The Visigothic Emperors of Rome: a different Roman Timeline

INTRODUCTION


Historians usually agree on considering October 10th 618 as the official date when the Eastern Roman Empire (also called Byzantine Empire) ceased to exist.

The Sassanid troops had made their way into the city of Constantinople only few days before [1] and the remaining Byzantine officers died when they desperately tried to fight the invaders. The last Eastern Roman Emperor, Heraclius, had tried to flee the city just before the Sassanids put the city under siege, but his fleet was intercepted at some unknown point in the Aegean Sea. His fate is still unknown today, but it’s unlikely that he could have survived for long, either imprisoned or not.


The walls of Constantinople, captured by the Sassanids in 618.

On October 10th, the Sassanid Emperor Khosrau II declared Constantinople and its surrounding area as a new part of his glorious Empire, wrapping up the last military action of the Sassanid-Byzantine War (602-618). The Persians had previously conquered and incorporated the former Byzantine provinces of Syria, Egypt and Anatolia, while the Avars and the Slavs had took advantage of the situation for raiding the Byzantine possessions in the Balkans, falling many of them under the expanding Kingdom of the Avars.

When Constantinople fell, the surviving Byzantine effectives that could escape from the Sassanids sheltered in the remaining Byzantine provinces in the West, now isolated territories deprived from the former imperial authority. Prior to the final collapse of the Empire, the war in the East had forced the Byzantines to abandon some Western provinces to their own fate. The last Byzantine strongholds in Southern Spain and Mauritania had been captured by the Visigothic Kingdom in 610, while most of Byzantine Italy had been falling under Lombard rule; Rome and its region (Latium) became an independent entity known as Duchy of Rome(where the Pope acted as Dux himself) after the fall of Ravenna. Other Byzantine enclaves subsisted as independent and isolated entities for a shorter or longer time; some of them established some sort of allegiance to different powers, including post-Byzantine Carthage, but all of them were finally annexed at some point.

After these events, the last Byzantine stronghold that survived the fall of Constantinople was the Exarchate of Africa. By 620, the Exarchate still controlled Northern Africa from Numidia to Tripolitania, as well as the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta and some territories in Southern Italy. However, most of this power was purely nominal. The Byzantines that managed to escape from the collapse in the East settled in Carthage, the capital of the Exarchate, as well as Eastern Sicily and other Byzantine cities in Southern Italy.

In 621, an officer called Eustatius became the effective ruler of the Exarchate after a local riot between diverse military factions. Officially, the head of the Exarchate was vacant since 617, when the last Exarch died battling a Berber incursion, and most of the territory was in the brink of total anarchy. Eustatius and his fellowmen managed to impose his rule over Carthage, but they could not enforce their authority in many parts of the former territory of the Exarchate, which had started to break apart, as some provinces refused to recognize the legitimacy of Eustatius as their new ruler. Thus, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Northern Sardinia and Numidia finally fell under the rule of different local powers, and Eustatius could not make anything to prevent this.

Eustatius reorganized the remnants of the former Byzantine troops and fought the militias that still tried to challenge his power. In 622, Eustatius requested Pope Boniface V to recognize him as the new Roman Emperor, but the Pope refused to do so; however, he accepted to recognize Eustatius as Supreme Consul of Carthage and thus, he legitimated his rule over the former Exarchate, which was renamed as Consulate of Carthage shortly after.

In 623, the Lombards conquered the semi-independent city of Naples, disconnecting Rome from the Consulate. The Pope requested military aid from the Consulate in order to secure the borders of the Duchy; however, the troops of the Consulate failed to expel the Lombards from Naples, and Rome became increasingly threatened by the Lombard advance from its Southern side.

Pope Boniface V realized that the Consulate was not able to provide the necessary aid and thus Rome would eventually fall under the Lombard advance sooner than later. It become pretty evident that Rome needed a different external power that could protect it against the Lombards, as Byzantium no longer existed and its heir entity, the Consulate, was still too weak for defending Rome from barbaric invasions.

The Pope and his council debated the available options. Byzantines excluded, there were only two foreign powers at that time that had adopted the Nicene Christianity: the Franks and the Visigoths. Other powers were completely ruled out, as the Papacy completely distrusted any power that was following an alternative belief.
The Franks would be the preferable option, as they had adopted the Nicene Christianity long time ago and they had a powerful army. However, the Franks were involved in a bloody civil war just at that moment, confronting the rival realms of Neustria and Austrasia [2]. So, the political situation in Francia prevented that the Franks could help Rome by that moment.

The second option was the Visigoths of Hispania. Visigoths had adopted Nicene Christianity recently (589) and thus, they were perceived by Rome to be not as trustable as Franks, not to say that their military power was more humble. The council of Rome was reluctant to look for their help and preferred to wait for a viable solution with the Franks; however, the Lombard advance was faster than expected, and Rome realized that they could not wait for long.


