Splinterings
Mihiragula died in 572, succeeded by his son Varhran, who was not his eldest but was perhaps the most like him of his sons. It might seem remarkable to some observers that this choice did not lead to civil war or conflict, but the Eftal laws of succession tended to permit no objection to the Shah's choice, and Varhran was given many offices shortly before the death of his father, offices that allowed him to consolidate his power.
Vinayaditha, Mihiragula's eldest son is the only one to remain in the historical record, a noted traveler and patron of the arts and sciences, presiding over the blossoming of art and culture in western Persia which would continue roughly until the end of the century. He spent his final years (it would seem he died relatively young) retired in the Vihara of Syarzur.
Varhran was not a capable administrator, though he seems to have been beloved by the Eftal elite. Inscriptions and monuments from his reign praise a variety of pagan gods, chiefly Mithra, who seems continually favored by the Eftal, but also "the fellowship in dharma, the gift of the dharma" and other Buddhist ideas - ideas which, co-opted by the Eftal Shahs, provided an ideological framework in which their polytheism could still endure.
Varhran was incapable it would seem, of maintaining the carefully orchestrated centralization of his predecessors. Increasingly the far-flung satrapies of his Empire were autonomous in all but name, and he was incapable of reigning in the Johiyava raiders. The plunder won by the various clans of the Johiyava served to allow Raja Anandakumara to increase his own power by extracting a tribute or tax upon the loot, and in time it was the Raja's own clansmen who were coming down from their mountain strongholds to take caravans. While the Johiyava did not leave a detailed record of their history, their stele record Anandakumara's "victories" in great detail, praising the gods for his conquests - conquests which seem to have in truth amounted to raids, but raids that nevertheless had a great disruptive effect on trade. The Kidarites were granted a tributary sort of sovereignty over the regions of Sakastan and Kerman in this time, an attempt to guard against the raids of the warlike clansmen of the Hindu Kush.
In 574, Eftal histories mark an attack of Piandjikent by a Turkic clan. An unimaginable event a few decades ago, the defeat of the Satrap of Sogdia left the region open to Turkic invasion. A Qa'an named Tulan, of unknown origin struck deep into the heart of the region, seemingly with the consent of the Gokturks, and though he was ultimately repulsed, even in defeat he sparked a great migration of refugees towards the safety of the west. It was around this time that the government in Susa began granting their vassals and Satrapies increased powers designed to curb perceived anarchy in the East.
Much of this newfound autonomy was because Varhran was struggling with affairs in the West - attempting to reform the tax code and bring in new revenue from trade. These attempts would be broadly unsuccessful, in no large part because Varhran had little understanding of mercantile affairs, and left his reform programs to cronies whose policies would have depressive effect on trade (while lining their own pockets) and lead to simmering resentment among the Iranian merchants of the Persian gulf. Ultimately, faced with declining revenue, Varhran turned to state-sponsored raiding of Rome, perhaps eager to relive his glory days as a cavalry commander rather than a Shah.
By 576, the Asvha seem to have been given the region of Xvaresm to rule as a vassal - a not uncommon arrangement similar to that struck with the Johiyava and the petty Shah of Farghana. Subsequent records would call the region, or perhaps merely the territory immediately to the north, around the Aral sea, Asvhastan, a name that seems to have stuck for some time.
This loss of prestige and central authority was by no means total. Although history records riots in the Mesopotamian city of Sumra, the West was relatively calm, although the Satrap of Edessa began raiding Syria and Asia Minor once more in the early 580's, and other border tribes followed suit not long afterwards. The notable efforts of atribal warlord named Heshana are first recorded in this time, during a period of relative anarchy in both the Eftal and Roman Empires where such independent figures could prosper. Although the East began to assert additional autonomy in the face of nomadic incursions, this autonomy also seems to have been largely successful in enabling the preservation of at least nominal Eftal authority in the region. Some of the eastern satraps might have been emboldened by newfound kingly powers, but they still used those powers to preserve the status quo, by and large.
Migrations
The Balkans, long depopulated, were saved from invasion during the Eftal-Roman war by adept diplomacy and clever trickery - Roman garrisons were made to seem far larger than they actually were, and the Roman army engaged in frequent patrols, giving the illusion of strength.
But in truth, such strength simply no longer existed. The devastated eastern regions of Anatolia were no longer available for mass recruitment, and Syria and Thracia were similarly depopulated by constant war. Paltry Roman garrison troops were the only reinforcements Emperor Kallinikos could expect if the barbarians crossed the Danube in force - the main body of his army was concentrated in the Orient, and when his advisors informed him that the situation in the Balkans was deteriorating, he was forced to deplete the army of the Orient to bring the Roman forces in the Balkans up to respectable levels.
