What if the Roman Empire survived?

[Bill Phil]

43 minutes ago, Mitrae said:

I answered no : indeed, the Roman Empire lasts until 1453, so we can confidently say they didn't achieve.

BTW, some historical assertions made on this post were more than inaccurate, purely false. Check your sources

Except that wasn't the Roman Empire. It was a Greek Empire. In fact, the culture of the area was completely different from Rome. And when it became the capital Rome was no longer the cultural center.

2 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Please keep away from modern politics, guys. That never ends well, which is why we have a forum rule about it. 

May I request a definition of politics in the context of this forum?

[adsii1970]

As an historian that has had to professionally debate this issue before, Rome was destined to collapse for a variety of reasons, the chiefest was NOT the series of barbarian invasions. The largest contributing factor is that Rome had NO domestic industry within the empire's core. Everything produced was being made by vassal states by the time of Jesus. Nothing, not even art or marble statues were coming from the Italian peninsula... For any civilization, this is a very serious problem when there is nothing tangible produced within an imperial core. From a socio-economic standpoint, this would create a large class of impoverished and chronically unemployed - a very dangerous class of people when trying to manage an empire as vast as Rome.

Compounding this problem is that Rome lacked, for several reasons, industrial, scientific, and technological development. Simply put, ROME DEVELOPED NOTHING once it quit being a republic in the means of domestic industry or even scientific achievement. Even its pantheon of gods is nothing more than a repackaging of ancient Greece. For this reason, we refer to it as the Greco-Roman period and all architecture and arts bear the same designation.

The only thing where the Romans excelled was architecture for great public works projects, such as roads, aqueducts, vomitoriums,bath houses, and sewage cisterns. These were very utilitarian structures, had a clear purpose, and are uniquely Roman (with some influence from Egypt, Greece, and western Mesopotamia). Crucifixion was also uniquely Roman, although some would dare to argue it is an adopted method of execution from the Nile Delta region and the northern Arabian peninsula. One thing the Romans were good at were taking the works of other civilizations and adopting them for Rome. As a sidenote, even Even the Roman broadsword is a Romanized version of the Spartan sword. So, in a nutshell, NO, Rome never could have made it into space.

 

-- edited because of typos.

Edited April 1, 2016 by adsii1970

[Vanamonde]

In this context, "politics" would be the conduct and policies of existing nations. 

[Mitrae]

9 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Except that wasn't the Roman Empire. It was a Greek Empire. In fact, the culture of the area was completely different from Rome. And when it became the capital Rome was no longer the cultural center.

Justinien wouldn't agree at all

 

Indeed, even the Arabs during crusades, for example, named the people from what what we call today 'Byzantine Empire' as "Rum". The Eastern Roman Empire is an historical convention to name this entity after the famous year 476. But these are not two strictly separate entities.

Moreover, the 'culture' of the Roman Empire wasn't unified at all, and the dominant 'latin' culture in the vey Italian peninsula was primarly vastly influenced by ancient greeks. And the different cultures weren't absorbed by the dominant one automatically as we can imagine. There were powerful people - senators, even emperors - who where culturally Celtic, Greek, African, Syrian, and so on. So, cultural distinction is not really relevant.

[HebaruSan]

Guys, the OP talks about a Rome that was "destroyed" before 1100 AD. If we accept that the "western Roman Empire" was a thing and that it was destroyed before 1100 AD, and that the eastern Roman Empire was not destroyed before that date, then the principle of charity compels us to interpret the OP as being about the western Roman Empire. Otherwise we might as well debate whether Charlemagne could have gone to the moon.

[daniel l.]

5 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Guys, the OP talks about a Rome that was "destroyed" before 1100 AD. If we accept that the "western Roman Empire" was a thing and that it was destroyed before 1100 AD, and that the eastern Roman Empire was not destroyed before that date, then the principle of charity compels us to interpret the OP as being about the western Roman Empire. Otherwise we might as well debate whether Charlemagne could have gone to the moon.

I agree partially, Lets imagine that nothing in roman history after 100 AD ever happened, Then imagine that rome around that time underwent a major cultural movement that eliminated the negative traits, And an emperor that supports technological development came to the throne? Would the Empire have survived?

