WI: Theophano dies instead of Romanos II

[Deleted member 67076]

Romanos II is best known as Basil II's father, who died suddenly at 21. Depending on who you ask, it was either by a disease or his wife poisoning him. Either way, his death in 963 at paved the way for his wife to manipulate court at home, and lead to the ascension of emperors John and Nicephorus Phocas.

So lets assume Theophano indeed poisoned him and instead have Theophano suddenly die. What happens next?

Does Romanos continue the tradition of having powerful generals while he manages things at home? And what are the knock off effects now that Nicephorus Phocas and John Tzizmikes don't have their immediate path to the purple? And of course, what happens to young Basil?

 

[Deleted member 67076]

Bump.

 

[Vasilas]

If I recall right, Romanos denied Phokas a triumph after Crete, and this probably does not bode well for the Empire. He's not exactly described to be someone who inspires confidence, and his skepticism about the generals will certainly not make him many friends. I suspect a coup by the Phokas/Tzimiskes clan to seize the purple sometime in the mid to late 960s, assuming they did not get Bringas to ally with them and flat out poison Romanos.

This can go in a few ways: the coup can fail against the walls of Constantinople, people in the city really liked Macedonians and status quo is reached in a bit after Phokas gets offed by his men/Tzimiskes. The coup can also succeed in which case we'll likely see more of the same (Phokas marrying one of Constantine VII's daughters) except Basil will be off to Mt Athos or such, if his corpse does not float up on the Propontis. Byzantine expansionism in the East is probably finished as by the time they can recover, the Fatimids will probably have reached Syria.

If they go by the poisoning route, again much the same except that Basil probably remains as puppet emperor and things mostly go the same way as OTL. Of course another coup in the future can go differently with Tzimiskes/Scleros/Phokas etc, and he might wind up dead or in monastic life as well.

If in the unlikely event Romanos actually plays a balanced game of keeping generals happy while not risking his place, I see things going pretty great for the Empire. The First Bulgarian Empire is on the way out, and some Rus-Byzantine alliance to take it down will work. The East also has lots of good pickings, though I think Romanos will intentionally hobble the generals there just a bit so that they dont get too big for their non-purple boots.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

It's difficult to say, I'd suggest, as we don't know an awful lot about the character of Romanos II. I think he'd probably try to continue the policies of his father and grandfather in attempting to control the eastern Dynatoi as his sons did IOTL, but it's difficult to say how effective he'd be in this, or what form it would take.

Basil II, of course, broke the generals by defeating the revolts of Phokas and Skleros, and then avoiding the temptation to get involved in entanglements in Syria and Mesopotamia- but maybe a surviving Romanos tries to overcome them by taking to the field himself in the east in the absence of any effective Caliphal power in the region? This would likely mean much less of a focus on Bulgaria, and perhaps the survival of the First Bulgarian Empire until a considerably later date. Maybe the Rus are brought to Christianity by the Bulgars, rather than the Byzantines?

 

[Avrorrange]

Assuming Romanos maintained his rule,would Basil even turn out as well as he did?I was under the impression that Basil's competence had a lot to do with observing a lot from the sidelines and having to survive various strongmen.

 

[Deleted member 67076]

Hmm, would it be possible for an accord to be reached with Romanos and his generals for all 3 to be allied with each other?