Liuva II, Visigothic King of Hispania.

Thus, in May 624 a Papal delegation was finally sent to the Visigoth port city of Tarraco, where King Liuva II [3] and other Visigothic noblemen were waiting for them…

[1] First PoD: After the fall of Chalcedon in 617, Sassanids are able to launch an attack and siege of Constantinople without peace negotiations. OTL the Persians had to withdraw troops from the area for supporting the invasion of Egypt, after a delay caused by failed peace negotiations.

[2] Second PoD: Chlothar II is not able to solve the tensions between the Frankish realms of Neustria and Austrasia and a civil war between them breaks out. OTL Chlothar II appointed his son Dagobert as King of Austrasia and avoided the crisis.

[3] Third PoD: Liuva II survives the coup of Witteric, who is executed. Liuva II consolidates the Catholic Kingdom of Toledo and avoids two decades of continued regicide and political instability. OTL Witteric deposed Liuva II in 603 and opened a period of great instability in the Visigothic Kingdom.

Map of the Consulate of Carthage and the Duchy of Rome:

In yellow, the area controlled by Eustatius in 624. The areas in pale light yellow officially belong to the Consulate, but they are no longer controlled by it after 621; the areas in light green are former Byzantine territories lost to the Lombards after 618.

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Good start. I hope this does not turn into a then they conquered that and then that like your Teutonic Tl/AAR.
 
CHAPTER I: THE ORIGIN OF A DYNASTY


Liuva II was crowned King of the Visigothic Hispania in 601, after the death of his father Reccared. He was only 18 years old, and he inherited a Kingdom still convulsed by the religious conflicts caused by the conversion of his father and other noblemen from Arianism to Nicene Christianity.

Liuva II survived a coup leaded by the general Witteric in 603, who was ultimately imprisoned and executed, as well as many other nobles that supported his faction. He married the noble Gelvira in 605; the couple had a total of five children, two sons and three daughters. After unveiling another plot against his rule, Liuva II urged the Visigothic nobles and the clergy to accept the official establishment of the dynastic succession to the Visigothic throne: even if since Leovigild the following kings had being electing their sons as successors, the current law did not prevent anyone from whatever Visigothic lineage to get accession to the throne, something that promoted continued attempts of regicide or deposition. The nobles did not support his petition at that moment though.


Visigothic money coined during the reign of Liuva II.

In 608 Liuva II launched a military campaign against the last Byzantine possessions in Southern Spain, taking advantage on the war between them and the Sassanids in the East. After two years, the last Byzantine strongholds were captured. Liuva II managed to retain some Byzantine ships at the strait of Gibraltar with some of their former crew, in order to establish the first core of a Visigothic navy, because the Visigoths lacked of a proper one until that moment, and Liuva II considered that they needed one to prevent eventual invasions and piracy.

They will use these ships just two years later, when Liuva II decided to expel the last Byzantine presence from the other side of the strait. Thus, the Visigoths captured Septa (Ceuta) in 612 and cleared the area from Byzantines up to the end of 613. In 614 the Visigoths also captured Rusaddir (Melilla), in order to prevent the Berber pirates to shelter in the city after the last Byzantines evacuated the city.
The success of the campaigns in the South and Northern Africa brought a lot of prestige to Liuva II. Once the Byzantines had been expelled from Hispania and Mauritania, Liuva II and his generals finally focused on the last territory of Hispania that was not controlled by Toledo: Vasconia. Departing from Victoriacum (Vitoria), the city that his grandfather Leovigild had founded in the southern side of Vasconia, Liuva II himself commanded an expedition to the still not subdued areas of the province. After the fall of Oiasso (Irún) in June 617, Vasconia was completely controlled by the Visigoths, which had finally unified all Hispania for the first time since the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Now that Liuva II had acquired an uncontested military prestige, the Visigothic nobles ceded to his petition of securing the throne for his own dynasty, putting an end to the traditional elective monarchy. Liuva II not only passed this law, but also some more that changed many of the structures of the state. In 618, the Kingdom was divided in ten provinces, each one governed by a Dux directly appointed by him: Gallaecia (Bracara Augusta / Braga), Asturia (Asturica Augusta / Astorga), Vasconia (Victoriacum / Vitoria), Lusitania (Emerita Augusta / Mérida), Carpetania (Toletum / Toledo), Baetica (Corduba / Córdoba), Carthaginensis (Carthago Nova / Cartagena), Tarraconensis (Tarraco/ Tarragona), Septimania (Narbo / Narbonne) and Mauritania (Septa / Ceuta).

