What would byzantium have to do to survive?

Originally posted by Evrenosgazi I think that Roman empire lost most of its vital parts with the Islamic conquests. They have retained anatolia, balkans, south Italy, Sicily. The question is which part of the remaining empire would be crucial for her survival. Balkans were demolished with avar, slaic and bulgar invasion(we know that slav tribes even reached morea). Bulgarian kingdom contested in balkan hegemony with roman empire and they were successful for a while. However they regained balkans and ended the first bulgarian kingdom.  My opinion is anatolia, the remaining part  of the empire was the heart of the eastern roman empire. It provided enough money, men, supply to the roman empire for regaining balkans. With the loss of Anatolia no other provinces could take the place of this province. Slowly regression ended with final conquest of constantinople. So let us think what would hinder the destruction of the roman empire.   1- Protecting anatolia from occupation(major event).  After Manzikert a civil war was really terrible for their vitality. The turks reached aegean sea 2-I think with calling westerners for help was a major mistake. Crusades destructed the empire. May be the romans could fight the turks with much more success and chase the turks(?).  3- They were really at a disadvantageous position(. Muslims and turks from east, turks and slavs from north, arabs from south , Latins from west. They really stand for centuries against this situation with their skills, quality and warfare.   4-They needed good reputation in west. May be good relations with papacy.

... don't outsource your naval arm.

I also believe that the Byzantine empire failed to modernize and look forward instead they kept thinking about the good old days and the Imperial pomp that was prevalent in Roman society lingered on in the Byzantine empire.

Originally posted by IamJoseph I dont see empires surviving only by their conquests and might - this is evdent in history. One can take another view, and see the fall of Rome beginning with its greatest war - with Judea, in 70 CE.   True that Rome prevailed 3 centuries thereafter, but what brought it down? This was because its conquered nations were never happy with the status quo and continuously rebelled. This was by reason of the right to freedoms, which is a philosophical issue of human consciousness - namely Rome's war with Judea was about the right to freedom of belief. No power can supress the freedom factor for long.   By subsequence, if any religion relies on a restriction of others of this right of belief, that religion will eventually fall - but the freedom of belief factor will prevail.

Your proposition is indefensible and I suspect highly self indulgent. In other words you are basically saying the Jews brought down the Roman Empire, which is rubbish.

Judaea was neither the first unhappy and restless province of the Romans, nor the last. Infact it was almost dead halfway between the beginnings of Roman imperial acquisitions and the last of them.

The Romans did eventually cling to a system which became increasingly economically and militarily untenable. It is true they failed to protect civic freedoms and ensure justice in their relams, but this applied to your Romans on the Tiber as much as the Jews on the Temple mount or the villagers on the Seine or the citizens in their Hellenic poleis.

But the only reason the Romans lost control of Judaea was because Orthodox Christians harshly persecuted Monophysites. The Olympian following Romans could deny the Jews as much religious, political and economic freedom as they deemed fit. They had their fundamentals in order in the first century AD, so if a bunch of Jews were denied their freedom and suffered it made no difference to imperial survival.

So you're basically taking word for word Edward Gibbon's view as described in his masterpiece, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Well what are the logics man? tell me I want to know

How come? oh and by the way this thread is in historical amusement not alternative history just thought you'd want to know 

First of all, some very compitent emperors, with less ursuping of dynasties.

Edited by Penelope - 20-Sep-2008 at 08:38

Originally posted by Count Belisarius I know, but this is a what if thread, and I'm talking about their early days before their decline, when they were still powerful. and you could use britain and scotland and ireland, and mabye iceland too, if they had men left over to conquer it, as bases for overseas expansion.

Iceland? Why not Greenland? Or Siberia? 

This seems to go beyond 'Alternativce History'...

a few things, they definitely should never have centralized their military so much under the Angeloi dynasty. One of the things that made the Komnenos Dynasty powerful was the decentralized nature of the ancient Theme system which favored the skills of generals using local militias and mercenaries rather then dictates from Constantinople by the Emperor. The lose of Asia Minor was a deathsend for the Byzantine Empire, now lacking the manpower or money for a effective mercenary army though the Palaiologans did quite well given the situation during the post-4th crusade period up until the fall in 1453.