What if the Roman Empire collapsed due to the 3rd Century Crisis?

[Goldensilver81]

But the Mongols weren't just another steppe group that's the difference, this is just saying "agricultural people conquered each other since forever" as an argument as to why a Roman like empire would always or likely successfully conquered the Mediterranean around the same time.#

The Turks and Xiongnu had a lot of territory but didn't really conquer any of the settled land so despite being successful it's a different piece of cake.


Climate change gave an impetus or advantage to the Mongols, it doesn't follow they would have necessarily won their initial wars against China or Khwarezm and if they aren't particularly successful there good parts of their war machine and momentum is lost there. I mean you pointed there that leadership mattered, who's to say than an earlier or later empire couldn't have achieved the same but they were just unlucky?
History is filled with luck; it may be that geography, climate patterns, technology etc. give the structure to history which we can use to make arguments to what's likely and what's not but in terms of inevitability or impossibility luck or happenstance is a very important factor too and by luck I mean good leadership or whether or not a bad human-focused event happens, like a succession crisis, plague at a specific location/time, battle being lost/won by a brink or exceptional event(arguably all battles are full of those kind of events) etc.

that is true iam not saying the mongol conquest of the otl are inevitable heck no , iam saying that some sort of unification of the steppe tribes most likely would have happened under someone since thats the trend we saw for about 2 centuries before the mongol invasions , and mostly attack china do climate change making the steppe more harsh depends how china is doing and the pod and heck genghis at first did not want to conquer anything his war was mostly to raid and have a common enemy it was only after his success that he got the idea that i must unite the world even if a khan beat the snots out of china he might just be that was fun iam rich beyond i could have imagined and the emperor of china is my vassal alright lets go home, it would depend on the pod tho but yeah i agree with you.

"later empire couldn't have achieved the same but they were just unlucky?" well any pod after the adoption of fire arms already limits the nomads.

 

[Sārthākā]

Both sides were exhausted, broke, and incredibly unstable (though Persia moreso). If either side had been able to recover even a little the Arabs likely would have been either crushed or badly beaten. In terms of religion, without the massive success of the conquests however this alt-Islam turned out would be incredibly different from what happened OTL, and completely unrecognizable apart from maybe a few surface elements to what happened OTL. Certainly none of the central figures would be the same, nor is there any reason to think it would be as successful outside of Arabia as it was OTL.

And? Islam started taking in things from local religions when they conquered the Berbers and the Persians as well as the Hindu Kush. Sunni Islam as a whole remains an amalgamation of local old polytheistic Arabian beliefs, the ideas of the Maronites and the Jews, with the 'Allah' and son of God and the school of thoughts added in. These things are still in place. ITTL Islam would look pretty much as the Arabian Peninsula's Sunni Islam of today in rural areas. Not like the Sunni Islam in North Africa and Pakistan. Instead of Allah, the name would probably be something else; like Alahah, the old Aramaic and Arabian name for God . They need not expand either; I got that part wrong I admit. But the point I was trying to make was that something like Islam resembling it in it's early phase like that off 610 AD - 650 AD was already coming slowly.

"The arabian polytheistic belief was so loose it isn't funny. "except that arabian paganism was quite strong so much so that they survived even after muhamed untied the peninsula
in fact muhameds tribe and mecca was becoming like said more prominent who is to say they don't stick with polytheism, and lets say a muhamed like figure appears , muhamed could have easily died and his religion with it on multiple occasions who is to say alternative muhamed does not get murdered by his tribe, who is to say the jews of medina dont murder him , who is to say he does not die in battle or worse yet is more like jesus and is pacifist

Ah yes that's why every city had a different pantheon, with only a few gods being connected to each other. That's why a third of their gods were Egyptian, Syrian or Semitic Gods. That's why each Tribe had a totally different pantheon. That's why tribes fought each other due to different beliefs as well, declaring oasis's for their gods creating tribal feuds with each other. And no, only local traditions survived because they were (somewaht) integrated into Islam. The religion(s) died out by 650 AD in the interior and by 700 AD had died out in its entirety. But if you want to go by this definition then Paganism in Europe still survives to this day; and remains as a very small religious sect. That's not a good comparison at all.

If it actually existed at the time we have no reason to believe it would inevitably become as important as IOTL.

They existed (according to sources) as a mercantile trading clan which controlled a good portion of the upper hejaz region already by the Third Century.

Except through their vassals and through their commercial control I'd estimate around half of the Arabian population in the late 6th century lived under direct or indirect Roman-Iranian control, especially considering Yemen.

