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Thread: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

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    bigdaddy1204's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    In the early hours of Tuesday, 15 May 218BC, at around 04.30 in the morning, Rome is struck by an asteroid and totally destroyed. The asteroid breaks apart 3km above the earth; the force of the blast is equal to a 15 megaton nuclear explosion, releasing an energy about 1,000 times greater than that of*the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. As with the Tunguska event of 1908, an area of 2,000km square is flattened; the shockwave from the blast measures 5.0 on the Richter scale and utterly destroys the entire metropolitan area.

    The entire city of Rome is wiped from the face of the earth. Central Italy is utterly devastated; Latium and the heartland of ancient Rome is obliterated. My question is, what happens now? With no Rome, how will civilisation develop? What will happen to the barbarian tribes of Europe? To Carthage? And to the Greek and Parthian cultures to the East? Will another empire emerge in western Europe? And what would all those cultures have achieved, had they not been conquered by Rome?

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    +Marius+'s Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    Carthage dominates the western Mediterannean, but never develops into a proper "Empire" in the same way Rome did.

    Carthaginians only occupy valuable urban centers and leave the rest to other, trade dealing tribes.
    Coastal areas are filled with Carthaginian ports while the inland remains Celtic for centuries after.

    Hellenistic kingdoms remain and reform as time goes on while Parthia/Sassanid/whateverspawnsinPersia takes over everything east of Damascus/Homs.

    Without the Pax Romana, usual wars between smaller states would severely hamper technology, trade and development in general in comparison to what most provinces experienced historically while being within the Empire.

    Perhaps even no Christianity and Islam.


    The entire history of the human race would be racially different.


    Edit; just realized, wrong subforum for alternate history thread mate
    Last edited by +Marius+; April 07, 2016 at 04:21 PM.

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    Inhuman One's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    I imagine Carthage might actually develop further though due to the increased wealth they would build up. They where the only true rival to Rome it seems. I imagine that sooner or later they would clash with the greeks or egyptians as they expand further around the medditeranean.

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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    Carthaginians might use Spain as their manpower reservoir for empire building, just like they tried to do during the Second Punic War.

    This is why I would say they might end up butting heads with Macedonia or the Seleucid Empire or even Ptolemaic Egypt as soon as (after consolidating Spain) they start expanding into Italy and the Greek colonies ask for Helenistic help.
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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    There's no doubt in my mind that Carthage would swallow the whole of the western half of the Mediterranean, including even somewhat powerful Greek city states like Massalia (Marseille, France). They would probably conquer much of if not all of Iberia eventually. However, the face of European history would be changed forever. Western Europe would probably remain in the hands for Celtic tribes and chiefdoms for centuries longer than they did. Who knows if they would have ever been Hellenized, either? Seeing how it was Rome that brought Hellenistic civilization to Western Europe and parts of Northern Europe for the first time. The eastern Mediterranean, however, would have still remained the stomping grounds of the Hellenistic powers.

    There is a good argument to be made that Christianity and Islam would have never sprung from Judaism, either. The Western world as we know it simply would not exist. In fact, the whole world minus the Jews and Zoroastrians would probably still be polytheistic and pagan. Arguably none of these events would have affected other world religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.

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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    I agree. Christianity likely doesn't happen. Though I don't think Central Italy is wiped out as a power completely, it's more likely Latium resorts back to a large collection of independent city-states that will unite again should Hannibal still choose to invade italy (unlikely now). With Sicily and its invaluable sea and grain resources still firmly in the Italian sphere of influence, Roman remnants will still have a fighting chance against Carthage, and potential for a comeback.

    One things for sure though, the destruction of Rome is seen as an act of god of biblical proportions by all sides; most likely comparable to the great flood of early Mesopotamian legend.

    My final guess is a three way fight for control of the mediterranean between Roman remnants, Carthage, and the Selecudids. Hannibal still needs to unite the political factions in his house first in order for Carthage to become the dominant power, but Antiochus -when left unchecked by Rome- does have the potential to become the new Alexander the Great in the east.
    Last edited by Dick Cheney.; April 10, 2016 at 04:29 PM.

