It’s apart of a philosophical text he wrote called Difficulties and Solutions of the First Principle. The names have been Hellenized but they’re pretty notably Sumeric; Tiamat and Apsu are Tauthe and Apason, Moymis is Mummu, Anshar & Kishar are Kissare & Assaros, Illinos is Enlil, Aeos is Enki/Ea in Akkadian.
I like the sounds of some of these. It might be a little too late, but I would like there to be a surviving Greek-speaking population in Mesopotamia, so it's cool to see the Hellenization of those names.
This tracks with Mesopotamian polytheism as dating back to the Sumerians it was believed the Gods convened on a mountainous paradise to hold council with each other.
Then that's what we'll do. If I remember correctly, Constantine syncretized a lot of solar imagery with Jesus early on, so it may be that a lot of Christian imagery is appropriated for the cults of Shamash and Tammuz. I remember reading through René Salm's blog about Christianity, and his theories about the origins of Jesus in the Cult of Tammuz and the ultimate origins of Christianity might be very useful here.
I love the idea of romance speaking England or at least romance language taking the place of english with Britain remaining a polyglot Island mixed between Romance, Brythonic, Gaelic, & possibly whatever comes from Viking invaders. A Libyco-Roman Dynasty sounds like a great idea as Africa will be less effected by the devastation of the empire under the Huns and could possibly keep a strong navy based out of Carthage. Perhaps the Mauro-Roman kingdom fills the Roman vacuum in Africa and props themselves up as a Roman successor state pre-restoration.
I really do too. I used to love conlanging Romance languages as a kid, so it'll be very fun to come up with a British Romance language. Why will they have broken off before the Hunnic Conquest? Are you thinking there might be too many Christians and Jews there? Cuz it might actually be that the first Lybico-Roman Emperor is a sort of syncretic Christian from North Africa who practices his Christianity alongside Hellenism as part of the functions of his office who then is responsible for suppressing Donatists and Orthodox Christians in North Africa. I actually know a guy in Utah who is a priest at one of the local Krishna temples and a Mormon bishop because he doesn't consider the two religions to be mutually exclusive, so... it's certainly possible for a Christian to have an interpretation like that.
Do you have any plans for the linguistic situation in Eastern Europe? Because I liked the idea of the Balkans remaining Daco-Thracian with a Greco-Romance lingua Francia in the cities. I myself am super partial to Finns in the Volga & northern Russia not getting absorbed by Slavic speakers since I don’t see many people touching that idea.
A lot depends here on how different populations are treated by the Huns when they conquer the area. I haven't looked at the evidence as to whether or not Thracian was widely spoken at this time or not, although I know there's some debate about it. One school argues that the Thracians had been Hellenized, one argues that the language only went extinct with the expansion of Slavic. Dacian was certainly being spoken however, and I would like to actually move them to Portugal under the Huns, as odd as that might sound. I also know that that there was a Romance language, probably based out of Sirmium, that is the primary source of Latin loans in Albanian. I imagine that these people fled into the countryside slowly, following the deterioration of security at the border in the 5th century. I'm reminded of that one Late Roman historian's account of the Greek who lived with the Huns. Now, since the first Hunnic emperor is something of a European Chinggis Khan, he is probably going to have no problem butchering entire cities that don't surrender to him. Sirmium could be one of those cities, or their surrender in light of Constantinople being raised to the ground could facilitate an invasion in which the Illyrians are genocided and end up fleeing en masse to Italy, where it would remain a minority language until the present, with a strangely uneven dispersion (perhaps up in the Apennines mostly, with some as far afield as Turin). This could also be part of a major Germanicization/Iranicization of the Balkans, with Goths, Alans and Sarmatians moving into the area and warring bitterly with the Romans thereafter.
If the people are butchered, then I think that language goes extinct before it ever really leaves a dent on Albanian, but if it survives, it could actually absorb Albanian with time. I also very much like the idea of Pannonian Romance surviving through a sort of religious assimilation of Romans in the area by way of Mithraism actually acting as a means for the religious justification of surrendering to Attila, becoming a major language there in the Pannonian Basin for some time.
As far as Slavs and Finns are concerned, it might be interesting for the Slavs to adopt horse culture and invade Iran later with the Magyars. This way, we get Magyar dynasties in Iran based out of Bactria, and perhaps Slavic dynasties based out of the Fergana Valley as well. I think it would be very interesting to see how these two peoples interact with Buddhism and Manichaeism, personally. That might be pushing it, but hey! If we can have Austronesians in Madagascar IOTL, why the Hell not? Perhaps Baltic spreads as the
lingua franca in the south down the Dnieper into Eastern Europe, say, the Carpathian Basin and over to the Elbe, whilst Finnic spreads in Russia?
You also said you wanted China & Rome to swap fates, so China will be separating into multiple states. But just how many? A handful or many more like in Europe?
I want to break Chinese civilization somehow, with a Chinese "Byzantium" holding out perhaps in the South, but with the North evolving into a new, heavily Turkified/Mongolized civilization the way Western Europe was heavily influenced by Germanic culture. They can still speak Sinitic languages, but while there might be a concept of Han identity in the region, I want it to be more like the concept of being a Latin in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. In order for it to be a proper Rome analogy however, Southern China will have to convert to some sort of radical new religion that overturns the longheld authority of the Chinese emperors through the Mandate of Heaven. I have no idea how to do this, so I'll have to read about it.
I think Romans could still hold southern Hispania.
Maybe, maybe not. They'll get it all back eventually anyways.
Would be great if not only the Goths but Vandals and Burgundians disputed for the control of Britain.
That will depend on if at least England survives as a Roman rump state and for how long. It could be interesting to have England act as an analogy to Japan in a way. An island off the coast that acts as a sort of microcosm of the Roman Empire, separated, aloof, in a sense frozen in time. I'm reminded of how Chinese fashion came to dominate Japanese dress during the Tang dynasty and the Japanese were extremely conservative with their dress for centuries after. Britain will be a little bit different however with Pictland to the north and constant heckling from Germanic groups in Gaul, Gaels in Ireland and later Scandinavians.