[mikegarrison]

4 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Guys, the OP talks about a Rome that was "destroyed" before 1100 AD. If we accept that the "western Roman Empire" was a thing and that it was destroyed before 1100 AD, and that the eastern Roman Empire was not destroyed before that date, then the principle of charity compels us to interpret the OP as being about the western Roman Empire. Otherwise we might as well debate whether Charlemagne could have gone to the moon.

To me, it is clear that the OP just didn't understand what actually happened to the Roman Empire.

[PB666]

10 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

The roman empire did last until 1100 AD... in fact it lasted until 1453 AD... although it was in continual decline.

Don't tell me the eastern Roman empire doesn't count... don't tell me that this doesn't count (the eastern Roman Empire ... or rather just Roman Empire as its sister ceased to exist, under Justinian)

If we looked at nations/empires the way biologists look at clades... when there is a split, each has equal claim to the lineage.

We are just as much the descendants of the common ancestor of ourselves and Chimps as Chimps are, even if chimps bear a greater resemblance to our common ancestor.

Also... regarding the barbarian thing... it was the romans who were the barbarians... and their frequent civil wars did not help their situation one bit. It fell to its own corruption. Unlike earlier greek civilizations, and the later italian states that patronized the likes of Da Vinci and Galileo (even if he ran into trouble with the church)... the romans didn't really make any contributions to science. I'll grant that they had impressive engineering, but it wasn't so much anything new, as just made bigger with more resources devoted to it.

So no, they wouldn't have made it to space anytime soon, getting rid of that ineffective political organization/government probably sped things up, even if there was a temporary setback when it ended in the west

Some of romes enemies were barbarians in the full sense, IS would have a difficult time competing with the Huns. Ask the poles about the huns. Look up the vandals also, not blaming them for romes decline, but the period of great migration was not a banquet for the roman empire.

 

Edited April 2, 2016 by PB666

[daniel l.]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

To me, it is clear that the OP just didn't understand what actually happened to the Roman Empire.

I understood that the army became mostly germanic and resulted in the tribes essentially taking over, Installing and deposing emperors willynilly to their own wishes and eventually german general named Odoacer decided that the empire's time was up and deposed the last emperor, Installing himself as king of italy.

Edited April 2, 2016 by daniel l.

[mikegarrison]

Just now, daniel l. said:

I understood that the army became mostly germanic and resulted in the tribes essentially taking over, Installing and deposing emperors willynilly to their own wishes and eventually  german general named Odoacer decided that the empire's time was up and deposed the last emperor, Installing himself as king of italy.

But you ignored that Roman Empire, directly and continuously, actually did exist for hundreds of years beyond 1100AD.

[daniel l.]

Just now, mikegarrison said:

But you ignored that Roman Empire, directly and continuously, actually did exist for hundreds of years beyond 1100AD.

After a few years it ceased to be in any way roman other than name, After the 6th century it didnt even have rome!

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Except that wasn't the Roman Empire. It was a Greek Empire. In fact, the culture of the area was completely different from Rome. And when it became the capital Rome was no longer the cultural center.

May I request a definition of politics in the context of this forum?

Comment about US being an empire, only correct in the way that it contains multiple cultures who is an definition of an empire over an national state.
Both the US and Russia is pretty unique that they expanded their internal borders during the 18 and 18th century. Most other places had other established countries at their borders. 

[Raven Industries]

So, from the many reasons people have listed, it seems the Roman Empire suffered the same fate as Asimov's First Empire. Is this essentially correct?

[fredinno]

8 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

An empire is when one culture military conquers other cultures and their land. The U.S. is thus not an empire. Anymore, at least. The United states bought most of its land. The land that Mexico ceded and the islands under US control weren't purchased, though. But the Louisiana purchase and Alaska are large portions of the U.S.' land. Mexico made the mistake of letting Americans into Texas and their other northern lands. This eventually led to the war between Mexico and the US. 

The U.S. didn't conquer other cultures, but was there when the majority were created. Not to say that it was an amazing nation. 

