What if the Eastern Roman Empire fell with the west? By the year 500, barbarians (let's say mostly the Huns and Vandals) and the Sassanids have control over all of the east with Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria razed. The whole of the ERE is pillaged and falls to being as wealthy and populated as the former WRE. There is no Roman successor states or remnants besides Rhodes, where the ERE government flees too and plans reestablishing the empire.