what if rome had never fallen?

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Romans would still be throwing Pila at enemies

[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.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Zain]

If the Roman Empire never fell, we would all has the letters "us" at the ends of our names. Dang that got old!

-ZainDustin

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...

[Craterus]

You used "u" a few times...

Corruption

Secure

Because

Would

[The Wizard]

Bah, Rome screwed itself over more than anybody else did.

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...

[Craterus]

Thinking about letters they should have they should call double U's double V's instead.

I've always thought that too . Sorry to hijack the thread.

[Avicenna]

Spmetla:

the Romans didn't capitalise any words apart from names in Latin. they'd write like this so that names would stand out, but it's quite annoying because you have to search for the full stops. the capitals were for things like names, coins and statues or things like that. if you don't believe me, look for a Latin book, you'll find that there aren't many capitals at all.

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...