wi north/south instead east/west roman empire

aenigma

Banned
not sure if i should post here
but i was thinking what if the empire split north/south instead of east/west

lets say the south has its capitol at Carthage and Spain is included to the south,
with the border at present day France/Spain border in the west with the border in the east between Syria and Anatolia(turkey)

sicily, mallorca and cyprus is part of the south
crete, corfu, corsica/sardinia north

and so on


would they have a better of worse change of survival (as long as possible) and how would the world look like if they did that ?
 
The South would have all the breadbaskets (and its capital possibly at Alexandria instead of Carthage) and could concentrate on its only serious threat: the Sassanids.

The North, on the other hand, would face all sorts of barbarians while being cut off from the agriculturally most productive regions.
 
The division of the Roman Empire generally followed North/South lines (not systematically dividing two ensembles, but sometimes up to three or four) because it was tied with military resources and considerations.
A division that would create a northern ensemble distinct from the south would make it extremely vulnerable to both Barbarian (especially along the Danube) and Sassanian pressure as its army would never be mobile or important enough to cover Rhine, Danube and Persia, especially without benefiting from fiscal resources from the richest part of Romania that would be included in the South (not that provinces as Gaul, Anatolia or Italy were poor, but the rest wasn't especially rich, and these couldn't take the costs involved on the long run)
Southern Romania would have the reverse issue : wealthy, but deprived of most military resources or recruitment while still having to face Sassanians (probably alone, giving Northern Romania would be too busy collapsing).
It would be a recipe for unmitigated disaster, which is probably the reason why it was never considered.

Your best chance at a "southern" Romania would be having Africa successfully splitting of WRE, while Italia and Illyricum falling much earlier would consecrate whoever rule in Africa as a roman emperor (while it's not obvious it would be acknowledged by Constantinople). Of course, it's likely that an African Roman Empire would end up satellited and integrated in ERE eventually.
 

raharris1973

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Are the results largely similar if you split it into a European and insular section versus an Afro-Asian section? That would at least spare the European portion the Sassanid threat and leave the Afro-Asian part with Anatolian recruiting grounds.
 
Splitting it into European and Afro-Asian sections means that the southern empire's front line just got even longer. The south empire has zero hinterland, just one long double frontier stretching from Morocco to Turkey. At the immediate moment of the split that might be manageable as you've still got a northern buffer state, but once Rome/Constantinople falls (and it WILL without the breadbaskets or eastern wealth), the empire's just going to be beset from all sides, nowhere to retreat to, and fairly shit power projection as it gets bisected.

I could imagine a rump state or two might emerge out of Antioch, Carthage, or Alexandria, but there's no way a single empire would hold.
 
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Are the results largely similar if you split it into a European and insular section versus an Afro-Asian section?
Essentially : it makes southern part more vulnerable to Sassanians than IOTL, due to less strategical depth and lesser military resources; and Africa might simply get neglected a bit too much due to this; while the northern part is still deprived of relatively deprived of fiscal and naval capacities, meaning that sooner or later, you'll see Barbarian fleets crossing the Mediterranean sea Vandalic-style.

and leave the Afro-Asian part with Anatolian recruiting grounds.
Which are not enough : it's why emperors as Julian had to take on both halves of the empire IOTL. In fact, the big chance of ERE in the Vth century was that Sassanians were busy elsewhere.
Anatolia alone isn't really going to tip the balance enough to make it viable, even if it's slightly more viable than IOTL.
 
Do something like this:
upload_2018-8-16_11-17-57.png

(exact borders may differ)

Everyone has a single border to defend (West-Rhine; Center-Danube; East-Sassanian border). Center can shift forces east or west, depending on the circumstances.
 
Oriens is toasted as soon Sassanian realizes it was not an April Fool's joke; and central Romania is more or less bound to be either swallowed up by western Romania or crumble due to the lack of a strong military/fiscal base (and basically unifying some of the most ravaged or poorly inhabited regions of the empire).

An actual tripartite repartition would probably look like IOTL happenances (either during the IIIrd century crisis, either as in the late IVth/early Vth) : Britain-Gaul-Spain, Africa-Italy-Illyricum, Greece-Anatolia-Oriens-Egypt.
Not that it was particularly viable, but it more or less divided the resources along the needs and political balance.
 
Personally, if you wanted a sort of "Southern" Roman Empire, you're really looking at just cutting Africa from the Western Empire, as no other division really leaves the East able to combat Persia. The problem with this is that it leaves the WRE without Africa.

Now, admittedly the security of the SRE would mean it can easily provide forces to assist both the East and West, which could be beneficial, and make the Empire as a whole more flexible.

Other major changes include: the SRE would probably start looking what it can take advantage of in the Sahara, it will likely become more Berberised, and essentially establish a hegemony over the Sahara and strengthen trade with West Africa, which has the potential to either lead to a new incredible period for the Empire as it swallows West African gold in exchange for vast quantities of salt.

Overall, I think it risks the Western Empire to have this split, but an incredibly wealthy SRE could in turn spend that money in the Western Empire, making it wealthier, and stronger. The key is how much aid the SRE is providing the WRE, combined with its success at strengthening itself.

If you want to go really nuts however, you can still throw in a NRE - but that'll basically just be Britain, maybe Germania in the future, but for now, it'd be Britain. Which could change things as effectively Britain stands on its own, and the WRE could withdraw occupying forces whilst the vastly more important and powerful (in relative terms) British tribes replace them. That could really benefit the WRE, giving it more strength, and again, the NRE could provide assistance IF it can persist itself. The NRE I expect would more resemble an alliance of warlords wrangled by its Emperor, than anything else in the Empire, and could end up being governed radically differently. But with power and authority in all Britain, it is more likely to be ready and willing to conquer OTL Scotland and Ireland because it is in relative terms so much more important than it was to the WRE.

So yeah, you could have a North, South, East, and West, but not North and South on their own.
 
An actual tripartite repartition would probably look like IOTL happenances (either during the IIIrd century crisis, either as in the late IVth/early Vth) : Britain-Gaul-Spain, Africa-Italy-Illyricum, Greece-Anatolia-Oriens-Egypt.
Not that it was particularly viable, but it more or less divided the resources along the needs and political balance.
Whenever I come up with alternate divisions that's essentially the arrangement I use. The West/Occidens is still vulnerable to "collapse" and the East/Oriens seems likely to dominate over Central (Medians?)
 
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