What if: Both Romes fall in the 5th century?

[johnreiter]

This was inspired by the short story "Eutopia" by Poul Anderson, specifically the world of Westland which he describes. Briefly, it is a world were both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires fell, and Western civilization grew entirely from Germanic and Slavic roots with little-or-no Latin or Greek influences.

I love the setting, but I didn't like the POD, which was that the Arabs captured Constantinople in 718. To me, this is too late, and also more likely to lead to a Muslim dominated world. So I tracked down a POD which I liked better, and then roughed out a timeline describing how the Eastern Roman Empire could fall in the 5th century at the same time as the Western Roman Empire.

the POD is in 447 AD. Attila the Hun is sacking the Balkans, and making his way to Constantinople. Normally, the Huns would be no threat to the city, due to it's unbreachable walls. However, this year a violent earthquake has collapsed part of the walls, leaving the city vulnerable. IOTL, Attila did not reach Constantinople in time to take advantage of this. Flavius Zeno delayed him while Flavius Constantinus rebuilt the walls. ITTL, Attila is able to quickly crush Zeno in a decisive battle, and then reaches Constantinople where there are still huge gaps in the walls. The Huns sack the city, and then force the citizens to raze the walls so that they will have no protection against future attacks.

In 449, Emperor Marcian (who came to the throne earlier ITTL due to the events of the sack) sponsors revolts against the Huns by the Ostrogoths and Gepids, and begins trying to rebuild the walls. However, these revolts are quickly crushed, and the outraged Attila sweeps over the Balkans again, taking everything, and sacking Constantinople a second time, worse than the first, killing Marcian. Later, while drunkenly celebrating his victory, Attila dies from a blood clot in his brain, and the Hunnic Empire devolves into chaos.

Over the next 15 years, problems hail down on the Byzantines. The Ostrogoths, Rugians, Sciri, Heruli, and Gepids all rise up in revolt, claiming land for themselves. Aspar the Alan soon seizes power in Constantinople, deposing the current weak, puppet emperor, and proclaims himself King of Greece. Zeno the Isaurian refuses to acknowledge his rule and leads a revolt in Asia Minor. The Persians take advantage of Byzantine weakness and invade from the East. The pagan Blemmyes invade Egypt, sacking and pillaging, but Bishop Dioscorus I is able to seize power in Alexandria and use his considerable influence to organize a defense, becoming the de facto ruler of lower Egypt. Finally, the Goths invade the Balkans led by Theodoric Strabo, trying to carve out his own kingdom in opposition to his kinsman Theoderic the Great.

What would the future of this timeline look like? There will be no conquests of Justinian the Great, probably no Council of Chalcedon, and no Papal States. The Persian Wars will be more of a Persian stomp, since there is no organized resistance against them. OTOH, Persia may suffer their own Barbarian invasions, since Byzantium no longer exists as a barrier to protect them from the chaos in Europe. And what would happen to the Muslim conquest ITTL? Would they still be able to conquer Persia, of it was not weakened by years of war with the Romans?

 

[Aluma]

Oh my God, you're my kindred spirit here!

I commented this on a thread before but thats actually what I thought OTL was when I was a child(among other things like Augustus living long enough to meet Jesus instead of Herod)

My brainstorming trying to make sense of my school lessons based on that was that with Constantinople being destroyed by the huns and Rome being taken by the germans(who I thought were pagan, as I didnt knew Arianism existed) the Church was the only roman institution left, who promply converted the germanic tribes who took the place of Rome(both western & eastern) and thus became the dominant arbiter power in the post-roman Europe as said tribes divided the land among themselves(thus kickstarting Feudalism) with disputes over said land being resolved through tournaments and church-sanctioned wars and the most powerful landlord of all being crowned the Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope who acted as the power behind the throne as every single institution in the New Order was controlled directly or indirectly by the Catholic Church, thus making the whole continent a giant Holy Roman Empire

With this organization ending only after the Crusades led to the destruction of the Middle East(Manifest Destiny style) and the Black Death which pretty much wiped out most of Europe and from the ruins of the Church's Empire rose the Enlightement(which I thought to be synonymous with the Renaissance) that in turn led to the european colonization of the Americas and control over the rest of the world

Wacky world I lived in, I know

But I wonder of something similar might have happened in your scenario?