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    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dick Cheney. View Post
    My final guess is a three way fight for control of the mediterranean between Roman remnants, Carthage, and the Selecudids. Hannibal still needs to unite the political factions in his house first in order for Carthage to become the dominant power, but Antiochus -when left unchecked by Rome- does have the potential to become the new Alexander the Great in the east.
    Indeed. Antiochus was a beast. Congratulations, sir, you have the correct answer.


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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    I'd say an asteroid of that size would precipitate "nuclear winter" with ash clouds lowering temperatures and causing widespread famine and disease. The Carthaginians are hit hard as the resulting tidal wave sweeps the seas of their fleets, but the heartland of North Africa remains fertile (and even expands south into the desert).

    As a result the flowering of city state culture in the western med is set back centuries, as living standards are lowered, there is less surplus to support elites and international trade. The eastern Med is also hit hard, with the Diadochi kingdoms shattering into disorganised fragments struggling to subsist. With Hellenic manpower diminished the Asian element of Seleucid armies increases, and ultimately an Iranian warlord topples the Hellenic rulers.

    The less affected areas of India, Persia and China continue gradual development, and Iranian influence casts its shadow over Anatolia and Mesopotamia again as it did before Alexander.

    Egypt enters a period of protracted famine as global cooling shifts the monsoon rains south of the Nile catchments in Ethiopia. The tiny Hellenic ruling class is annihilated in endless unrest and a collection of native and Iranian rulers squabble over the remnants.

    In the following centuries Carthage remains the sole stable city state model in the western Med, gradually mopping up Hellenic remnants whose cries for assistance are ignored by their Eastern cousins hard pressed by resurgent Iranian kingdoms. Apocalyptic cults form in the Middle East, usually with a strong anti-Hellenic bias, but most seek the light of Truth in Iranian religion. While Hellenic philosophy falters in the face of the collapse of so much of its civilisation there is a widespread adherence to the anti-intellectual cult of the Destroyer. Human sacrifice and fatalistic acceptance of doom become a marked feature of European thinking, a worldview adapted by Carthaginian rulers to their poverty struck subjects and trading partners.

    Traces of Hellenic culture are preserved in the West in Carthaginian libraries and these combine to form a nucleus of Punic-Hellenic civilisation, a sombre and somewhat fatalistic culture that dominates Europe and North Africa, and unleavened by the light-hearted Keltic worldview that perished in the snows after the cataclysm. This poor, geographically fragmented but economically and culturally integrated region is a thorn in the side of the wealthy Iranian dominated east (distracted by steppe raiders and Egyptian rebels) with its belief in the light of Truth, Ahura Mazda, and the comfortable rule of noble Iranian Great Kings. The chivalry of Persia sweeps aside any raid from the dark West, but the resilient Puno-Europeans defy conquest, notoriously fighting to the last man, and their mountainous homelands and rough seas resist the penetration of the Great King's rule.
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    If an asteroid capable of wiping out Rome hit the earth at that time, much of Mediterranean society would have been wiped out.

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    +Marius+'s Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    Quote Originally Posted by BatGoat View Post
    If an asteroid capable of wiping out Rome hit the earth at that time, much of Mediterranean society would have been wiped out.
    That is not how explosions work.

    If a hydrogen bomb detonated in London, it would mostly wipe it out, yet most of Europe would remain untouched.

    Same with meteors, they hit, and the impact limits the radius of destruction.

    A meteor that would be able to wipe out Rome...would be able to wipe out Rome, not anything beyond it.

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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    Quote Originally Posted by +Marius+ View Post
    That is not how explosions work.

    If a hydrogen bomb detonated in London, it would mostly wipe it out, yet most of Europe would remain untouched.

    Same with meteors, they hit, and the impact limits the radius of destruction.

    A meteor that would be able to wipe out Rome...would be able to wipe out Rome, not anything beyond it.
    OP seems to be a bit vague, at one point its 15 MT, at another its enough to obliterate Latium. I've gone with the worse case scenario for the heck of it. If we take it as a Tunguska event tyhen the climate Is hardly affected, and events such as you describe might unfold.

    If we take the softer impact as a starting point then its likely an Hellenic or Hellenised polity (which is basically what Rome was) would probably contest Hegemony of the middle Sea. Greek is already the Lingua Franca of the Near East and much of the Med and eastern Europe. Unless there is a significant divergence then a Hellenic milieu will exist for the propagation of apocalyptic cults such as Christianity or at least a monotheistic one like Islam.

