SPQR? Who?

[Ibrahim]

if Rome never existed:

In Antiquity, either Carthage or Diadochoi (Seleucids or Ptolemaic Egypt) would reign in Italy. mostly by Carthage, I think. various Germanic and Celtic tribe would fight in northern europe.

in Middle ages:
no Byzantines, no Holy Roman Empire. no Western roman empire, No Ottoman
if there is no such thing, Sassanids would easily dominate Anatolia and Greece, Nomads (Bulgar and later Mongol) would dominate Balkan and the rest of Eastern europe etc. and The Moor would easily conquer southern Europe. Christianity would have less follower. Zoroastrianism and Tengrism will dominate eastern europe. while western Europe filled by Muslim. and America maybe discovered by Polynesian or Chinese or maybe Native American will discover us.

in industrial ages and modern age:
No Latin influence in english. European will speak either Farsi or Arabic or Turkic language. we wont write using latin alphabet. maybe some kind of abjad or abugida.

conclusion: civilization will be more focused on Middle East. well, it start there too.

actually, no Islam, no sassanids, and no semetic languages in Europe (not even Malta). no Christianity either

afterall, Sassanids only got the power they did because the Romans had thuroughly discredited the pahlavan in battle. the sassies promised military glory and victory, which they actually delivered, hence the dynasty's longevity. (that, and they were pretty good rulers)

and if Christianity didn't spread out and become the priest dominated religion of the 7th century(itself having formed as a messainic movement that condemned Roman Authority as the "church of Satan"), we wouldn't have the (surprisingly) anticlerical faith known as Islam. we might instead have some sort of other movement in the peninsula-if even any (since the political and social climate at the time was influenced by both the Romans and Sassanids; one sura even mentioned the then ongoing Romano-Byzantine wars).

no Islam, no Islamic conquests, and no Maltese

and yes, we would (probably) use an alphabet: greek, Runic, or Etruscan in origin. the germanic tribes afterall already had Runes by the tme the Romans showed up, theitr alphabet iirc apparently being Etruscan influenced.