raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
So you're saying that the default mode of the Byzantines/ERE post 476 was to be restricted to these lands, only enjoying expansions beyond that for a century or two at a time?
Plausibility of roman restoration in the west after the Gothic Wars (if it didn't left Italy devastated)
- Thread starter Tupiniquim
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With the addition of Pontus, pretty much. Crete was eventually lost for a good century and had to be recaptured, same but worse goes for what is now Greek Macedonia and SE Anatolia, and most everything else was held on for a while but eventually outright lost and/or intermittently contested to a level unlike most Imperial Roman borders.
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Justinian should have appointed a capable person as a western Emperor and let him rule over the recaptured territories.
Maybe then, in time, a functioning government would consolidate and even press westerner.
Ruling Africa and Italy as tax-farms away from Constantinople could never work.
Justinian wouldn't realize this unfortunately..
Maybe then, in time, a functioning government would consolidate and even press westerner.
Ruling Africa and Italy as tax-farms away from Constantinople could never work.
Justinian wouldn't realize this unfortunately..
This. Unironically it'd be far healthier for the empire, and not to mention culturally and aesthetically more coherent and aesthetic mapwise. The weird tendency for people to think the Hadrianic borders are these things which must be retaken is weird to me.
Thank you: every day a school day. I had some vague notion (probably from the history of Galla Placidia) that the late Romans sometimes practised it.
It would resurface later on, especially as Byzantium's superpower status faded, but never too much, as that would undermine stubborn Byzantine exceptionalism.
If you take an earlier POD, you can have Zeno taking over Dalmatia following Nepos' assassination instead of Odoacer - Odoacer wouldn't have dared to defy Zeno. Fast forwards to the Gothic War, Mundus would have been right at the gate of Northern Italy instead of having to fight through Dalmatia.
If the ERE possesses Africa & Sicily, Sardinia & Corsica and Dalmatia, the Gothic Kingdom would have been fucking surrounded.
To be fair, the social and political organisation of the North African peoples developed *significantly* between say 100 and 550, just as the Germani did. Any sort of Roman state under any POD is going to find it more difficult to maintain its borders than the Augustan principate did.
Anyway - as for the question. A lot would clearly have to go right, and I think it's quite unlikely, but there's no reason it's an absolutely ASB scenario. The Visigothic monarchy was an inherently unstable entity, and the Frankish one wasn't much better- one could see the cards falling in the direction of Roman expeditionary forces if a lot goes right for the Romans.
To make it happen I think you need to butterfly or minimise the interruption of the bubonic plague and somehow demolish the Sasanian state: perhaps via some sort of Turkish intervention? Probably having a restored Western Emperor in place would be helpful, but it'd need to be a relationship of trust: perhaps two brothers like Valentinian and Valens?
Now that you mention it, could be argued that the Byzantine occupation of the Med coast of Spain and the destruction waged upon the region by the Visigoths kings attempt to reconquest and hold it. Trough scorching land tactics and razing any and all fortifications, cause they were unable to put it under siege and/or to defend it against siege engines. Circumstance that later would make easier the to secure the region during the Umayyad invasion and conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom.
It depends on how much of the western Empire you are referring to. Any Territory in the West or the whole Western Empire.
In discussions like this one thing that is often forgot is just how much faster going by boat was to going by Land. Using the Orbis Calculator and starting out in Constantinople, it would take roughly 26 days reach Carthago Nova in Iberia and traveling 3678 kilometers. Yet at the same time, the far closer town of Satala would take roughly 38.5 days by land despite the distance only being 1106 kilometers.
I bring this up to point out that the empire being centered on constanipole would not mean it couldn't keep control of the Mediterranean Sea if it could. This particular scenario posits that Italy would not be devastated as it was by the Gothic Wars which I think would go along way to restoring Mare Nostrum. If the whole Empire could be restored, that I am not sure. But I can see the eastern reuniting the Mediterranean portions.
In discussions like this one thing that is often forgot is just how much faster going by boat was to going by Land. Using the Orbis Calculator and starting out in Constantinople, it would take roughly 26 days reach Carthago Nova in Iberia and traveling 3678 kilometers. Yet at the same time, the far closer town of Satala would take roughly 38.5 days by land despite the distance only being 1106 kilometers.
I bring this up to point out that the empire being centered on constanipole would not mean it couldn't keep control of the Mediterranean Sea if it could. This particular scenario posits that Italy would not be devastated as it was by the Gothic Wars which I think would go along way to restoring Mare Nostrum. If the whole Empire could be restored, that I am not sure. But I can see the eastern reuniting the Mediterranean portions.
I think the best case scenario would be for the gothic war to be ended quickly and without major damage to its population, infrastructure, and government so that Italy and Illyria are returned to the empire as net gains. The rear of the west is much more unlikely imo. Or at least not doable anytime soon with the plague and all. Maybe if after quickly taking Italy they’re able to turn east and deal the Persians a great defeat and prevent a lot of the wars for the rest of century and the final war iotl. If that happens maybe later on they can take advantage of issues in Hispania and Gaul. But idk it seems unlikely.
Ukrainian Victory
Banned
Would Muhammad still be conceived in this TL? Or would the butterfly effect prevent that? Or would God ensure that the butterfly effect does not operate here?
It is largely correct that the eastern half of the Empire clung to older traditions and tried to maintain marriages within the empire for much longer. But @spkaca is correct in thinking that diplomatic marriages to non-Romans was practiced by late Romans. In the west, it was pretty widespread by the fifth century. The situation pretty much necessitated it in a way that it didn’t in the east.
The Romans even with the plague could take a bigger chunk out hispania Frankia is divided by 550 but still fighting multiple kingdoms to the way north is not a recepie for quick victory
That’s true but in both cases I feel they’re just too far away for it all to work. Even if they could doesn’t mean they should. At least not in the near term and all.
Bored Young Man
Banned
So a little detail: Justinian was rare in the fact that he didn't lead armies himself. A successful Western kingdom is going to inevitably claim the mantle of the Romans and go back East. It's part of the reason the East rarely bothered.
He wasn't emperor's in the east after valens rarely lead the armies themselves even if they were soldiers before like Marcian or Maurice
Bored Young Man
Banned
And they often marched on Constantinople, shows how great it was where the East's primary decline was infighting.
Grey Wolf
Donor
The later empire was as much based at Trier as it was at Rome. I don't think Constantinople alone can be blamed for the change in the centre of gravity