By the time asperukh showed up it was 680 and a lot of North africa had been conquered
WI: North African Roman Empire/Southern Roman Empire
- Thread starter Curious_Wanderer
- Start date
One thing I haven't really seen addressed yet: this scenario leaves one Empire facing 100% of the danger, while the other faces none. The Romans need troops along the Rhine, along the long Danube front, and in Syria. Plus smaller contingents in Britain, and a few other places. All of these areas are under the control of the Northern Empire. What this means is that the entire POINT of splitting the Empire is lost. If you're going to seperate the money-making parts of the Empire from the spots being attacked what's going to happen is total collapse of the North, and then the south will fall. With this split you also are returning to the requirment that the Northern Emperor has to keep rushing around to trouble spots while the southern has nothing to do.
Yeah, that’s why this would need to be an involuntary split IMHO. Maybe part of a complete fracturing, even; a Crisis of the Third Century that sticks and leaves behind multiple successor states, the more the better. I’ve always been tantalized by the idea of this specific scenario because it has the potential to leave at least one long term Romance successor state...
Or if Belisarius shows up and says, 'My dudes, I'm supposed to invade you, but Justinian plans to blind me when I return. Help a brother out, let me settle in Libya and fort up to prevent attacks from Egypt. And maybe fort up your harbor defense.' Vandals say, well okay. Belisarius builds a castellation defense so strong it stops Islam's later advance and the Vandals live happily ever after in North Africa.
I don't think you can make this work with a Theodosian split. What COULD work is a different fate for the Western Empire. Have the Western Roman Empire fall, but have two breakaway "Emperors". One is the Western Empire based in Britannia and N.Gaul (essentially an invasion cuts those regions off from the Med and hits Spain hard). The other is your Western Empire in Africa.
Rather than conflict, you could then reasonably have the two self-declared Emperors recognise each other as the Northern and Southern respectively, your main issue is recognition by the East.
But you effectively have a sphere of Iberia and Africa for the Southern Empire - Britannia, Hibernia, Gaul and (probably) parts of Germania for the Northern Empire, and then East largely dominates them all. The "Empire" nature of the South might be disputed by the East but I don't think it'll be an issue till it becomes one.
Rather than conflict, you could then reasonably have the two self-declared Emperors recognise each other as the Northern and Southern respectively, your main issue is recognition by the East.
But you effectively have a sphere of Iberia and Africa for the Southern Empire - Britannia, Hibernia, Gaul and (probably) parts of Germania for the Northern Empire, and then East largely dominates them all. The "Empire" nature of the South might be disputed by the East but I don't think it'll be an issue till it becomes one.
I agree. I think the only was this works is with the North African empire emerging because rome and itali, Hispania and much of Gallia falls. The governorvor general in Carthage assumes the purple but doesn't hollow out their empire trying to retake the rest of the WRE.
The only other instance of that situation was the Fatamid Caliphate losing control of Tunisia and Tripolitania when the Zirids turned coat. Has it happened in other times as well?
They wouldn't trust him, not least of all because none of that is true. Justinian despite his major flaws as an Emperor was largely supportive of Belisarius during his campaigns, at least to the extent he realistically could given the stupid expenditures Justinian was undertaking, and the fact that as the Gothic War was going on the Persians were kicking the crap out of the Romans in Syria. Justinian's campaigns after North Africa were deeply flawed in their conception, and his expenditures at home even moreso, but he wasn't a complete idiot.
The Goths of Ravenna offered Belisarius their crown as Emperor; it's likely enough the Vandals would allow him to settle on their frontier. Huh. Checking Wiki, the blinding story is strongly doubted nowadays, while cuckold Belisarius is taken more seriously. So, instead of blinding, Belisarius says, 'my dudes, Justinian won't let me put my cheating wife away, I'm through putting up with it, let me settle here.'
The Umayyads still rule Islam, which stops at the Libyan border. The old Carthaginian and Roman agricultural books are not lost, so pasta is invented earlier than our timeline. Cheap, easily stored carbs prevent famine and the plagues that come with it from hurting the Mediterranean; the Byzantines make peace to get food. In our timeline Frederick II bought Jerusalem with pasta from his Sicilian slave plantations- in this timeline the Vandals, with Islam closing their east frontier, fueled by pasta vasta, so full and yet so lonely, absorb Sicily and Spain. A journal of the true voyage of Hanno mentions a ship that headed out across the South Atlantic, found a new land, and headed back to Africa with less trouble than the ships trying to hug the African coast and against crap winds and currents; when trade is slow the Vandals sponsor Captain Hall to circle
Africa, while Captain Oates takes an old Roman corn ship, the Garfield, stuffed with pasta for the long trip to sail the ocean blue and discover America.
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