North-South division of the Roman Empire

I was wondering what would have happened if the Roman Empire had been split in a Northern half and a Southern half. I was thinking that the North would take Britannia , Gaul , Italy , the Balkans and Anatolia , while the Southern Empire would have Spain , North Africa , Sicily , Egypt and the Levant.

In OTL , the Western Empire was disadvantaged by the division because it got the provinces which were harder to defend , and it eventually fell. In TTL , the Northern Empire would still have Constantinople and Anatolia if it loses Gaul and Italy , and the Southern Empire won't have too many threats.

Would a North-South division have given the two empires more chances to survive and thrive ?
 
I was wondering what would have happened if the Roman Empire had been split in a Northern half and a Southern half. I was thinking that the North would take Britannia , Gaul , Italy , the Balkans and Anatolia , while the Southern Empire would have Spain , North Africa , Sicily , Egypt and the Levant.

In OTL , the Western Empire was disadvantaged by the division because it got the provinces which were harder to defend , and it eventually fell. In TTL , the Northern Empire would still have Constantinople and Anatolia if it loses Gaul and Italy , and the Southern Empire won't have too many threats.

Would a North-South division have given the two empires more chances to survive and thrive ?
The South would be like otl's Byzantine Empire. They'd outlive the Northerners by a LOOONG time. Why? Well, Well, Egypt was the bread basket of the Roman Empire, plus, they face much less threats form foreign invaders than their neighbors will.
 
If they can stand united against the Persians (and later Arabs), they might do better. (IOTL however, they did anything but cooperate against the Germanics and Huns.)
 
I don't see why that division could possibly be chosen.

The point of the East/West divide was to allow the Eastern Emperor to deal with Eastern enemies, and the Western Emperor to deal with Western enemies, and cut down the reaction time to threats to the empire.

But with a North/South divide, the Northern Emperor is just as badly off in terms of reaction time as an emperor of the whole thing (he still has to deal with simultaneous threats from Germany and Persia), but he doesn't control as much resources when he does react.
 
I don't see why that division could possibly be chosen.

The point of the East/West divide was to allow the Eastern Emperor to deal with Eastern enemies, and the Western Emperor to deal with Western enemies, and cut down the reaction time to threats to the empire.

But with a North/South divide, the Northern Emperor is just as badly off in terms of reaction time as an emperor of the whole thing (he still has to deal with simultaneous threats from Germany and Persia), but he doesn't control as much resources when he does react.

You could get around that by giving the South Anatolia, or a chunk of it. That would make it a little more fair to the Northerners.
 
the POD would have to be placing the new Capital in Eygpt instead of Anatolia.
Rome keeps the Balkans/Greece while Eygpt gets Maurintina
 
The point of this divison is to give both empires some territories which would be easy to defend.

The Persians ( or other Eastern enemies ) would probably be more interested in Syria and Egypt , and they will probably attack the Southern Empire more often. And even though they might overrun Syria and Egypt , I can't see them conquering the rest of the Southern Empire.

The Northern Empire will have big troubles with the Germanic tribes , the Huns , the Avars and the Slavs but it will have Constantinople and Anatolia to fall back upon , and maybe recover some of the lost lands when the time is right , pretty much like the Byzantine Empire in OTL.
 
your major problem is that the south is pretty much without enemies for a while until the muslims develop. Most of the enemies that attacked Rome came from the North and east, and in the middle east most invasions followed the fertile crescent in other words going through syria and anatolia. So the North is going to get about 80 to 90% of the recorded OTL invasions while the South is going to get minor probes and have to deal with disunified berber tribesmen. And as someone pointed out they would also have the bread basket of the empire with egypt.
 

ninebucks

Banned
A North-South divide wouldn't make a lot of sense, seeing as all of the Empire's divergences (cultural, legal, linguistic, etc.) were East-West, divided between a Hellenic Orient, and a Romantic Occident.

Also there's the fact that the bulk of the regular trade network went north-south, sticking an international border through the middle of the Med would seriously risk disrupting the transfer of food into Rome, and famine = political instability, and political instability = personal danger for those in charge.
 
I was wondering what would have happened if the Roman Empire had been split in a Northern half and a Southern half. I was thinking that the North would take Britannia , Gaul , Italy , the Balkans and Anatolia , while the Southern Empire would have Spain , North Africa , Sicily , Egypt and the Levant.

In OTL , the Western Empire was disadvantaged by the division because it got the provinces which were harder to defend , and it eventually fell. In TTL , the Northern Empire would still have Constantinople and Anatolia if it loses Gaul and Italy , and the Southern Empire won't have too many threats.

Would a North-South division have given the two empires more chances to survive and thrive ?

i just dont see how this is going to work out. For one thing, this creates a major imbalance among the two states. The north is going to have to deal with nearly all of the external threats that make their way to the roman empire, along a more extended border than the west had to deal with, without the support of iberia or north africa. the south, in the meantime, is basically going to be able to develop in peace, as long as it can deal with sassanian probes. In addition, there isnt really any compelling reason to make the division like this, culturally speaking.

In short, this arrangement probably leaves the northern empire to wither on the vine as the south remains as the primary roman successor state.
 
In such a situation. The south would probably live quite a long time, maybe even survive better. The Northern Empire would probably fall apart faster, and might even split because most of the Western part of the northern empire faces attack after attack, and such.
 
It would never happen- the south has all the grain growing regions- Sicily, N. Africa and Egypt. The North would starve if the south didn't like them so the person dividing them up (whoever he may be) would want to apportion the grain growing areas equally- that's why the west got Africa and the East got Egypt.
 
How about a much more dire situation with the barbarians that causes the government to flee to the south, leaving the north to collapse in the hands of the barbarians?
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
I suppose it would be make more sense (logistically) to have the whole of Anatolia go to the Southern Empire. That way the North won't have to worry about Asian enemies. And I'm not sure the South would get Spain. If the Romans (for some reason) were ever to divide it like this, they'd probably make the borders more maritime; a line stretching from Gibraltar, looping around Sicily, and then up through the Bosphorus.
 
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