Romans send the Goths to Persia

Adrianople is either a victory or butterflied away entirely; emperor at the time can be anyone of your chosing up to and including Julian the Apostate; presumbly the Visigoths would be settled somewhere in upper Mesopotamia, perhaps with their capital being Nisibis, in order to act as a buffer state wrt the Sassanids; this way, Rome would have no more direct border with Persia, instead relying on Armenians, Visigoths and Ghassanids as their first line of defense

Can this work? Does this solve most of the problems faced by late antiquity Rome?
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
I like the idea, but the biggest issues for this are

1) Transporting the Goths through Anatolia - The Goths are being marched across the Roman Empire, unless there is a serious army watching them, they'll be a risk for raiding, theft, and generally wrecking s**t.

2) The Goths are going to have difficulty facing off against heavy cavalry - they have little to no experience in doing so. Bad for the Goths, not great for the Romans, as the Goths flee in the face of the Persians - you'll need Ghassanid (and maybe Lakhmanid) trainers.

3) Initial territory - unlike Europe, the Goths can't just be pointed at the Persians and told to have fun, their enemy is stronger and more organised.

You really need high-output Roman-Goth-Ghassanid (and if possible, generally Arab) offensive to really ensure the creation of a Goth client state in Mesopotamia, at which point the Romans would rather rule it themselves, and make the Goths a client state on the Iranian Plateau.
 
Even if that happens, wish I don't think is possible unless some other player forced them out, there would be nothing to stop the Goths from allying with the Sassanids against the Romans. So they could gain one extra enemy in the eastern border.

They could ally to defeat the Romans and to divide Armenia between them. So Rome would get and enemy controlling a large are bordering them, that would be in bed with the Sassanids.

The other way around is also possible, a Gothic-Roman alliance to fight the Persians, but if the Goths capture Sassanis territory and for some reason gains effective control over that area, Rome could be traiding an Persian threat in the East for a Gothic.
 

Deleted member 82118

also variant. Goths send to Mesopotamia, but allgoes vrong [more or less as in OTL], Ghots rebelled, goes to Constantinople and took the city [as Rome OTL], and create its own state somewhere in Anatolia, or in the Balkans. Meanwhile, Persians invide and conqered Palestine and Egypt... ERE could falls. And WRE withoun need to fight Goths, could defeat Vandals and survive..
Devl, it is interesting TL idea!:)
 
I like the idea, but the biggest issues for this are

1) Transporting the Goths through Anatolia - The Goths are being marched across the Roman Empire, unless there is a serious army watching them, they'll be a risk for raiding, theft, and generally wrecking s**t.

2) The Goths are going to have difficulty facing off against heavy cavalry - they have little to no experience in doing so. Bad for the Goths, not great for the Romans, as the Goths flee in the face of the Persians - you'll need Ghassanid (and maybe Lakhmanid) trainers.

3) Initial territory - unlike Europe, the Goths can't just be pointed at the Persians and told to have fun, their enemy is stronger and more organised.

You really need high-output Roman-Goth-Ghassanid (and if possible, generally Arab) offensive to really ensure the creation of a Goth client state in Mesopotamia, at which point the Romans would rather rule it themselves, and make the Goths a client state on the Iranian Plateau.

The difference here is that ITTL goths can't dictate terms. OTL they were able to becasue they've won and Rom ans had to take what was on the table. ITTL Romans have upper hand and can dictate where, when and how Goths settle.

Which is likely to result in spread and fragmented settlement and not single, massive, coherent one. So I don't think Roamns would create puppet state on Persian border but would settle Goths in several groups through out the empire.
 
Why should the romans send the Goths to Mesopotamia? The initial plan of Valens was, that they settle in Moesia and defend the Danube. Which makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately this plan failed. Also due to local roman authorities.

If Valens could have avoided, that the Goths march against him, they would stay in Moesia as loyal allies like lots of other gothic tribes elsewhere and defend the Danube. No reason to move them at all. Some Goths already fought in the East before Adrianople. Perhaps some Goths from Moesia would join them. No need to move the entire tribe. Simple like that.
 
Last edited:
Top