Hello there. My name is Ference and I run the history of the Hungarians, a podcast telling the

tale of the Hungarian people and their state from the mists of our nomadic past up to our uncertain

present. Right about now, we are just wrapping up the 12th century, also known as our Byzantine

century, and if you have been missing Manuel

Komnenos, well, he makes a lot of guest appearances on our show.

So if you want to come along for our 1,000 year-long journey, find the history of the

Hungarians wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello everyone and welcome to the History of Byzantium, episode 346, What If?

One of the largest batch of listener questions that came in after 1453 were counterfactuals.

What would have happened if this event or that event went differently?

Along with these was the question of when was the last moment the Romans could have saved themselves from their ultimate demise.

So today, let's jump into the time machine and look at the twisting paths of the past and see which events could have gone differently and what might have happened if they had.

Listener L asked a good question to begin with.

What are the great turning points of Byzantine history?

Which changes were truly irreversible and which were pretty contingent on specific circumstances?

Let's do a quick march through the podcast narrative and cover the major turning points.

I'm going to look for specific events where things could easily have gone another way and analyze whether the outcome would

have been more positive for the Romans. Just for fun, I'll give each a score out of 10,

based on the potential positive consequences for the Byzantine state.

So 10 out of 10 would mean things would have been much, much, much better for the Romans if things had turned out differently,

and 1 out of 10, meaning it was largely irrelevant to the course of their history.

So the podcast began in 476 AD, with the Emperor Zeno on the throne.

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