The Kingdom of Saba, the Kingdom of Ma'an, the Kingdom of Hadramaut, the Kingdom of Dilmun, the Kingdom of Qataban etc would like to argue.....a lot.

Is Islam just a generic chemical result you get out of mixing those ingredients? Because that's how you are treating it, human ideas cannot be treated as such.

Oh no, but the basic groundworks for Islam or Alt-Islam were already there, and till now, no one has stated how this has changed.

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

Meanwhile in Persia the civil wars following their defeat at the hands of the Romans had left them weak and divided, and so it was only a small number of battles to defeat them as well.

On this note, it's interesting that the Persians seem to have fought harder and did better against the Muslim forces arrayed against them than Byzantium did. Unfortunately for them, by the time the Byzantines had recovered enough to form some kind of threat to the Caliphate Persia had already been conquered. Ctesiphon simply didn't have the strategic depth Constantinople did and being the seat of Sassanid royal power as it was its loss was utterly disastrous. The same would have happened had Constantinople fallen, the remaining pieces would not be enough to put things back together again.

The problem with seeing the Roman Empire collapse during the Third Century Crisis is that at this point in time the foreign threats to the empire were still manageable. I think both the Palmyran and Gallic Empires would be more than strong enough to hold off their foes, and this would end up protecting the empire still in Rome. If that's the case then an Aurelian like figure could still rise and put us back to square one.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

To try and steer this back to its original intent...the issue you have is that the barbarian states were not yet strong enough or united enough to take down Rome. That was also not their goal in the 4th-5th centuries, much less the third. Barbarian raids at the time weren't existential threats to the empire-aside from Dacia, which Aurelian abandoned, and the Agri Decumates, no other territory was even lost in the west. So any "collapse" of the empire has to come internally-which means it wouldn't be a collapse, but a fracturing, which is of course what happened IOTL. The issue is the Gallic Empire wasn't a separatist state, and Palmyra under Zenobia was pretty weak (Aurelian is a great general, don't get me wrong, but Palmyra folded like wet cardboard).

So you might not be able to have the Roman Empire totally collapse, but you can have it lose substantial territory. Specifically, to the Sassanians. I'm not sure if the Sassanian's could realistically hold all of Rome's middle eastern posessions, but they could certainly probably take Syria and Egypt if Odsenathus never happens and at least hold on to the former (I'm not really that well versed in third century Egypt, but I imagine it'd be hard to hold). Keep in mind though that I'm not sure the goal of the Sassanians was significant territorial conquest-Odaenathus ambushed them on their way home, and after Valerian was captured at Edessa, Macrianus had already declared his two sons co-emperors in the east-without Odaenathus, Gallienus probably sends Aureolus east to assume command, and he might be just as effective (also he may revolt anyway, like he eventually did IOTL). If the Sassanians do obtain some conquests going to give them a whole host of issues that it would be interesting how they handle, namely a whole bunch more Hellenized/Romanized citizens that the Parthians may have been able to get along with better than the Persians. So it would be interesting if they actually could hold it.

Other than that, maybe you could have groups like the Franks and Alemanni settle in northern Gaul if the crisis goes on long enough. You could also get Rome sacked obviously, as it almost was IOTL but while the psychological effect would be enormous, the practical effects would be relatively small. The Juthungii were not going to conquer Italy or something. It's harder to lose the Balkans, just from the terrain itself-the Goths aren't interested in resettling south of the Danube at this time. Maybe you could also have the Romans more or less abandon Britain, if the crisis is bad enough.

One important thing though is probably to avoid the Gallic Emperors, since they probably made dealing with the Roman frontiers easier.

 

[Sārthākā]

The problem with seeing the Roman Empire collapse during the Third Century Crisis is that at this point in time the foreign threats to the empire were still manageable. I think both the Palmyran and Gallic Empires would be more than strong enough to hold off their foes, and this would end up protecting the empire still in Rome. If that's the case then an Aurelian like figure could still rise and put us back to square one.

Yeah, I largely agree with this.

 

[Sārthākā]

To try and steer this back to its original intent...the issue you have is that the barbarian states were not yet strong enough or united enough to take down Rome. That was also not their goal in the 4th-5th centuries, much less the third. Barbarian raids at the time weren't existential threats to the empire-aside from Dacia, which Aurelian abandoned, and the Agri Decumates, no other territory was even lost in the west. So any "collapse" of the empire has to come internally-which means it wouldn't be a collapse, but a fracturing, which is of course what happened IOTL. The issue is the Gallic Empire wasn't a separatist state, and Palmyra under Zenobia was pretty weak (Aurelian is a great general, don't get me wrong, but Palmyra folded like wet cardboard).

