China would like to have a word with you. Sure it has changed but the identity remained the same.
Latest POD that can save the Roman Empire
- Thread starter GregTheWolf144
- Start date
Sure. For that matter, a lot of Roman regimes rose and fall, and there was a lot of evolution in the makeup of the government and of the state. But we don't see the Roman Republic as a fundamentally different entity from the Principate or the Dominate from the Principate, etc. What China was changed over time, but China endured, in one way or another. Nobody is saying "The how long can the imperial government as conceived of by Diocletian last" they are asking about how long the Roman Empire can last. And there's no real reason that some form of the Roman empire and Roman identity could not last to the present day.
But it still collapsed and disintegrated several times - mainly because it was a compact region hemmed in by mountains and deserts - a natural unit. . So it kept getting put back together again. Rome wasn't so once it disintegrated it *stayed* disintegrated.
India was somewhat akin to China, so has been united several times. Most other places aren't.
So it could be argued that the RE *did* last util the 1920s, when the last Qaysari-Rum (ie Roman Emperor) was deposed in Turkey.
It can be argued, sure. Simply claiming to be the Emperor of Rome is not exactly the same as being one though. We could establish a few metrics to establish the legitimacy of that claim though-like do you posess a direct continuation from earlier iterations of the Roman Empire, or do the people of your empire call themselves Romans and treat the rulers of the empire as the leader of the Romans, neither of which is true for the Ottoman Empire. Or, say, did they assimilate into whatever the culture of the Romans was, which, again, is not the case.
However, we can run through another line of argument with this-for much of the time after the Eastern Roman Empire's conquest, the Greek speaking peoples of the area still called themselves Romans and their language Romaic. Were they to continue doing so and gain eventual independence as Rhomania, I don't see why they wouldn't be considered Romans and that state have a connection to the Roman Empire.
Justinian reconquers Italy quicker and less devastating, the empire survives with Italy, Dalmatia, the Balkans, Africa, Syria, Egypt and Palestine.
Historically, the Burgundian kingdom was the most Romanized and most Romanophile kingdom outside of Italy. And the Visigoths, despite their hostilities towards the WRE, went to great length to secure an alternative (and far more rewarding) career for Gallo-Roman aristocrats willing to forsake the idea of imperial unity in favour of loyalty to the new strong power in Gaul. Despite some initial resistance, I don't think the situation was too dissimilar in Spain either.
Same.
Well said. One could argue that 1204 was quite similar to what happened to the many Persian empires destroyed over time only to be reestablished at a later point under a new dynasty (except the Romans managed to speedrun that).
Only if the Ottomans could claim any sort of link to the Roman empire, which they don't. At that point one might as well accept the dissolution of the Dual monarchy as the end of the empire. Or the abolishment of the monarchy in Hungary, a Roman empire with no emperor but a generalissimo (true to Roman tradition).
While I agree that a POD before Adrianople or at least Magnus Maximus would be ideal, I think you’re over doing how long the areas retaken by Majorian we’re out of the empires control. I’m not arguing for Majorian returning things to the classical empire as you say. Just that he’d be able to hold onto much of the empire with certain chunks being federate areas. Hispania and the areas of Gaul that were recently taken had only just fallen in the previous several years. When he kicked then Visigoths and Burgundians and Suebi out they hasn’t been there long at all. And given how important Romans were even under Germanic leaders I can’t imagine that the local bureaucracy would be too damaged. Yes obviously things are not in a great spot and the trend towards what would eventually be feudalism and all that was there. But I disagree that it was inevitable and couldn’t be stopped if a central authority was reimposed.
You mention how if he’d succeeded his empire would have resembled the HRE more than Augustus’s empire? Well the late empire already hadn’t resembled that in a good while.
You say he couldn’t re establish proper control over the provinces and federates and didn’t have enough men and money? Well on his shoe string budget he beat three different federated and rebuilt the fleet. If he’d retaken Africa he'd be free of a major threat, retake control over the breadbasket money maker of the west, would have immense prestige, and the imperial family to marry into for legitimacy. He was young and with a few decades and perhaps a competent heir he could re establish authority and keep the federates in line and put them on the path of integration.
You mentioned Justinian and how he alienated the reconquered lands…well yeah Majorian doesn’t seem like that kind of guy. When he retook areas in Gaul that had rebelled when he usurped avitus he was lenient and used diplomacy as well as arms to retake them and gave tax breaks. I think he would be good at making sure such alienation wouldn’t occur. You also mentioned the Ostrogoths but they only came to Italy due to Zeno’s maneuvering. A few butterlfies and perhaps the two theodorics get caught up fighting eachother instead. Even then, they took 6 years to beat odoacer, who ruled less land and would’ve had less troops than Majorian or his successors in this situation.
I agree than an earlier POD would’ve been needed to to preserve the “classical” empire. But I think with a few decades of competent emperors and a moslty stable empire that it could’ve reasserted control over much of the empire and put it back on track to recovery.
I don't think the comparison works, for many Chinese dynasties originated from different, foreign "nations"/"states". The Qing dynasty is a good example, being basically an expanded Manchu empire that annexed so much of China that basically became it, even if the Manchu still tried to distinguish themselves from the native han. The Yuan Dynasty, also known as the Mongol Empire, was similar: they stablished a caste system, with the mongols at the top. By this point of view, the goths could have restored Rome (an idea I'm not opposed).
A better example would be the Goths elevating an emperor of their own and sort of taking over the apparatus of state. Something they tried to do at a couple of points.