Quote Originally Posted by hoom
I'd like to think something like this:
There may have been no Christianity or Islam & so no monotheism wars.
Polytheism would probably still be widespread in the West.

When Konstantin made Christianty the major faith of the Roman Empire, it was already one of the three main religions in the East, while the West remained very much pagan even after Konstantin, in some cases until the Barabrians' invasion of whom many - like the Goths - were already Christians. In fact in Western Europe the people outside the Roman Empire were much more willing to become Christians than the (West-)Romans themselves; think of the Irish for example.


For the political aspect: Karthago was usualy satisfied by placing a trading outpost there and there. So Rome might have had a strong Karthagian garrison for some time, but Italy would have never become an Karthagian colony, leave alone the idea of an 'Karthagian Empire' in the West. On the other hand, Karthago wasn't alone in the world. For example, Pyrrhos is said to have been more or less on his way to Africa when setting sails for Sicily.

There might have been other Hellenist leaders searching for lands and glory in Italy if that would have been just a collection of Karthagian allied tribes and towns. And, for sure, their first address for help when fighting the Karthagians and their allies would have been...... Rome.

So history would have been as it was, with just a few centuries delay.