So you might not be able to have the Roman Empire totally collapse, but you can have it lose substantial territory. Specifically, to the Sassanians. I'm not sure if the Sassanian's could realistically hold all of Rome's middle eastern posessions, but they could certainly probably take Syria and Egypt if Odsenathus never happens and at least hold on to the former (I'm not really that well versed in third century Egypt, but I imagine it'd be hard to hold). Keep in mind though that I'm not sure the goal of the Sassanians was significant territorial conquest-Odaenathus ambushed them on their way home, and after Valerian was captured at Edessa, Macrianus had already declared his two sons co-emperors in the east-without Odaenathus, Gallienus probably sends Aureolus east to assume command, and he might be just as effective (also he may revolt anyway, like he eventually did IOTL). If the Sassanians do obtain some conquests going to give them a whole host of issues that it would be interesting how they handle, namely a whole bunch more Hellenized/Romanized citizens that the Parthians may have been able to get along with better than the Persians. So it would be interesting if they actually could hold it.

Other than that, maybe you could have groups like the Franks and Alemanni settle in northern Gaul if the crisis goes on long enough. You could also get Rome sacked obviously, as it almost was IOTL but while the psychological effect would be enormous, the practical effects would be relatively small. The Juthungii were not going to conquer Italy or something. It's harder to lose the Balkans, just from the terrain itself-the Goths aren't interested in resettling south of the Danube at this time. Maybe you could also have the Romans more or less abandon Britain, if the crisis is bad enough.

One important thing though is probably to avoid the Gallic Emperors, since they probably made dealing with the Roman frontiers easier.

Could Caracius potentially succeed in his revolt to take over Britain?

 

[Goldensilver81]

To try and steer this back to its original intent...the issue you have is that the barbarian states were not yet strong enough or united enough to take down Rome. That was also not their goal in the 4th-5th centuries, much less the third. Barbarian raids at the time weren't existential threats to the empire-aside from Dacia, which Aurelian abandoned, and the Agri Decumates, no other territory was even lost in the west. So any "collapse" of the empire has to come internally-which means it wouldn't be a collapse, but a fracturing, which is of course what happened IOTL. The issue is the Gallic Empire wasn't a separatist state, and Palmyra under Zenobia was pretty weak (Aurelian is a great general, don't get me wrong, but Palmyra folded like wet cardboard).

So you might not be able to have the Roman Empire totally collapse, but you can have it lose substantial territory. Specifically, to the Sassanians. I'm not sure if the Sassanian's could realistically hold all of Rome's middle eastern posessions, but they could certainly probably take Syria and Egypt if Odsenathus never happens and at least hold on to the former (I'm not really that well versed in third century Egypt, but I imagine it'd be hard to hold). Keep in mind though that I'm not sure the goal of the Sassanians was significant territorial conquest-Odaenathus ambushed them on their way home, and after Valerian was captured at Edessa, Macrianus had already declared his two sons co-emperors in the east-without Odaenathus, Gallienus probably sends Aureolus east to assume command, and he might be just as effective (also he may revolt anyway, like he eventually did IOTL). If the Sassanians do obtain some conquests going to give them a whole host of issues that it would be interesting how they handle, namely a whole bunch more Hellenized/Romanized citizens that the Parthians may have been able to get along with better than the Persians. So it would be interesting if they actually could hold it.

Other than that, maybe you could have groups like the Franks and Alemanni settle in northern Gaul if the crisis goes on long enough. You could also get Rome sacked obviously, as it almost was IOTL but while the psychological effect would be enormous, the practical effects would be relatively small. The Juthungii were not going to conquer Italy or something. It's harder to lose the Balkans, just from the terrain itself-the Goths aren't interested in resettling south of the Danube at this time. Maybe you could also have the Romans more or less abandon Britain, if the crisis is bad enough.

One important thing though is probably to avoid the Gallic Emperors, since they probably made dealing with the Roman frontiers easier.

in terms of collapse i think its quite easy to make the barbarians stronger maybe have the galic empire set up fedorati to deal with them and trying to use them against rome , and have the romans loose some battles in the crisis to the barbarians i mean shortly after the crisis the barberians really got their game up like that sittuation with the franks and Caracius getting a navy and all that , but i do see the crisis ending of splitting of the empire , and them more rellying on barberians could cause the west to collapse in the 4th rather than 5th century this is why i said over time the divided empire gets conquered because i dont see any germanic tribe going to rome and declare himself king of italy.

