what if rome had never fallen?

**GeneralHankerchief** · 04-25-2006, 01:55

Sometime during the Crisis of the Third Century, a Roman emperor gets smart and withdraws from the whole of Africa, Asia, and parts of Europe, leaving the Empire to now consist of Italy and the Balkan Peninsula, plus Byzantium. A crisis is averted and things soon stabilize.

The barbarians keep pouring in but with so much less to defend the Romans are able to repulse them easily. Christianity cannot make a dent in the condensed empire and instead spreads to Northern Africa, Persia, and Arabia. Around 600 AD, a man named Muhammed, believing that he carries the word of God, organises a Christian empire with a capital at Jerusalem and tries to convert the "heathen" Romans. Centuries of tension escalate.

There are on and off wars between Rome and Jerusalem for a number of years, each conflict getting bloodier. Eventually Jerusalem begins a series of Crusades aimed at spreading their influence. However, around 1187 the Roman forces deal a decisive defeat to Pope Saladin's army in Syria, and the Christians are forced to retreat deep into the desert, where they meet China.

There is a long stretch of peace known as the Second Pax Romana where technology flourishes. The Romans care little for exploration, however, and North America remains undiscovered. In the 1400s, the Mongol Empire, now Christian and led by the descendents of Genghis Khan, migrate west and find that their old territories such as Jerusalem and Alexandria are now occupied by semi-independent city-states that pay tribute to Rome but are pretty much left alone. They attack, and a new series of Crusades begin. However, it is short lived, as Roman machine guns massacre the Christian Mongols and their swords.

Of course this technology will leak into the rest of Europe. The barbarians renew their attempts to take Italy and Greece, this time with greater weapons. Thus begins a long, hard struggle between Rome fending off the barbarians, not to mention holding off assaults from the Mongolian Empire, who developed weaponry of their own.

Things reached a high point when emperor Napoleonius Bonapartian of Corsica devastated the barbarians, especially the Gauls, for years in the early 1800s. He also brought reforms to the Roman people, making them more free. However, peace under Napoleonius lasted shortly more than a century when the barbarians united under Adolf Hitler. Hitler's forces, combined with an alliance with the Mongolian Empire, threatened to destroy Rome. The Great War erupted, and at first things looked grim, up until the Mongols bombed Dubai. The semiindependent city-states then pledged their help, and slowly but surely the enemy was driven back. The barbarians were pushed to Scandanavia, with the whole of Europe a no-man's land. Meanwhile Antioch nuked the baloney out of the Mongolian cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and peace was Rome's.

Things are in the rebuilding stage. Rome is realizing the importance of a globalized economy, and offering help to the defeated enemy. Meanwhile, the Roman agents in Mongolia have reported that the Mongolians have made contact with a strange group of people far across the Pacific Ocean...

That, my friends, is what would have happened if Rome never fell.

**Avicenna** · 04-25-2006, 07:55

Pfft, the Romans wouldn't have gone into guns. They weren't as in to developing new technology as Greece. Gunpowder came from China anyway, so it would be the other way round.

China was pretty much one Empire with succeeding dynasties. The structure remained pretty much the same, the language the same, territories the same and culture the same.

BigTex: 3 world wars. Napoleon's war was fought over 3 continents as well.

**Alexanderofmacedon** · 04-25-2006, 22:13

Romans would still be throwing Pila at enemies

**GeneralHankerchief** · 04-26-2006, 00:40

No, see, over time the Romans replace the pila with machine guns. But after seeing their effectiveness, they just decide to drop the whole "charge in after we pepper them from mid-range" part.

**Alexanderofmacedon** · 04-26-2006, 03:50

Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

No, see, over time the Romans replace the pila with machine guns. But after seeing their effectiveness, they just decide to drop the whole "charge in after we pepper them from mid-range" part.

They might throw the guns instead of shooting.

**cunobelinus** · 04-29-2006, 20:50

Not just that it is envitable for all empires to come to and end because of ever other other country or place wanting there freedom back or wanting power for themselves. It is impossible for an empire at that time to survive because they dont have powerful enough weapons or pure power to able to keep people in there grip.Also in my opinion the romans expanded too far even though this is human nature to want more and more power. It is nearly impossible to control the world and thats what the romans basically did well the known world to them and this just made there fall too come quicker than proberly it would have.

