What If The Crusades Succeeded? | Alternate History

Since its conquest by the Roman Empire in the first century BC, and in fact even earlier since its conquest by the Greeks in the 4th Century BC, the lands of the Near East have been deeply interconnected with the lands of the Early Western World.

For a time the Greek-World was defined by the massive harbor created by the various Hellenic states of Macedonia, Anatolia, the Levant, and Egypt, but a great rivalry and lack of cooperation with one another prevented unity between them, and kept from them the full wealth and power that could have been harnessed from so strategically valuable a territory.

In the face of encroaching enemies on all sides, the Greeks, and their territories were subsumed by the better united Roman Empire, and it was under Rome that the East Mediterranean grew to become perhaps the wealthiest center of commerce of its time; holding a footing on three continents, secure from any major naval threats, and having a diverse assortment of resources to draw upon, the Roman East came to surpass the Roman West, as far as seeing the capital of the Empire moved to the new eastern city of Constantinople.

Between Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria emerged a golden sphere of culture, wealth, and power. It would ultimately be from these eastern lands, the Levant in particular, that Christianity would arise, and spread across the empire to become the foremost faith of the Western World, but these lands which had long given onto the West so much would not remain…