If Roman empire wouldnt have collapsed

[Kagemusha]

I got this weird thought in my mind when i was reading Adrian II´s post in The What is the most important event in European History thread.If Roman Empire wouldnt have collapsed,would it have slowed down European progress on as whole?Without competing European kingdoms.Would have Europe ever developed itself this advanced as we are?

[IliaDN]

IMO it helped Europeans to devlop before the collapse, and could have helped after.

[Kagemusha]

I agree Iliadn.But for development do you think it would have been better or worse compared to Independant European kingdoms?

[IliaDN]

Well ... maybe it is good as it happened.
Roman Empire was to corrupted and too conservative ( IMO ) to bring progress, if those could have been eridecated than - maybe they could be a better option.

[Stefan the Berserker]

This is a mostly difficult question. Anyway it is not precisely asked: The roman state OR the Empire at its largest extend?

In case of the roman state survival meaning the Imperium Romanum itself survived, the Questions are about Odovacar, Julius Nepos and Theodoric the Great if the acted differently.

The common thing in any form of a conservation of the western roman empire, was that the catholic church never succseeded: There would be a western orthodox church and a eastern orthodox church controlled by their Augustus.

However this would result in roman christianity not being a political advantage for barbarians, helping the small subsidiaries of chritianity to survive. In some cases, Arianism could have become dominant. It is also expectable that Ásatrú would have better chances to survive, since the existence of the empire would not allow any smaller nation to rise and expand into pagan countries.

Case 1) The Ostrogoth Empire



The most realistic variant was that Belisar failed, with the Ostrogoths stopping him and declaring Theoderic the Great or later Athalarich to be the roman emperor in attemp to preserve loyalty of the italian population and independence of the empire from Byzantium.

This Roman-Goth Empire could have survived and created an Italian Nationalstate with parts of Yugoslavia and Austria, always in hostility with Byzantium. However it could have destroyed Byzantium, in case Belisar did not do the opposite, with the rise of the Arabs in the East and become a strong power. Further the Goths would replace the historical role of the Catholic Chruch with an Arian Statechurch.

[King of Atlantis]

I think the fall of the roman empire was evntually good, but no the fall of civilization. I mean so much knowledge was lost from roman times to the dark ages.