As the tin says, the Arabs are contained to the Arabian Peninsula by the Byzantines and the Persians. How would Egypt, Carthage and the Holy Land develop under continued Byzantine rule ? Would they have become increasingly Hellenized and Orthodox over time ? What impact does retaining 4 Patriarchates have for Byzantium and the Orthodox Church ?
How would Egypt, Carthage and the Holy Land have developed under continued Byzantine rule?
- Thread starter Sevarics
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kholieken
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A lot would depend on what religious doctrine spread at that time ? In otl Islam and Iconoclasm is issue for several hundred years. In this atl effect of surviving persia and other patriarcies would cause another religious issue, i think to centralize (with Hellenization and Orthodoxi) would cause resistance.
Roman North Africa had tendencies of secessionism. IE look at Stotzas, Guntharic and Gregory the Patrician. This was one of the long lasting legacies of the otherwise short-lived Vandalic Kingdom. The Vandals promoted a sense of African-ness amongst the subject population, bringing back symbols from the days of ancient Carthage on their coinage, creating a new Carthaginian calendar and supporting poets who waxed on about Africa. The imperial Romans in the east saw the Romanized Africans as descended from the Romans as themselves but long since diverged to a different culture. Likewise the Africans did not see eye to eye. Why do I bring this up? Assuming that the Islamic invasions never occur, somewhere down the line, an ambitious enough general will break off and form his own state. Might even invade Egypt or parts of Italy as well.
Most of the rebellions you mentioned happened in the early years of reconquest.Gregory the Patrician happened when the empire was half dead,and they were trying to takeover the imperial throne in the same style of Heraclius.
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i would disagree i mean 3 rebellions in 100 years does not mark me as secessionist tendencies, especially Gregory who most likely did it because of a combination of reasons also from the sources we have we don't know if Gregory wanted to create his own state or saw himself as the legitimate emperor since after all he was related to Heraclius
also gregory despite the empire been in terrible condition still feared reprisal from Constans so why is this not rebellion
in fact if anyone conquers anything IMO and hence why I put it in my timeline its the berbers who were raiding more and consolidating the the confederations were getting more powerful I mean in the otl with out berber help I don't think north Africa resistance would have lasted that long
Monothelisim would be the norm of the imperial system since Islam does not happen Heraclius is remembered as one of the greatest roman emperors to live so he will have the popularity to push it , which also depends a lot of what happened in the Balkans and Italy both of these without Islam are likely unconquered but the west was always opposed to Monothelisim so over the 7th century it would create a conflict between ... please or eastern or western subjects I personally took the road of making it heresy but like iconoclasm it returns
as for Judea something i reference in my timeline later since I did not know about this Heraclius is going to attempt to ethnically cleanse the Jews from Palestine he mostly did out of political reasons not religious I do see a period of massacres and forced conversions from major cities like the jews of eddessa but not the extermination of them all no , since the chirstians of the east and west would have seen this a terrible since Christians apocalyptical view was that some Jews must remain until the end of time
The Greeks of Alexandria and other coastal areas like Cyrene would remain in a position of power and privilege. The long term effects of this would vary; I could see the Alexandrian Greeks eventually overthrown by some sort of native revolt or revolution, while Cyrenaica could theoretically totally Hellenize given the empire were stable and prosperous for a while (for once in its life).
an egyptian rebellion is less likely unless the romans adopt a policy of open persecution of the copts
That is not a legacy of the Vandals. First of all Stotzas was neither a Vandal nor a Roman from Africa, so it is unlikely that this supposed legacy would have influenced him. Second of all, unrest in Africa was nothing new. Already before the Vandals you had Domitius Alexander, Gildos, Heraclianus (not Heraclius) and Bonifatius. Finally, the issue of Donatism was finally gone by this point in time, making Roman rule in the region easier. The Romans in Africa were as Romans as everyone else in the empire, willing to welcome back imperial rule when given the change (Carthage towards the end of the VII century), not “Africans” or “Carthaginian”.
another thing to consider based on the drought of 638 and pressure Arab migrations might occur in 640s , 650s some have said this could lead to the conquest of Syria and the levant I personally do not belive this seeing as how unlike the germanic migrations loosing these provinces would be crucial and the united caliphate nearly avoided disaster many times so a less organized push IMO would be crushed
Wait what? This is the first I'm hearing of this.
Yeah they were very loyal to the Romans.
Yeah I don't see the Eastern Romans sitting idly by while Egypt is exposed in such a scenario.
Such a rebellion isn't really realistic. The Greco-Egyptian elite have been in power since basically the days of Alexander, so I doubt anyone would overthrow them.