Vitalian and Zeno had been willing to acknowledge the Langobards as Imperial allies in Pannonia and Dalmatia, and despite their best attempts to preserve the uneasy balance of power, the Langobards had only grown in strength, and when Audion, their loyal ally died in 568, the certainty of Langobard fidelity vanished overnight. Alboin, his son and heir, was a different, more ambitious figure even than his famously ambitious and successful father. To say that Alboin could not be relied upon to be a reliable Roman ally was an understatement.
Countless allies flocked to the new king's banner. What remained of the pagan Gepids were cowed by force into serving Alboin, and the Sklaveni and many Iranian Bulgar tribes were willing to work with him. With the Xasar-Sahu wreaking havoc on the steppe, the Khans knew their time was running out. Being on the other side of the ancient Roman fortifications looked to many disparate peoples to be the best way to avoid subjugation under the Xasar yoke.
And thus Alboin openly invaded his former allies, striking a devastating opening blow to an already devastated Empire. The Roman commanders generally refused to give him the field battle he desired, but the Langobards proved adept at besieging and taking Roman fortresses nonetheless. Certain cities, such as Thessalonica, Athens, and Corinth did not fall, but the hinterlands were nevertheless taken, and cities such as Sardike and Stoboi suffered sacks from which they did not quickly recover. In many cases the already small Greek populations, much diminished by constant raids and pillaging, were subsequently massacred, making way for Hunnic and Slavic settlers. The Langobards generally were less brutal in their conquests, but they displaced many Greeks nonetheless.
Kallinikos, who had originally based his claim to the Roman throne on his ability to push back the barbarians, was forced to respond - and yet his response came slowly, perhaps owing to his exhaustion after years of uninterrupted campaigning. He stalled, trying to raise additional forces to counter the Langobards and their countless allies. Despite a few early successes, which gave his men hope that he would repeat his great victories in the East here, he slowly retreated back towards Adrianople in the face of Alboin's army. At Adrianople, however, he fought a major battle against the Langobard King and won. His numerically inferior but disciplined veteran forces fought their way out of an encirclement by the enemy Bulgar cavalry and saved the day - but at a terrible cost. In the confused barbarian rout that followed, Kallinikos was knocked from his charging horse and suffered a terrible blow to the head.
Our Greek sources report the Emperor was not quite the same afterwards. His sub-commanders were forced to intercede, and though many of them were capable and experienced, they lacked the Emperor's personal charisma, and the tide of the barbarians was simply too great. They would ultimately retire to Constantinople, using the Roman fleet to ensure that the Peloponnese would not be taken, and reinforce the garrisons of many yet-untaken coastal cities.
Alboin never attempted to besiege Constantinople himself. After his defeat at Adrianople, he seems to have lost the confidence of his many allies, allies he desperately needed. The coalition he had designed was splintering, carving out their own autonomous tribal states. His own Langobards received the lion's share of course, choice lands in Thessalia, Macedonia, and Epirus, but his Slavic vassals would prove far more unruly in the north than he could have intended. The Kutrigurs themselves now ruled an expansive, wealthy territory on either side of the Danube and their Khan did not acknowledge Langobard superiority at all.
The long term ramifications of this invasion were huge. While the long-established, populous cities of the East proved relatively more invulnerable to Germanic and Slavic invasion than their western counterparts, and the Langobardi contented themselves with ruling the interior, the cultural heart of Hellenic civilization was forced to shift further East. The general devastation of the very center of Hellenism would mark the true "end of antiquity" and the emergence of something new. What the new era would bring was as of yet unclear, but it seemed certain that it would not be peaceful.
Two regions of the Empire were relatively unspoilt by war - the Diocese of Asia, and the Diocese of Egypt. Both were wealthy and ancient, heirs to far older traditions than that even of Rome, and both had avoided the worst of conflicts that had brought their neighbors to unprecedented lows. Egypt, however, had the unique distinction of being essential to the feeding of Constantinople- so essential to the continued function of the Empire was the province that the military and civil offices of the province were often combined - as indeed they were under the Prefect Anastasios, an old comrade-in-arms of Emperor Kallinikos, who was also the commander of the armies of the Diocese.
Despite the alienation the Miaphysite majority of Egypt had experienced under past Emperors, Anastasios proved to be a capable administrator and diplomat, finely attuned to the religious views of his majority populace. More than any religious council, he managed to reconcile the Miaphysites to a degree through clever negotiations and a willingness to give Miaphysite leaders positions within his administration. In no small part, Anastasios' negotiations and political savvy prevented the province from breaking into outright rebellion when the Eftal had invaded, despite a series of devastating riots in the countryside, riots only put down with the use of brutal force.
However, in 572, these riots occurred again, this time breaking out into open civil war. A massacre of Roman administrators in the province cut off the grain supply to Constantinople yet again during a time of crisis. The great cities of the Mediterranean were forced to buy vital foodstuffs from Berber merchants who made exploitative profits selling North African grain during the time of unrest. The government in Constantinople was forced to dispatch additional soldiers to Egypt, and dissent was brewing in the ranks.
