Consequences of central and southern Italy remaining Byzantine

[Lady Visenya]

They where and Constantine took advantage of that but then the abassids showed up he made a truce with them in 750s from then Constantine decided to focus the 2 deacades left from him to invade Bulgaria as the civil wars due to collapse of dulos clan so for some reason Constantine here says nah fam and goes to Italy instead of attacking Bulgaria

I don't think I said anything about Constantine going to Italy?

 

[Silver01]

I don't think I said anything about Constantine going to Italy?

Nah but that the only way they can hope to keep it with a pod in his reing since Eutychius had screwed up since the early rule of Leo

 

[ImperialxWarlord]

I wonder if it would be possible for Manuel Komnenos to retake Sicily and southern Italy?

 

[Thomas1195]

I wonder if it would be possible for Manuel Komnenos to retake Sicily and southern Italy?

Possible, if he was less extravagant. The problem is that it would Manuel no longer Manuel. With the wealth of the Byzantine Empire under his reign, someone like Basil II could have raised a much larger army than Basil himself could have ever dreamed of.

 

[Thomas1195]

Pretty much. At least, that is my educated guess, although, without a specific POD, it is hard to say. I know this has been said to death, but the only way I see for a workable Byzantine Italy is a swifter Greco-Gothic war, so that Italy can be a net contributor and not a drain on resources. Then they can even lose Northern Italy somehow but, due to the need of effectively wage a near-constant war with the Lombards, Italy is pretty much independent.

Actually, you only need to have Maurice to avoid the coup. At that time, he just already pacified the Balkan. That means had he survived that winter, he would have obviously focused on Italy, and probably would have dislodged the duchies of Benevento and Spoletto.

In a Maurice surviving scenario, if there is a war with Persia, it would not occur in 602.

 

[ImperialxWarlord]

Possible, if he was less extravagant. The problem is that it would Manuel no longer Manuel. With the wealth of the Byzantine Empire under his reign, someone like Basil II could have raised a much larger army than Basil himself could have ever dreamed of.

It’s been awhile since I read up on his Italian adventures but from what I recall a big part of its failure was its leadership or something very much avoidable. Can’t be sure if I’m remembering that correctly though.

 

[Wendell]

Griko would be less moribund.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

That means had he survived that winter, he would have obviously focused on Italy, and probably would have dislodged the duchies of Benevento and Spoletto.

I'm not sure this is at all obvious- while by 602 the Balkan situation was largely under control, I suspect there'd be continuing campaigns in the area for several years, maybe even up until the death of Maurice. His successor would then in all likelihood be facing renewed Iranian problems.

Anyway- continued Constantinoplitan presence in central Italy means that, yes, the Bishop of Rome won't be anything like so influential, and the institutional Catholic Church as we know it won't exist. Maybe many more national churches in Western Europe under the thumb of Frankish and English kings. The Bishop of Rome may well end up no more influential than any other (non Constantinopolitan) Patriarch.

Italy will likely remain something of an imperial backwater- the priority will always be on the East, unless Iran/the Caliphate is utterly fragmented somehow, and a large and powerful Northern European state emerges to threaten the Mediterranean core.

Finally, I think in linguistic terms Italy (outside of Greek speaking Calabria) stays Latin, but knowledge of Greek in Italy and Latin in Constantinople is somewhat higher than OTL.

 

[ike225]

If they can hold onto central and southern Italty, they should be able to hold onto the entire Illyrian coastline, another rather wealthy region. And considering Sicily's position in the Med it would remain an important and wealthy place as it did in OTL
With it the empire has a much larger Latin speaking population and Greek will probably take on many more Latin than it ever did in our timeline, both languages probably remain the official languages as the Empire would never as Greek as in OTL

 

[kasumigenx]

What about Constance of Sicily marrying to the Byzantine Emperor?

 

[Thomas1195]

while by 602 the Balkan situation was largely under control, I suspect there'd be continuing campaigns in the area for several years, maybe even up until the death of Maurice. His successor would then in all likelihood be facing renewed Iranian problems

Sure, but Khosrau most likely would not attack in 602. If you manage to maintain the peace to the rise of the Arabs then Persia would have to postpone any potential Byzantine war further to deal with them. But even another 10 years of peace would have made a very big difference - Maurice could have used that 10 years to handle the two Lombard duchies.

As for the Lombards, that's why I mention to two southern Lombard duchies, they were smaller targets than the Northern Lombard kingdom, and were surrounded by Byzantine territories.

 

[Lascaris]

Possible, if he was less extravagant. The problem is that it would Manuel no longer Manuel. With the wealth of the Byzantine Empire under his reign, someone like Basil II could have raised a much larger army than Basil himself could have ever dreamed of.

Well that's the general problem with Manuel. The empire would likely be far better off had either of his elder brothers not died.