East Instead of West

What if Justinian tried to revive the empire of Alexadner the Great instead of the former Roman Empire? Could this have allowed the Byzantines to survive longer than they did? What are the effects as well?
 
Eh... if anything it would have been the proverbial nail in the coffin. The Persians were on par with the Byzantines - the 'barbarian' remnants in the old Western Empire were far weaker. Had Justinian only take North Africa and Italy, avoided Spain where most of his OTL causilties were, and worked to solidify the remainder of the Empire, it would have held likely through both Persian and Arab invasion of the next centuries - taking on Persia likely would have gutted both sides a century early.
 
Had Justinian looked to the East we would come up against Ērānshahr during it's Second Golden Age. You need to have the Romans win an outsanding victory at the Battle of Callinicum in 531 in order for Justinian to even entertain such ideas.
 
Yeah, I'm not sure why Justinian would want to do it- at no point in his reign does he seem to have displayed a desire for anything other than peace with the Iranians. I think this would need a pretty big shift in late Roman imperial ideology for it to be possible.
 
Reviving Alexander's empire is something for a Greek to do, and quite frankly Justinian felt (and TBH was) far more Roman than Greek, so for him the greatest achievent is to restore Rome, not Alexander's short lived empire. Even if he did attempt to go east, his results would likely range between underwhelming and disasterous. Underwhelming because he will not conquer more land or achieve greater glory than was possible in Italy, even if he doesn't just get his ass handed to him, and disasterous because if he loses badly enough he could cripple his empire permanently. If Justinian went east, we either wouldn't remember him, or we would remember him like we remember Alexios III Angelos.
 
Justinian was a Roman

Latin was his native tongue. He thought of himself as a Roman. His Empire was still, to all purposes, very identifiably Roman.

And his goal was quite naturally a restoration of the Roman Empire - renovatio imperii. If Alexander provided anything, it was the same thing for any number of previous Augusti - a martial inspiration, not a political forebear.

And as others have noted, the opportunity for expansion was there in the splintered and unstable Germanic West, not the vibrant and powerful Sassanid East. And the residue of Roman (and Chalcedonian Christian) culture still surviving in these old provinces of the Western Empire would make for areas which would be much easier to retain and govern than anything Justinian would find in Mesopotamia or Persia.

At most Justinian would - if the opportunity presented itself - look for minor or tactical advantage in the East, with minor acquisitions in Armenia, the Caucusus, or northern Mesopotamia, and exaction of tribute. But I can't see him desiring - or gaining - more than that under any circumstances. His ambitions lay in the West.
 
Athelstane is correct, Justinian's goal could be no other than Rome and her "rightfull" and "traditional" lands.
 
If he did this I expect it would go poorly for him, the Sassanids where very strong at this point and where ruled by one of the best rulers in Persian history and who OTL won a few aggressive wars against Justinian.
 
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