Minus the obvious parallelisms of course

 

[Viking25]

My brainstorming trying to make sense of my school lessons based on that was that with Constantinople being destroyed by the huns and Rome being taken by the germans(who I thought were pagan, as I didnt knew Arianism existed) the Church was the only roman institution left, who promply converted the germanic tribes who took the place of Rome(both western & eastern) and thus became the dominant arbiter power in the post-roman Europe as said tribes divided the land among themselves(thus kickstarting Feudalism) with disputes over said land being resolved through tournaments and church-sanctioned wars and the most powerful landlord of all being crowned the Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope who acted as the power behind the throne as every single institution in the New Order was controlled directly or indirectly by the Catholic Church, thus making the whole continent a giant Holy Roman Empire

Meanwhile the Holy Roman Empire in OTL could barely hold on to Northern Italy lol

 

[Aluma]

Meanwhile the Holy Roman Empire in OTL could barely hold on to Northern Italy lol

And was just a very balkanized Germany larping a bit
Then again I overestimated Rome as well, I thought they ruled everything west of China up to Great Britain from the time of Jesus all the way to the reign of Nero like those romaboo "Caesar is the new Alexander" wanks

 

[johnreiter]

the Church was the only roman institution left, who promply converted the germanic tribes who took the place of Rome(both western & eastern) and thus became the dominant arbiter power in the post-roman Europe as said tribes divided the land among themselves(thus kickstarting Feudalism) with disputes over said land being resolved through tournaments and church-sanctioned wars and the most powerful landlord of all being crowned the Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope who acted as the power behind the throne as every single institution in the New Order

with no Papal States, and no council of Chalcedon, I think we would see a much more decentralized church in the middle ages, with no ecumenical patriarch. Arianism would survive, and there would probably be many sects of Christianity. I doubt there would be a Holy Roman Empire at all. In general, the Germans tended to look down on the centralization and imperial power of the Roman Emperors, believing instead that all freemen should be equal under the law and kings subject to the will of the Great Moot.

EDIT: Your timeline does sound interesting though. It reminds me of one I made up where the Catholic Church does even better in the investiture controversy and breaks the power of the feudal nobility.

 

[Aluma]

In any case if Byzantium fell I dont see a ostrogoth conquest of Italy when they're already in the East and could claim to be liberating roman lands from the huns

So I'd say - Visigoth Iberia, Vandal Africa, Frankish Gaul, Ostrogoth Greece and Odoacer remains King of Italy

Europe most likely adopts Arianism as the official version of Christianity in this case without a very big west-east schism

Kinda how I thought Christianity worked as a kid as well, I mean I didnt know Arianism existed like I said but I thought the whole "Jesus is the Son of God but not God" was the standard then

Likely with the slavs arriving later like you said to carve their own chunk there

I think in this case Islam(to say nothing of Muhammed's birth) most likely is butterflied without so much of a byzantine presence on Arabia increasing the contact with abrahamic religions but something like it might arise from the zeitgeist of pre islamic arabic religions, perhaps with more persian influence this time around

This is another thing that I thought to be logical then, with Persia taking the fall of Rome as a opportunity to invade formerly roman lands including Egypt & the Holy land and then the arabs doing the same it made sense to me at the time to believe that the Crusades were this extreme continent wide overreaction of Christian Europe wanting to wipe out the middle east

With Baphomet being some kind of Arab Moloch that was brought back to Europe alongside the riches stolen from the East that led to the Renaissance, instead of - you know - some bullcrap King Philip of France came up with

with no Papal States, and no council of Chalcedon, I think we would see a much more decentralized church in the middle ages, with no ecumenical patriarch. Arianism would survive, and there would probably be many sects of Christianity. I doubt there would be a Holy Roman Empire at all. In general, the Germans tended to look down on the centralization and imperial power of the Roman Emperors, believing instead that all freemen should be equal under the law and kings subject to the will of the Great Moot.

