what if rome had never fallen?

[discovery1]

Rome probably would have ended up like china: Stagnent.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

If Rome never fell...we'd never hear of the Huns?

[GoreBag]

I would be very sad. Also, Christianity would not be nearly as prevalent as it is today, or even existant at all.

[AntiochusIII]

I would be very sad. Also, Christianity would not be nearly as prevalent as it is today, or even existant at all.

Really? Constantine, and most of his heirs, supported Christianity. And Constantine was one of the strongest late Roman emperors around; his myth of benevolence is a shallow propaganda from the church trying to make a bloody soldier into a saint simply because he supported it.

[Steppe Merc]

Of course Rome would fall. It wasn't magical, all nations fall.

[VAE VICTUS]

very true steppe merc. thanks for all your responses,just wanted to see where it would go.was rome te longest lasting empire?

[lars573]

very true steppe merc. thanks for all your responses,just wanted to see where it would go.was rome te longest lasting empire?

No that again is China. First Chinese Emperor crowned 221 BC, last Emperor deposed 1912 AD. Life of Chinese empire 2133 years. First Roman Emperor installed 27 BC, last one killed 1453 AD. Life of the Roman empire 1480 years.

[GoreBag]

Really? Constantine, and most of his heirs, supported Christianity. And Constantine was one of the strongest late Roman emperors around; his myth of benevolence is a shallow propaganda from the church trying to make a bloody soldier into a saint simply because he supported it.

Eventually, Rome supported it, but it didn't really spread until Rome had fallen and the church sent missionaries out to convert the heathens. Assuming that Rome did not continue to annex territory, as it was no state to do so before it...never fell... there would have been far more peoples who had never converted to Christianity.

Of course, there's nothing to say the Rome wouldn't have converted to Islam like it had converted Christianity, or even grown to reject Christianity to return to paganism. It's all conjecture anyway.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Rome had become an empire, one of the consistent and dominant forms of government in human experience.

A key weakness to empire, however, is the top echelon leadership. If power is concentrated at the top:

a poor leader can really muck things up (e.g. Caligula, Nicholas Romanov)

any transfer of power can result in civil war (e.g. Nobunaga, G. Julius Caesar Dictator)

one sudden death can leave the state rudderless or break it apart (Alexander, Darius)

If power is not concetrated at the top:

You have a bureacratized government wherein the largely permanent bureacrats vie for resources (bureacratic politics model) and swift decision-making and response are restricted by "red tape." Moreover, such a system tends to limit innovation unless actively managed to encourage it.

The last is, of course, a more stable form than the former but is prone to "rotting from within."

Had Rome persisted, it would have done so as a bureaucratized empire. It would have been forced to unify nearly all of continental Europe simply to survive barbarian attack. Any "line" short of the Dniepr/Dnestr would have been untenable. Such an empire would also have had to encourage innovation and technology more than they did, as well as actively encouraging economic prosperity throughout their holdings. Even so, the race to harness gunpowder for weaponry would, ultimately, have decided Rome's fate even if they had held off the great barbarian invasions.

Seamus