Discuss : Creating a 'Third Rome'

Wow, so much interest :D *blushes*

I mean, this is basically Russia.

That is what occurred to me at first, but I wouldn't say Russia matches the criteria - the people considered themselves Russian, or Muscovite. Now I agree that Russia a prime candidate - but it would require the people to consider themselves Roman. - Perhaps a PoD where the Romans/Byzantines begin to develop a strong steppe-warfare tradition that leads to them consolidating territory on the steppe. No 1204 and an Emperor who expands into the Russia as an avenue when they can't expand into the Levant/to protect access to trade routes in the Russias.

Russia been done before, both in maps, and TL's.

No love for a North Africa/Alexandria Third Rome?

I personally love the idea of a North African Rome - the amusing idea of Carthage heading a Berber Roman Empire is great, or an Egyptian Roman Empire, but I'm not sure that an Empire the length of North Africa would work that well - Libya is a bit of a hefty divider, unless that territory can be kept secure the Empire would be very vulnerable.

How about four Romes?
A rump WRE, the ERE, a proper HRE(Northern Roman Empire?) and an Alexandrian or Carthaginian Rome(Southern Roman Empire?)

How about 5 :D WRE in S.Gaul, Italia and Spain - NRE in Germany, N.France and Britannia, ERE, EERE in Egpyt and Arabia and CRE in N.Africa and Libya.

Does the Catholic Church hierarchy not count? If not, its probably not hard to get them to claim to be the heirs of (christian) Rome.

Russia already is this in many ways, but I guess it technically doesn't fall into the category you want, which is a truely Roman state, not another state claiming to be Rome (though that arguably discounts Byzantium, not that anyone on this site would ever say that.)

Maybe the best bet is a Romano-Gaulish state based out of France, where the Franks are repelled? Paris* could be the third, northern, Rome.

Sadly, unless the Catholic Church heirarchy becomes the heart of a true Theocractic state, I'm afraid not. But a Papal Italy? Certainly an interesting flavour to have the Third Rome be back in Rome as a Theocracy. :)

A Gallic Rome? Interesting - so a sustainable Soissons? I can see that being quite a mix with the Goths and Burgundians already in Gaul at this point. :D

Perhaps a Roman Empire based in Antioch or essentially Syria? Or another idea, in Britain?

A Syriac Rome? So sort of a Levantine-Mesopotamian Empire? I'd love to see the PoD to get this to work, but I love the idea. Britain works as well, perhaps a Coel Hen PoD that leads to a Roman Empire based in N.England politically and Londinium Economically.

My pet Third Rome is a Syracuse based naval power that has a mercantile economy and controls large chunks of coastal Principate sites. This however is perhaps too closely tied to the second Rome.

Other potential cray ideas that use ginormous butterfly nets:
1. Caesar lives and beats Parthians to get chunk of Mesopotamia, this is followed up by seizing the entire province +chunks of Persia in the next couple of centuries. Then, if migrations knock out the Empire in Europe and North Africa, we'd be left with an Anatolian-Egyptian-Syrian-Mespotamian-Persian ensemble that answers to the Kaisar of Rum in Seleukia. Basically Persian Roman Empire.
2. An "Islamic" Roman Empire (say Persia does not fall and the Caliphs style themselves as Roman Emperors) is not too implausible.
3. A Roman North Africa that holds on while Anatolia falls, with the last survivors clinging on in Septum/Gibraltar before crossing the ocean to make a new Imperium in the New World.
4. Usual drivel about Palaiologids finding the New World and actually making it there.
5. More realistically, a long surviving Byzantine Empire that has/had a bunch of colonies. Lets say there are issues with internal Imperial politics and they pseudo-peacefully fall apart into constituent states that do not claim to be Roman. Then a random colony/former colony declares itself to be Roman Empire.

