Alternate History: What if Rome never fell?

**TheCeLL** · 08-09-2013, 15:46

I dont know if this topic has been posted before, but I just wanted to know what the Org thinks would've happened.
So...

What do you think our world/history/politics/culture/whatever would be like if the great Roman Empire never fell in 450 or 1450(the Eastern Roman Empire)?

**Rhyfelwyr** · 08-09-2013, 18:53

Interesting questions, obviously very difficult to answer, but it's fun to speculate.

If the Western Empire didn't fall in 450, I'm going to assume it would have fallen at a later date since it was effectively in terminal decline. Modern European nations would still have emerged in much the same way that they did, since cultural and political boundaries would have been shaped by the same geography. I guess that with the rise of feudal lords, they may have retained some sort of nominal allegiance to Rome and its symbolism, and the Empire may have existed in some sort of symbolic sense across Western (Christian) Europe, in much the same way the HRE did in Germany. The Great Schism might have been avoided in this scenario; alternatively, it might have happened ever earlier. It is possible that England might have become more 'Latinized', since although the Anglo-Saxons would most likely have been able to settle England on some level, they might not have become as dominant over a more Latinized Celtic peoples. English today might be a Romance language, with civil rather than common law. By extension, so of course would the USA and all the Commonwealth nations.

If the Eastern Empire remained beyond 1450, I don't think it could ever have been great again. However if it did manage to scrape out an existence and temper the power of the Ottomans, Constantinople might today be capital of Greece, and the Greek population might have survived in Western Turkey and been part of the Greek state. This would also impact the Armenian situation, and Armenia could have been much larger than it is today. The Mamluks might have held out against the Ottomans, although I think that would have limited impact on history, since they would fall to the colonial powers much the same. Same goes for Syria, Lebanon etc. However without the secular influence of the Ottomans, they might have much reduced minority populations today. Of course that would mean the colonial powers couldn't use minorities as a support base, so the ethnic/sectarian politics of the Levant might look very different.

Yeah, it's interesting to think about...