The Anatolian army, having gone without pay for some time, erupted into open rebellion shortly thereafter, acclaiming one of their own sub-commanders, Constantine, as Emperor. Kallinikos, who seems to have been a mere figurehead after Adrianople, nevertheless maintained the fanatic loyalty of his forces in Constantinople and much of the fleet as well. Constantine, like Vitalian before him, was forced to consolidate his hold on Anatolia, but was unable to cross the Bosporus and take the Imperial capital. He was enormously fortunate, and perhaps crafty, in that the Eftal were too distracted to take advantage of the chaos in the Roman Empire, and his forces moved into Syria, wresting much of the devastated province of Oriens from Kallinikos' prefect there, Julian Menas.
The Emperor's advisors, however, began to see which way the winds of change were turning. In the night, they fled south with much of the fleet, arriving in Egypt, where Anastasios welcomed them hospitably. However, the Emperor did not live long after his flight, and seems to have passed away two years later, in 574 - and a final blow to his legitimacy came early in the same year, when Constantine finally was welcomed into Constantinople, having built his own fleet and pushed the Imperial fleet out of the Aegean, at least. Constantine seems to have had little desire to remain in Constantinople - he clearly had ambitions to retake the Balkans, but those came secondarily to restoring the supply of grain to the capital cut off when Kallinikos fled to Constantinople.
Anastasios ultimately would, at the urging of the late Emperor's staff and advisors, take on the mantle of Empire, but favored the Greek title of Autokrator. Ruling out of Alexandria, he secured Crete and Cyprus, and Palestine to his regime, but Anatolia and parts of Syria, as well as what remained of Greece, were lost to him. Constantine attempted to march south into Palestine in 575, and indeed, made it as far as Gaza before he was repulsed, and Anastasios never attempted a similar invasion, although he did take Damascus and Phoenicia back in the aftermath of Constantine's failed invasion. The two regimes regarded themselves warily across the Mediterranean, in time referred to by historians as the Anastasian and the Constantinian Roman Empires.
Constantine, for his part, barely held on to his throne in the aftermath of his failed invasion of Palestine. Despite a near-mutiny of his forces, and a rebellion in what remained of Roman Syria, he managed to retain control of the apparatus of state, and both Emperors were forced to acknowledge each other's dominion for the time being. No sooner than tentative peace was signed than Constantine was forced to march into Pontus to deal with Alan incursions there, a task he would only be partially successful in, due to minimal manpower and a small budget.
Almost none of the Emperor Constantine's reign would be spent in Constantinople, a city which declined in population during this period, failing to recover from the Egyptian Plague even in an era when many of the other cities of Asia Minor finally did so. It must be stressed this is due in no little part to the role which Anastasios played - maintaining an indefinite grain embargo cost the city dearly. Constantinople, like Thessalonica many other Roman cities, continued in unchecked decline as the Romans lost their influence in the Balkans and around the northern rim of the Black Sea. While these massive cities were still well-defended (Constantinople in particular famed for her land walls) and large compared to the urban centers of the West, they nevertheless suffered and lost much of their former prestige.
A Look to the West
Sicily, meanwhile, under the Prefect Maurice, at this point severed ties with Constantinople. It seems, from various Roman historians and inscriptions left in the city of Panormus, that Maurice began ruling with the title of Dux, and paying a small tribute to the Mauri Rex in Africa. Maurice, a capable administrator and general, is recorded as having defied a Gothic attempt to reclaim southern Italy, with no small assistance from the Mauritanians, who by 570 had truly begun projecting military power outside of their holdings in Africa.
The Gothic Rex Theodoric II was killed in this war, beginning a period of fifteen years known as the "Regency" where his infant son was raised by his wife, Matasuntha, and she seems to have exercised relative power over the regime. It was, by all accounts, a peaceful era. The young Rex, Alaric, was betrothed to a Frankish princess from the age of five onwards, and the Ostrogoths and Franks solidified their border - something that cannot be said for their Hispanic cousins, who waged a series of bloody borders wars against the Franks, contesting the ownership of the city of Narbo and its hinterlands.
Matasuntha's regency was a time of peace and increasing Romanization. Gothic aristocrats with ever more Romanized names become more and more common, and despite religious differences, Italy in the late sixth century was a peaceful region recovering from the devastation of plague and war. With Berber grain, depopulated cities began to experience a revival. Between 575 and 590 was a period of uninterrupted prosperity, and though Rome might have been a shadow of her former glory kept aloft only by the Papacy, a traveler to sixth-century Ravenna or Milan might well have thought that the Roman Empire had never fallen.
[In response to the comments, Glad everyone still likes what's happening and sorry, Abe, the poor Jewish state was doomed from the outset - it barely even got to be a state before Kallinikos got at it again.
As for the next update, Constantine tries to retake the Balkans from the Lombard yoke, a look what's going on in Africa, and maybe some more India. Haven't quite decided yet.]