A Sicilian Empire, with a Maritime approach to Imperium is a great change in character, especially with the cultural change. Roman Marines :D

Mega-Roman Empire, so a combination of Latin, Greek and Persian? If that held together that would be a beast. A Roman Achemenid Empire is a beautiful idea.

A conversion to Islam and the merger of the Emperor and the Caliph would certainly be a great change. That would seriously change the character of the Empire. :)

Roman New World = Best New World. :p

So hypothetically a Sumatran Roman Empire? The Greeks become Greeks, Anatolians become Anatolians, and Sumatra, far flung says its Roman because nobody and stop them. Conquering Indonesia :D

As a note, the Ottomans claimed the title 'Caesar of Rome', and Russia historically did consider itself the third Rome. The Holy Roman Emperor got the title to fill the vacancy left when the throne in Constantinople was held by a woman, and Roman law remained important throughout the Mediterranean cultural sphere; the immense legitimacy and prestige of the Roman empire wasn't just gathering dust after 1453.

Understood - I'd be intrigued to see an Ottoman Empire accepted as the rightful ERE.

You'd need a radically different situation in late Roman Gaul, then.
By the Vth century, the various Gallo-Roman territories still not under the direct control of various Barbarian foedi (which doesn't mean at the latest that they couldn't be under their influence*) were mostly made of aristocratic and urban patchwork, without clear base to support that they were more de facto alliances under the very technical imperial authority (at least since Majorian and Avitus) than states.
Eventually, they were even more easily swallowed up by foedi not only because of their divisions and relatively* lower military capacity, but because their power was based on their aristocratic prestige and you had a lot of their family network and clientele already servicing barbarian kings (such as the Syagrius "Solon", in the Burgondian court)

While Syagrius, son of Aegidius, recieved a special historiographic treatment which had as prime function to "fill" the map; you had no unified Gallo-Roman entity in the course of the Vth. It balanced between obedience to Roman authority and servicing Barbarian foedi, and with the collapse of the former, there wasn't much viable alternative.
Furthermore, opposing Barbarian foedi and Gallo-Roman structures is a bit moot : Barbarian kingdoms in Gaul ended up being Gallo-Roman states in pretty much most of their institution (with a Babarian influence, itself more or less romanized if not artificial) would it be only because they were acknowledged by Roman authority, integrated Roman institutions but as well integrated the aformentioned Gallo-Roman families (Aviti, Syagrii, Desideri-Salvii, etc.) into the regional and realm management.

For everyone concerned, Childeric and Clovis did represented a valid representent of the Roman imperium in Gaul.

*It seems that Gallo-Roman aristocracy usually had a tendency to support either Goths or Burgondians in the mid Vth
** Various Gallo-Roman or Hispano-Roman nobles ended up servicing military Barbarian kings, hence the "relatively"



I think you're confusing two things there.
Carolingian dynasty did claimed the imperial title, but not the Roman imperial title as generally understood : in the quasi-totality of Carolingian texts, indeed, they used the titles of "August Emperor"* as they were more interested on claiming rulership over Christiendom as, as you said, it was seemingly broken in Constantinople.
Romanus or Romanorum, however is systematically tied to the people of Rome, and their representend the pontiff.

The Carolingian (and Ottonian up to its last phase) Empire could be considered "of Romans" only in the way that it had been acknowledged by the people of Rome, meaning the pope. Going trough contemporary texts, this is the only explanation and ideological base to the title one could find. Every other narrative about "being crowned roman Emperor" have NO historical base whatsoever.

It doesn't mean that Carolingians (and Ottonians) didn't acknowledged at the latest there was a Roman influence or a translatio imperii, but the matter for them was the use of roman imperial feature (mostly Late Imperial features) was motivated much less as a desire to consider themselves Romans, than to consider themselves kings or emperors in the like of Davidic or Constantinian rulership (as hinted by the decoration of Aachen's palace).

