what if rome had never fallen?

[VAE VICTUS]

ok what if rome had never fallen and had existed to this day?
im not sure where to post this,so if it needs to be moved please excuse me.

[Craterus]

The fall of Rome was inevitable, with so many barbarians, and that their top priority, it was going to happen.

[Marcellus]

Plus Rome was stagnating, politically and militarily.Emperors were very insecure in their power, leading to the reduction in willingness to campaign. The legions were getting much smaller also, and the Empire was basically decaying.

[VAE VICTUS]

But What If I Hadnt Of Fallen?what If It Never Stagnated?

[mercian billman]

But What If I Hadnt Of Fallen?what If It Never Stagnated?

If Rome had never fallen or stagnated they probably would have the entire world by now and Space Legionares would be getting ready to land on Mars

Seriously though the number of possibilities is infinite, but I believe that the Roman empire would've found itself locked in a cold war with another growing civilization.

[AntiochusIII]

If Rome had never fallen or stagnated they probably would have the entire world by now and Space Legionares would be getting ready to land on Mars

Err... no. The glorious Earth Empire (the name "Roman" is obsolete long ago, traitor! Since the victorious battle of Madagascar where our mighty fleet crushed the last remnants of the Chinese resistance 5 centuries ago we dominated Earth completely) is already on its way to colonize Pluto with ten thousand colonists, the final frontier before the endless universe, where our empire will one day rule: supreme, unchallenged.

Now, seriously, Rome is, in a way, destined to stagnation. There had been too large a gap between the lives of the rich and the poor, too much corruption, and the slow stagnation of non-progress in many ways. The Roman world was "too stabilized" that it did not spun real progress in philosophy, technology, and other such achievements unlike a world of competition could. So our development as a whole may, in fact, be less than that.

[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?

[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

[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.

[master of the puppets]

you shouldn't say that it was exactly inevitable at the moment it happened. because hundreds thought that the empire was collapsing because of the senates failings just before ceaser took charge, really the empire was forged and maintained by the wars and there generals. had hadrian never decided on the defensive stance then rome would have kept its lagre inflow of cash from conquered lands which would keep the army in shape. the huns did so well partly because they were not fighting prime imperialist legions. had Aetius desided after chalons to go back to rome and say establish a senate so he would be free on the frontier then the chances would be vastly greatened of there success. the emperors were the downfall of rome (pious fools) there extravagance, corruption, scheming, fear and conspiricy doomed them. what rome needed at the time was a reform of the government but it never happened and they were destroyed.

chinese empire passed threw so many hands its imposible to tell.

[Meneldil]

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.

that's a bit cheap. There was a whole lot of Chinese Empires, while there was only 1 Roman Empire (and eventually, 2 when it splits up). There was different dynasties, but they all claimed to be heir of Caesar. Most of the Chinese Empires did not last more than a few centuries, and covered some different places.

The Capital of the Roman empire were Roma and Constantinople later on, while there was a dozen of capitals for the various Chinese kingdoms/empires.

[Gurkhal]

you shouldn't say that it was exactly inevitable at the moment it happened. because hundreds thought that the empire was collapsing because of the senates failings just before ceaser took charge, really the empire was forged and maintained by the wars and there generals. had hadrian never decided on the defensive stance then rome would have kept its lagre inflow of cash from conquered lands which would keep the army in shape. the huns did so well partly because they were not fighting prime imperialist legions. had Aetius desided after chalons to go back to rome and say establish a senate so he would be free on the frontier then the chances would be vastly greatened of there success. the emperors were the downfall of rome (pious fools) there extravagance, corruption, scheming, fear and conspiricy doomed them. what rome needed at the time was a reform of the government but it never happened and they were destroyed.

