Deleted member 93645
With the Black Sea lowering travel times, and the center of the later empire being Constantinople, could the Romans have conquered the Caucasus region for a long period of time and Romanized the area?
WI: Roman Caucasus?
I think the best choice is a more saner Nero. Quoting the wikipidia "In 67, Emperor Nero prepared a military expedition to conquer for Rome all the northern shores of the Black sea from Georgia-Azerbaijan to what is now Romania-Moldavia, but his death stopped the project. For this reason he probably put Taurica under direct Roman rule and created the Charax castrum.[6] He extended the Roman province of Lower Moesia to Tyras, Olbia and Taurica (the peninsula of Crimea)." the late empire has a purely defensive posture you see only loss of territory in the third century onwards you can say that the empire has lost the zest for conquest, emperors do not need to be conqueror to have legitimacy.
You probably have to get direct Roman control of Armenia first, which shouldn't be too difficult, as long as the Romans have the motivation to dedicate the time and resources that such a massive encroachment on what the Parthians considered their sphere (or a co-sphere at least) of influence).
Deleted member 93645
That's an interesting idea. Direct connection to Dacia could allow its Latinized population (eventually) to settle in the Caucasus, as well as the Hellenized population of Greece and Anatolia.
Well, Septimius Severus and Caracalla had intentions to expand in the early third century.
Direct connection means nothing here. Shortest and only reasonable way is still to take a ship as always. Between the Crimea and the Caucasus were just a few smaller greek harbor cities anyways. Who cares, if they are fully independent or civitates foederatae?
However, Corbulos campaign under Nero's reign makes a lot of sense. Iberia was already a longterm roman client kingdom. And you know what happens with roman client kingdoms, don't you?. Especially with defaulting clients like Iberia.
But I also agree, that an annexion of the Caucasus does'nt make sense without a province of Armenia. And this means a different policy in the East. Which is plausibly possible. No doubt about that.
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Perhaps if Trajan survives a little longer? His conquest of Parthia is unlikely to result in long-term Roman occupation of that nation, but one of the butterflies from his successors' ATL attempts to hold on to the territory could be Roman settlement of the Caucasus.
Yes, if Hadrian decides to hold at least Armenia, which was already lost partially when Trajan departed, the connection with the client kingdoms in the Caucasus (Colchis, Iberia, Albania) becomes closer and finally might lead to an annexion by strategic or whatever reasons.
That does not mean, that Hadrian has to hold the province of Mesopotamia, which was just North-Mesopotamia or tries to keep Trajan's parthian client king on the throne in Ctesiphon. Just Armenia is crucial, if we are talking about the Caucasus.
Hadrian might say: Ok, we go back behind the Euphrat. But we keep the always disputed Armenia, because the former solutions never worked. The parthians might be not amused. But might accept it for now after some more lost battles.
Yes, it does seem a plausible step for Hadrian to take (assuming he is Trajan's successor in this atl).
It also works out as a compromise of sorts to mollify critics of his abandoning territory.
I don't know, but I got the impression that the Romans weren't too lucky at conquering the mountainous areas, holding them and especially at romanizing them.
So, having that in mind the Romans wouldn't jump at the idea to conquer the whole Caucasus region.
They would probably think: "Oooh, nooo... the mountains... again... what the..."
But some juicy sweet territories might get conquered if opportunity arises, actually some did get snatched in OTL by the Romans/Byzantines.
Actually, they did very well in the Alpes and all other mountains I know of (despite the Tauros Mountains).
However I agree, that romanization in the Caucasus is not very probable. In the East of the empire usually the greek culture and language was spread. Latin and roman culture was not more than a 2nd class thing. The greeks even rejected to become roman citizens, despite the few local nobles who needed to do so. Other than in the barbarian West, the Greeks saw no benefit in becoming a roman. Consequently, when Caracalla introduced the roman citizen rights for everyone, the west was rather unimpacted. They almost all were romans already. But for the rich East it meant just more taxes as a roman and a citizenship they never asked for.
So I guess the Caucasus becomes hellenized not romanized. At least not that much. Or call it "romanized the eastern way".
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Regardless of whether Romanization means Latinization or Hellenization, I still imagine such a rugged region would be culturally distinct for centuries.
This analysis is good. In this context hellenisation will assist the Ere after Heraclius' reforms. Although I don't think the Roman Caucasus will survive Attila the Hun. IIRC his first target was Parthia through the Caucasus and Armenia.
On the other hand, a caucasus directly controlled by Rome allows for them to easily fortify it. Whereas OTL, Hunnic hordes had to actually break through the Caucasus before the Romans and Persians agreed on jointly fortifying the them from external invaders.
Really the greatest advantages of a Roman Caucasus is that it provides a great base of operations for invasions into Persia. Direct access to the Caspian Sea would enable Roman forces to invade more than just Mesopotamia, land routes into the Iranian plateau, and solid defences for Anatolia. Any invasion of the Roman Empire by the Persians would need to take the Caucasus into account. Invade by the desert, you need to protect against a mountainous counterattack, that could completely destroy your invading forces logistics. Invade the mountains, there are good defensive fortifications, and you risk a counterattack into the riches of Mesopotamia from Roman Syria. It turns a one front war into a two/three front war.
Hellenization is the call of the day, most likely. Probably an interesting blend of Armenian and Pontic Greek taking dominance. The area is also a prime place to send conquered families. Couple of mini-Hadrians and the Caucasus and Armenia become a central part of any eastern strategy. The initial conquest and fortification may be costly, but the long term operating cost could be lower than Britain, or substantially more worthwhile. I'd love to see Roman marines sacking Persian cities on the Caspian Sea.
Hellenization is the call of the day, most likely. Probably an interesting blend of Armenian and Pontic Greek taking dominance. The area is also a prime place to send conquered families. Couple of mini-Hadrians and the Caucasus and Armenia become a central part of any eastern strategy. The initial conquest and fortification may be costly, but the long term operating cost could be lower than Britain, or substantially more worthwhile. I'd love to see Roman marines sacking Persian cities on the Caspian Sea.
Access through the Caspian Sea is interesting. It might also lead to the development of Roman trade links in Central Asia, with the possibility of bypassing Parthia in the Silk Road.
Might the Romans have silk smuggled to them successfully centuries earlier?
I don't see why not, short of the Persians working to isolate the Romans on the Caspian Sea.
Certainly they will do so, which could take shape in many different forms. On the one hand the expanded frontier favours the Romans in their ongoing 'cold war' with the Parthians. But I wouldn't rule out Parthian expansion into Central Asia if Roman Caucasus proves too direct a target. This could have very interesting butterflies down the centuries.