I don't about the USSR, though... I wouldn't call them an empire. A hegemony would be more accurate.

...I was going to say that it depends on your definition of empire (imperialistic empire, or empire built from more indirect control) but I guess I shouldn't- the mods are staring at me.

7 hours ago, daniel l. said:

I agree partially, Lets imagine that nothing in roman history after 100 AD ever happened, Then imagine that rome around that time underwent a major cultural movement that eliminated the negative traits, And an emperor that supports technological development came to the throne? Would the Empire have survived?

They couldn't have- their society ran on a dead-end form of energy- slave labor. Rome as a society was not at all conductive for new technology that would have revolutionized its industry. Also, as someone said earlier, very little was produced in the core, leading to a trade imbalance.

[KerikBalm]

5 hours ago, PB666 said:

Some of romes enemies were barbarians in the full sense, IS would have a difficult time competing with the Huns. Ask the poles about the huns. Look up the vandals also, not blaming them for romes decline, but the period of great migration was not a banquet for the roman empire.

 

I don't think IS would have a hard time competing with the huns... surely a lot of what the huns did was exagerated... the romans loved to call anyone not roman a "barbarian" to justify their enslavedment and/or slaughter. Then there is also moral relativisim... what the huns did relative to other cultures at the time, vs what IS does now relative to others... meh lets not get into modern politics.

Yes, the various invasions of nomadic tribes did take down the empire... but it was the "straw that broke the camels back" or "the drop of water that made the glass overflow" (as they apparently say here in Europe).

The empire had been severely weakened internally. The internal corruption and concentration of wealth at the top had created al oligarchy that was competing for power and a populace unhappy with their lot... frequent civil wars didn't help.

The decline of the situation for the common "roman" citizen (not just the people of rome, but the italian peninsula, and roman citizens who emigrated to newly acquired territories) lead to a similar decline in the ability of the empire to field loyal, well trained, full strength legions... and the increasing reliance on auxilliaries lead to increasing disorder and disloyalty. The provinces at the edges weren't "romanized" as much... the internal focus of the roman politicians as they struggled amongst themselves for control lead to neglect of the frontiers.

Its not that the "barbarians" had invaded... its that systemic problems had made the roman empire so weak that the barbarians could successfully invade.

As to the eastern roman empire not even having Rome... it was still the Roman empire. California and texas would still be American even if the East coast of the US was occupied by a foreign power.

It didn't stop being the USA when the British took and occupied Washington DC in the war of 1812 (even if they didn't stay there very long).

[lajoswinkler]

13 hours ago, fredinno said:

Also, the lack of technological innovation that would have improved the Roman Empire (they shunned steam engines, for example), it was pretty much doomed. All empires are, eventually.

This is probably a better place to ask: http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/04/scienceshot-did-lead-poisoning-bring-down-ancient-rome

 

That link discusses water piping which was unlikely to cause much damage. However, I'm talking about their culinary habits. Cooking stuff in lead vessels, using lead based glazing, utensils, that is a potent source of lead. If sapa isn't one, what is? They were basically eating soluble lead. Interesting enough, the richer you were, the greater your exposure was likely to be. Very poor people did not use sapa as often as emperors. Also, soldiers and their families, used to life of pleasures (as usual, but more pronounced back then), were gulping down lead more often than peasants.

Lead was concentrating in nervous systems of people who were making decisions and executing those decisions. It's exactly the main problem.

[RA3236]

IIRC the Western Roman Empire didn't fall until 1400 AD.

[Nibb31]

Actually, one could argue that it evolved into the Holy Roman Empire, which was dissolved in 1806 by Napoleon Bonaparte.

[PB666]

4 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

I don't think IS would have a hard time competing with the huns... surely a lot of what the huns did was exagerated... the romans loved to call anyone not roman a "barbarian" to justify their enslavedment and/or slaughter. Then there is also moral relativisim... what the huns did relative to other cultures at the time, vs what IS does now relative to others... meh lets not get into modern politics.