In 623, after the Frankish Civil War broke out, the Visigoths supported the neutrality of the realm of Aquitaine, which started to distance itself from the conflict between Neustria and Austrasia and slowly approached an alliance with the Visigoths, fearing a military retaliation from Neustria if this realm was meant to win the war. Liuva II avoided to support neither Neustria nor Austrasia and preferred to increase the Visigothic influence over the noblemen of Aquitaine.

Historians say that Liuva II was quite surprised when he received a request from Pope Boniface V to attend a meeting with a delegation sent by the Holy See. Even if the Nicene Church had consolidated in the Kingdom during the previous decade, with little Arian resistance surviving in remote areas of Lusitania and Septimania, the Visigothic relations with the Papacy were still a bit cold and not very fluent, mainly because of the recent persistence of Arianism there.

The meeting point was set at the city of Tarraco, where the delegation could reach by ship from Rome without special danger. On May 9th 624, the Papal delegation arrived in Tarraco, where Liuva II and some loyal noblemen were waiting for them. King Liuva II and his fellowmen were not sure what did the Pope want from them, but they were aware that it should be very important.

The Papal delegation urged the Visigoths to help Rome against the dangerous advance of the Lombards. Liuva II and other nobles were very skeptical at first, because the Visigoths had not intervened in foreign wars for more than a century and their troops were not well trained for large scale operations. However, Liuva II finally envisioned a good opportunity for the Visigoths to achieve a privileged position inside Christian Europe: if they could save the Pope (this means also the Church), the Papacy will favor them in the future in any dispute they could have with other nations (especially, the Franks).

In a second meeting, at the end of the same year (but at an unknown place), Liuva II met Avitus, one of the best generals of Consul Eustatius of Carthage. The idea of Avitus was launching a co-ordinate attack against the Lombards staying in the area of Naples: the Visigothic troops sent to Rome would attack from the North while Carthaginian troops would attack from the South. Liuva II agreed with the plan and the troops were finally sent to Rome in April 625, when Lombards were only at 40 km south of Rome…

Map of the Visigothic Kingdom after 618:


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CHAPTER II: VISIGOTHS IN ITALY


Shortly after the arrival of the Visigothic troops in Rome by April 625, the Carthaginians commanded by Avitus attacked the Lombard garrisons in Naples, trying to force the Lombard troops moving northwards to retrocede for helping these garrisons.

The Lombards expected this attack, so their generals did not cancel the expedition to Rome and had disposed additional troops from the area of Pescara for repealing the Carthaginians in the South. However, they were very surprised by the presence of the Visigoths when they finally approached Rome. The Visigoths ambushed the Lombards in the coast and it was too late for them to retrocede; moreover, part of the Visigoths chased the Lombards back to Naples and joined the Carthaginians in the siege of the city.

After three months, the Lombards of Naples surrendered. New Visigothic troops arrived in Rome by October, just when Pope Boniface V died and Honorius succeeded him as Pope. Honorius begged the Visigoths to establish more defensible borders for the Duchy and secure a viable land connection between Rome and the Consulate through Naples.


Pope Honorius I.

The Visigoths were divided in two companies in 626: one commanded by general Suintila and disposed to the North and another commanded by general Sunna, who collaborated with the Carthaginians in the South. Up to 628, the Visigoths and the Carthaginians have cleared the area south of Naples from Lombard presence; the Lombards of Southern Italy, pressed by the joint forces of Visigoths and Carthaginians retreated to the area between Pescara and the Gargano peninsula, where they built some fortresses.
In the North, Suintila campaigned against the Lombards of the coastal area between Rome and the island of Elba. The Visigoths built an important fortress at Piombino, set to control the access to the northern coast of Latium. After the settlement of Visigoths in Piombino, the Carthaginian navy was able to relocate some ships to the Tuscan Archipelago, in order to reinforce by sea the vigilance of this part of the coast.

When Rome was considered out of imminent danger, King Liuva II allowed the heir Prince, Roderic, to lead a royal delegation that visited the city during the summer of 629. Roderic was 20 years old and he wanted to meet Pope Honorius in person. Honorius was truly grateful to the Visigoths, so he organized a very warm welcome to the Prince and his delegation. The Pope and the Roman noblemen were gratefully impressed by the Visigothic Prince, who was a very charismatic young man with remarkable diplomatic, politic and military abilities.

In 630, the Frankish Civil War ended after the ratification of the Compromise of Treveris (Trier) that supposed the definitive split between the Kingdom of Neustria and the Kingdom of Austrasia. Neustria, after assuming significant territorial loses, tried to compensate it through recovering its former control over Aquitaine. The pretty Latinized Aquitanian nobility, who had been increasingly emancipated from the Frankish control during the war, requested the support of the Visigoths against the Neustrian hostilities.