What we used to call HRE (which is to be distinguished from Carolingia, which is as different from HRE than it was from ERE), eventually went much more into the way you describe (especially with Otton II), altough more on a really superficial and non-systematical way than Russia eventually did, as the name "Roman Empire" which at first pretty much followed the line of Carolingian titulature ("August Emperor [of the Empire of the Romans]") for similar reasons, went to its way to rival the Byzantine Empire.

But that's a rather distinct evolution which didn't appeared at first : Charlemagne itself kept using the prestigious titles of "King of Franks and Lombards" way after his imperial coronation (on the golden solidi, for instance, while they were prime prestigious assets) and the imperial title wasn't that supposed to survive his death for what matter the Ordino Imperii of 806.

*You had as well a very short use of the seemingly long and a bit weird title of "August Emperor ruling over the Roman Empire" by Charlemagne.

So much knowledge. :eek:

Wouldn't Palermo be a better fit? AFAIK, by the middle ages Palermo had eclipsed Syracuse in terms of size and prestige.

I'm not sure it would have been the case before the Xth century, hence why Constans II planned to move the imperial siege and court to Syracuse in the mid VIIIth century, or why Syracuse remained a key strategical point for what matter Sicily up to the XIIIth.
AFAIU, Syracuse's decline owes more to Late Medieval and Modern era's events.

Either would work to be fair, what significant difference would the two make? Which half of the Med to focus on?
 
A Sicilian Empire, with a Maritime approach to Imperium is a great change in character, especially with the cultural change. Roman Marines
It's fairly plausible to happen, even if it would be more of a continuation of ERE than anything, with the abandon of Thrace as a main powerbase for Romans in the VIth or VIIth (depending if we're talking of a Roman geographical "reconversion" before Persian or Arab advance).

That said, Byzantine navy up to the Xth is basically about either sanctuarizing supply lines, or launching "amphibious" attacks, raids and disembarkments so it wouldn't be that of a radical change for the army : the change could rather be that the focus on navy isn't given up in the XIth.

So much knowledge. :eek:
Believe me : it's not as much final knowledge than that it was part of the period I focused in for my studies, and the fact these two same points are made to death on this board which bring me to memorize some things (not that it's fixed or achieved knowledge in any way : I learn new stuff on it on a regular basis). I'd expect pretty much anyone to be more knowledgable than I on the crushing majority of topics in pre-1900.

Either would work to be fair, what significant difference would the two make? Which half of the Med to focus on?
I'd rather think that a Sicilian-based Roman Empire wouldn't have to make this choice, or at least focusing first on a central (in the large sense, maybe 2/3 thirds of it) Mediteranean basin, using its naval hegemony and projection abilities to prevent as much as possible hinterland takeover of the coastal regions.
Sort of a mix between ancient Greek or Carthaginese hegemonies and Roman Empire. Well, not exactly like this, but it's a good enough comparison.
 
In Royal's map, Now We Are Free, after the ending of Gladiator, civil war immediately breaks out. Due to this, Christianity fails to get a foothold in chaotic Europe and is forced east.

Could we work something like this in getting a third (And/or more) Rome?
 
