Changes

The fall and deposition of Maurice ushered in over a century where it seemed that the Byzantine state would suffer the same fate as the Western Roman Empire. Maurice’s death directly led to a 26-year war with the Sassanian Empire in Persia that weakened the Byzantines. This war had two critical repercussions, that changed history. The first challenge was that the Arabs, who were able to annex much of the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire. The Arabs then Islamized this entire region. The second was that Slavs overran the Balkans provinces and these areas have remained Slavic to this day.

====Background====