What if the East had been the one to collapse in 476 and the West remained intact? How do you guys think they would deal with the challenges that had plagued the East after the West fell? The Islamic caliphates, the Slavic and Turkish migrations, the Crusades, a Western emperor trying to retake the lost provinces à la Justinian, etc.?
There were many instances of enemy armies brushing aside Roman armies and getting right up to Constantinople and turning back upon seeing the walls, then the imperial forces would, usually, get their land back after the enemy retreated. Neither Rome nor Milan or Ravenna were anywhere near as well defended as Connie. If any enemies could break through the armies and navies defending Italy, they could probably take those cities with relative ease, and the Empire might well end in the 600s. It was the location of the capital that held the Eastern Empire together as long as it did, even if they built huge Theodosian-like walls around any of the possible capitais, I can't see a Western Empire lasting anywhere near as long as the Eastern did.
>>843675
So the western half had more development to make it more profitable
The Germanic peoples who migrated were either repelled or successfully assimilated into the western half also leading to the commanders starting less conflicts that drain the empires resources.
Is this what happens because these are a few of the ways I can think that the western half had to have happen in order for them to survive
>>843675
It depends on how the west stayed intact, did they repulse the Germans and push them back out of their borders or did they properly incorporate them into the Empire? If the former, I think that the Roman Empire falls to the Arabs, like you said one of the main reasons the ERE survived as long as it did was because of Constantinople, since no equivalent exists in the West, with out a really military, it's entirely likely that the Arabs or some other migrant group like the Avars or Bulgars would have just run over the West. However in the case of the latter, where Rome better intergrates migrating Germans and German kingdoms into the Empire they might have a chance, since the Germanic militaries would give them the strength to resist against foreign invaders, though how long such a situation would last is debatable.
>>843730
like I said in the post above maybe the romans did more to improve Gaul and Iberia so they yielded more benefit to the empire allowing them to better repulse invasion
maybe they increase the defenses in Africa did more to improve the navy in the Mediterranean to better control trade and fight back against the Saracens
>>843675
They wouldn't have been able to... the political structure in the west had been decaying for a long time and towards the end the east was the only real power left
>>843870
what was the political structure of the western half like
>>843675
The western half was hugely behind in terms of development. The east had many large cities while the west was comparatively rural with a hand full of significant urban centers. The east controlled the flow of the silk road and the Nile (Rose's bread basket)
>>843945
Why was it behind.
>>843675
>greeks reconquisting anatolia centuries later
I would like to see this
>>843958
The Western Mediterranean wasn't a trade hub, unlike the East, through which spices, silk, slaves, passed through and where the land was much more fertile and suitable for farming. As such, all the famed cities (Alexandria, Constantinople, Antioch, etc.) where in the Eastern portion of the Empire.
In contrast, the Western portion of the Empire had... timber. some agricultural value (still less than Eastern half), and some raw mineral resources.
>>844025
It had North Africa.
>>844025
Wasn't Spain a huge complex of mines from which the Empire got most of its gold, silver and steel?
>>843675
WRE was a poor hellhole when compared to ERE. It lacked ENORMOUSLY populous and rich Levant, Anatolia and Egypt
>>843872
Following roman anarchy and other succession problems the emperors had lost a lost of power and the empires ruler was essentially the most powerful general/who ever this guy supported.
As Emperors struggled to control and protect cities the aristocracy fled to their Estates and hired private armies to protect their lands (from both raiders and tax collectors) further crippling imperial control over the west.
Trends like these were steady in the west while in the east the emperor had stable control over their territory and the emperors entangled themselves with church and used it as a unifying force within the east (it caused conflict with the Syrians but it worked for a time and added an interesting twist to byzantine politics)
>>843958
It had always been behind. At this point urban civilization was just taking root in Europe courtesy of the Romans while cities have been growing in the east since the days of sumeria
>>844106
It had Africa, Italia, and Spain.