Yes, the various invasions of nomadic tribes did take down the empire... but it was the "straw that broke the camels back" or "the drop of water that made the glass overflow" (as they apparently say here in Europe).

The empire had been severely weakened internally. The internal corruption and concentration of wealth at the top had created al oligarchy that was competing for power and a populace unhappy with their lot... frequent civil wars didn't help.

The decline of the situation for the common "roman" citizen (not just the people of rome, but the italian peninsula, and roman citizens who emigrated to newly acquired territories) lead to a similar decline in the ability of the empire to field loyal, well trained, full strength legions... and the increasing reliance on auxilliaries lead to increasing disorder and disloyalty. The provinces at the edges weren't "romanized" as much... the internal focus of the roman politicians as they struggled amongst themselves for control lead to neglect of the frontiers.

Its not that the "barbarians" had invaded... its that systemic problems had made the roman empire so weak that the barbarians could successfully invade.

As to the eastern roman empire not even having Rome... it was still the Roman empire. California and texas would still be American even if the East coast of the US was occupied by a foreign power.

It didn't stop being the USA when the British took and occupied Washington DC in the war of 1812 (even if they didn't stay there very long).

 

Quote

From Wikipedia

The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a contributing factor in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.[7] They formed a unified empire under Attila the Hun, who died in 453; their empire broke up the next year. Their descendants, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighboring populations to the south, east and west as having occupied parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia approximately from the 4th century to the 6th century. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century.

Although there were other factors also supporting this, there was a long standing tendencies of Gothic expansions that brought their descendants into SE Europe. The Huns reached the edge of Europe about 375, Attila the Hun died 453 and his empire disperse if 455, it was not a British sleepover in Washington DC. There was the story that in his invasion of region that is now Poland that he killed so many people in the north of the country, that cities remained full of the smell of death a decade after he had left. Note the difference in the size of the empire before and after the Huns attacked. The Huns could be ruthless to an extreme.  The advantage that the Huns had, their core mercenaries could essentially live on the back of a horse, it meant they could cover more ground in a day than most of the roman forces, at that time they exceeded the roman ability to communicate. They literally took control of the Danube, which was a major trading corridor going back to the early Neolithic. 

In addition, the Alans, one of the first groups to attack were a Scythian tribe that was apparently displaced by the Huns movement westward from Asia into the Caucasus. This is more to the point concerning the invasion of the Huns, whether you think the Romans able or feckless defenders, the Huns attacked and killed, or forced migrations of groups previously considered able among the barbarian tribes. When there is talk of the great migration, it hardly begins before mentioning the Huns. So the basic claim is that the roman empire was on its knees, probably an exaggeration of the fact that it really faced some pretty able barbarians from the East, more than that the faced the disruptions movement of starvation and diseases the disruption caused. If we have the origins correct they came from somewhere around lake Baikal about 375, within 25 years they are knocking on the back door of Paris and a few years after that deciding whether to cross the Po and take Rome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period

I think the key problem was a sense that the roman Identity was Mediterranean in nature, if you want to call this greco-romans, and Roman leaders tended to concentrate along the prosperous ports leaving control of the periphery to negotiated partnerships with allies, many of whom were fair weather friends, as long as there was a benefit, they stayed in the alliance. Defense became uncentralized. Of course this causes production in the major ports to be extremely reliant on goods elsewhere, and the supply lines are vulnerable, but secondary weaknesses are in controlling the problems of poverty and disease in the core territories, because it is the children of the impoverished that are future defenders of the empire. If the raiders come through and say we'll treat you better than them, the empire has a problem. This is the problem the Huns create, they see a good rider who likes the warrior lifestyle . . . . . and so thats how the huns became powerful so quickly. But the problem was more than that, there was a series of bad emperors, and prior to the east/west divide the empire had been split before this when rulers died and sons took over, outside of the port cities this created fracturing. There were places, like hiberia, where the politics remained cohesive, but hiberia did not have an extensive frontier which barbarians could attack.

 

[RocketSquid]

Rome had steam engines. They used them as toys, or neat demo pieces. Not once did anyone use them for industry.

