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Today, while doing some research on the Early Medieval Avar Khaganate, I realized some very important factors.

Do you know how Bayan I settled the Avars into Pannonia? While I was reading about him (here), I learned that apparently HE was the reason something convinced Alboin to invade Italy with his Lombards (as well as giving him a skull cup of the defeated Gepid king whose daughter he forced to drink from, sealing his fate when she had him assassinated a few years later, by gosh!), as well as for why the Slavs migrated into the depopulated Balkans (and wreaked havoc for Grecophilic historians like me). Also, he is very possibly responsible for The rise of Islam! Why? Well in 582 Bayan was able to get a huge ransom of 100k gold pieces per year from the newly crowned Maurice. Ten years later Maurice made peace with Persia and attacked the Avars with great vengeance, nearly destroying them in a great campaign until in 602, when Phocas and the army mutinied and killed Maurice and his family, because Mauricedecreed that the army should stay for winter beyond the Danube, misjudged the situation of this mutiny, and repeatedly ordered his troops to start a new offensive rather than returning to winter quarters. After a while, his troops gained the impression that Maurice no longer mastered the situation and killed him under Phocas. (Because of the Avar threat!) This caused Shah Khosrou II (who Maurice helped win his throne and was probably a good friend to him) to attack the Byzantines out of revenge (and even if it was just to conquer Byzantine land, Maurice not being assassinated might prevent him from doing so for several years, buying time) and start that 20 year-long war that would leave both sides exhausted in manpower and material, leaving them helpless to the emergent Rashidun Caliphate that would then swallow up most of Byzantium and all of Persia and have antiquity end. Seriously, Maurice's reign is often considered the end of Classical antiquity !

So...

What if Bayan ( or some other Avar Khagan) decided not to invade the Pannonian plain but instead head south into the greater Khorasan from their homeland in order to escape the Gokturks, and thus cause trouble for the Sassanids instead? Would that seem plausible? What if Alboin decided to allow the Migrating Slavs into Italy with him instead? Would antiquity in the Balkans linger on? Could this leave both Persia and Byzantium strong enough to resist Islamic invasion?
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