Yeah I dont see the Pope realistically existing as well, but I do think a nominally "First Among Equals" patriarch would exist like in Orthodoxy and might use his wealth to grow his influence over time
As for the HRE, agreed it'd be butterflied, but I could see a "Emperor of Europe/Rome" being crowned as a mostly ceremonial position while Europe itselt remains decentralized like I thought it happened

 

[Aluma]

EDIT: Your timeline does sound interesting though. It reminds me of one I made up where the Catholic Church does even better in the investiture controversy an

Just saw your edit now
Must say I love the idea, I have a weakspot for TLs in which the Church or some other non-state institution becomes stronger and anything closer to the world I was led to believe I lived in(mostly due to pop culture) utterly fascinates me

 

[Viking25]

And was just a very balkanized Germany larping a bit

Meanwhile the Pope was being casually defied, deposed and straight up murdered whenever his choice for the new bishop of Whothefuckcaresburg was different from the local kings.

 

[JanWellem]

Interestingly enough a world where Eastern Rome falls in the 5th century is also a world where Italy avoids Justinian's Gothic Wars and thus remains more Roman than IOTL. An Odoacer ruled Kingdom of Italy would likely have seen its' Germanic elites fully integrate into the Roman ones unlike Theodoric's Ostrogoths sent by Zeno, who deliberately chose not to. Without the destructions of the Gothic Wars Rome would most likely also have remained way more populous throughout the 6th century (> 100'000) than it did IOTL (with < 20'000). At some point one of Odoacer successors as King of Italy will have the pretentions to take on the mantle of the Roman Empire and style himself Rex Italiae et Romanorum Imperator. A fall of eastern Rome would also mean a survival of the Vandal Kingdom in Carthage. I wonder how such a kingdom might have developped if given another century or two. Might they take on the mantle of ancient Carthage and become great competitors to a Kingdom of Italy taking on the mantle of ancient Rome? Now wouldn't that be history repeating itself.

 

[Melvin Spivak]

I wonder if the collapse of the ere would allow the Sassanids to restore the Achaemenid borders

 

[johnreiter]

A fall of eastern Rome would also mean a survival of the Vandal Kingdom in Carthage. I wonder how such a kingdom might have developped if given another century or two. Might they take on the mantle of ancient Carthage and become great competitors to a Kingdom of Italy taking on the mantle of ancient Rome? Now wouldn't that be history repeating itself.

If the Vandal Kingdom had not been conquered by Justinian, would they have lasted a long time?

 

[anotherlurker]

I wonder if the collapse of the ere would allow the Sassanids to restore the Achaemenid borders

There's no organized power between Mesopotamia and the Atlantic that could put up a serious fight against Persia in this scenario, but Persia is not a maritime state and overreach is a thing. Greece largley stopped being militarily relevant centuries ago, with Persia owning Constantinople the rest of Greece falls naturally to them and the same cultural syncretism would be at work there fusing greek and persian culture just as it had done in Anatolia in previous centuries. Persian cultural influence will generally penetrate much deeper into Europe. Egypt too is a very low effort conquest with immense financial gains to the empire.

But with Persia owning the southern half of the Balkans it will inevitably inherit the Danubian frontier with its constant crises caused by migrating slavic and central asian tribes. With Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia they have the financial means to deal with it better than the Byzantines, but the ability to act and react is a lot worse due to the centralized political power being in Persia some 2000 kilometers away. I could see them periodically losing large parts of Greece to barbarians and reconquering it again, over and over. They could give more autonomy to local governors or satraps to deal with such things, but that just gives money and an army into the hands of someone who could get the idea that he'd make a great king himself.

I don't see them going much further than Cyrenica or the bottom of the italian boot with the limitations of technology and government at the time.

 

[Conan]

I wonder what will happen to Christianity in the Persian empire ITTL. After all, part of the reason it was sometimes cracked down on by Persian emperors was because Christianity was associated with Rome due it being the official religion of the latter. Here, not only is the empire gone (the Eastern half, at least) but it hasn't technically even been a full century since Christianity became the official religion of Rome before the collapse of the Roman East.