I am not really sure about this, one of the resons to why Rome stopped to expand was because it couldn't nor did it want to, keep what it had was an issue that was enough for it. Northern Europe inhabited by the Germanic tribes wasn't very tempting to the Romans, as far as I know all invasions up north was to create a good border for defence, not to conquer valuble lands. In the east the Sassanids (I know about the spelling ) halted the Romans with military strenght, not enough to destroy the Roman Empire but well enough to keep the Romans back. I doubt that with the need for garrison troops in the empire itself an army great enough to actually take over the Sassinids/Parthians would be a very big gamble, as a failure could also be taken as a sign of Roman weakness and start of revolts and incursions from the outside. Remember that when the Romans took a new area, sure they got more slaves. But this new area would also need more slaves so the need for slaves would be constantly growing at the same time as the Romans captured more lands to gain slaves and the need for more soliders would also increase, go up north the population wasn't big enough to support the empire with all the slaves it would need. And it could also leave it with a bad border for defence. A good defendible border was also the resons for pushing the border to the Rhine and later attempting to push it to the Elbe.

Personally I don't think that the Huns would have done worse against imperialstic legions, their actions against a such foe would be very different from the actions against the foe they faced. Nor do I belive that a senate would necissery make the Empire more lasting, they could well decide that Aetius was a threat to their own power and thus have him killed aswell.

[AntiochusIII]

The Capital of the Roman empire were Roma and Constantinople later on, while there was a dozen of capitals for the various Chinese kingdoms/empires.

However, most of the early ones are concentrated on two sites: the "Chang'an" site and the "Luoyang" (I don't know the modern names) site. The Chinese empires are not one, though, in the manner of the Sassanids claiming as heirs to the Achaemenids, most dynasties consider themselves "successors" of the previous major one.

It's the Chinese civilization that is longest-lasting, though, not its empires.

Also, one could argue that Mediolanium (Milan) and Ravenna were used as capitals, as well, and Diocletian's Nicomedia (Nicaea).

[Alexanderofmacedon]

First of all Rome still does exist

Second of all, it was too hard to stop it. The world at that time was absolutely sick of Roman rule. Everyone hated them for the murderous things they did.

[Avicenna]

The Chinese were succeeded by dynasties, just like Rome was. There were periods of civil war when it split up, but the actual empire was still there (if much smaller) and eventually taken over by another family and a new dynasty established with the same empire.

The Chinese are hardly stagnant, unless you mean not expanding, something which no countries are doing right now. There isn't a lack of technological advance, they're just a few decades behind the US. China has just recently put a man into space, only something the US and USSR (Russia now) have done before.

[Rodion Romanovich]

But What If I Hadnt Of Fallen?what If It Never Stagnated?

It would have required that Rome accepted the cultures and independence of all her neighbors at least 300-500 years before Odovacar took Rome for the Roman Empire to be able to survive, and/or carry out extensive replacement of her old values and ideologies, like the Byzantine Empire did (otherwise it had hardly lasted). They crushed the early rebels who were willing to negotiate and only fought for their own freedom and would accept a fair peace. That left Rome with only the rebels who didn't only fight for their freedom, but also for the destruction of Rome, the total elimination of every part of the empire.

Assuming a situation where Rome did carry out extensive enough reforms of it's ideologies to survive, I think Rome would have remained a backwards underdeveloped state. Rome was very conservative and never really invented anything, but stole most inventions from others. For example Rome never improved farming technology even though they knew how to do it, because it was cheaper and more according to their mentality and culture to hold slaves. So Rome would hardly have ended up using space legionaries or any modern technology unless the surrounding nations and tribes had invented it first. Imperial Rome is often the wet dream of any Imperalist, as history has shown many have wanted to become Rome, but their image of Rome is a refined one which hides the simple truth - that Rome was a bunch of people who begun by defending themselves, then ended up attacking first to defend themselves, and then ended up attacking first to please themselves, and thereby caused their own destruction. Unfortunately they got very powerful before they reached the state of attacking and oppressing, so they had quite a lot of power build up to consume by their oppressive folly, so the fall and ultimate total destruction of Rome took quite long time.

[Watchman]

Those what-ifs are pure fantasy anyway. Thus far in history there has not been a single empire that had not at some point gone and cracked up - the details of "why" vary, but internal decay, restless barbarians and/or a neighbor in a better condition tend to be heavily represented.

