DBWI: The Roman Empire Falls

As you know after Justinian I reconquered most of the old Western Empire and his son Justinian II (OOC: This is the POD. In TTL he has a son who is also very competent.) helped strengthen the new frontier the empire was never threatened again. It eventually pushed the barbarian tribes out of Europe altogether including areas never under imperial rule at all such as Germania and Britannia. Is there a way for the empire to fall entirely and what would happen?
 
I thought there would be some ideas. There was some heretic in the 600s in Arabia someplace that caused some trouble. He had a quite a following before Imperial Troops killed him in the desert. There was the Persian invasion of 950 AD that made it within 60 miles of Constantinople itself. In 1210 there was a heretic named in history as Jacob the Mad. There was a mad monk named Cleon in 1350 that started riots when he claimed the discovery of the New World was proof that the Age of Armageddon was upon is as the world could be no lands that far away (OOC:I assume that since the Eastern Empire never fell tech advanced faster) . In 1524 there were riots of people who thought the steam engine was the work of the devil.
 
Well, the power and territory of the Empire has waxed and waned over time. At times it didn't look very imperial at all. (The most obvious being the time you mentioned in the OP when Rome was sacked by barbarians.) Yet like the phoenix, it always seems to rise again. All we need is to take one of the times when the Empire was particularly weak (the Western Crisis of the late 400s, the humiliating territorial losses to the Crimeans in the 984, the various rebellions in Hispana and North Africa in the late 11th Century, or even the more modern Pan-American Wars) and have someone stamp it out completely. People always try to point to the Persian invasion in 950 as a good point for this to happen, but I disagree. While the Persians had a lot of success in Asia Minor, they were way overstretched and the Empire was at one of its greatest extents in decades out west, so even if the unthinkable happened and Constantinople was captured, the Persians could never have held it.

Maybe if you could get a stronger Persia during the 1000s, they could have taken advantage of the rebellions and crushed the Empire. I mean the Romans weren't at their strongest even before the rebellions broke out. They'd lost most of northeastern Europe to the Crimean Empire and the Vikings had thrown Britannia into chaos. If Persia had been as strong then as they had been in 950, they could have easily swept through the Holy Land and into Asia Minor. The Romans would have had to let the rebels go in order to pull back their troops and defend Constantinople. Even then it might not have been successful given the sad state the legions were in under Gustavius II. Fortunately, the Persians were too busy with their own internal conflicts and couldn't take advantage. Not sure how to butterfly these conflicts, but if you can, it could conceivable end the Empire.
 
It's hard to imagine a world without a successful Roman Empire. Though looking back now, there are many points in history in which it was particularly weak and fragile.

Good the Roman Confederation has been stable for some time now, with her dominions over the world being relatively prosperous.
 
Well, the power and territory of the Empire has waxed and waned over time. At times it didn't look very imperial at all. (The most obvious being the time you mentioned in the OP when Rome was sacked by barbarians.) Yet like the phoenix, it always seems to rise again. All we need is to take one of the times when the Empire was particularly weak (the Western Crisis of the late 400s, the humiliating territorial losses to the Crimeans in the 984, the various rebellions in Hispana and North Africa in the late 11th Century, or even the more modern Pan-American Wars) and have someone stamp it out completely. People always try to point to the Persian invasion in 950 as a good point for this to happen, but I disagree. While the Persians had a lot of success in Asia Minor, they were way overstretched and the Empire was at one of its greatest extents in decades out west, so even if the unthinkable happened and Constantinople was captured, the Persians could never have held it.

Maybe if you could get a stronger Persia during the 1000s, they could have taken advantage of the rebellions and crushed the Empire. I mean the Romans weren't at their strongest even before the rebellions broke out. They'd lost most of northeastern Europe to the Crimean Empire and the Vikings had thrown Britannia into chaos. If Persia had been as strong then as they had been in 950, they could have easily swept through the Holy Land and into Asia Minor. The Romans would have had to let the rebels go in order to pull back their troops and defend Constantinople. Even then it might not have been successful given the sad state the legions were in under Gustavius II. Fortunately, the Persians were too busy with their own internal conflicts and couldn't take advantage. Not sure how to butterfly these conflicts, but if you can, it could conceivable end the Empire.

