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I have an extremly passing familiarity with the Byzantine Empire and its history. As odd as it sounds I always found it hard to get into it partly because I am unaware of good sources or primers on the Byzantine Empire (any suggestions are welcome) and I'm much more of a Western Empire kinda guy but this is neither here nor there.

I gather that the Byzantines were relatively stable, certainly better off than their Western Empire cousins for a long time until the coming of the Seljuk Turks and a strong ME in general that always put pressure on Byzantium. What if we remove that factor? Say the ME was as much of a mess as it is now with infighting and technology regressed factions on their border giing Byzantium an easy time on that front without much pressure. In your opinion What would the ultimate fate of the Byzantine Empire be? Would they rise again as a new Rome? Would they get swallowed up by the more aggressive Europeans? Would they still be around today in one form or another? Would they have fallen anyway due to circumstances I have not taken into account?

Also because I don't want to make things too easy for them let's assume the Crusades go as scheduled but due to the neutered arab world I just created the Crusader states survive for some time but are never more powerful than they were historically.

I realize this is a very broad question but I thought it might be a fun thought exercise to get me interested in reading up on their history.

Empires that are bordered with weak enemies expand, otherwise they do not. There is no single nation that, up until the 11th century, can stand up to the combined focus of the Byzantine Empire. If you remove one of the threats to their frontiers, they would aggressively expand. The reconquer Europe mentality and the claims to the lost lands were never abandoned, so in effect you just recreated the perfect conditions for a Byzantine reconquista.

Other than that, I am at a loss of how to respond to this post and I kinda have to wonder what its got to do with history, because this is so far counterfactual that it is impossible to draw specific conclusions.

That said, historically, a strong Empire, even when surrounded by weaker states, always created capable antagonists in the end. Sometimes it took over 200 years, but eventually they will show up. So you may have given the Byzantines 100-200 years of easy conquest. Which should be pretty enough for them to recover the western portion of the empire, with the only nations that might remain independent being the Franks, English etc. Note that this starts with Justinian.


If you just meant to wait until the Seljuk turks show up and then remove the ME, this whole thing makes no sense, but in this case the western world is too strongly entrenched for the Byzantines. Most likely they would focus on the Levante and Egypt instead.

Thanas wrote:
If you just meant to wait until the Seljuk turks show up and then remove the ME, this whole thing makes no sense, but in this case the western world is too strongly entrenched for the Byzantines. Most likely they would focus on the Levante and Egypt instead.

Is there any reason why the Western world is considered as more entrenched than the Middle Eastern world?

Because he explicitly talks about removing the ME threat in this scenario, thereby making them per definition less entrenched?

Thanas wrote:Because he explicitly talks about removing the ME threat in this scenario, thereby making them per definition less entrenched?

Ah my mistake. I thought that you are talking about it in the actual historical context, which made me quite curious.

I apologize if this scenario doesn't belong here. If someone wants to move it to OT that's more than fine by me. This turns out to be a purely what if scenario but was more interested in the discussion of potential historical ramifications to Byzantium removing the biggest thorn in their side. Though I have to ask considering how the Third (?) Crusade manhandled the Byzantines and actually seized Constantinople whether the idea of them taking Europe would be feasible. I understand they don't have the Turks breathing down their necks but they still have to deal with a highly militarized Europe and just because the Turks are no longer there doesn't mean they can leave their Eastern provinces ungarrisoned.

I'm not really sure the Crusades as we know them would've taken place in such a counterfactual. Historically Byzantium expanded in the late 10th/early 11th centuries in the ME under John Tzimiskes and Basil II, to their largest gains since Heraclius. With a much more disorganized, perhaps incompetent Arab Muslim world, its possible the Byzantines may well retake all of Palestine (including Jerusalem) making the Crusades redundant.

Most Byzantine counterfactuals that assume a neutered Arab world start with the premise that Islam never comes into being (or is crushed early on by Heraclius). A neutered, disorganized, incompetent Arab Muslim world wouldn't cause any Crusades to come into being.

If the Middle-East was calm and Islam weak, the turks stay in central Asia, and the kingdoms of Western Europe, never launched the Crusades, the pression of the Slavs in the Danube border and Tracia, never existed; maybe the Roman Empire would rocupy their previous provinces and survive until today.

But all of this is a fantasy: the world of East Europe and Middle-East was full of wars, dinasties and countries fighting, religious wars roaming, and, despite the Roman Empire is still a great power (defeated several times the Arabs, the Bulgarians, their naval power was great, their administrative and military organization was sound and was rich) he was surrounded by enemies, and this enemies gained power (population, organized armies, organized state and coesion) progressively, and the Roman Empire loosed power progressively.

By the way and a bit of-topic (sorry ): im using the term "Roman Empire" on purpose.
Never existed anything called Byzantine Empire. The people that lived in the empire called themselves Romans and the empire was called Roman Empire (called Eastern Roman Empire till the fall of the Western Roman Empire).
Only the other europeans mock them caling them Greeks (what was an ofense for the people of the Empire).
And the term "byzantine" only apeared after the fall of Constantinopla: if you called someone of the empire, "byzantine" he didnt recognize that term.

