What if there was never a Roman empire ?

[maurel]

Here are the best experts in history i can find in the internet. What if there was never a Roman empire or a huge roman expansion ? something like the Etruscan conquering the republic in its early ages or something like.

How would that impact our language, culture, political borders and history ?

[Emperor PooMan]

Our current legal system would not exist for one thing. The way for fighting wars would also be different, most likley we would not have professional paid armies, they would be levies. And morden English would not exist, because it is based off French, which in turn is based off of Latin.

[anonimo272]

it's simple, we unwashed barbarians wouldn't take showers...

[Darkan]

We'd all be hoplites, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing...

[Roma_Victrix]

Greek civilization would probably spread across Europe and North Africa instead, if they were ever capable of unseating or conquering the various Celtic and Germanic peoples in their homelands of Iberia, Gaul, Britannia, Germania, etc. Greek would most likely be the lingua franca of today's world, if not Persian. There's no guarantee that a Greek civilization hundreds of years after antiquity would have bothered colonizing the Americas or the rest of the world for that matter. China would perhaps be far more important in global affairs, even more so than it is now, with no United States superpower to act as a counterbalance in geopolitics.

[Brihentin13]

Another power would likely fill the void(eventually), adopting many of the practices that made Rome so successful. I just don't know who it would be. The Gauls lacked political unity. The Greeks/Macedonian Successor States were constantly trying to murder one another. The Persians were more or less already wrecked by the afore mentioned Hellenes. Carthage might have done much better without losing the Punic Wars, so there's that.

A third Brennus rising up would have been neat. A united Gaul, building an empire for the Celts...

"Soap and chainmail for everyone!"

[Munsingis]

Here are the best experts in history i can find in the internet. What if there was never a Roman empire or a huge roman expansion ? something like the Etruscan conquering the republic in its early ages or something like.

How would that impact our language, culture, political borders and history ?

The "center" of the world would likely not be the West (in the sense of N. European civilization).


Most of the N. Mediterranean civilizations were fragmented and southern facing, so perhaps a N. African people would have become the first modern state.


I agree with Brihentin13, Carthage or its sister cities are as good a contender as any.


Europe north of the Alps might look like the Middle East in terms of tribalism, perhaps overrun earlier by Germans, perhaps slowly pushing "Celtic" civilization into the British Isles as a refugee archipelago, the Anglo-Saxon invasion never materializes. Britain allies with Celtiberian-Punic treaty, to keep Western Germanic expansion in check.

Maybe Germans consequently push more actively into the east instead to the Black Sea, the Slavs never emerge as a Central European culture, assimilated into a pan-Germanic trans-alpine block as far east as the Caucasus, until butting against Steppe ambitions.
A Greco-Thracian detente contains the Germans in the South, unstably.


Italy and Spain might be part of either an African or Greek hegemony, with Greek culture remaining the prevailing culture in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East,


the faiths of Abraham may have remained localized and insignificant, and Greeks Middle Eastern polities may have fared better resisting later incursions of Steppe peoples?


Carthage may have navigated around Africa early on, to bypass the Greeks, perhaps colonizing the western African seaboard, perhaps venturing across the Atlantic and accomplishing a pre-gunpowder discovery of the America's.


Perhaps independent Afro-Amer-Phoenician colonies arise on the American eastern seaboard while Mesoamerican civilizations remain competitive (no guns!), setting up the order of power in the "New World".

Meanwhile a Persian-Greek-Arab alliance emerges as the power base in the new "center" of the world, squabbling with an India-Ethiopia alliance (Ethiopia checks Greek expansion and power in Africa, in exchange for trade access to E. Asia) over economic access to China.


Just spit-balling, but the possibilities are endless.

[kyrkac]

Munsingis what are u talking about?what germans?why slavs never emerge as a central european culture...slavs always been here. even rivers and som cities in today Deutschland have origin in slavics languages.

[Cohors_Evocata]

I would have one test less to study for.

[Munsingis]

Munsingis what are u talking about?what germans?why slavs never emerge as a central european culture...slavs always been here. even rivers and som cities in today Deutschland have origin in slavics languages.

What Germans? Okay then...what Slavs? What migrations, what history? Leaving that aside,

What other voraciously expansionist Italic state would have checked Germanic expansion across the Rhine on behalf of the squabbling Gallic states? I don't think the Etruscans were up for it.
But perhaps the Celts never subside on the continent and remain a power-base, limiting Germanic expansion to the Rhine basin?


It's even possible the Cimbri Teuton migration may have even settled the issue in W. Europe long before an Ariovistus, but at least a possible Puno-Etruscan or Greek-Italic hegemony in Italy may have kept them out of Italy, and perhaps the Boii remain to contest the east?


As for "why slavs never emerge as a central european culture...slavs always been here",

I'm distinguishing between an earlier proto-Slavic culture and nationalistic Slavdom (for lack of a better term, "modern" post-6th century Slavdom perhaps?) of a much later period. Feel free to assume the same distinction applies to "German" as well (perhaps "Germanic" would have been clearer).