Liuva II considered his influence over Aquitaine to be strategically very important, so he accepted to fight the Neustrian Franks in the proper Gaul, for the first time since the defeat of Vouillé. This situation implied the withdrawal of troops from Italy for relocating them in Septimania. Pope Honorius and Consul Eustatius were very alarmed by this news, because they feared a Lombard counter-attack once the main bulk of Visigothic troops would depart from Italy.
Honorius considered that Rome (and also the Consulate) would not be permanently safe while the Lombards were still strong in Italy. The actual Visigothic presence in Italy was only worth for keeping a balance of power between the Lombards and Rome-Carthage, but was largely insufficient for pushing the Lombards out of Italy. Honorius and Eustatius agreed on the need of getting the Visigoths more involved in the safety of Rome and the Consulate, but they did not agree on the way to achieve that.

Honorius wanted to offer the title of Roman Emperor (vacant since the death of Heraclius in 618) to King Liuva II, as recognition of his important role defending Rome from the Lombards, and the will of the Roman people to keep him doing so. But Eustatius opposed the idea, as Liuva II was anyway perceived as a barbarian king not worthy for the Imperial scepter. Both men discussed the issue for weeks, without reaching any agreement.

The course of History made an important twist when the only son of Eustatius died at the beginning of 631, after falling from his horse when chasing a wild boar. Eustatius had great hopes for his son to become not only his successor as Consul, but a strong candidate for the vacant Imperial seat. After that disgrace, Eustatius redirected his ambitions to his young daughter Theodora; the Consul told the Pope that he did not accept Liuva II as Emperor, but he could accept his son, Prince Roderic, if the young prince would accept Theodora as his wife. Honorius had a good impression about Roderic, so he accepted the offer of Eustatius and both men sent a joint proposal to Liuva II.

Liuva II was surprised and skeptical about the proposal. It could be a great honor for his son to become Roman Emperor, but he had designed other ambitious plans for his son in Hispania. Liuva II debated the idea with his two sons. If Roderic would finally accept the Imperial title, he should reside in Rome, so the domestic affairs of the Visigothic Kingdom must be carried by the other son of Liuva II, Sisenand.

Before the final decision, Roderic travelled again to Rome in the autumn of 631 with the idea of meeting Theodora in person…
 
CHAPTER III: DEATH OF A KING


Prince Roderic met Theodora in Rome and agreed on marrying her the following spring. Meanwhile, he also accepted to visit Carthage and there he met Consul Eustatius, his future father-in-law. Roderic spent some weeks on knowing more about the administration of the Consulate and its growing military force, constantly enlarged thanks to the continued defection of former Byzantine forces from the Sassanid-dominated East.

Roderic and Theodora planned their marriage for early June, but they had to change their plans. While Roderic’s brother Sisenand was campaigning against the Neustrians in Aquitaine and Septimania, King Liuva II was assassinated on March 19th 632. The rebel count Akhila took advantage of the absence of Liuva’s sons to conspire against the King and claimed the Crown for himself.
Roderic, who was in Carthage at that moment, claimed the Visigothic Crown as legitimate heir, and the Carthaginians provided a fleet for him to travel back to Hispania for punishing Akhila and his fellowmen. Sisenand, who had just expelled the Neustrians from most of Aquitaine and had made the heir of the Duke to accept Liuva’s eldest daughter Egilo as his wife, commanded the loyal troops back to Tarraco, where the Dux of Tarraconensis had not supported Akhila’s coup, as well as the Duxes of Septimania, Vasconia and Mauritania.

When Roderic and the Carthaginians arrived in Tarraco, Sisenand and the loyal Visigothic noblemen that had sheltered in the city proclaimed Roderic as legitimate King of the Visigoths. Pope Honorius and Consul Eustatius reaffirmed it sending letters of support to Roderic and condemning the assassination of Liuva II in public speeches.
With the help of the Carthaginians, Roderic and Sisenand easily recaptured the entire coastline from Tarraco to Mauritania. However, Akhila and his loyal men stood strong at the inner Hispania. Sisenand was appointed as vice-king by Roderic and relocated the official royal see from Toledo to Tarraco; then, Roderic returned to Rome in September to marry Theodora. The Pope himself married the couple and blessed them in the name of all the (Nicene) Christians.

After the wedding, Honorius wanted to crown Roderic as new Emperor as soon as possible, but Roderic prioritized the recapture of the Hispanian territory under Akhila’s rule. In April 633, Eustatius ceded an important Carthaginian army to his son-in-law that was transferred to New Carthage by sea. Roderic commanded these troops from the South while his brother Sisenand commanded a group of loyal Visigothic troops from Tarraco; the two expeditions converged in the Tajo valley and after some campaigns in the area, put Toledo under siege. The former capital fell at the end of the year, but Akhila and his closest allies managed to escape to Mérida, the capital of the Lusitanian province.