Typo wrote:By the way and a bit of-topic (sorry ): im using the term "Roman Empire" on purpose.
Never existed anything called Byzantine Empire. The people that lived in the empire called themselves Romans and the empire was called Roman Empire (called Eastern Roman Empire till the fall of the Western Roman Empire).
Only the other europeans mock them caling them Greeks (what was an ofense for the people of the Empire).
And the term "byzantine" only apeared after the fall of Constantinopla: if you called someone of the empire, "byzantine" he didnt recognize that term.

Ah, you are one of those guys.

You are aware though that it is a term used by every respected historian to denote the empire after the Death of Justinian? No need to lecture us on the fact that the Byzantines never called themselves that. If you want to get technical here, the Spartans also never called themselves Spartans.

One of those guys?
Hmmm...

I dont like to call an orange, apple.
If other people see an apple and call it an orange, they are free of doing that, isnt correct, but they can.

And im not talking about Spartans , Sapartiates, Equals ("Homoioi"), Lacedemonians, Laconians or whatever.

Sorry for the off-topic Stravo.

Typo wrote:One of those guys?
Hmmm...

I dont like to call an orange, apple.
If other people see an apple and call it an orange, they are free of doing that, isnt correct, but they can.

Of course it is correct. Who are you to tell the entire historians of the past 200 years that their usage of a specific terminus technicus is incorrect? Do you fancy of having more qualifications than, say, John Haldon?

Nevertheless the term "byzantine" is quite inadequate to identify the surviving part of the Roman Empire.
People only call "Byzantine Empire" because around the XVIth century they start to identify the defunct empire (rip 1453) has "byzantine".

What is the sense to gave the name "Byzantine Empire" to the Roman Empire, that survived with his new capital at Constantinopla?
Byzantium conquered by the Romans, and later - under Constantinus - disapeared, and was replaced by Constantinopla.

It is to me quite awckard to name an empire with the name of one of his conquered subjects or city...

Typo wrote:Nevertheless the term "byzantine" is quite inadequate to identify the surviving part of the Roman Empire.

Why?

People only call "Byzantine Empire" because around the XVIth century they start to identify the defunct empire (rip 1453) has "byzantine".

What is the sense to gave the name "Byzantine Empire" to the Roman Empire, that survived with his new capital at Constantinopla?

Constantinople or Constantinopolis, not -pla. And it is - as I said - a terminus technicus to distinguish the Empire post Justinian to the Roman Empire, which it did not really resemble anymore. The structure, ideology etc. is completely different from the Empire of Augustus, Marc Aurel, Aurelian and even from that of Constantine. So we kinda need a term for that because writing "Roman Empire post 641" is too long and unwieldy a term.


Byzantium conquered by the Romans, and later - under Constantinus - disapeared, and was replaced by Constantinopla.

It is to me quite awckard to name an empire with the name of one of his conquered subjects or city...[/quote]

The thing about counterfactuals like this is that you run history so far off course that it becomes impossible to make any kind of informed predictions. Just as an example, if you take Islam out of the picture, the Byzantines hold the Levant and North Africa (including Egypt) and are obviously a much stronger power going forward. But that also means that their oldest enemy, the Persian Empire, is never destroyed by the Arabs, either. For all we know, the Persians could have gone on a good run while the Byzantines got mired in incompetent dynasties and civil wars, and Byzantine history might have ended with the Sassanid Emperor standing in the smoking ruins of the Hagia Sophia two hundred years later.

RedImperator wrote:The thing about counterfactuals like this is that you run history so far off course that it becomes impossible to make any kind of informed predictions. Just as an example, if you take Islam out of the picture, the Byzantines hold the Levant and North Africa (including Egypt) and are obviously a much stronger power going forward. But that also means that their oldest enemy, the Persian Empire, is never destroyed by the Arabs, either. For all we know, the Persians could have gone on a good run while the Byzantines got mired in incompetent dynasties and civil wars, and Byzantine history might have ended with the Sassanid Emperor standing in the smoking ruins of the Hagia Sophia two hundred years later.

IIRC (and Thanas or anyone else can certainly correct me on this) Persia was in much worse shape after the Byzantine-Persian War than Byzantium was.

I don't think its enough for Islam to not exist or the Arab Muslims (assuming Islam does exist in such a scenario) to be neutered for Byzantium to be able to concentrate on the West. There's still going to be religious differences between Chalcedonian Constantinople and the Monophysitism of the provinces, and its going to be a perpetual struggle to reconcile those beliefs, as well as avoiding pissing off the Bishop of Rome with the heretical compromise du jour (monothletism, for example).

Cecelia5578 wrote:IIRC (and Thanas or anyone else can certainly correct me on this) Persia was in much worse shape after the Byzantine-Persian War than Byzantium was.

Yeah, the Persians would have needed a long time to recover from that. The infighting was what made it possible for the arabs to appear in Persia in the first place. That said, without external pressure I have no doubt the Persians would eventually have recovered. It comes down to whether the Byzantines use that period effectively. If they manage to fend off the Balkan threat in that time, they are in a good position to leverage that into further gains in the east.