    Rome beat down a number of rival powers, including obvious candidates like the Diadochi Kingdoms, and semi Hellenised Iranian successor states (Armenia, Pontus): any of these could arguably establish a Mediterranean hegemony. There are even vigorous Dacian tribes who eventually manifest a short lived but hard fighting inland state: a less likely cndidte but you never know.

    Its quite possible cities in the Italian peninsula would retain unity, perhaps after some hard fighting to see who was top dog. The great benefits of the Roman system were apparent to Italian just over a century after this period when the Italian Socii fought for greater integration into the state: the lesson was hard won but perhaps it was appreciated by enough people.

    I think the reason OP chose the date 218 because it is the Hannibal moment. With no Rome to intervene (and no need for Hannibal to fulfil his childhood vow to arrest the progress of Rome by fire and steel, as it had been done by Baal) the Barcid adventurers probably build the beginnings of empire in Iberia, which provides the specie and myrmidons to found a powerful military establishment capable of imposing their rule across wide areas.

    Instead of the old Punic policy of trade agreements and a small permanent military, focussed on loose federal rule and strong republican tradition the Barcids bring military expertise, entrenched rule with a much deeper and more industrially developed revenue base. The Punic homeland flourished on barter trade and later agricultural exports : perhaps the wealthy mother city would remain an honoured figurehead for the new Punic realm (as Tyre had for Carthage), while energetic Barcids spread personal rule deeper and wider across Europe and Africa. More likely the wealth and military capability of the Barcids would tempt them to overthrow old Republican rule and establish a monarchy or oligarchy based around their family and its attached (sometimes foreign) clients.

    I don't know if the Punic model could attract the loyal participation the pragmatic and enduring Roman system did: Rome rarely lost allies in a serious war whereas Carthage lost all three wars to Rome because of less and less stable alliances: well at least it contributed to the first two losses, in the third war they had no friends left to appeal to. Maybe Carthage could come to include Hellenes, Latins, Celtiberians and others, loyalty to the concept of Rome was what established its legacy so firmly across the Mediterranean and its hinterlands.
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    I think the reason OP chose the date 218 because it is the Hannibal moment.
    You are right.

    I had the idea for this thread while sitting near the coast in Sicily. I was thinking of Hannibal's invasion of Rome, and how ridiculous it was that he had to go all the way round the Mediterranean via land, over the Pyrenees and then over the Alps, when it would have been a far shorter route to just cross from Carthage to Italy via Sicily. Hannibal couldn't do this, because Carthage had lost Sicily to Rome already in the First Punic War. I began thinking backwards from this event. i.e. Hannibal may have failed to beat Rome, precisely because the Carthaginians didn't control Sicily. The manpower that was lost crossing the Pyrenees and the Alps was considerable; the best estimates I could find were that he had 90,000 men when he set out, of which two thirds had already been lost by the time he descended into Italy, meaning he had only around 30,000 left. Had the full army that set out been available, he might have had the strength to march directly on Rome and take the city. Assuming he did, and assuming that the city was as thoroughly destroyed by the Carthaginians as Carthage was in our timeline, I realised the implications would be huge. It was this idea that got me thinking about what would happen if there was no rise of Rome.

    Working forward, I quickly realised that there would be no Christianity, and therefore no Islam too. This, combined with no Rome, drastically changes the whole of subsequent history. Hence, the idea for this thread. There was also a bit more though, since many years ago I also read a book called Barbarians by Terry Jones, in which he basically says that the Greeks were on the brink of an industrial revolution when they were destroyed by the Romans. He also says that there were many other varied cultures in the territories that were conquered by Rome, which would have developed in interesting and unpredictable ways had they not been wiped out. He furthermore adds that after the fall of Rome, civilisation fell back to a much more primitive level than it had been before Rome. This was because the economy had become specialised in such a way that it only worked under on a single state, and when that state fell, everything had to be reconstructed from the ground up locally in each area.

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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    since many years ago I also read a book called Barbarians by Terry Jones
    Terry Jones is a commentator for some History channel programs, claiming the Greeks were on the verge of the industrial revolution is like claiming chimpanzees are on the verge of inventing the wheel.

    civilisation fell back to a much more primitive level than it had been before Rome. This was because the economy had become specialised in such a way that it only worked under on a single state, and when that state fell, everything had to be reconstructed from the ground up locally in each area.
    All of this has been largely proven false. Localized economies did have to reform, yes, but it didn't cause people to revert back to a pre-Roman level of sophistication. They basically copied the Roman system and continued using it with their own influences on it.

