Without Manzikert would the Roman Empire have survived to the modern era?

Great Debates
1

Suppose things had gone differently in 1071. Alp Arslan makes some crucial blunder and Romanus wins the day. The Seljuks are stopped and the Anatolian heartland of the Empire remains in Christian hands.

It’s unlikely the Seljuks would have been able to mount another successful offensive. Their empire fell apart a few decades later from internal stresses. A stronger Roman Empire would have been more likely to hold back the Mongols. It wouldn’t have been so easily abused by the Crusaders and the Venetians. And if it had managed to hang together until the Renaissance, it’s access to classical learning and valuable trade routes would have allowed it to reassert itself as a major Mediterranean power.

Thoughts?

(BTW, I think it’s only fair to call the entity in question the Roman Empire, not the Byzantine. They called themselves Roman right to the end, and had they survived the latter designation would never have come into use.)

2

We’d all be driving Jupiter Eights!

3

LOL … I actually thought about that episode while writing the OP.

4

It is impossible to say and profitless to speculate what would have happened in the intervening years, but everything else being the same, then I think that if a Byzantine empire had existed in the 19th century, then budding nationalism would have disintegrated it the same way as the Ottoman empire disintegrated. Probable leaving a Greek successor state consisting of the core regions of the current Greek nation, including Constantinople and the Ionian coastline.

Also, I don’t think Byzantine could have withstood the Mongols. And the fall of Constantinople (& all the learned Greeks fleeing Westwards) was an important element in the Renaissance. So perhaps without the destruction of Greek Constantinople, then perhaps no Renaissance.

5

But nationalism wouldn’t have been a factor if all of the Empire’s core countries had remained Greek-speaking, as they were before Manzikeret. Remember, the Slavs had such a huge impact on the Balkans *because *the Byzantines had been weakened in the East.

6

I need to find my copy of EU2. I miss taking Byzantium into the 19th Century.

7

Due to butterfly effects, nationalism might not happen at all or happen centuries earlier or later. Nationalism was largely a effect of the French Revolution and romantacism which would certainly not happen after eight hundred years of divergent history. And there probably are no Mongols and definately no Renaissance as we know it.

8

That’s arguable, but I would agree with is that they probably wouldn’t have bothered. The Seljuqs had bigger fish to fry and had not sought that engagement in the first place. Manzikert was an acute failure of judgement.

Indeed one potential pitfall from a Manzikert triumph would be Romanus being persuaded to push his offensive farther, something the ramshackle Byzantine military was definitely not up to ( especially against an opponent with superior mobility ). He might have won only to lose later.

If Romanus decides to just negotiate from a point of strength and continue to reform and fortify it is most unlikely he would have been vulnerable to a coup. He was 41 in 1071 and could have easily gone another 10-25 years, quite likely pre-empting the rise of the Komnenoi. He was a seemingly competent man under normal circumstances, but what kind of legacy he would have left is really hard to guess at.

I’m guessing not. A stronger Byzantium = more Mongol attention. I’m guessing they would have been a major target and wouldn’t have fared much better than anyone else ( including their RL successors in Anatolia, the Rum Seljuqs, savaged by the Mongols at Köse Dağh ).

No Manzikert, quite possibly no Crusades ;). Remember they were triggered by Alexius Komnenus’ cries for help. No Crusades also might mean possibly less prominent Venetians, who did so well out of those affairs. It also means possibly profound shifts in the development of Catholic theology. Maybe.

Manzikert really is a fascinating moment, which much like Hastings arguably caused a major shift in the pathways of history. But while it is possible to envision a re-vitalized Byzantine state, it might just have gone down the next year or a century later. It’s just really difficult to guess at the outcome of such a change, though it is always worth spinning some speculative fiction out of it :).

Well, maybe. But I have my doubts. I’m not usually a determinist, but in this case I’m inclined to regard nationalism as a likely inevitability.

No Mongols? Nah. Manzikert’s wings couldn’t beat that strongly. The Mongol eruption was essentially unaffected by events in the Near East. And like I said I don’t fancy taking bets against the classic core Mongol Imperial Army going up against anyone.

No Renaissance of any sort? Dunno - maybe not at that time and place, but who knows? That’s one of those impossible to predict items IMO.

9

Nationalism might be an inevitability but it won’t happen in the same place or time. I might happen in East Asia for instance.

And in our world the birth and life of Genghis Khan was quite lucky. Would you say if near-Eastern history had so completely changed each of the Khan’s ancestors would engage in coitus at the exact same time in the exact same circumstances, have the exact same sperm be fertilized, and so on?

10

Manzikert happened in 1071 in Anatolia. Genghis Khan was born in ~1159-1165 in Mongolia. It is most unlikely he had any ME ancestors recent enough to have been impacted in anyway by the battle.

11

For your time-wasting pleasure (if you have a tolerance for meandering bullshit and odd senses of humour), an LP of the glorious and immortal Srbija from its infancy to its modern incarnation, Serbyzantium. I think they’re up to the 18th century now. Suffer not the Croat to live ! :slight_smile:

12

However wasn’t the Mongol incursion into Analolia fairly brief? Unlike the Seljuks who moved in to stay, the Mongols washed over Anatolia in a brutal wave and then retreated. So presumably the same thing would have happened if Anatolia had remained under Roman control.

So possibly what we get is this:

  • Constantinople becomes the dominant trading power in the eastern Mediterranean, not Venice.

  • But, unlike Venice it has the territory and manpower to be a military power as well. And with rising trade revenues it has the gold to finance its army and navy.

  • The eastern church now has a power base. Rather than being marginalized and ignored by Catholicism, it’s a serious competitor.

13

Which probably means war eventually. I mean, it already happened in this time stream when the Latins heeded Constantinople’s call for help but opted to plunder it instead when they got there (which the Pope wasn’t too pleased about). With a stronger Byzantium, the conflict would have been more even, dragged on and presumably ended about as irredeemably polarized as that against the Moors & Saracens.

Then again, in that case Byzantium would be wedged between a rock and a hard place even harder than it historically was so I really don’t see them surviving to the modern day anyway. Possibly not even as long as they did in our timestream.

14

Forgive the interruption, but episode of what? I’m fascinated by the SPQR, and especially love alternate histories.

15

Bread and Circuses from Star Trek.