 

[Zenevidas]

I wonder what languages will stick around and which go extinct

 

[Analytical Engine]

I wonder what languages will stick around and which go extinct

Greek's almost certainly sticking around (though not necessarily to the same extent) - it's weathered being in many, many different empires over the centuries.

 

[Whiteshore]

I wonder if the collapse of the ere would allow the Sassanids to restore the Achaemenid borders

I mean, even IOTL, the Sassanids came quite close to achieving it in the Final War before Heraclius defeated them, so there's that.

 

[Kurd Gossemer]

I wonder what will happen to Christianity in the Persian empire ITTL. After all, part of the reason it was sometimes cracked down on by Persian emperors was because Christianity was associated with Rome due it being the official religion of the latter. Here, not only is the empire gone (the Eastern half, at least) but it hasn't technically even been a full century since Christianity became the official religion of Rome before the collapse of the Roman East.

Most likely we'll see it settle and thrive in the Middle East given how it is not associated with the enemy as well as being a faith that shares many things with Zoroastrianism which makes me wonder that if Christianity starts to grow on the Persian Core lands we couldn't see a civil war of sorts as the Magi feel threatened by the religion or an Shah converts and tries to pull a Justinian only to face serious resistance from the Priests who incite revolt against him with Sartraps picking sides based on who they think can offer them a good deal.


Alternatively, they could do like my MCP did in a Roman Succession Game I'm in(where it's sadly on hiatus) where he became Christian in order to better centralize the realm by removing the Magi and Priest class from their positions of powers as well as not having to patronize their temples anymore instead having a Christian Church who's Patriarch all but answered to him, therefore increasing his legitimacy as the Shah is now seen as appointed by God and therefore to try and overthrow him is a act of blasphemy.

 

[Kurd Gossemer]

There's no organized power between Mesopotamia and the Atlantic that could put up a serious fight against Persia in this scenario, but Persia is not a maritime state and overreach is a thing. Greece largley stopped being militarily relevant centuries ago, with Persia owning Constantinople the rest of Greece falls naturally to them and the same cultural syncretism would be at work there fusing greek and persian culture just as it had done in Anatolia in previous centuries. Persian cultural influence will generally penetrate much deeper into Europe. Egypt too is a very low effort conquest with immense financial gains to the empire.

But with Persia owning the southern half of the Balkans it will inevitably inherit the Danubian frontier with its constant crises caused by migrating slavic and central asian tribes. With Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia they have the financial means to deal with it better than the Byzantines, but the ability to act and react is a lot worse due to the centralized political power being in Persia some 2000 kilometers away. I could see them periodically losing large parts of Greece to barbarians and reconquering it again, over and over. They could give more autonomy to local governors or satraps to deal with such things, but that just gives money and an army into the hands of someone who could get the idea that he'd make a great king himself.

I don't see them going much further than Cyrenica or the bottom of the italian boot with the limitations of technology and government at the time.

Honestly I'd say the Persians having the border at Adrianople or the Maritsa river would be ideal for them, fortify the shit out of that area and essentially bottleneck anyone trying to invade from the north or west and since Constantinople is very defensible, they get another massive fortress just across the Bosphorus to help them out in case Thrace falls.

Either way, the Persians essentially enter a golden age here where they're the sole power of the Middle East again and stand powerful and looming against all. This empire is definitely now falling to Arab invasions.

 

[Domz]

This was inspired by the short story "Eutopia" by Poul Anderson, specifically the world of Westland which he describes. Briefly, it is a world were both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires fell, and Western civilization grew entirely from Germanic and Slavic roots with little-or-no Latin or Greek influences.

I love the setting, but I didn't like the POD, which was that the Arabs captured Constantinople in 718. To me, this is too late, and also more likely to lead to a Muslim dominated world. So I tracked down a POD which I liked better, and then roughed out a timeline describing how the Eastern Roman Empire could fall in the 5th century at the same time as the Western Roman Empire.

the POD is in 447 AD. Attila the Hun is sacking the Balkans, and making his way to Constantinople. Normally, the Huns would be no threat to the city, due to it's unbreachable walls. However, this year a violent earthquake has collapsed part of the walls, leaving the city vulnerable. IOTL, Attila did not reach Constantinople in time to take advantage of this. Flavius Zeno delayed him while Flavius Constantinus rebuilt the walls. ITTL, Attila is able to quickly crush Zeno in a decisive battle, and then reaches Constantinople where there are still huge gaps in the walls. The Huns sack the city, and then force the citizens to raze the walls so that they will have no protection against future attacks.