A Sicilian Empire, with a Maritime approach to Imperium is a great change in character, especially with the cultural change. Roman Marines :D
My favorite pet theme :) . It'll be a continuation of the ERE in practical terms though (i.e. recognizably Byzantine) unless you have something unorthodox like the Norman Kingdom and Byzantium uniting, and then splitting.
Mega-Roman Empire, so a combination of Latin, Greek and Persian? If that held together that would be a beast. A Roman Achemenid Empire is a beautiful idea.
I'd suspect it'd be significantly more Greek (POD precedes de-hellenization of Mesopotamia) with considerable Persian features, and a nominal Latin influence. I don't see it lasting particularly long against steppe hordes though, except maybe in Anatolia-so probably will go the way of OTL ERE.
A conversion to Islam and the merger of the Emperor and the Caliph would certainly be a great change. That would seriously change the character of the Empire. :)
I was thinking more along the lines of a Caliphate mostly ruling former Roman lands and with minimal Persian influence, which declares itself as the true continuation of the Roman Empire and rules that way (Greek as prestige language, keeping mostly Roman law but adding Islamic elements etc). An actual Imperial conversion in Constantinople will be near impossible (maybe Leo III? but even that seems too difficult a bridge to cross)? If this Islamic Roman Empire ever gets Constantinople, they might wring a legitimization out of the Senate.
Roman New World = Best New World. :p
Never found a plausible TL on that though :(
So hypothetically a Sumatran Roman Empire? The Greeks become Greeks, Anatolians become Anatolians, and Sumatra, far flung says its Roman because nobody and stop them. Conquering Indonesia :D
Yeah, something like that. Rising ethno-nationalism and increasing secularization at core (with the Empire being seen as a regressive, theocratic entity). I dont think there will be an Anatolian state though-it'll mostly go the Greek entity and the east to Armenians if it is a surviving Byzantium situation. However a far-flung, highly religious dominion says they are Rome, the Patriarch blesses them and no one in Constantinople/Alexandria/Antioch gives a fuck.

Come to think of it, this can also be achieved via a coup/republican revolution in an enduring Basileia ton Romaion, with the Emperor and partisans fleeing to some colony and declaring their own state. China-Taiwan like situation, and you don't even need the core to fall apart.
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
Constantines Sons are presented with 3 divisions of the Empire, Western, Middle, Eastern (roughly similar to the Gallic Empire, Italy/Africa, Eastern Roman Empire)

The Central Empire and East vie for dominance and are weakened while the Western Empire is more defensive, it also sends numerous migrating tribes to Britannia to act as a pool of manpower as there is land and plenty of room for cities on the island.

Eventually Italy falls, as does Gaul and Spain but the heirs of the West escape to Britannia, where they form Londinium into the third Rome.
 
Idea: Empire of Britannica.
As the order is given to evacuate Britannia in 410 leads to a rebellion by the troops remaining in the British Isles. They proclaim a new Emperor and with the fleet still in the British port they fend off enemy attack.

As they stabilise, militarise and expand they take unite the British Isles with advanced Roman technology, and eventually a Industrial revolution occurs, using the coal and resources from the British Isles to become a superpower, taking Norway over as well as Jutland, the Netherlands and Iceland and then creating an Anti-Byzantine Block.

This new Roman Empire see themselves as the true roman Empire

(Plus if you guys REALLY want some ridiculous flare how about a god damn cold war between two Romes?

Britannia VS Byzantium Names.png

Britannia VS Byzantium Religion.png

P.S. Sorry Artaxerxes for stealing your thunder.
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
P.S. Sorry Artaxerxes for stealing your thunder.

No worries, I'll just rest easy that Britannia OTL was stripped to the bone in regards to troops after years of going abroad and fighting civil wars and surviving Roman troops did form proto-Kingdoms (or elite settlements) along the wall ;)
 
Idea: Empire of Britannica.
As the order is given to evacuate Britannia in 410 leads to a rebellion by the troops remaining in the British Isles. They proclaim a new Emperor and with the fleet still in the British port they fend off enemy attack.

As they stabilise, militarise and expand they take unite the British Isles with advanced Roman technology, and eventually a Industrial revolution occurs, using the coal and resources from the British Isles to become a superpower, taking Norway over as well as Jutland, the Netherlands and Iceland and then creating an Anti-Byzantine Block.

This new Roman Empire see themselves as the true roman Empire

(Plus if you guys REALLY want some ridiculous flare how about a god damn cold war between two Romes?

I like it, but not feeling it. England had it place in the Sun OTL. They are not Roman![/QUOTE]
 
Well, Hitler's famous Third Reich was to be a rebirth of the second 'reich' or empire which was the Holy Roman Empire.... So if they just would keep on pushing teaching Church Latin in high school ... They already had the drive for world domination, the slaves and the debauchery....
 