The city of Toledo, capital of the Visigothic Kingdom until 633.

After facing logistic difficulties and lack of supplies, Sisenand returned to Tarraco, leaving one of his more loyal generals as new Dux of Carpetania. Roderic realized that the Western provinces were out of his control as the bulk of Akhila’s loyal men solidly controlled them. Despite having recaptured Toledo, Roderic was frustrated because he had failed to reinstate the power of his father over the whole Hispania.

Roderic, using the Carthaginian fleet, decided to tamper his frustration imposing his rule over the breakaway territories of the Balearic Islands and Corsica. In 634, the Carthaginian raided the islands and easily deposed the local chiefs that had usurped the authority of the Consulate during the previous decade. Eustatius ceded the Balearic Islands to Roderic and granted Corsica his own province with a Carthaginian Dux. After this, Roderic returned to Rome, where the Pope had ordered to build a new palace for him and his wife; shortly after, Theodora announced that she was pregnant of the future heir, Prince Theodosius Reccared.

In 635 the Sassanid Empire started a long war against the Arabs, which had adopted a new monotheistic religion called Islam. The war distracted the Sassanids from their western borders and some Greek vassal states took the chance of reframing his ties with Ctesiphon. The Consulate controlled by that time the Ionian Islands, where the Carthaginians had docked part of their navy in order to control any eventual move of the Sassanids into the Ioanian Sea. The little Greek state of Agrinio was virtually out of any Sassanid control and it finally declared its allegiance to Carthage in May 635, with the Carthaginian navy docking at its coast without any impediment; it was followed by another state, Aulon (Vlorë), where the Carthaginian navy of Apulia were just docking before without any Sassanid intervention. However, further similar moves, as Patras also tried afterwards (636) and also Ioannina (638) were halted by the Sassanid troops quartered at Athens.

In 636, the preparations of Roderic’s coronation were at their final stages. Roderic, Eustatius and Pope Honorius discussed the details of the new administration once the Empire was revived. The moment was propitious, as the Sassanids were very busy battling the Arabs and the Frankish kingdoms fighting again for the control of the Netherlands, so they expected little protests from foreign powers to the coronation of Roderic as new Roman Emperor…

Map of the Western Mediterranean in 636:

- In yellow, areas controlled by Roderic and his allies in 632.
- In light orange, areas recaptured in the campaigns of 634.
- In dark orange, area controlled by count Akhila.

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CHAPTER IV: RODERIC, EMPEROR OF THE ROMANS AND THE VISIGOTHS


Roderic was proclaimed ‘Emperor of the Romans and the Visigoths’ on 7th January 637. Pope Honorius crowned the new Emperor and graced him with the additional title of ‘Protector of the Christendom’ (implying Nicene Christendom), just to stress the new role of the restored Emperor as civil and military guardian of the Catholic Church.

Since 632, Rome was the only surviving Patriarchate of the traditional Pentarchy. Mardanshah, the Sassanid Emperor, had scrapped the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem between 630 an 632, and put all the official Christianity inside the Sassanid Empire under the authority of the new Patriarch of Ctesiphon, who was Miaphysite and always stood very close to the Imperial interests, trying to break the Eastern churches from the Catholic authority of Rome.

The Sassanids were too busy fighting the Muslim Arabs for paying attention to the revival of the Roman Empire in its new Visigothic Roman Empire (VRE) form. For them, the conjunction of the Consulate with the ‘weak’ Visigothic Kingdom only produced a minor power that was largely ignored as long as they would not try to expand eastwards from the Ionian Sea. Even if some tiny Greek states swapped from Sassanid allegiance to join the VRE, Ctesiphon did not worry much.

The Frankish kingdoms (Neustria and Austrasia) were hostile to the privilege granted by the Pope to the Visigoths and did not recognize the King of the Visigoths as Emperor, nor did the Lombards of Northern and Eastern Italy. Only the Duchy of Aquitaine recognized Roderic as Emperor outside the VRE.

The VRE was reorganized in 21 provinces, each one with its own Dux. However, this was not translated into a change of the real power balance. Sisenand still ruled most of Hispania de facto as he was Visigothic vice-king, as well as Eustatius, now Dux of Africa, still governed de facto over the former Carthaginian provinces. The Pope retained his title of Dux of Rome, now renamed Dux of Latium.
Eustatius suggested that the obsolete Roman Senate should be converted into a Provincial Senate, where the Duxes can send their own Senators as representatives. Roderic liked the idea and thus the Senate was revamped in 638. That year Honorius died and he was succeeded by Pope Severinus.



