and Justinian I were both born in modern-day Skopje, North Macedonia.

I have long wanted to create a scenario wherein the ERE's bilingualism never fades away into a fully Greek-speaking state. With this mind, I wondered what it would take for the Latin speakers of Byzantium to maintain themselves. I remember reading somewhere else that what really doomed the status of Latin in the ERE wasn't Heraclius's linguistic policy, but actually the Slavic and Turkic raiding and colonization of Thrace and Macedonia, which started getting bad under Focas (r. 602-610) and got REALLY out of hand under Constantine IV, who, in 681, was forced to recognize the independence of the First Bulgarian Empire.

The easiest solution would simply be to have Italy and/or North Africa remain part of the ERE, but I am not interested in either; I'd like the ERE to more-or-less retain its position as an empire in the Balkans and in Anatolia, and I also still plan to make Italy go through similar circumstances as IOTL (Pope, city-states, division, Charlemagne, you get the idea), while also still allowing Spain and Portugal to exist.

Thus, the easy way out is not what I'm looking for. What I want instead is for this Slavic raiding of Macedonia and Thrace, which IOTL exterminated the remaining Thraco-Romans and their settlements, to be stopped or minimized, so that the Latin Thracian culture and people live on instead of being lost to history. Of course, it's not just as simple as "ooga booga the slavs are repelled forever". This is undeniably going to have consequences, especially if Bulgaria isn't established at all. Furthermore, I can't imagine that repelling the Slavs would be an easy task, since if it was, the Romans would've just done that IOTL.

With all this in mind:

• What method do you think is best for preserving Latin in the Byzantine Empire, WITHOUT making them rule Italy or North Africa? Is it a good solution to keep Thrace/Macedonia Latinized, by repelling the Slavs or limiting their damage? If not, is there another method?
• What would the ramifications be of an ERE that keeps Thrace intact? Would a Bulgarian Empire even be able to exist here? And if not, surely there are some nasty butterfly effects and consequences for European history, no? If so, what could these be?

Sorry if this is a lot of questions. I encourage further discussion about the PoD, the consequences, the methods, or whatever else comes to mind to its fullest.

 

[TheWitheredStriker]

No takers?

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Ideal situation I suppose would be getting Illyria and Sicily and somehow getting a dynamic so that slavic immigrants into the empire are acculturated into a romance speaking north Balkan society, and further southward migration happens only after they've been romance speaking for a bit. That way you get some demographic strength that could move that Greek speaking border further south.


you at the least need to slow down the slavic expansion but you'd also likely want to expand trans Danubian trade so that even while they're outside the borders of the empire, Slavic groups are picking up the romance words for things.

 

[Tupiniquim]

Pannonia and Illyria became depopulated because of the many raids that happened since the start of the migration era (first by the goths, then by the huns, avars, and finally slavs who settled in the region and were ruled by the avars). The process it's avoidable though - it took almost three centuries to the "deromanization" of the area. The danubian/savan limes only collapsed because Maurice got assassinated by the damn Phocas. Even with the slavicization of illyria, there are place names in the balkans that still have roman influences and were historically populated by the vlachs (the daco-thracian romance populations that survived the slavic invasions): there's a region called Romanija, villages with "Romanija" in the name, Rascia (that came from the roman Arsa fortress), Asprovlachia, Great Vlachia, Morlachia, Upper Vallachia, Stari Vlah, Valachia Citeriore, etc

But even with Illyria under roman control, still very likely the biggest cities/more urbanized regions (like Naissus, Justiniana Prima, Justiniana Secunda, Remesiana, Serdica, Pautalia, Scodra, etc) will hellenize but the countryside (the majority of the population) can remain latin-speaking. This can be achieved if the Eastern Roman Empire repeals slavic raids (or more realistic: allow slavs to settle but assimilate them, like they did with other migrating peoples, because latin and greek were languages of prestige even for the countryside populace). Also I think if the slavs are assimilated part will start speaking greek, and part will start speaking latin. It depends of how the linguist policy of the emperor will be. Maybe the latinized illyrian population can be refilled with latinized populations of Africa (though this requires the romans to hold that region). Maurice tried to repopulate the balkans with some armenians (that were very numerous in the empire by the time).

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Also I think if the slavs are assimilated they will likely start speaking greek instead of latin

Surely they will start speaking the language of the people who dominate the region they now live in, which in the northern Balkans is Romance.

 

[Tupiniquim]

Surely they will start speaking the language of the people who dominate the region they now live in, which in the northern Balkans is Romance.

It depends a lot, they will only assimilate if the population is big enough to do so. If illyria is too depopulated... I doubt if all of them will shift to romance

 

[Flavius Sussus Amogus]

A bilingual ERE wll but without Italy and N. Africa? Well I guess ERE retaining Hispania would do.

Let's say the reconquest of Hispania under Justinian is much more successful, the Romans managed to push the border with the Goths to OTL Cordoba Caliphate's northern border. ERE still loses most of Italy and Africa to the Muslim Invasion, but Hispania manages to stop them from crossing into Europe.

