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Post by TheRomanSlayer on Mar 1, 2019 6:41:59 GMT
The Crisis of the Third Century was one of those times when the Roman Empire could have collapsed a lot sooner than their OTL collapse date. There were three major entities that emerged: the Gallic Empire, rump Rome and the Palmyrene Empire, but Aurelian had managed to reunite the Roman Empire until it was permanently divided into two halves, which would be the Western and Eastern Roman Empires.
Suppose Aurelian had been killed during the Crisis of the Third Century, could the Roman Empire had split into more successor states? I could imagine that the former Roman provinces that would become independent entities like Hispania, the Gallic Empire, an earlier independence of Egypt, various territories in North Africa, the Italian Peninsula, and an earlier proto-Byzantine Empire in addition to the Palmyrene Empire.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Mar 1, 2019 12:01:18 GMT
The Crisis of the Third Century was one of those times when the Roman Empire could have collapsed a lot sooner than their OTL collapse date. There were three major entities that emerged: the Gallic Empire, rump Rome and the Palmyrene Empire, but Aurelian had managed to reunite the Roman Empire until it was permanently divided into two halves, which would be the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. Suppose Aurelian had been killed during the Crisis of the Third Century, could the Roman Empire had split into more successor states? I could imagine that the former Roman provinces that would become independent entities like Hispania, the Gallic Empire, an earlier independence of Egypt, various territories in North Africa, the Italian Peninsula, and an earlier proto-Byzantine Empire in addition to the Palmyrene Empire.
Its possible although Aurelian was towards the end of the crisis, which lasted about two decades. IIRC one of his predecessors was close to reuniting it before he was assassinated so possibly Aurelian could have fallen foul of a similar power plot or simply fallen ill.
You could have had a longer period of chaos and division and its possible that the empire could have been permanently divided at this stage but suspect it would be unlikely. There was too much sense of a common Roman identity and any great leader would have been tempted to seek to reunify the empire and would have been expected to do so. IIRC the best of the Gallic emperors died because, realising the fragile apparent state of the empire refused to go to war with the central rump and was assassinated by some of his 'supporters' because they wanted the possible loot and/or glory of such a campaign.
OTL it took another century of continued internal conflict and steadily increasing autocracy along with the rise of Christianity to finally splinter the western then later the eastern empires. Possibly if Christianity secured itself say in Egypt and Syria as a successor of Palmyrene then a permanent split off of that region might have occurred although such a state would have had to resist both Rome and the Persian threat.
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Post by TheRomanSlayer on Mar 17, 2019 22:55:26 GMT
The Sassanians would have taken advantage of the splintered nature of the Roman Empire at this time, and would definitely have benefited. A weakened Rome might also allow Persia to keep the entirety of the Kingdom of Armenia under its control. All in all, the collapse of Rome might turn into a major Persia wank, but in time even the Sassanians might collapse from internal strife. We might also see the Hephthalites attack Persia prematurely, or an alternate version of the Huns attacking the Sassanians before they could attack Rome.
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