Anyway, as far as premodern empires go they all had a certain threshold point beyond which they simply could not muster the resources to expand further, if only for the simple fact that keeping hold of what they already had tied down so much. And after that happened, they nigh invariably started getting kind of lazy and corrupt and so on as all the social climbing and getting rich in essence had to be done at home, conquests now kind of being off the agenda.

Second of all, it was too hard to stop it. The world at that time was absolutely sick of Roman rule. Everyone hated them for the murderous things they did.

Huh ? That's total bunk. Most of the citizens had no particular issues with the Empire per se, but rather with the fact it was crumbling in the pressure of constant civil strife and all those barbarians pouring over the borders. Nobody particularly likes to have his home looted and burned by a civil war or a barbarian incursion after all. The barbarians, for their part, tended to be only too happy to fight under the Roman flag in return of for example land to settle on or plain pay; in any case they had way more pressing issues (namely the Migrations) than something silly like disliking Rome, which in one way or another was often their prime source of real wealth anyway.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Huh ? That's total bunk. Most of the citizens had no particular issues with the Empire per se, but rather with the fact it was crumbling in the pressure of constant civil strife and all those barbarians pouring over the borders. Nobody particularly likes to have his home looted and burned by a civil war or a barbarian incursion after all.

Sorry, by whole world, I meant barbarian tribes were all sick of Romans.

[Watchman]

Still bunk. The hairy buggers were chiefly interested in making a profit out of the Romans - by trade, raiding, mercenary service, tribute payments or whatever - and for example were about the single biggest source of recruits for the assorted potentates' comitatus troops (the main Roman mobile field units of the Late Antiquity period, although as a rule initially founded to protect the relevant bigwig from his enemies...). Made good service too. Heck, entire barbarian tribes would migrate quite long ways to the vicinity of the Roman border in search of get-rich opportunities, with the obvious destabilizing effects for the border regions. It was even worse in the Dacia-Pannonia-Bulgaria region, where the only thing of any value the barbarians had to offer the Romans was manpower - be it slaves or mercenaries. Neither extensive slaving operations nor large bumbers of would-be mercenaries are somehting that add to the general stability or well-being of any area...

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Still bunk. The hairy buggers were chiefly interested in making a profit out of the Romans - by trade, raiding, mercenary service, tribute payments or whatever - and for example were about the single biggest source of recruits for the assorted potentates' comitatus troops (the main Roman mobile field units of the Late Antiquity period, although as a rule initially founded to protect the relevant bigwig from his enemies...). Made good service too. Heck, entire barbarian tribes would migrate quite long ways to the vicinity of the Roman border in search of get-rich opportunities, with the obvious destabilizing effects for the border regions. It was even worse in the Dacia-Pannonia-Bulgaria region, where the only thing of any value the barbarians had to offer the Romans was manpower - be it slaves or mercenaries. Neither extensive slaving operations nor large bumbers of would-be mercenaries are somehting that add to the general stability or well-being of any area...

You may be right.

[BigTex]

ok what if rome had never fallen and had existed to this day?
im not sure where to post this,so if it needs to be moved please excuse me.

Its been 2 milenia and 2 World Wars since the mighty Roman Empire wielded power. Their affects are still felt to this day. To theorize what would have happened you would need to specify what correction, what time. The late roman empire slowly dwindled due to many effects changing one would have only slowed the inevitable. All monarchy's all dictators are doomed to fail if they opress the poor. If the disperity becomes to large in any society between the rich and poor, eventually the rich will be overthrown. It has been so long since the Roman Empire, if they had held on and expanded eventually they would have swallowed the world. United everyone under one language and one nation, it would be aweinspiring. It is often speculated that the fall of th roman empire and the begining of the dark ages set the world back 2000 years. If we had a 2000 year head start on tech then there's no telling what solar system we'd be colonizing now.

[Csargo]

If Rome would have never fallen I would be in this exact same spot doing this exact thing with one difference....







































I would be naked instead of fully clothed......
And I'm not quite sure why...

[GeneralHankerchief]

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]

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.