The barbrians also began to use more horses and the roman infrantry was made to change and it never really worked again in my opinion. The barbrians also began to hit back at the romans more and more and with more power than before.
So with the comment that if the rome had never fallen it would never had happend .I know its a thought that could go through your mind but it cant happen and never will happen with an empire

**Rodion Romanovich** · 04-30-2006, 08:45

Actually it wasn't just the barbarians starting to use more horses and becoming more effective. It was that Rome expanded by taking all territory they could take easily, but not the territory they considered nearly impossible to take, so they ended up creating a sort of "evolution" effect until in the end they had only the type of opponents they couldn't beat along their borders - sarmatians and parthians that could fight on their steppes, and germanic infantry that could fight in their dense forests. In the end they expanded so far that they had no chance of logistically supply any expansion further, which resulted in them eventually being unable to counter-attack their opponents, even when the opponents were the ones to start a war. Also, people started to learn about how Rome turned people against each others to attack them after they had weakened themselves. When the Romans invited the huns to the Pannonian basin to kill the goths, the goths instead of fighting the huns chose to fight Rome, and did so very effectively, destroying most of the roman weapon factories in Moesia (with consequences for at least 50 years) and a huge army at Adrianople. Then the huns came too. Instead of turning both against each others, Rome ended up turning both against Rome, a turn of events that was possible to expect would happen since a few centuries earlier.

There were several cases of barbarians carrying out rebellions at the same time, for example the Illyrian rising which forced Octavian to abort the operation into Germania, which gave time for Arminius to prepare what became the Teutoburg forest battle. There was the wave of rebellions in when Trajan went into Parthia - Jews threatening Cyrenaica, Egypt and Cyprus, Dacians revolting in Dacia, and Armenians and Parthians revolting in all the territories Trajan had conquered, threatening to cut off his entire army on it's march back west and creating the worst defeat the romans had suffered during the entire empire period. They even tried to use propaganda to hide the defeat, making coins stating the "victory" of Rome, and while Trajan in panic marched his army west he forced the parthian monarch to utter words that would work well in the propaganda to make it look like a victory, which it of course wasn't (the roman empire was pushed back to their positions before that war, and apart from a small insignificant operation against the Chatii, from that moment they steadily lost ground until the destruction of the empire).

Since the wave of rebellions during Trajan's Parthian war, there were constant waves of rebellions and attacks from barbarian tribes until the fall of Rome. Among the marcomans and gothic forces there were for example sarmatians and dacians, who had been attacked by Rome earlier. Among the germanic tribes that attacked over the Rhine, there were plenty of children of those who had fought at the Teutoburg forest. The terminology of the germanic tribes often hides this fact - franks, alemanni etc. are in fact names for a collection of several of the smaller germanic tribes that Rome fought earlier. However among them there were of course also people from tribes who hadn't faced the treacherous Rome before, people who merely seeked power. It's interesting that the germanic tribes went together and created the groups franks and alemanni, which shows they clearly had also learnt a lesson about Rome's diplomacy and that they were prepared to unite to fight Rome.

And as for the barbarians that served in the roman army, most were from the roman provinces and offered citizenship and similar things for their work. However, these barbarians were seldom that loyal to Rome - when they were sent to fight the goths in the Balkans, they deserted and joined the goth force instead of fighting for Rome. This uncertainty of loyalty crippled roman military actions during the entire fall of Rome, as they couldn't merge their forces in any way that was militarily practical, but always had to make sure there were enough loyal romans fighting with the barbarian auxilia forces. This was costly as it meant the real fighting strength of the roman army was much smaller than the number of men they had to pay.

Furthermore, in the provinces where people had given up rebellion, they instead saw a chance to get power by obeying Rome's laws and striving hard, using a coup or bribe someone to get a position of power. After so many rebellions and wars, Rome had gradually been forced to give more and more of the province people more and more rights to careers and positions of power, which meant these people (who still often hated Rome and were more loyal to their own interests than those of the Empire) often weakened the empire further and wasted it's money and resources. There were also plenty of coups (Rhine front during Domitian, "the Great Conspiracy" during 3rd century, the coup that made Heliogabalus emperor etc.) and civil wars. These civil wars were possible to cope with for Caesar and Octavian, but when the tribes who had been oppressed by Rome and attacked by Rome became more and more, that was an unbearable burden.

**cunobelinus** · 04-30-2006, 13:51

yer but you cant say that the barbrians didnt change there way of fighting to deafeat the rome.Also mainly i said exactly what you said they expanded to fair like what you just expanded on it more saying about the other wars. Also u basically contradicated yourself during what you said i said the romans changed the way they faught against the barbrians that they did and you said exactly the same and u started by saying that they didnt that they did . The romans later fighting forces in there empire never really worked as well as the earlyer legions and there way of fighting got out dated and the reasons we both said is what lead the to the enevatable fall of rome .

**doc_bean** · 05-01-2006, 00:37

I think the fall of Rome can be attributed as much to the shear size of the empire as it can to the invading barbarians.

There was a pretty strong east-west contrast in the empire, that was already clear when Marc Anthony headed east and tried to split the empire. The eastern part spoke Greek and was Orthodox (later on anyway), the Western part spoke latin and was Catholic. Those are just the clear signs of the differences between both sides.

If Rome had persisted longer they would have had to face the rise of Islam and the invading Mongols and Turks later on, not to mention the Vikings which would have been a serious threat to internal security. Then there was the reformation which surely would have threatened a theocratic state...

In the end, we can't say what would have happened if the empire still existed. It was arguably at its peak about 2000y ago, and unless you were an ancient Egyptian, that's a hell of a long time.