Pope Severinus.

In 639, a revolt boosted by spies sent by Sisenand to Mérida caused the death of rebel count Akhila. Without Akhila, Sisenand’s troops managed to recapture Mérida in the summer of 639 and the provinces of Gallaecia and Asturia during the following year. Sisenand died shortly after, probably by an outbreak of pest, and this caused an infinite sadness to the Emperor, who renamed the city of Bracara (capital of Gallaecia, where Sisenand died) as Sisenandopolis. Then, Roderic took the complete control of the Hispanic provinces.

Pope Severinus died as well in 640 and some other popes occupied the Holy See for short periods until Pope Theodore was elected in 642. Eustatius, the former Consul of Carthage and then Dux of Africa died the Christmas day of 642. After his death, Emperor Roderic got the direct control over the former Carthaginian provinces, unifying the administration of all the Imperial provinces, with the permanent exception of Latium.

In June 643, some Adriatic cities inhabited by Romans and Greeks requested the Imperial help against the continued Slavic raids. The most prominent of these cities was Epidaurum, in the lower Dalmatia. The Imperial fleet succeeded in protecting Epidaurum and they also recaptured Ascruvium, but were not able to secure the coastline of the lower Adriatic, victim of piracy and Slavic attacks. Roderic appointed a Dux only for these cities (Dux of Dalmatia), with see in Epidaurum.

The Lombards caused much trouble again during the winter of 644. Naples was put under siege once again and the Imperial troops suffered a lot pushing them back to Pescara. Roderic realized that the final conquest of Lombard Italy should be an absolute priority to him, now that Hispania was pacified.

But not only the Lombards wanted problems with the new Empire. Tensions rising between Neustria and Aquitaine led to a new attempt of Neustrian invasion of the Duchy in 645. Roderic launched two missions in the summer of that year: he ordered general Lucium to clear Italy of Lombards, at least south of Po River, and he offered the mission of fighting the Neustrians to general Anicetus

Map of the Visigothic Roman Empire in 645:

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ANNEX 1: THE SASSANID-ARAB WAR (635-651)


The Sassanids had been the dominant power in the East since the defeat of the Byzantines in 618. When Mardanshah was crowned Emperor in 628, the Empire extended from Thrace and the Aegean islands through Anatolia, the Middle East and the Iranian plateau until the Indus valley. The Sassanids also dominated Egypt, Cirenaica and the Eastern coast of Arabia, while Greece and Crimea remained as vassal states.

Mardanshah incorporated Athens, Crete and other minor Greek states into the Empire in 632, after abolishing the Patriarchates and accepting Miaphysitism as the only Christian branch officially backed by Ctesiphon. Thus, the Sassanids were trying to alienate their Christian subjects from any eventual influence from Rome (the only surviving Patriarchate outside the Sassanid Empire) and they have some success in Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, where Miaphysitism was accepted prior the Sassanid invasion, while Greece and Anatolia resisted embracing Miaphysitism.

Even if the Sassanids thought that they had resolved the religious conflicts in their Christian dominions, they were surprised by the outbreak of Islam in Western Arabia. As early as 630, an Islamic expedition was barred to reach Eastern Arabia. Tensions between the Muslims and the Sassanids rose until 635, when finally the Arabs decided to attack Mesopotamia and put Ctesiphon under siege.

The Sassanid-Arab War (635-651) was divided in two phases: during the first one (635-644) the Arabs managed to capture important Sassanid cities in Mesopotamia and Egypt, including Alexandria (642). But in the second phase, the Sassanids extended along the Nubian coast of the Red Sea and therefore launched a massive attack against Medina and Mecca in 645; Medina was virtually destroyed and most of the Arab forces fled to Yemen. Ctesiphon was cleared of Arab threats in 648, Alexandria was recaptured one year later and finally the Arabs surrendered after the battle of Mocca (651).

The War caused much damage to the Empire but, at the end, the Sassanids enlarged their borders through the Nile Valley and Western Arabia. However, the relocation of military force to the Red Sea area caused a more relaxed control over Greece, allowing the Visigothic Roman Empire to extend its influence over there. Also the Slavs pushed the Sassanids out of many outposts in the Balkans.
From 651 onwards, Islam was tolerated by the Sassanids in Western Arabia, Yemen and some coastal areas in Africa were the Sassanids boosted Arab immigration. However, as in the case of Christians, the See of the Caliphate was relocated to Ctesiphon, and the Caliphs were subdued to a direct control of the Sassanid Emperor, just like the Patriarch of Ctesiphon.

Map of the Sassanid Empire after the end of the Sassanid-Arab War (651):

- In pink, areas controlled by Ctesiphon.
- In lilac, vassal entities.
- In yellow, Visigothic Roman Empire.

