More Post-Roman Republics

As the Roman Empire fell, a few isolated cities within the former territory of the Empire formed Republics, effectively only in Italy. Venice, San Marino, and Amalfi are some of the more prominent of the early Republics. More of Italy would follw their lead as the centuries progressed. It should be noted that, while they evolved into more solidly Republican forms as time went on, and the early leaders often blurred the lines between hereditary feudal lords and elected magistrates, these evolving statelets seem to have adhered to the general idea that the urban populace, in some fashion, had the authority to elect their leader.

There are, of course, a variety of reasons why Italy was home to these early Republics:
- Historical legacy of the Roman (and pre-Roman) tendency to allow cities to govern themselves, as well as the legacy of the Roman Republic itself.
- Italy was one of the more urbanized areas of the Empire.
- Access to the major trade routes of the Mediterranean
- Defensible locations along the coast allowed for easily defended trading centers, whereas, in many other areas, historical urban centers and defensible locations did not overlap so much. Venice was the premier example of this combination of defense and trade.

So, with all this in mind, how might we see (and where might we see) more Republics emerge in the wake of the Roman Empire? Preferably, these states would consider themselves roughly as Roman as the early Italian Republics did (insofar as they would speak the Vulgar Latin that would evolve into whatever local Romance language their region would develop).

Possibilities (stars next to exceptionally defensible locations):
- Syracuse
- Palermo
- Corsica/Sardinia/Balearics (not united, just listing the islands together)
- Barcelona
- Cadiz*
- Cartagena
- Valencia
- Gibraltar/Algeciras*
- Marseille
- Carthage/Tunis
- Ceuta*
- Tangier

There are certainly others; I left out areas more directly under the control of the Byzantines (though, given how tenuous control could be at times, the Crimea could be a very good site) and those not on the Mediterranean, just for ease. I should note that I'm not restricting myself to Republics that would be totally sovereign; Venice was often subject to the Byzantines will still being relatively autonomous and Republican in nature, after all.

Okay, have at it!
 

Deleted member 67076

A lot of these you're not going to get unless you somehow avoid the Arab Conquests.

Or avoid the Arabization of the socities conquered.

I think you need a POD that changes the fall of the WRE; one that increases the amount of post Roman states so there is a larger focus on local areas.
 
I was thinking that if many parts of Western Europe didn't see such a strong decline in urbanization during after the fall of the western Roman Empire, there could be more republics that emerged around surviving cities and would be strong enough to hold their own against neighboring kingdoms, or at least play them off against each other.

Two possibilities:

Justinian's war to reconquer Italy, which ended up devastating parts of the peninsula, never happens. More cities retain more population. The Ostrogothic Kingdom gradually breaks into smaller states, and some cities (Rome, Milan, Naples) become independent republics.


The plagues of Justinian's time are less severe, allowing more cities in the western Mediterranean to remain larger. This might even butterfly away the rise of Islam, or make the Arab Muslim conquests less extensive. Both of these would mean more surviving cities and more trade in the Western Mediterranean, and therefore more chance for republican city-states.
 
ustinian's war to reconquer Italy, which ended up devastating parts of the peninsula, never happens. More cities retain more population. The Ostrogothic Kingdom gradually breaks into smaller states, and some cities (Rome, Milan, Naples) become independent republics.

See, the thing about this is that Italy is where the post-roman city states were most prominent. So, I'm not certain that avoiding the disastrous wars of the era would be sufficient.

I should note that its not necessary that more republics equals a less harsh Dark Age.
 
Top