Idea: Empire of Britannica.
The idea generally pops once an a while, and could make nice ASB TLs (and I say that without sarcasm), but is more or less impossible in terms of historicity or plausibility.
Britannia was really less structured (and less romanized) : You didn't have that of a sense of romanity whom presence wasn't much deeply rooted, more so in southern, southern-eastern regions, even in the IInd century, and virtually absent from about half of the province, which was treated more as an enlarged military region than a province.

Eventually, the big problem with Late Roman Britain is its relative backwardness compared to other provinces of the Empire, its political divisions (tribal structures still largely existed, and mixed a lot with roman administratives structures, up to largely influencing them).
A true Romano-Britton polity would certainly be post-Imperial, and more looking like sub-Roman Britain ensemble.

Don't get me wrong, Romano-Brittons, even in the west, were romanized but we have to remember that romanisation is a process of creolisation and mixing with native influences : while Romano-Brittons elite, especially in the South, still considered themselves as Romans as the intervetion of a romano-britton "high-king" (Riothamus/*Rigotamos) in Gaul points.
But after the Roman withdrawal, you didn't have a Roman army to speak of and rather the usual mix (for the Vth) of semi-private militias made of provincial and Barbarians. It doesn't let much to imagination safe the establishment of one or two high-kingship in the former roman province.

We know that they were unifying commands (I'd tend to argue they were more regional and circonstantial than pan-Briton : as Vortigern for the Cantium), at least military-wise : Riothamus/Ambrosius Aurelianus (possibly the same person) is an exemple, Coel Hen another.
So the problem isn't having unifying features, but to make them last against the various and conflicting identities and surviving the personalized and charismatic nature of these structures (especially in the Old North that had less and less of the sense of commonity they may had with Coel Hen).

Now, I think it's possible to have a maintained high-kingship (pretty much as in Ireland, Wales or Scotland) in some regions. Giving the not that much unified Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, it does have a chance to lives on and leading to a wanked *Wales. I don't know enough to definitely name a candidate or a most likely place (while I think that you can forget about North Sea regions); but the bonus point is that you don't even need a Britton or being totally hostile to Germans to have such.

Indeed, Cerdic of Wessex may be the most obvious exemple of a mix of Britto-Romans and Barbarian elements in the Vth century (you have other ones). It wouldn't surprise me if you could have a Britto-Roman high-king, supported by the Saxons of the Litus managing to lead a more or less unified (in a first time : again, high-kingship didn't looked much as a really united structure) Britto-Roman kingdom.


From there, who knows? It could be a relatively efficient network of entities to have a post-imperial sub-Roman culture develloping there (critically with an earlier and deeper continental influence, as it happenedf with Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the VIth from Frankish Gaul)?

But an unified entity defining itself as a Roman state isn't much likely : Britannia was too remote, too undevelloped, and too dependent of a Roman army when it came to the maintain of the imperial order.
 
(mostly snipped) - From there, who knows? It could be a relatively efficient network of entities to have a post-imperial sub-Roman culture develloping there (critically with an earlier and deeper continental influence, as it happenedf with Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the VIth from Frankish Gaul)?

But an unified entity defining itself as a Roman state isn't much likely : Britannia was too remote, too undevelloped, and too dependent of a Roman army when it came to the maintain of the imperial order.

I know it is very close to ASB, but I do like the idea that if (insert reason here) the Romans decided not to strip the island, that the weakness it creates in Gaul creates an unusual situation. A weaker Rhine border that can leave Gaul as a sort of "Storm Drain" for foederati. In fact, that level of a defence in depth and withdrawal of resources is a strategy I'd be curious to explore further. Purposely being willing to let foederati run rampant in Gaul, rather than fighting it, and withdrawing resources to fortify more easily defended borders, whilst keeping the foederati on good terms to fight off other Germanic peoples.