 

[Sārthākā]

Though probably, in terms of actual stability, losing these frontiers probably means more stability for the Romans now left with Italy, Illyria, and North Africa. They will have to deal with the Danube Barbarians, the North African tribes and the Pontic and Caucasian Barbarians, and that's no easy task either, but having the Palmyrene Empire and the Gallic Empire shoulder the Hibernians, the Caledonians, the Germanics, the Persians and the Arabians will be a good breather for the rump roman empire.

 

[Gloss]

They existed (according to sources) as a mercantile trading clan which controlled a good portion of the upper hejaz region already by the Third Century.

Sources written at the earliest in the 8th century, I guess we take what we have... I guess at this point we might as well consider Abraham an historical figure considering it's not a stretch from believing the genealogical record spanning 4 centuries before the Quran was made.

The Kingdom of Saba, the Kingdom of Ma'an, the Kingdom of Hadramaut, the Kingdom of Dilmun, the Kingdom of Qataban etc would like to argue.....a lot.

Himyar/Yemen and Eastern Gulf? Under Sassanian control by 570.

Oh no, but the basic groundworks for Islam or Alt-Islam were already there, and till now, no one has stated how this has changed.

Again Islam is not an exact chemical mixture of very vague ingredient such as a very basic geopolitical setting or the fact some Chrisitan and Jews live in Arabia. The burden of proof for saying that Islam would arise it's completely on you.

 

[Gloss]

On this note, it's interesting that the Persians seem to have fought harder and did better against the Muslim forces arrayed against them than Byzantium did. Unfortunately for them, by the time the Byzantines had recovered enough to form some kind of threat to the Caliphate Persia had already been conquered. Ctesiphon simply didn't have the strategic depth Constantinople did and being the seat of Sassanid royal power as it was its loss was utterly disastrous. The same would have happened had Constantinople fallen, the remaining pieces would not be enough to put things back together again.

The problem with seeing the Roman Empire collapse during the Third Century Crisis is that at this point in time the foreign threats to the empire were still manageable. I think both the Palmyran and Gallic Empires would be more than strong enough to hold off their foes, and this would end up protecting the empire still in Rome. If that's the case then an Aurelian like figure could still rise and put us back to square one.

The fact Persian fought so hard probably doomed them, I believe according to Parvaneh Pourshariati in her book "Decline and Fall of the Sassanian Empire" the Arabs didn't really go after the entire Sassanian empire but because Yazdgard III kept escaping and mounting resistance they went piece by piece and took all of the pie ultimately.
In any case the Arabs were able to win for the 3 main reasons:

1. The generation long warfare that exhaused the empire, Parvaneh Pourshariati says this was the lion share of the cause.
2. The 4-year long all out civil war torn the state apart and made the internal factional rivalries between Parthians and Persians stronger than even before for this brief period of time, according to Pourshariati's new chronology the Arab invasion started happening, in fact, in 628 exactly when the war with the Byzantines ended and the civil war started.
3. The Arabs were particularly united, this is probably due to a multitude of factors but the first 2 points tie into this too.

If you remove any of those factors the conquest becomes less likely.

 

[Sārthākā]

Sources written at the earliest in the 8th century, I guess we take what we have... I guess at this point we might as well consider Abraham an historical figure considering it's not a stretch from believing the genealogical record spanning 4 centuries before the Quran was made.

Ah yes, so the Himyarites were imagining it when the Qurayash defended Kaaba from them and for some reason this imagination defended the city and defeated the Yemenis.

 

[Gloss]

Ah yes, so the Himyarites were imagining it when the Qurayash defended Kaaba from them and for some reason this imagination defended the city and defeated the Yemenis.

What are you even talking about? In any case yes, people should have doubts about 8th to 10th century scholars writing in Iraq and the Levant writing back the oral history of 6 centuries ago, totally not influenced at all by their own biases or by distortions and later fabrication that happened in the 6 centuries in between, nobody would ever make up a cool story for their favourite person's or their own family, that never happened in history.