[fredinno]

 

14 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Actually, one could argue that it evolved into the Holy Roman Empire, which was dissolved in 1806 by Napoleon Bonaparte.

Why?

11 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

Rome had steam engines. They used them as toys, or neat demo pieces. Not once did anyone use them for industry.

Indeed, the lack of increased energy density put them in a technological dead end.

[Bill Phil]

14 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Actually, one could argue that it evolved into the Holy Roman Empire, which was dissolved in 1806 by Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Holy Roman Empire is fun. It's neither holy, roman, or an empire.

It was a confederation of german kingdoms, founded hundreds of years after the western Roman Empire fell by Germanic people. It has no relation to the Roman Empire.

22 hours ago, KerbalSaver said:

So, from the many reasons people have listed, it seems the Roman Empire suffered the same fate as Asimov's First Empire. Is this essentially correct?

Asimov's first empire was based on the Roman Empire.

On April 1, 2016 at 4:58 PM, Mitrae said:

Justinien wouldn't agree at all

 

Indeed, even the Arabs during crusades, for example, named the people from what what we call today 'Byzantine Empire' as "Rum". The Eastern Roman Empire is an historical convention to name this entity after the famous year 476. But these are not two strictly separate entities.

Moreover, the 'culture' of the Roman Empire wasn't unified at all, and the dominant 'latin' culture in the vey Italian peninsula was primarly vastly influenced by ancient greeks. And the different cultures weren't absorbed by the dominant one automatically as we can imagine. There were powerful people - senators, even emperors - who where culturally Celtic, Greek, African, Syrian, and so on. So, cultural distinction is not really relevant.

An empire is one culture tied to territory dominating other territories and their associated cultures.

The Roman Empire's seat was rome. Rome was the dominant culture and population, and when that was moved to Constantinople, it wasn't Roman (belonging to Rome). The dominant people became the Constantinoplians. That was also the seat of the emperor, so, since Rome is no longer involved, it's not a Roman Empire. And it's not dominated by Rome.

22 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Comment about US being an empire, only correct in the way that it contains multiple cultures who is an definition of an empire over an national state.
Both the US and Russia is pretty unique that they expanded their internal borders during the 18 and 18th century. Most other places had other established countries at their borders. 

An empire involves one people conquering another, and the US didn't do that ( from some points of view, IE, other nations).

[fredinno]

39 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

The Holy Roman Empire is fun. It's neither holy, roman, or an empire.

It was a confederation of german kingdoms, founded hundreds of years after the western Roman Empire fell by Germanic people. It has no relation to the Roman Empire.

Asimov's first empire was based on the Roman Empire.

An empire is one culture tied to territory dominating other territories and their associated cultures.

The Roman Empire's seat was rome. Rome was the dominant culture and population, and when that was moved to Constantinople, it wasn't Roman (belonging to Rome). The dominant people became the Constantinoplians. That was also the seat of the emperor, so, since Rome is no longer involved, it's not a Roman Empire. And it's not dominated by Rome.

An empire involves one people conquering another, and the US didn't do that ( from some points of view, IE, other nations).

If the capital of the US moved from DC to New York, would it no longer be the US?

[daniel l.]

1 minute ago, fredinno said:

If the capital of the US moved from DC to New York, would it no longer be the US?

DC was never really worth it as a capital, Honestly its kinda trash anyway, When britain burned it in the war of 1812 they actually did us a favor by increasing the resolve to fight. But yes it would still be the US because DC would still be part of the country and the US was always meant to be a decentralized country.

Rome however was the absolute center the Empire, It was the center of culture, Government, Military, And many other things, An Empire without Rome is not Roman.

[Bill Phil]

13 minutes ago, fredinno said:

If the capital of the US moved from DC to New York, would it no longer be the US?

It's not called the United States of the District of Columbia. If it was, then yes, it would change. But the country had changing capitals before Washington.

Rome is also completely different from Washington. People from Rome conquered the Italian Peninsula and then went on to Romanize it. They made a confederation/republic. Later they had a civil war. Rome became an empire. Rome was the center of everything. It was the center of the empire. 

Edited April 3, 2016 by Bill Phil