Anti-Byzantine PODs?

while this would not immediately ruin the byzantines, i believe it would in the long run:

the visigoths settle in the balkans and do not sack rome, and do not move into gaul and spain. they might attempt a siege on constantinople.

the ostrogoths might do likewise.

attilla the hun lays siege to constantinople. he fails, and turns around to ravage greece.

gepids, lombards, sciri, alans, sarmatians, and huns are all other possible groups who may decide to settle in the balkans instead of western europe because of the wealth there.

later on, the magyars, avars, and maybe even mongols could do the same.

Doubt it. The Byzantines did perfectly well without effective control over the Balkans in the ninth and tenth centuries: in the great scheme of things, Greece and the wider Balkan peninsula were near worthless compared to the real heartlands- Thrace, the Aegean Isles, and Anatolia. To knock out Byzantium, it is these regions that really have to go.
 
Doubt it. The Byzantines did perfectly well without effective control over the Balkans in the ninth and tenth centuries: in the great scheme of things, Greece and the wider Balkan peninsula were near worthless compared to the real heartlands- Thrace, the Aegean Isles, and Anatolia. To knock out Byzantium, it is these regions that really have to go.

Which is interesting; Anatolia makes sense, but why would the Aegean islands be more valuable than Greece? (of course, if you control both Anatolia and Greece, the Aegean islands should be under your control anyways fairly soon)
 
Which is interesting; Anatolia makes sense, but why would the Aegean islands be more valuable than Greece? (of course, if you control both Anatolia and Greece, the Aegean islands should be under your control anyways fairly soon)

Strategic location would be my guess. Greece can be written off. Aegean pirate bases...not so much.
 
Strategic location would be my guess. Greece can be written off. Aegean pirate bases...not so much.

Hm. Hey, you could convoy (joking)! I always forget about pirates. I guess I am rather land-focused in general...could probably use some brushing up on naval affairs.
 
Strategic location would be my guess. Greece can be written off. Aegean pirate bases...not so much.

Exactly- see the enormous amount of damage to Byzantine interests that the fall of Crete in 825 did, and the numerous vigorous attempts to win the island back. Then imagine the Cretan chaos if Islamic pirate bases existed throughout the Aegean Sea...
 
Noone gave the most obvious? Constantine never moves his capital to Byzantium? He's killed fighting either Maxentius or Licinius? Or earlier Diocletian has Constantine killed for his mother's religion?
 
Noone gave the most obvious? Constantine never moves his capital to Byzantium? He's killed fighting either Maxentius or Licinius? Or earlier Diocletian has Constantine killed for his mother's religion?

I was kind of assuming the ERE actually got founded...
 
how about coming up with a list of anti-Byzantine PODs--that is, points where a small departure could have meant an earlier, maybe even a much earlier, end to the empire?
Heresy - Heretic- Stone Him:eek:

?How about have the Rus take Constantinople in their 7?th century siege?
 
Doubt it. The Byzantines did perfectly well without effective control over the Balkans in the ninth and tenth centuries: in the great scheme of things, Greece and the wider Balkan peninsula were near worthless compared to the real heartlands- Thrace, the Aegean Isles, and Anatolia. To knock out Byzantium, it is these regions that really have to go.
Didn't you engage in a huge discussion over just how viable Anatolia was after the final Persian War?
 
There are many possibilities for this. Some of the first are that the barbarians bribed by early Eastern Emperors to go sack the Western Empire take the money and attack the Eastern Empire anyway. Others include much worse and deeper Arian conflicts, or a civil war between the Chalcedonians and the Monophysites.

In particular victories in any of the pre-1453 sieges of Constantinople will kill the Byzantine Empire earlier.

A later POD that's interesting is if Timur decides not to attack the Ottomans, which means they take over the Palaeologoi Empire a generation earlier......
 
Here's my idea: Septimus Severus destroyed completely Byzantium in 195 AD after its support to Pescennius Nigrus, and the city was never rebuilded...
 
Didn't you engage in a huge discussion over just how viable Anatolia was after the final Persian War?

Yes, I think so- I argued that it remained very viable, in terms of agricultural output, even if not in terms of net tax production from urban centres.
 
Yes, I think so- I argued that it remained very viable, in terms of agricultural output, even if not in terms of net tax production from urban centres.

As I recall from that - or some similar discussion - it seems that Western/coastal Anatolia remained valuable, but the plateau became increasingly not important (except for the strategic benefits) for Byzantium.

Didn't you say somewhere that the 12th century saw that area (the western coastal rainfall region) was better off than any point since the 5th or 6th century?

This doesn't necessarily translate into directly state revenue, but its still good for the state.

Which brings up a suggestion: Cripple the beaucracy. Byzantium managed, somehow, to generally be able to have a well ordered state that ran more or less smoothly when it came to normal administration. Knock that prop out and the state is severely weakened, especially given the Anatolian aristocracy's shaky reliability as supporters of the central government - even if not planning treason, their interests are contrary to the state's desire to be the one preying on (if I may be so cynical) peasant wealth and sons.
 
Here's my idea: Septimus Severus destroyed completely Byzantium in 195 AD after its support to Pescennius Nigrus, and the city was never rebuilded...

But Byzantium is in an insanely strategic position for all pre-modern societies. It is THE key to trade between anything on the Black Sea or connected to the Black Sea and anything on the Mediterranean. The location is just strategically too awesome for no one to build there.
 
How about the split within the Eastern Orthodox Church (Between the Myaphysites (sp?) and the Imperial Church) evolved into an armed conflict?
 

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For the First Arab Siege, have Kallinikos be captured or defect to the Ummayyads and thus deprive the Eastern Roman Empire Navy of its Greek Fire advantage.

Don't know the relative strengths of the ERE's Navy, but even draws, would allow the Ummayyad's to keep Constantinople cut off.
 
For the First Arab Siege, have Kallinikos be captured or defect to the Ummayyads and thus deprive the Eastern Roman Empire Navy of its Greek Fire advantage.

Don't know the relative strengths of the ERE's Navy, but even draws, would allow the Ummayyad's to keep Constantinople cut off.

Personally, I don't think Constantinople is impregnable in that period, but I'd argue that the OTL Arab sieges of Constantinople would require quite a bit of luck to be successful.

I also think that people VASTLY overestimate "Greek Fire". It was quickly adopted by the Arabs after seeing it used by the Byzantines (If the Muslims didn't already have it.). Even then, it was only used in very specific circumstances. It's much more likely that fireships stationed in the Golden Horn prevented the Arab forces from taking the city by the much more vulnerable Sea Walls (I'll have to check when they were built, they might not even have existed at that time.) The threat of the [Smaller] Byzantine fleet was enough to convince the leaders of the siege that their best chance to take the city would be by land, with the problems that runs into.

Of course, anyone could probably take make a timeline with a successful Arab siege and run with it, as there are many conflicting (and valid, depending on the interpretation of the scant literary evidence) theories on what actually happened.
 
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