What about the Avars ? Manpower is not the only factor here. To cause severe enough problems for the Byzantines that they give a large amount of wealth in tribute, and to be enough of a problem that it took Charlemagne a major campaign to defeat them with the resources of empire behind him....
The Byzantines and Charlemagne could only tap a fraction of the military and financial resources of this Roman Empire, and Charlemagne only a fraction of the military efficiency of the Roman legions. We must keep this standard into mind. Having mentioned that, I assume that this Roman Empire, having successfully repelled the Hun breakout just the previous century, and having steadily expanded in European Russia before and since that, would have efficient standing policies in place to deal effectively with yet another nomad confederation encroaching into Roman territory. In all likelihood, the Avars were nowhere the level of threat that the Huns were, so they would be dispatched effectively. A major military campaign, sure, but not one that would seriously tax the Empire. I suppose the Avars might deserve their own mention in the TL, as a significant major campaign, but nothing more. They are a relatively minor speed bump for this Roman Empire.
In order to give some coverage to the Avars, I've edited the TL thusly:
"6th Century: Roman expansion in Eastern Sarmatia continues as the Empire faces and successfully repels the encroachment in southern Sarmatia by another Central Asian nomad confederation, the Avars. Roman legions are able to use the military tactics they have mastered against the Huns, to very good effect. The new nomad threat increases the interest of the Imperial government to build up Eastern Sarmatia as a strong frontier bulwark. A continuous border is established on the Don river and the control of the Empire is extended throughout the Baltic region up to the Volkhov-Lovat line. Efforts are started to connect the new territories in Eastern Sarmatia to the Roman road and canal system and start their settlement, as the development of Western Sarmatia proceeds to a brisk pace. Roman colonization of vast Sarmatia is steady but gradual and mostly centers in the fertile lands of Ukraine and southern Russia from the Caspian to the Black Sea, as well as the amber-rich and fertile areas of the Baltic coast."
The Mongols were only a problem for EUROPE because they defeated and destroyed the various intervening states. In this timeline, this seems to me far less probable, not least because if the Mongols DID annihilate the West-of-China state whose name escapes me but which I think begins with H, the Romans would make sure to reinforce their vassals in Central Asia who were next on Genghis Khan's hit-list.
Well, about the extent of the Mongol threat, I am inclined to assume that for this Rome, or this China, they would be a threat comparable to the one of the Huns, or slightly nut not radically more severe than that: I.e. they would tax either or both empires seriously for several decades in order to be contained. But ultimately TTL Genghis Khan could do little more than unifying Central Asia and Siberia under his rule.
Mohammed at one point, when scared for his life I guess, decreed that the GODESSES of Mecca were equal to Allah - he later recanted and called it the Devil's wrk. But the obvious indication is that it is not a culture THAT MUCH different from polytheistic Rome, if such an entity still existed - which it would in this thread.
So, if I understand your point well, you suggest that ITTL not just Mohammed, but the whole occurrence of a messianist tradition in Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages Arabia would be butterflied away. Interesting. Following your input, I've tentatively removed explicit references to new messianic religions arising in Arabia from the TL. Other opinions on this, guys ?
Added to that, the Romans would already control Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia etc. One assumes that the Jewish revolts are either dealt with before they happen, or just as severe as OTL. The former, odd tho it seems, has the advantage of keeping things in the status quo ante which includes Christianity still being viewed as a Jewish sect, and not leaping about the rest of the empire.
Well, so far I have assumed that ITTL the Jewish revolts happen more or less as IOTL, but they are crushed even more decisively, since this Roman Empire has more spare military forces to dedicate to the task. Zealot Jewish nationalism probably needed nothing less than a robust dose of scorched earth to be persuaded that their quaint religious preferences were no excuse for separatism.
Susa will probably become the administrative sub-capital for all lands from Anatolia to the Indus. What happens if the empire pushes further East ?
Well, probably another administrative sub-capital would be established for Roman India, probably somewhere in the Gangetic plains. And following this line of thought, I wonder how the administrative subdivisions would be established for Europe and North Africa, since the eastern frontier is estrablished on the Volga, and the African frontier in Somalia, or even assuming later coolonization of eastern and southern Africa.
I doubt it since the point of a legion was that it could operate on its own. However, I think maybe you would see something like the German WW2 Panzer Armees where the main force is one type, but comes wrapped in supporting forces, and semi-specialised ancilliaries.
A very good point. We would probably see something like that, even most legions would remain strongly based on heavy infantry, but with sizable archery and cavalry corps. I am pretty sure that the Romans would develop strong heavy cavalry and archery, and would retain some substantial light cavarly (for scouting) and a strong engineer corps (and later develop a sotrong artillery corps when gunpowder is mastered), but I wonder which the relative focus would be given to longbows or crossbows, and whether they would give preference to heavy cavalry (like Middle Age Europeans, but with strong coordination and integration with infantry) or light cavalry. However, I'm pretty sure they would make excellent use of artillery, given Roman excellence in siege machines.
General Zod, I do wonder whether you are tying your timeline too closely into OTL, odd tho that assertion might seem. Take Mohammed as an example tho - OTL his development of a NEW Abrahamic religion in Arabia was a completely off-the-scale oddity. Mecca had as its divinities a series of local goddesses, and apparently Mohammed initially entertained hopes of uniting his new religion with Judaism.