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CHAPTER V: CHANGES IN THE GERMANIC WORLD


The Visigothic Roman Emperor Roderic expected that Lucium could wipe the Lombards south of the Po River, but the campaign was pretty unsuccessful. The Lombards stood very strong at the Pescara-Gargano area and it was very challenging for the Romans to try to push them out of there.

More successful was Anicetus against the Neustrians, expelling them from the southern side of the Garonne valley in 647. Clovis II, the Frankish King of the Neustrians, was reluctant to extend the war against the VRE because he wanted to focus on their long-standing conflicts with Austrasia; thus, in 648 he proposed to divide the Duchy of Aquitaine between the two powers: Neustria would gain the part north of the Garonne (an area which de facto controlled) and the VRE could incorporate the southern part, which was more Latinized and supportive of the Visigothic Roman alliance. Chilperic, Duke of Aquitaine, agreed (to be fair, he had no option) on becoming the Dux of the new VR province of Aquitania.

After signing the definitive treaty of Tours (649), which defined a stable border between the Kingdom of Neustria and the VRE, the Neustrians swapped from being an enemy of the Visigoths to be their allies against the Kingdom of Austrasia. One of the projects of Roderic was connecting Septimania and Latium by land to secure the coastline between Hispania and Italy. Austrasia loosely controlled Provence since the Frankish Civil war and when the Neustrians attacked Austrasia once again (summer 650), the VRE launched the invasion of Provence from Septimania (by land) and they also docked the Imperial navy in Marseille. However, the Visigoths and Romans found little resistance there and they appointed a local Roman noble as Dux of Provence, the 24th province of the VRE.

Neustria finally crushed the Kingdom of Austrasia in 652 and annexed a significant part of its territory. Clovis II renamed the resulting entity as Kingdom of France, as it encompassed all the Frankish territories from the Rhineland to the Atlantic. The borders between France and the VRE were ratified again by the Treaty of Lyon in 653.


Tomb of Clovis II, first King of reunited France.

Anyway, the dramatic expansion of the Kingdom of Saxony under the rule of Berthoald prevented a Frankish dominion over Germany. The Saxons started to expand southwards in 652, acquiring the easternmost territories of the defunct Austrasia that the Neustrians could not control. They subdued the minor Kingdom of Bavaria at the end of 653 and after this they expelled the northern Lombards out of the Alps. In 655, after a harsh battle, the Lombards also lost the Friuli in Saxon hands and many Lombard people was forced to abandon the plains next to the Adriatic, seeking refuge in the Po valley. Finally, the Saxons also defeated the Avars in 656 and annexed the western part of their Kingdom.

The Saxons were pagan and had resisted diverse attempts of conversion to Christianity. Their quick expansion from northern Germany to the Upper Danube and the Alps caused great concern for both Franks and Visigothic Romans. The Franks succeeded in barring them to enter the Rhineland in 655, but the VRE feared that they could eventually replace the Lombards in Italy. Both Roderic and Pope Martinus considered that the Saxons could become a more serious danger for the VRE than the Lombards.

Meanwhile, a former soldier called Romulus Aecius commanded a popular agitation in Carthage against the ‘Germanic-oriented’ policies of the Empire that had cornered the affairs of Roman Africa, which was living a period of continued Berber raids that were approaching the city of Carthage more and more. Roderic gave Lucium the chance of redeeming of his failure in Lombardy and the general succeeded this time in crushing the rebellion; however, social agitation caused by increasing lack of safety (raids, revolts, threats of foreign invasions…) was rampant by 655.

Roderic insisted in improving the Imperial army and the navy. The Empire still received a considerable extra military force from Greece that had been defecting from the Sassanid Empire since the fall of Constantinople. But this was not enough for coping with all the threats: Epidaurum was ransacked by the Slavs in 656 and the Empire lost the control of Rusaddir in 657 (even if it was recovered in 660).

Anicetus advised Roderic that stronger borders were necessary in areas like Africa, Italy and the Adriatic. But Roderic would not be able to do anything as he died in 661. Prince Theodosius Reccared, who was 26 years old, was crowned Emperor by Pope Vitalianus the last day of November 661.

Map of the Germanic Kingdoms in Western and Central Europe (645-656):

- Red solid borders: situation in 645.
- Coloured transparent borders: situation in 656.

Neust.png
 
CHAPTER VI: CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE


Emperor Theodosius Reccared had been raised in the court of Rome, so, unlike his father, he ignored many of the customs of a Visigothic ruler, prevailing his Latin education over his Gothic character. In order to prevent an eventual breakup in the fidelity of the Visigothic provinces, the mentor of Theodosius Reccared, Visigothic-Roman Sunna, called two of the most prestigious Visigothic generals, Khindasvint and Ataulf, to instruct the Emperor about Visigothic customs and military.

