WI: Heraclius moves the ERE's capital to Carthage?

TheWitheredStriker

TheWitheredStriker

According to Runciman (1977), Heraclius I, Eastern Roman Emperor from 610 to 641, originally considered abandoning Constantinople in the war with Sassanid Persia. Constantinople had been suffering throughout the campaign against the Persians as grain was the primary source of food for the city and Egypt, the provider, had been lost. Heraclius believed that moving the capital to Carthage would make it easier to provide the population with food. Attempting to save the Empire enough money to allow Constantinople to remain the capital, Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople traded the free bread citizens received in the city, a practice from older Roman times, as the government could no longer afford this. Together with his close ties with the emperor, Sergius managed to convince Heraclius to stay in Constantinople.

What if this doesn't happen, and Heraclius moves the ERE's capital to Carthage? For sure he's going to lose his credibility and throne, possibly more (look what happened when Constans II Pogonatus tried to leave for Syracuse), and the Persians will likely seize Constantinople and win the war, but what else would logically happen? And how do the Arabs play into this?
 

Evil Crusader

The Empire descends into infighting, the Persians are still super overextended, the Arabs may well do like OTL just with Rump Sassanids taking the place of Byzantium as the Empire that held into its mountainous core and stabilized against the Arabs.
 

Mogroka

Evil Crusader said:
The Empire descends into infighting, the Persians are still super overextended, the Arabs may well do like OTL just with Rump Sassanids taking the place of Byzantium as the Empire that held into its mountainous core and stabilized against the Arabs.
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Are you saying that the Persians are going to stabilize in Anatolia? If so this is very highly unlikely if not impossible. Or are you saying they are going to stabilize behind the Zagros? Both scenarios are unlikely.
 

Silver01

Heraclius gets outsted shahin probably wouldn't take Constantinople in 615 as he was just raiding and they had no navy with Heraclius moving it there some one Constantinople does a coup which would result the empire losing more lands with maybe less resistance still Anatolia would be hard to take it was during the otl this gives khosrow II some time to prepare for the arabs invasions but they are overextended his generals are rivals so ...yeah the sassanids might survive but their gains probably wont.
 

Nivek

Mogroka said:
Are you saying that the Persians are going to stabilize in Anatolia? If so this is very highly unlikely if not impossible. Or are you saying they are going to stabilize behind the Zagros? Both scenarios are unlikely.
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Evil Crusader said:
If the Persians have some years to recover (which the POD allows them), it's not as unlikely as one might believe.
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IIRC Umar(PUH) have more hate against the ERE than the Persians(one of his friend was killed in Palestine, to begin with too), he give the Persians a quick peace treaty post-Cesthepion but they refused to take it and got annihilated. if they took it,them Umar would focus in Anatolia and ERE and left the Persian beyond the Zagros

Umar(PUH): "I wish there were a mountain of fire between us and the Persians, so that neither they could get to us, nor we to them."
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