I think the revolt in Hispania would have to be much more effective to be much of a threat. After all they never got past Gaul and the North Africans never made it to Asia Minor or Italia. In fact they never completely controlled their entire regions, there were always some Imperial holdouts.
 
I think the revolt in Hispania would have to be much more effective to be much of a threat. After all they never got past Gaul and the North Africans never made it to Asia Minor or Italia. In fact they never completely controlled their entire regions, there were always some Imperial holdouts.

Oh, I realize that the revolts weren't that big a deal by themselves, but the Empire was already weak, and if there had been an external threat I doubt they could have put down the revolts and fended off the Persians (or the Crimeans, or a more centralized Viking power, or barbarian hordes, pick your favorite bogeyman) at the same time. They would have been between a rock and a hard place: either lose chunks of the Empire to another empire, or watch the Empire fracture from within. Keep in mind that the legions of this era were hardly the same as the legions that had subjugated northern Britannia and Hibernia a few centuries earlier, or even the legions that barely managed to hold off the Persians in 950. With Persia destabilized and the Crimeans occupied elsewhere, Rome was lulled into a false sense of security. The military suffered from criminal neglect under Gustavius I and II. Remember what the Vikings did to that pathetic Roman navy? Of course, one could argue that with a visible foreign threat (a) the military might have been stronger and (b) the revolts may never have happened to begin with. So perhaps the scenario is a moot point for those reasons.

Otherwise, I don't know. Maybe have the Empire split on religious grounds? Jacob the Mad times a hundred or so could cause problems.
 
Oh, I realize that the revolts weren't that big a deal by themselves, but the Empire was already weak, and if there had been an external threat I doubt they could have put down the revolts and fended off the Persians (or the Crimeans, or a more centralized Viking power, or barbarian hordes, pick your favorite bogeyman) at the same time. They would have been between a rock and a hard place: either lose chunks of the Empire to another empire, or watch the Empire fracture from within. Keep in mind that the legions of this era were hardly the same as the legions that had subjugated northern Britannia and Hibernia a few centuries earlier, or even the legions that barely managed to hold off the Persians in 950. With Persia destabilized and the Crimeans occupied elsewhere, Rome was lulled into a false sense of security. The military suffered from criminal neglect under Gustavius I and II. Remember what the Vikings did to that pathetic Roman navy? Of course, one could argue that with a visible foreign threat (a) the military might have been stronger and (b) the revolts may never have happened to begin with. So perhaps the scenario is a moot point for those reasons.

Otherwise, I don't know. Maybe have the Empire split on religious grounds? Jacob the Mad times a hundred or so could cause problems.

I don't think the Vikings could have been much more than a naval threat, there just wasn't enough of them. However, if the Persians got their act together quicker they may have succeeded if they had some luck on their side. If the Slavs managed to unite they could have caused some havoc but they never managed to do so in their history. They have always had 5 or 6 leaders. But if they had someone charismatic enough they might have pulled it off. They would have to take out the Crimeans first, though as they were their main threat.

I think you underestimate the danger of Jacob the Mad. He was crazy but he was neither stupid or uncharismatic. He had a large following in North Africa. He didn't have a majority of the population but if he were even more charismatic he might have.
 
It's hard to imagine a world without a successful Roman Empire. Though looking back now, there are many points in history in which it was particularly weak and fragile.

Good the Roman Confederation has been stable for some time now, with her dominions over the world being relatively prosperous.

True, as hard to imagine as no Persian or Chinese Empires.
 
On the Vikings, I've never been able to figure how, on the one hand, they never seemed to match their threat against the Empire a thousand years or so ago, but on the other, managed to build the biggest Empire in the Western Hemisphere since then.

After all that success, does anyone know why they never made a latter serious attempt at continental Europe?
 
They had a good navy and could brush aside the natives. What could the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere do against muskets and cannon? Persia and Rome was busy fighting another war while China was in the middle of a Civil War. Once those wars ended and the empires recovered enough to colonize the Western Hemisphere the Vikings already grabbed a big part of it. They never challenged the Empire in Europe again because most of them moved west. The weather in the Western Hemisphere is much more pleasant than Norway!
 
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