Assuming a broader and earlier Germanic expansion, and Celtic decline, as well as the lack of a Roman conquered Balkans, this may have had its effect on the ancestors of Central European slavs,


That is to say, Central Europe may have been assimilated into a predominate Germanic/Dacian hegemony, place-names and all, restricting Slavdom to farther north and east.


Of course the Huns remain a wild-card. Would they have fared as well had Rome not existed, fared better perhaps? Who knows. But the lack of a Germanic flight westward to escape the Huns might also effect the expansion of modern Slavdom in central Europe.

As I said, all spit-balling.

[Dan113112]

Our current legal system would not exist for one thing. The way for fighting wars would also be different, most likley we would not have professional paid armies, they would be levies. And morden English would not exist, because it is based off French, which in turn is based off of Latin.

Depends. The British based legal system is different from the American one. Less Roman based and more Germanic. Professional armies wasn't just a Roman thing. Macedonia had a permanent army under Phillip II and Alexander the Great. The Romans didn't have a standing army at all until the Empire. I think it just depends on the reforms of the states at hand and resources available. Britain developed the New Model Army. The Gauls were becoming more and more "civilized" when the Romans annexed them. They could have become an important federated state.

Like the others have said, other civilizations would probably have a bigger role in the world without Rome.

[Sar1n]

I don't think there would be a big difference. Greek would take place of Latin, some historical trivia would be different...but for the most part, Hellenic kingdoms would take place of Roman empire. Epiros was actually pushing west, had the Pyrrhus succeeded...

[TWWolfe]

I don't think there would be a big difference. Greek would take place of Latin, some historical trivia would be different...but for the most part, Hellenic kingdoms would take place of Roman empire. Epiros was actually pushing west, had the Pyrrhus succeeded...

the min problem with Pyrrhus is he tended to quit whichever adventure he was on the moment it ran into serious opposition.

[riskymonk]

Christianity wouldnt be as big as it is today if it wasn't for the romans. We'd all be believing in the greek gods had alexander never died so early on or the Punic gods if hannibal had taken rome or the old gods had the barbarians been a bit more successful in their rise to power.

All major religions were embraced by major powers. Major powers destroyed minor religions from minor powers.

[Josh Mahurin]

Christianity would likely not exist without the Romans to crucify Jesus. Jesus was himself as a cult figure likely a reaction to Roman rule.

[Josh Mahurin]

But I think to really answer this question (as if that's really possible ) we need to establish when and how we are cutting off the Romans. Did the simply stay a republic? Did they lose the Punic war? Or are we eliminating latin peoples entirely from the history of earth?

[Dan113112]

the min problem with Pyrrhus is he tended to quit whichever adventure he was on the moment it ran into serious opposition.

I watched a YouTube series on Pyrrhus' military campaigns. He often didn't have the resources available to complete the tasks before him. He also generally didn't have the stomach for brutality and genocide which might have made his conquest easier and made his enemies fall into line. There was also something about how in the West there were many smaller states while the East had vast tracks of land that was less densely populated. The structure already in place since the Persian Empire also made the conquest of the East easier.

[_Tartaros_]

Munsingis what are u talking about?what germans?why slavs never emerge as a central european culture...slavs always been here. even rivers and som cities in today Deutschland have origin in slavics languages.

slavs and slavic language(?) in the citynames like leipzig or görlitz a.s.o. are just about 1.000 years old.
they were founded in the process of eastern colonisation under henri and otto. so called slaves settled there some time befor in emty lands and mixed with the rest of populations, after alot of people leave this area in the great migration some hundred years ago. you can´t set modern day slavs, balts, germans language and nationalities a.s.o. in past terms. there was also alot of "slavs" mixed population in germany that give up the slavic language and culture and become modern day "germans". Same with "czechs", "polacks", "slovacians" and vica verca.

[kyrkac]

slavs and slavic language(?) in the citynames like leipzig or görlitz a.s.o. are just about 1.000 years old.
they were founded in the process of eastern colonisation under henri and otto. so called slaves settled there some time befor in emty lands and mixed with the rest of populations, after alot of people leave this area in the great migration some hundred years ago. you can´t set modern day slavs, balts, germans language and nationalities a.s.o. in past terms. there was also alot of "slavs" mixed population in germany that give up the slavic language and culture and become modern day "germans". Same with "czechs", "polacks", "slovacians" and vica verca.

really? and what abou genetic - people living in today slovakia have 80% same dna as have people living here 6000 bc. so where is the great migration?

[Josh Mahurin]

Can you post sources for that claim? Otherwise please keep your nationalism confined to some forum that isn't about historical accuracy. As to why that could theoretically be true, Slavs could have simply taken over the ruling class without bringing large slavic population into that geographical area, thus becoming the dominant culture without becoming the dominant ethnicity. Much like the spread of Celtic culture during the time frame of EB. Or Germanic culture into the British isles.