Theodosius Reccared had previously married Roman noblewoman Lucila Emiliana and the couple had four children, three sons and one daughter; but only one son, Aecius Leovigild, survived his infancy and became Prince. Theodosius had very polished manners and a classical education in philosophy and literature, but he had also an important military experience.

The new Emperor changed some of the foreign policies of his defunct father. He refused to launch further land campaigns against the Lombards in Italy and preferred to expand and enhance the Roman influence through the east coast of the Adriatic Sea.

After the bloody Great Persecution (662-663) conducted by the Sassanids against several rebellious Greek states, many people fled from Greece and settled in the east Adriatic. This flow of human workforce and military forces towards the Adriatic helped the Romans to ensure their recovered dominion over there.

The main achievement was the resettlement of the abandoned city of Salona, the former Dalmatian capital that remained empty since the Slavs raided it, as they had done with many other cities in the area. During the reign of Theodosius Reccared, a total of fourteen cities were resettled with Greek refugees, and a strong net of safe ports with city fortresses was built from Aulon to Salona. This last city recovered its former title of capital of Dalmatia in 675, while Aulon became the provisional capital of another reconstructed province, Epirus.

The second main achievement of Theodosius Reccared was the recapture of the city of Genoa in 680, and subsequently the control of all Liguria. Genoa had been controlled by the Lombards since 619, but after the tragic defeat of the Friulian Lombards against the Saxons in 655 the city received a lot of Friulian Lombard refugees that severely altered the delicate balance of powers that existed in the city between two confronted factions of Ligurian Lombards.

After the public assassination of Ratchis, the Lombard governor of Genoa in 678 (it was supposedly killed by the Friulians, because they considered that Ratchis discriminated them), several violent riots broke out and every new governor appointed was eventually assassinated. The vicar of Genoa called the Romans in Corsica for help, so the Imperial navy arrived in the city in 679. After eight months of fights and sieges, the Lombard rule of the city succumbed and the surviving Lombards fled to the Po Valley. Liguria became the 26th province of the VRE in 681; two years later the Piombino garrison finally secured a road between the fortress and Liguria, thus allowing the first land connection (by road) between Hispania and Italy.

In the religious side, Theodosius Reccared had to confront the revival of Donatism in Africa. Donatists had been persecuted and expelled from Roman Africa. Mauritania had managed to be cleared of them but the western regions of the Province of Africa were still full of heretics. The problem was aggravated since 672, when a Donatist bishop called Mauritius took control of the local church in the important city of Hippone. The former bishop had been accused of serious offences, and Mauritius took advantage of the situation to displace him before revealing his support to Donatism. Many people in Hippone, fed up with the attitude of previous Catholic bishops, accepted him and defended him against the retaliation of the archbishop of Carthage. The Catholic Church begged the Emperor to assault Hippone in 674 and capture Mauritius, but Theodosius was afraid that this action could outrage the Donatists in Africa.


The old city of Hippone.


The Emperor opted for a less aggressive solution and requested the governor of Hippone to expel Mauritius from the city, unless he would want the city to be either besieged or occupied by the Imperial army. The governor reluctantly accepted the order but, instead of expelling Mauritius, the bishop was allowed to shelter in an abandoned chapel. From this chapel, he still acted as a spiritual leader in the shadow and his influence destabilized the entire province west of Carthage.

At the end, the Emperor decided to send general Khindasvint to Hippone for punishing the Donatists. The city was ransacked and burnt, and therefore it lost half of its population. Most of the Donatists, including Mauritius, looked for refuge in the neighboring Berber states, where Donatism was tolerated. Hippone was repopulated with Greek refugees and since then, the Greek population increased, slowly but solidly, its presence in Africa.

Outside the Empire, the Saxons managed to evict the Franks from the Lower Countries. The Kingdom of Saxony also continued its expansion through the Oder valley, displacing other German and Slav peoples to the East. However, the Avars avoided further Saxon expansion by the Danube area; the southern borders stayed at the Friuli plains in the west but expanded through the upper Sava valley by the east.

Theodosius Reccared died in 685. The causes of his death were not clear, and some people thought that he could have been poisoned. Prince Aecius Leovigild, who was 24 years old at that time, was crowned Emperor shortly after his father’s death.
 
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Great Timeline Very interesting :). I wonder how the Sassanids are Holding out, having such a large empire, cracks are bound to show.
 
Great Timeline Very interesting :). I wonder how the Sassanids are Holding out, having such a large empire, cracks are bound to show.

Thanks :)

Yes, I will post another Annex regarding the Sassanids. As you say, their Empire is very big and ruling it is very challenging, so different problems are set to come up :D
 
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