 

[Goldensilver81]

"The Kingdom of Saba, the Kingdom of Ma'an, the Kingdom of Hadramaut, the Kingdom of Dilmun, the Kingdom of Qataban etc would like to argue.....a lot. "
The Kingdom of Saba " area under perisan controled since 570"
Kingdom of Ma'an area under byzantine control
Kingdom of Hadramaut area under persian control
the Kingdom of Dilmun, persian controlled
the Kingdom of Qataban persia again

 

[Gloss]

"The Kingdom of Saba, the Kingdom of Ma'an, the Kingdom of Hadramaut, the Kingdom of Dilmun, the Kingdom of Qataban etc would like to argue.....a lot. "
The Kingdom of Saba " area under perisan controled since 570"
Kingdom of Ma'an area under byzantine control
Kingdom of Hadramaut area under persian control
the Kingdom of Dilmun, persian controlled
the Kingdom of Qataban persia again

Yep, if anything the rise of Islam and/or united Arabs should be seen happening in a time were foreign influence was the strongest with the Aksumite invasion of Hejaz, Persian invasion of Yemen and their overthrow of the Lakhmids, the Byzantine conflict with the Ghassanids. The pre-550 political situation seems to me not particularly important, but of course the religious history of Rome since 300 is super important.

 

[Sārthākā]

What are you even talking about? In any case yes, people should have doubts about 8th to 10th century scholars writing in Iraq and the Levant writing back the oral history of 6 centuries ago, totally not influenced at all by their own biases or by distortions and later fabrication, nobody would ever make up a cool story for their favourite person's family, that never happened in history.

I don't understand then. The Himyarites which were defeated by the Quraysh was a myth? So the Himyarite wars for Kaaba didn't happen? The Kaaba didn't exist then? Why in the world did the Himyarites march into the desert for nothing then. Also, the Himyarites wrote this calling the Quaraysh as the Qedarites and Adnanites. So I guess this 'powerful clan that controlled the city descended from the Qedar' was a figment of their imagination. Where are you getting this 'centuries later?'

 

[Goldensilver81]

What are you even talking about? In any case yes, people should have doubts about 8th to 10th century scholars writing in Iraq and the Levant writing back the oral history of 6 centuries ago, totally not influenced at all by their own biases or by distortions and later fabrication that happened in the 6 centuries in between, nobody would ever make up a cool story for their favourite person's or their own family, that never happened in history.

Fahr ibn Malik is some time referred to as the founder of the tribe but most genealogist today reject this as multiple early sources like Hisham ibn al-Kalbi asserted that there was no eponymous founder of Quraysh other say it was ndar who was the founder etc we dont know

 

[Sārthākā]

Anyway, this has gone way off course.

What I personally would like to know is that with the Romans in Continental Europe weakened, would the Germanics even try to invade Britain? What would this meant for the Brythonic People and the Hibernians and Caledonians.

 

[Goldensilver81]

I don't understand then. The Himyarites which were defeated by the Quraysh was a myth? So the Himyarite wars for Kaaba didn't happen? The Kaaba didn't exist then? Why in the world did the Himyarites march into the desert for nothing then. Also, the Himyarites wrote this calling the Quaraysh as the Qedarites and Adnanites. So I guess this 'powerful clan that controlled the city descended from the Qedar' was a figment of their imagination. Where are you getting this 'centuries later?'

eh possibly yes , there is evidence that the tribe did not even exist yet and if there war was with between them and Nabataeans or other tribe or tribes not the quraish
in fact what you mentioned that Himyar was defeated, and Hassan Bin Kilal Bin Dhi Hadath al-Himyari was taken prisoner by Fahr is a story that even Muslim scholars who reject and say that the Kabaa at the time was under the control of the banu Khuzan.
so yes a pod in the third century crisis could butterfly away islam

 

[Gloss]

What I personally would like to know is that with the Romans in Continental Europe weakened, would the Germanics even try to invade Britain? What would this meant for the Brythonic People and the Hibernians and Caledonians.

I know the discussion has gone for long, but why do you even ask this question given the logic you applied before? If basic ingredients such as geography and political setting is all that matters then of course Germanics would invade Britain, if your logic works for an ideology as particular as Islam then apply it elsewhere in more general cases where such logic would make more sense.

 

[Goldensilver81]

I know the discussion has gone for long, but why do you even ask this question given the logic you applied before? If basic ingredients such as geography and political setting is all that matters then of course Germanics would invade Britain, if your logic works for an ideologically as particular as Islam then apply it elsewhere in more general cases where such logic would make more sense.

i mean the franks after the crisis made a navy to raid the british coast so that makes more sense sure it was for raiding but who is to say one of the raiders years or decades later says why not take this now?