In 449, Emperor Marcian (who came to the throne earlier ITTL due to the events of the sack) sponsors revolts against the Huns by the Ostrogoths and Gepids, and begins trying to rebuild the walls. However, these revolts are quickly crushed, and the outraged Attila sweeps over the Balkans again, taking everything, and sacking Constantinople a second time, worse than the first, killing Marcian. Later, while drunkenly celebrating his victory, Attila dies from a blood clot in his brain, and the Hunnic Empire devolves into chaos.

Over the next 15 years, problems hail down on the Byzantines. The Ostrogoths, Rugians, Sciri, Heruli, and Gepids all rise up in revolt, claiming land for themselves. Aspar the Alan soon seizes power in Constantinople, deposing the current weak, puppet emperor, and proclaims himself King of Greece. Zeno the Isaurian refuses the acknowledge his rule and leads a revolt in Asia Minor. The Persians take advantage of Byzantine weakness and invade from the East. The pagan Blemmyes invade Egypt, sacking and pillaging, but Bishop Dioscorus I is able to seize power in Alexandria and use his considerable influence to organize a defense, becoming the de facto ruler of lower Egypt. Finally, the Goths invade the Balkans led by Theodoric Strabo, trying to carve out his own kingdom in opposition to his kinsman Theoderic the Great.

What would the future of this timeline look like? There will be no conquests of Justinian the Great, probably no Council of Chalcedon, and no Papal States. The Persian Wars will be more of a Persian stomp, since there is no organized resistance against them. OTOH, Persia may suffer their own Barbarian invasions, since Byzantium no longer exists as a barrier to protect them from the chaos in Europe. And what would happen to the Muslim conquest ITTL? Would they still be able to conquer Persia, of it was not weakened by years of war with the Romans?

5th century Byzantium, according to Sean Gabb, was in a golden age. It was already the richest portion of the empire (Gabb argues that a major factor of why the Western Empire fell was because the Eastern Empire gave up funding the West's defenses since all the wealth was in the East). It successfully got the barbarians out of the elite in the East. No foreign invader would successfully besiege Constantinople until 1204. The East also had a bunch of very good to competent emperors during this period, particularily Anastasius I (r. 491-518). If Justinian didn't embark on his campaigns of conquest, it's possible that this Eastern golden age could have lasted longer and the Byzantine Dark Ages might not have happened. Therefore while it's possible that the East falls in the early 5th century, it's overall unlikely. Also, who knows? Maybe the West survives while the East collapses, even if that's unlikely but possible if you roll the dice of alternate history.

When barbarians come to rich regions, they tend to mostly assimilate into their respective civilizations instead of destroying it altogether. In the histories of many civilizations, there's always a foreign dynasty that becomes the ruler who then gradually assimulates into the greater culture. You see this in Ancient Egypt, Yuan China, pre-modern Thailand and Laos, as well as pre-476 Rome. Even prior to the end of the West, the Romans altogether were fairly successful in assimulating Germanic peoples into the empire. Even after Western Rome fell in 476, Odoacer and the later Ostrogoths essentially Romanized and Italy basically continued to be a prosperous region, which would last until Justinian's disasterous Italian campaigns of the 6th century that finally brought Italy into the Dark Ages. You also see examples of this Romanization to various extents among the Barbarian kings of France, Spain, and North Africa. It is arguably only in England in which Roman civilization almost completely disappears following the end of the Western Empire. Most barbarians therefore never exterminated anybody or forced people to adopt their nomadic customs unlike what old school Western historians want you to think of Europe post-476.

 

[Silver01]

Depending on when Kavad could actually just fully abandon greater khorasan and transoxinia, also the vast wealth from the east could mean Kavad and khosrow do not push for their reforms to Deal with the issues of Iran why bother creating the deqans or hurry up in making up a consistent tax base or even a standing army when one can use the ere as recourse pool