Byzantines reestablish WRE - plausibility check

Deleted member 67076

Would no Justinian plague be a good POD?
That would help immensely, along with a quick conquest of Italy. With those you'd have an Italy with a much larger population, a stronger economy and far greater urbanization.

Also, you might be able to have Latin survive for much longer and as Theodora survives, more women's rights.
 
Only way this would work is (a) an end to attempts to impose a rigid Orthodoxy on churches in provinces; (b) the development of firearms and other scientific and technological developments thereafter, especially advanced sailing ships. Without firearms, the overextended empire had too many frontiers to defend and had to depend on extremely expensive heavy cavalry, mercenaries, a navy of galley ships, the building of heavy walls around every town or city near the frontiers, and a system of signal towers stretching from the borders back towards the center of the Empire. This all meant very heavy taxes that stifled economic growth. The Byzantines were faced with a simple equation: develop new tools of war or die. They did do this to a limited extent in the Middle Byzantine period, as by solving logistics problems via the use of mule trains and basing the cavalry on sizeable land grants to well-to-do peasants in return for their equipping and providing for military service one or more of the family's sons. But it wasn't enough.
 
Only way this would work is (a) an end to attempts to impose a rigid Orthodoxy on churches in provinces; (b) the development of firearms and other scientific and technological developments thereafter, especially advanced sailing ships. Without firearms, the overextended empire had too many frontiers to defend and had to depend on extremely expensive heavy cavalry, mercenaries, a navy of galley ships, the building of heavy walls around every town or city near the frontiers, and a system of signal towers stretching from the borders back towards the center of the Empire. This all meant very heavy taxes that stifled economic growth. The Byzantines were faced with a simple equation: develop new tools of war or die. They did do this to a limited extent in the Middle Byzantine period, as by solving logistics problems via the use of mule trains and basing the cavalry on sizeable land grants to well-to-do peasants in return for their equipping and providing for military service one or more of the family's sons. But it wasn't enough.

This is quite wrong.

Firstly, we hear of no serious attempts at doing this at any point in the sixth century: arguably Heraclius put some effort into it in the 630s, but this is very arguable. There was, at worst, a low-level harassment of the leading figures of anti-Chalcedonian leaders from about 550 onwards, and occasional rioting in large cities, but that was about it. Oppression was certainly no heavier than it was under the Arabs, and it didn't stop them from prospering in the seventh and eighth centuries.

As for a lack of firearms, I'm not at all sure how that argument stands up. If we go with it, it surely means that all large empires that existed before the sixteenth century were logically impossible, which clearly isn't true. In any case, the beginning of the sixth century seems to have been a period of maximal economic productivity in the ERE, and this was brought to an end by the ravages of the plague far more than any other factor.
 
Didnt Tiberius (or it was Justin II? cant remember as i have a huge migraine right now) planned to divide the Empire and hand over to Germanus the western territories or something like that?
 
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