I don't think its enough for Islam to not exist or the Arab Muslims (assuming Islam does exist in such a scenario) to be neutered for Byzantium to be able to concentrate on the West. There's still going to be religious differences between Chalcedonian Constantinople and the Monophysitism of the provinces, and its going to be a perpetual struggle to reconcile those beliefs, as well as avoiding pissing off the Bishop of Rome with the heretical compromise du jour (monothletism, for example).

The religious difference could, if necessary, be settled the old-fashioned way. At this time the Pope was in no position to actually effectively threaten the Emperor. That said, of course this would take energy etc, but let us not forget that the empire lived through far worse religious disputes.

The Persians always seemed to bounce back, though. The Romans kicked the shit out of the Parthians, and all they got for their trouble in the long run was the Sassanids.

RedImperator wrote:The Persians always seemed to bounce back, though. The Romans kicked the shit out of the Parthians, and all they got for their trouble in the long run was the Sassanids.

Different situation. At the time you had a semi-independent state with fresh structures, great rulers and a lot of money/troops to spend, which was poised to take over. This is not the case with the situation after their loss in the war.

Also, the Romans had gained a lot of territory (mesopotamia, for once) during the decline of the Parthian Empire and had Alexander Severus acted decisively, it is definitely not assured that Shapur would have made any gains at all. Of course, if the Emperor choses to attend to domestic matters and lets the Sassanids ran unchecked for over three years....

Thanas, how big of a role did Byzantine politics (no pun intended) play in their various ebbs and flows of power? Were their expansions and contractions mainly driven from within or were they reactions to outside action? I have the impression that their politics was quite lively and occasionally bloody, but how much impact did that have on the external relations and strength of the empire?

Depends on the time period and the administration and much too large a question to answer on a webboard. Sorry.

Typo wrote: By the way and a bit of-topic (sorry ): im using the term "Roman Empire" on purpose.
Never existed anything called Byzantine Empire. The people that lived in the empire called themselves Romans and the empire was called Roman Empire (called Eastern Roman Empire till the fall of the Western Roman Empire).
Only the other europeans mock them caling them Greeks (what was an ofense for the people of the Empire).
And the term "byzantine" only apeared after the fall of Constantinopla: if you called someone of the empire, "byzantine" he didnt recognize that term.

...in short [pare dose].

You should use the term Greek Empire. It's more appropriate.
Spoiler Byzantium fell NOT because of the Ottomans, but because of the machinations and attacks of the Catholic Church who plotted its demise and even outright attacked and sacked Constantinople in the 4th Crusade. Byzantium was hated by the Catholics more than it was hated by the Muslims. Do not underestimate the power of GREED & ENVY.

First of all: Nice necro on a thread over a year old.

Logicomix wrote:

Typo wrote: By the way and a bit of-topic (sorry ): im using the term "Roman Empire" on purpose.
Never existed anything called Byzantine Empire. The people that lived in the empire called themselves Romans and the empire was called Roman Empire (called Eastern Roman Empire till the fall of the Western Roman Empire).
Only the other europeans mock them caling them Greeks (what was an ofense for the people of the Empire).
And the term "byzantine" only apeared after the fall of Constantinopla: if you called someone of the empire, "byzantine" he didnt recognize that term.

...in short [pare dose].

You should use the term Greek Empire. It's more appropriate.

Do you know what they called themselves? Do you know what their titles were?
Spoiler Yeah, I am going to take your word over that of Ostrogorsky, of course. Get bent. You got no case for a "Greek" Empire except of those of nationalist propaganda.

Byzantium fell NOT because of the Ottomans, but because of the machinations and attacks of the Catholic Church who plotted its demise and even outright attacked and sacked Constantinople in the 4th Crusade. Byzantium was hated by the Catholics more than it was hated by the Muslims. Do not underestimate the power of GREED & ENVY.

You will of course cite sources for that now. Sources and analysis by respectable historians.

One might suspect you were some kind of greek nationalist conspiracy idiot by your posts.

Byzantium was hated by the Catholics more than it was hated by the Muslims.

From what I've read, which isn't a great deal, this is precisely the opposite of what the situation was; the Byzantines hated the Western Church more than the Muslims.

I think we had a more specifically defined counter-factual ("What if there was no Mohammed, and therefore no Islam?") discussed in a much earlier thread that was close to the OP's scenario. The closest we came to a consensus was that the Arabs were rich, and tribal confederations had existed before. One of these might have still popped up and overwhelmed the Persian Empire, but it's unlikely that they would have been able to both defeat the Byzantines and expand/consolidate their holdings in the way the muslim Arabs did in real life.

Frank Hipper wrote:

Byzantium was hated by the Catholics more than it was hated by the Muslims.

From what I've read, which isn't a great deal, this is precisely the opposite of what the situation was; the Byzantines hated the Western Church more than the Muslims.

There was no love lost on either side, but it is worth mentioning the pope called for several crusades against the Ottoman and the Italian city states were the best defenders of Constantinople when it came down to the siege.

Like all issues in history, it is a bit more onedimensional than "they hated each other".