I'm not 100% sure if an Empire that pulled back and fortified the Alps, Pyrenees and had Britain as its "
natantes in arcem" wouldn't be unable to retake Gaul given time if the foederati asserted themselves and the Empire needed to reassert control. In fact, if defended, I think Britannia might be hyper-Roman. No Roman abandonment, never falling to the Germanic peoples, bastion of the North. Even if the rest of the Empire fell and the Storm Drain strategy failed, a Roman Britain will almost certainly have the equivalent of Burgs centuries early.
 
but I do like the idea that if (insert reason here) the Romans decided not to strip the island
I think you'd need a really good reason why not taking the army out of Britain, hoping that the already present foedi and semi-private armies would take care of the region, when it was a really secondary (if not tertiary) region for what mattered the WRE, when Gaul represented not only a more strategical concern (border of the Rhine) but as well a much more important network of clientele and resources for the WRE.
Such a reason could be an earlier collapse of western Romania in the early Vth, but I don't think such a sudden event would make Late Roman Britain in a much better position, at the contrary (assuming this earlier collepse didn't led to an earlier withdrawal, of course).

Eventually Rome deciding to abandon Britannia all of a sudden, tough than regularily taking out military resources until your average Roman usurper had no choice than to take it out entierly to compensate with a poor strategical situation (that and Brittano-Roman populations revolting more or less partially against whatever remained of imperial militia).

In the prospect of no abandonment in the 400's, at the expense of campaigns in Gaul and Spain, it also poses the question on who is gonna pay for the maintaining the army?
Not Rome, giving that by abandoning Gaul to itself, they pretty much cut down any way to do so.
Not Britto-Roman cities either, giving they weren't either that supporting of the army' efficiency, and too divided to really fund any regional army on the IVth grounds.

At best, you end up with a Roman army disbanding into saller-scales units and being mixed up with semi-private armies; at worst you end up with a Roman army disbanding and plundering the heck out of the region while joining with Gaels, Picts or Saxons.

Probably a silmutaneous and changing mix of both occurences.

Purposely being willing to let foederati run rampant in Gaul, rather than fighting it, and withdrawing resources to fortify more easily defended borders, whilst keeping the foederati on good terms to fight off other Germanic peoples.
So, more or less IOTL then, only a bit earlier?

No Roman abandonment, never falling to the Germanic peoples, bastion of the North.
Most of the roman armies there were already as much Barbarized than their counterparts in the continent, up to the existence of Saxon foedi in the southern shores.
I know that obsession with ethnic purity in Late Romania regularily make it up to the board, but it's nonsensical for what matter the era : as much as most Barbarians within Romania were much more romanized than just popping out of Tactitus' accounts, the barbarisation of provincial societies was a thing (mostly trough the settlement of Barbarian within countryside since the IInd if not earlier)

And that not pointing the aformentioned risks of having an unpayed army.
 
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What if Alfonso V of Aragon managed to push the Ottomans back into Anatolia and crown his acquisition of the Sicilies with the seizure of Constantinople itself? And if, unlikely as it may be, his descendant(s) manage to keep all those possessions and integrate them into a more cohesive whole?

We'd have an Iberian/Italian-dominated Mediterranean empire, which:
-will start off with a great deal of prestige
-is very likely to consider itself a "Third Rome"
-may adopt various Roman titles and customs
-holds Constantinople
-may eventually exert a great deal of influence on Rome itself
-may or may not break out into the New World colonial game
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
I know it is very close to ASB, but I do like the idea that if (insert reason here) the Romans decided not to strip the island, that the weakness it creates in Gaul creates an unusual situation. A weaker Rhine border that can leave Gaul as a sort of "Storm Drain" for foederati. In fact, that level of a defence in depth and withdrawal of resources is a strategy I'd be curious to explore further. Purposely being willing to let foederati run rampant in Gaul, rather than fighting it, and withdrawing resources to fortify more easily defended borders, whilst keeping the foederati on good terms to fight off other Germanic peoples.

Gaul was vital to the empire in a way Britain never was, Britain was always troublesome and relatively underpopulated and over garrisoned.
 
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