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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    Quote Originally Posted by Magister Militum Flavius Aetius View Post
    All of this has been largely proven false. Localized economies did have to reform, yes, but it didn't cause people to revert back to a pre-Roman level of sophistication. They basically copied the Roman system and continued using it with their own influences on it.
    I will acknowledge it is an area that is currently the subject of some debate. In c.2006, Bryan Ward Perkins published a book called The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation, in which he uses the archaeological and literary evidence to argue that the so-called "Late Antiquity" school of thought which has become fashionable over the last couple of decades is in fact a load of nonsense. The Late Antiquity school of thought, is most associated with Peter Brown and his book The World of Late Antiquity, in which he argued that the traditional narrative of the Dark Ages was an exaggeration, and that actually the period was more characterised by gradual adaptation, evolution and slow changes, with lots of continuity. Ward Perkins rejects this argument, and forcefully argues that the Dark Ages were in fact every bit as bad as described.

    One of the standout pieces of evidence that I remember (10 years after reading the book) is that cattle sizes didn't fall back to what they had been before Rome, they fall back to a much lower level. The same was repeated in pottery production, coinage and many other measures of civilisation, suggesting that economic activity pretty much collapsed to a more primitive level than it had been in the late Iron Age before Rome came along. Of course, there are variations. The Eastern Roman Empire kept civilisation going for another 200 years, until during the 7th century a combination of the Slavic invasions and the Persian Wars followed by Arab conquest also brought the end of classical civilisation in the Eastern Mediterranean. Britain experienced an exceptionally steep and drastic decline, whereas on mainland Europe things were indeed much more gradual. Some areas fared better than others. But overall Ward-Perkins takes issue with what he says is the "fashionable" idea that the western Roman Empire did not actually fall but instead experienced a mostly-benign transformation into the Christian kingdoms of medieval Europe. In his contrasting view, "the coming of the Germanic peoples was very unpleasant for the Roman population, and the long-term effects of the dissolution of the empire were dramatic

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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    Quote Originally Posted by Magister Militum Flavius Aetius View Post
    All of this has been largely proven false. Localized economies did have to reform, yes, but it didn't cause people to revert back to a pre-Roman level of sophistication. They basically copied the Roman system and continued using it with their own influences on it.
    On the contrary, archaeological evidence ranging from shipwrecks, pottery, coinage, bricks and tiles to the levels of heavy metals pollution in the Iceland glaciers shows it took Europe some 1200 years to get back to the level of economic activity existing before the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Do take the time to read "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation" by Bryan Ward Perkins for a quantitative assessment of what the demise of the Western Roman Empire meant.

    In the case of the OP the impact might not be the same because the Carthaginians or a Hellenistic Empire has good chances of bringing the "human development index" to a similar level.

    Simply put, small states cannot mobilize resources and create synergies the same ways empires can. The destruction of Rome by a meteorite before becoming a true empire might result in one or two empires developing instead (Carthage in the West, some Hellenistic one in the East), which in turn might result in similar synergies being created than those which existed in the Roman Empire.
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    Default Re: Rome is hit by an asteroid in 218BC and wiped out. What happens next?

    The drop in European material culture on the fall of the Western roman empire was patchy but pretty widespread. For example post Roman Britain experienced a pretty savage population collapse as the trade net that had supported the local economy shrank: the new Germanic or Germanified elites had a much shorter "reach" and some remnant Roman institutions like the Church had relatively magnified importance in a diminished society. There are straightforward quantifiables like a shift to shallow wooden ploughs, drastically reduced urban areas and international trade reduced in volume and range.

    I believe the Eastern Empire suffered more from the later Persian wars and the Rise of Islam than the collapse of the West (which was the poorer half by far), but Alexandria and Antioch remained large wealthy urban centres. Konstantinopoulos experienced a roller coaster ride: at the same time as Roman Britain was being reduced to a poverty struck wasteland with Roman farms being abandoned and cities emptied Justinian was raising his Capital/Capitol to one of its great peaks. In the aftermath of repeated Persian and Arab sieges it was horribly reduced.
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

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