I guess in this scenario Hispania would most likely be a de facto independent Exarchate, nominally part of the ERE but acts like an independent kingdom. The Exarchate of Hispania would continue to use Latin, as most of its population would be Latin speakers.

 

[Basileus_Komnenos]

A bilingual ERE wll but without Italy and N. Africa? Well I guess ERE retaining Hispania would do.

Let's say the reconquest of Hispania under Justinian is much more successful, the Romans managed to push the border with the Goths to OTL Cordoba Caliphate's northern border. ERE still loses most of Italy and Africa to the Muslim Invasion, but Hispania manages to stop them from crossing into Europe.

This doesn't seem tenable in the long term. What's to stop the Hispanic forces from propping up/supporting the Italians when they're so close by? They'd also be under the influence of the Pope who'd no dout call on them for help against the Lombards.

 

[The Anglo-Dutch Union]

A possibility here is the balkans. The Balkans were quite latinised, including northern Bulgaria. However the balkans were hit hard during the great migrations, and when they might have started to recover the slavs started moving in. So you need an eastern empire controlling the balkan and managing to repell the Slavs, Ideally the Huns would have raided less in the balkans asweel seeing as they did a lot of damage to Romance communties near the Danube.

 

[TheWitheredStriker]

A possibility here is the balkans. The Balkans were quite latinised, including northern Bulgaria. However the balkans were hit hard during the great migrations, and when they might have started to recover the slavs started moving in. So you need an eastern empire controlling the balkan and managing to repell the Slavs, Ideally the Huns would have raided less in the balkans asweel seeing as they did a lot of damage to Romance communties near the Danube.

Yeah, I figured that keeping North Macedonia (where Justin I and Justinian I, famously Latin, came from) and the southern strip of Bulgaria is essential for a Latin minority to be kept around in the ERE. Though, I'd rather not keep all of Bulgaria within the empire due to the butterflies. Could it be workable if the southern strip, and what is now North Macedonia, remained safe?

 

[The Anglo-Dutch Union]

Yeah, I figured that keeping North Macedonia (where Justin I and Justinian I, famously Latin, came from) and the southern strip of Bulgaria is essential for a Latin minority to be kept around in the ERE. Though, I'd rather not keep all of Bulgaria within the empire due to the butterflies. Could it be workable if the southern strip, and what is now North Macedonia, remained safe?

It could I suppose, but those areas are more mountainous and IMO if there's latin cities that greatly increases the importance of the latin community in the empire.

 

[Nivek]

Without Italy is just super Greece as OTL

 

[TheWitheredStriker]

Without Italy is just super Greece as OTL

Not per se. North Macedonia and South Bulgaria were home to Latin-speaking Thraco-Romans, like Justinian I. They disappeared due to large-scale Slav/Avar attacks in the 7th and 8th century, which ravaged their cities and slaughtered their numbers.

 

[TheWitheredStriker]

A random question: What exactly happened to Serdica? This city was fully within the Latin-speaking zone of the empire. After doing some reading, it turns out that the city seems to have supposedly remained Byzantine until 809, during the reign of Nikephoros I. But I find this rather doubtful. I remember that Byzantine control over the Balkans was completely shattered during the 7th and 8th centuries, and several maps corroborate this.

I see potential in Serdica as the BE's primary Latin city, which is why I'm asking what ever happened to it after the year 500. Since Serdica evolved into Sofia the capital of Bulgaria, I can't imagine that this would not bring large butterflies either, right?

 

[Evil Crusader]

A random question: What exactly happened to Serdica? This city was fully within the Latin-speaking zone of the empire. After doing some reading, it turns out that the city seems to have supposedly remained Byzantine until 809, during the reign of Nikephoros I. But I find this rather doubtful. I remember that Byzantine control over the Balkans was completely shattered during the 7th and 8th centuries, and several maps corroborate this.

I see potential in Serdica as the BE's primary Latin city, which is why I'm asking what ever happened to it after the year 500. Since Serdica evolved into Sofia the capital of Bulgaria, I can't imagine that this would not bring large butterflies either, right?

Actually, most maps suggest that Byzantine control held on well on the SE Bulgarian plains that were well connected to the Via Militaris, only retreating from tthe Danube to the actual Balkan mountain range (also probably why even when Bulgaria was ascendant, its capital stayed well north at Pliska).
That said, going from secure administrative center to actual border lands with a much deprived hinterland certainly hurt its standing and population.

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

I see potential in Serdica as the BE's primary Latin city, which is why I'm asking what ever happened to it after the year 500.

It's main problem is that it's not really connected to anything, especially once singidunum is lost- what commerce is actually passing through the city?

If you can fix that,,not only does investment in defence become more worthwhile, but the proto romance speaking cives maintain their wealth/status, giving them a better chance to assimilate the elites of migrating groups.

 

[TheWitheredStriker]

It's main problem is that it's not really connected to anything, especially once singidunum is lost- what commerce is actually passing through the city?

If you can fix that,,not only does investment in defence become more worthwhile, but the proto romance speaking cives maintain their wealth/status, giving them a better chance to assimilate the elites of migrating groups.

Interesting. So you suggest that the Byzzies maintain a grip on Belgrade?