It seems far LESS likely in your timeline, whereas some OTHER completely unexpected occurrence seems likely - eg a polytheistic sect out of Bactria that upsets everything and causes serious problems on the military frontier for reasons that the emperor finds hard to fathom. If A was a surprise in OTL, then often it makes more sense to negate A in an ATL and make B the surprise. Realism is in how Rome would respond to this...
I see your point here. The historical divergence here is so huge that it completely sweeps away Mohammed. Well, I would tend to agree strongly as it concerns Islam specifically (note that I never made explicit reference to Islam in the TL), but some other poster strongly argued that even TTL's butteflies would not completely butterfly away the messianic tradition of the Middle East, so I left a vague reference to an undescribed messianic unrising in Arabia. Sincerely, I'm uncertain about this point and would like to see further debate.
OTL Rome traded with India on an ongoing basis, so am not sure why you doubt it here, especially since you seem to be a couple centuries afterwards too.
Oh, I do not doubt that existing technology would be quite adequate for trade as it was IOTL (especially since the renovation and expansion of the Suez Canal). I was only showing some concern that the communication and transport needs for military conquest and adminsitration of the Indian subcontinent might be a bit more taxing and substantial than for simple trade, albeit massive. Besides, by this point, Roman naval technology would be somewhat inadequate to the rest of the tech level anyway. Even if they don't have the problem of bypassing the Islamic world, as they expand further east, they stand to gain significantly from mastering Renaissance level seafaring. And if India would not be the stimulus, the Norse would be.
I don't know enought about plagues etc but won't it come a lot earlier, because didn't it come out of China? One supposes that it had a long history of minor plagues there, much as Europe gained a history of minor plagues after the 14th century. What made it into the BLACK DEATH ? Was it the relative paucity of contact between Europe and China, which in this timeline would not happen ? You may thus get a smaller shorter Mini Death a couple of centuries earlier than OTL but it would seem like a specifically bad outbrak of cyclical plague than a newcoming thing. And with Europe's socio-economic structure ordered differently, its knock-ons would be less.
Good and interesting points. A somewhat smaller and shorter Black Death that gets anticipated by some centuries, thanks to the much more extensive Eurasian contacts ITTL, which fits in the cycle of plagues that Rome has been experiencing like a rather bad outbreak. I can see the reason for it.
And yes, its severity would be further affected by the fact we have to account for additional centuries of scientific and technological progress in Eurasia. E.g. let's assume that ITTL the Black Death is anticipated by 2-3 centuries and hits in the 11th-12th century. Plotting it in the cultural advancement schedule we have developed, it means it would strike when Rome and China would be late in the Early Modern development age, hovering on the verge of the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions.
But as I believe history compensates for its changes, perhaps the first outbreak of chicken pox kills half of the known world ?
Hmm, I don't really think that history is a zero-sum game the way you imply. Technological changes allow improvements that do not have to be "paid for" in other areas. So I don't really think that plagues would have to be "compensated" this way. However, a side effect that I see fully in action for TTL would be earlier and more severe environmental problems caused by more extensive and widespread agricultural and later industrial development, and a more plentiful world population.
Lol, why of course ? It still exists in parts of the world, and a hundred years ago was not thought of as so strange - if you were outfitting a ship to the middle of nowhere, you wouldn't worry if part of your ship's complement ended up being slaves. And the Nazis, you could say their treatment of the Slavs melded with slave labour indicated a desire to create a permanent underclass with slave characteristics.
I think the point would be that ITTL classical chattel slavery would gradually get marginalized as a source of labor, and therefore be socially and culturally marginalized as well, due to socio-economic changes (the onset of the Agricultural and Commercial Revolution), and only see a temporary comeback when the plantation system in the Americas recreates a strong demand, but it would eventually marginalized again to extinction by the Industrial Revolution.
I still argue that without the Voyages of Exploration, early contact with N America would be trade-based, and last in this manner for a substantial period of time. This is after all what the Romans DID.
Heh. Romans were eager for conquest and expansion at least as much as they were for friendly trade. Hence, I am firmly convinced that they would switch to land-grabbing and resource-grabbing in fairly short order, not any substnaitally slower than OTL European powers, anyway. ITTL pretty much all the factors that fueled European colonization in the Americas are still in place, with the only exception that the polytheistic assimilationist Romans would have much less of a rabid urge to exterminate the funny-skinned heathens to put white christians in their place, and would go for conquest and assimilation of the natives instead, and creating a cultural-racial mixture with the Romanized natives, instead. But the Romans EMpire sticking for centuries to trade with little or no extnesive colonization and conquest, so that native cutlures can adapt and become valid competitors is a wildly unlikely poltically-correct utopia, IMO.
Assimilation of European technology would allow centralised states to develop further, and to raise themselves to at least the level of a Siam or Abyssinia facing potential European conquest. Siam basically played Britain and France off against each other - I don't see why the Incas couldn't do this with Rome and China, for example.
Yes, they could, and this is the main way how some native cultures in the Americas, Africa, Central Asia, or some niches of South East Asia could usccessfuly avoid assimilation in the imperial superpowers and become effective buffer states. However, IMO more than 2-3 for continent is asking too much from butterflies. As it concerns the Incas example, they would have both reasons to succeed in this (geographical position) and reasons to do not (valuable mineral resources in their territory).
Again, you could have a native American empire that is not a threat to anyone, but which looks like too much trouble to conquer it for what gain there would be - the Maya of Yucatan could play that role, perhaps.
Yes, the Maya in Yucatan would be another good example, maybe better than the Incas in some regards (geographical isolation, plus less mineral resources in their territory to make the empires greedy).