Yep first time I heard of that was when I was in page 17 of heirs of heraclius essentially after the byzantine sassnids war heraclius was pissed do the rebellion he massacred the population of Jews in Jerusalem and forced them to be oustred from the city heraclius by some sources wanted to covert all the Jews but all's his actions were only on those living in the levant and northern mesopotamia
Considering the state of the Empire in the 640s and 650s in OTL, I think it likely that the Arabs would make inroads. A decentralized effort is much harder to beat back than a concentrated attack and the ERE is facing trouble on multiple fronts (Africa, the Balkans, Italy), not to mention trouble in the eastern provinces due to Heraclius' religious policies. While the collapsing Sassanid Empire would definitely drain away much of the pressure, the factors that supported Arab migration out of the peninsula would make full on containment impossible imo. Islam or not, the ERE will have to deal with incursions, raids and migrations and their competence in handling these will determine wherever they can weather the storm or experience what the WRE did a century and a half earlier.
i also think they would make inroads but not conquer anything big , in the lot because they defeated many byzantine armies even though they nearly did and that was the united effort of the caliphate, I would not say a decentralized effort is harder for one than the roman empire dealt with the tribes well even until the fall and the germanic tribes were more than the Arabian ones that and the Arabs can also go Mesopotamia.
also, why is the east in danger due to Heraclius' religious policies if by that you mean the myth that the copts embraced the Arabs as liberators I can only say there is no evidence for this and modern academia has rejected the idea
Also unlike the west, the east fell mostly due to fedorati taking advantage of the civil war and even playing a role in them this is not the case with the east, Heraclius' legacy was strong enough that Constans II despite being a boy and the empire being gutted the instant Valentinus attempted to take the throne from the young Constans II he was lynched, the only big rebellion of his reign was Gregory rebellion, and he was only killed was a rumor came about, in a world were Heraclius dies as Hero this would mean Constans II position is secure indefinitely unless he does a major screw up.
Also the migrations would likely being in 640s not in 633 like the otl which gives the Romans 20 years to recover rather than 5 they had so an empire recovers for an extra decade with Heraclius , Constans II another competent emperor takes the throne and what happens next is butterflies
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This is true if the Arabs would be attacking on different fronts (like the Germanic invasions of the V century), instead they are all coming from the same place. Decentralization would help, not hinder the Romans.
I was under the impression that Heraclius' religious policies were making some inroads in the East at least.
Incursions, migrations and raids were nothing new to the ERE. Those things were already there since the III century, Justinian and his successors had to deal with large scale assaults on its Eastern provinces from Arabs tribes (first from Persia' allies, then from its very own allies). So the Romans definitely had experience with decentralized attacks on its Arab frontier. Everything can still go wrong, given the exhausted state of the empire, but given its preexisting experience with this sort of attacks I think the Romans would stand a better chance against them here, especially if they resume their policy of cooperation with and concessions to border tribes (a policy discharged by Justin II and later on Maurice).
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You mean like the Germanic tribes attacked from only one front aka the Rhine-Danube? Not to mention that the frontier with the Arab Peninsular is harder to control and patrol as there is no clear geographic boundary to ease said control. Plus this assumes that all Arab tribes would take only one route into Syria or Palestine, which was not the case OTL and would not be the case ITTL. Especially since Sassanid Persia is collapsing there is reason to predict that Arab tribes could and would attack along the entire frontier.
While his policies did make inroads and the claims of unrest are overblown, the situation in Egypt, Palestine and Syria was not entirely stable. And while it is hard to predict what would happen, it certainly does not help the Roman position in the east.
Having experience and doing the right thing in a specific situation are two different things. Yes, the ERE had experience with Arab incursions, but these were on a smaller scale than those of the 7th Century would be and largely coming from sources easier to deal with. Which is what I was saying. It depends on how the ERE handles the situation and there are imo large number of possible outcomes that range from "pretty much perfect" to "utterly disastrous".
I did not even consider that a good example would be the crossing of the rhine while alaric was running in italy while some
While most of the arabs would be attacking Palestine like the early muslims, with maybe some going to syria ( in the otl the attack on syria was risk calculated on khalid since he had to cross a barren part of the desert and it could have ended in disaster for him)
Why exactly would the Migrations come so much later? Just the drought? Islam wasn't the sole factor that drove the Arabs out of the Peninsula and imo there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't hit the Empire around the same time. And while Islam definitely helped, it was nowhere near the force it would be decades later. Early Islam was a fragile thing and very different from the one that would drive the Turk and Ghazi Warriors of later centuries.
I didn't say the East was in danger due to his policies, but that they did cause trouble. Which is a logical consequence of state policy being implemented in the provinces. While not threatening per se, they were a potential source of trouble should Imperial attention be focused elsewhere.
This is also a bit of an overestimation of Heraclius' position. The guy was a Usurper, who had severely worsened the course of the last great war no less, and barely managed to come out victorious. His position isn't unassailable and bad luck on the military frontier is often a good source of discontent. And didn't Constans II. get his throne thanks to Valentinus? He raised the boy to the throne after pushing Heraklonas off it which shows that the Dynasty was not as secure as might be assumed.
Also last but not least, and this is mostly meant in jest, never underestimate the ability of the Romans to start civil wars at the worst possible times.