A World Without Rome?

[Cornelius Plautus]

Recently, I was pontificating on the contributions of the Roman Empire to the world that proceeded it, and where the world would be without the Romans.

The contributions of the Roman Empire to the world are numerous. Their Republic stood a test of five hundred years, proved that a state ruled by a Senate rather than a monarch of some type could thrive and reach Imperial status (though I am sure that there are other examples of this phenomenon in the ancient world -perhaps Carthage-, I would imagine that none served as such a vivid example to Europeans as Rome). On that topic, the Romans introduced a plethora of political maneuvers to the ancient ring of government, such as weaponized rumors and large-scale bribery. The Roman Legions set a standard for military leaders over the centuries, and from Marian times onward, they lost very few battles. The Romans created brilliant architectural pieces, such as aqueducts, cloacae, and amphetheatri -though the Greeks had already constructed the last in the list extensively-. Perhaps most importantly, the Romans 'civilized' Europe, equipping Spain, France, and -arguably- most importantly, England, with Imperialistic mindsets, as well as the architectural/sanitation concepts they would need to construct superior cities and the tactics and military mindsets needed to build empires later on. Additionally, the Roman Empire, in its unity, allowed the rapid spread of the Christian religion, which was an enormous influence on the world, needless to say.

And yet, for all their marvelous accomplishments, the influence of Rome brought centuries of suffering on Europe, and later the world. While the Dark Ages were extremely painful for Europe, brutality Europeans inflicted on the rest of the world afterwords was even worse; Spanish, Portuguese, and British Imperialists, holding fast to their Classical Ideals, toppled Empires, and plunged entire continents into poverty. Thanks to them, the empires of South America imploded, as did those of Africa. The slavery that ensued was a horrific ordeal for Africa, as well. Other aspects one is ought to take into account are the possible obviation of Russia and the United States of America, along with both World Wars, and, obviously, any other conflicts occurring in Europe. And it can all be traced back to the Roman Empire.

So I find myself wondering: what would the world be like without Rome? What would the world be like if Western Europe never acquired a taste for wealth and expansionism?

[Carpathian Wolf]

I think in a way you are tying things far too back. Imperialism of western europe doesn't hold it's tradition in the Roman Empire as much as it does in the Germanic Kingdoms. Roman affect on the world is incontestable and undeniable and as an entity, be it city state, republic, byzantine, lasted for over 2,000 years, something no other entity could claim.

Good signature btw

"What did five say when it murdered seven? 'Six semper tyrranis!'"

lol

"Is there no man in Rome who has not slept with my daughter!?"

And the reply: "If I say no, can I go again?" :p

[bushbush]

So I find myself wondering: what would the world be like without Rome? What would the world be like if Western Europe never acquired a taste for wealth and expansionism?

oh plz, face it, a lot of Rome's ideas were from Greeks anyways, and after the Romans collapsed, the eastern empire continued on for centuries anyways while the western part recovered and prospered once more.

btw, stop tracing the greatness of modern britain, france, and even US to romans, the brits with their own legal tradition (common laws), their own political evolution (starting from magna carta) and western europe's revolutions and colonization were entirely distinctive of their own. EVEN the glorious USA took after English legal and political tradition (common law, idea of representation, protestant religious tradition) more than the distant romans, whom they idealized more than they really took after. So to answer your question, without the Romans?

other great people of europe would create their own glory. Much of the world weren't touched by the romans in their existence and they did just fine.

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and btw, Chinese civilization-state lasts to this day, byzantine ended in medieval era. It is the only place in the world with an uninterrupted written history.

[Cornelius Plautus]

oh plz, face it, a lot of Rome's ideas were from Greeks anyways, and after the Romans collapsed, the eastern empire continued on for centuries anyways while the western part recovered and prospered once more.

btw, stop tracing the greatness of modern britain, france, and even US to romans, the brits with their own legal tradition (common laws), their own political evolution (starting from magna carta) and western europe's revolutions and colonization were entirely distinctive of their own. EVEN the glorious USA took after English legal and political tradition (common law, idea of representation, protestant religious tradition) more than the distant romans, whom they idealized more than they really took after. So to answer your question, without the Romans?

other great people of europe would create their own glory. Much of the world weren't touched by the romans in their existence and they did just fine.

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and btw, Chinese civilization-state lasts to this day, byzantine ended in medieval era. It is the only place in the world with an uninterrupted written history.

Previous, to the arrival of the Romans, the Britons were tribal in nature, as were the Spanish, Gauls, and Germans. While Spain may have been fully civilized by Carthage, France, Germany, and Britain were probably too far away from the Carthaginian Empire. My question, then, is, how, if not by the Romans, would Greek ideals be disseminated amongst them? While the British certainly made a great many contributions to the workings of legal and governmental systems, their procedures can be traced back to Greece and Rome. As I said, the British were tribal, and quite possibly nomadic, previous to the arrival of the Romans. Personally, I don't think that their warrior culture could have yielded the thinkers necessary to conceive the complex systems the British put in place during their Imperial age.

As for your point about China, by no means would I ever imply that Chinese culture was related to that of the Romans in any way, shape or form. Their civilization rose in a separate part of the world, and also a part of the world that seems to be much easier to control; the East Coast of China in both its size and fertility has always welcomed large populations, whereas the Romans never enjoyed such a large homeland. The Romans had to fight for every province in every era of their history; it was no easy task to subjugate all of them. As one historian claimed (I believe Livy), "What a lot of work it was to found the Roman race!". That said, the Chinese made innumerable and indisputably vital contributions to world society themselves, and to compare them to the Romans (or any other continental empire, for that matter) is a waste of time, as their culture and geography dictate that they will by their very nature become completely different.

Additionally, I am not saying that the Romans affected the entire world in their time, but rather that they laid the groundwork for later European Empires, which in turn affected the entire world. Don't act as if the Romans didn't have an effect on Later European societies; compare pre-Roman Europe to Roman/post-Roman Europe and you will see the differences. Even if the Romans inherited their ideals from Classical Greece, they still were far more successful at disseminating that information across nations.

[bushbush]

Previous, to the arrival of the Romans, the Britons were tribal in nature, as were the Spanish, Gauls, and Germans. While Spain may have been fully civilized by Carthage, France, Germany, and Britain were probably too far away from the Carthaginian Empire. My question, then, is, how, if not by the Romans, would Greek ideals be disseminated amongst them?

the greeks had colonies around meditterians way before the Romans. Unless you are saying people living in those regions are monkeys that will forever ignore advanced values, YES, they will reach whatever they are now eventually. People around the world NEVER SEEN ROMANS did it, why can't those people?

While the British certainly made a great many contributions to the workings of legal and governmental systems, their procedures can be traced back to Greece and Rome.

Show me how common law system and magna carta can be reached back to Greece and Rome.

Additionally, I am not saying that the Romans affected the entire world in their time, but rather that they laid the groundwork for later European Empires, which in turn affected the entire world. Don't act as if the Romans didn't have an effect on Later European societies; compare pre-Roman Europe to Roman/post-Roman Europe and you will see the differences. Even if the Romans inherited their ideals from Classical Greece, they still were far more successful at disseminating that information across nations.

I doubt. Others would have done the same. Considering how much Rome destroyed in semi-civilized people like carthage and dacia, they would hae reached that stage later on too.

[Cornelius Plautus]

Show me how common law system and magna carta can be reached back to Greece and Rome.

Those specific ideals cannot be traced all the way back to Graeco-Roman culture; however, I am not talking about specifics in this instance. I am referring, rather, to the bigger picture, which is to say if they had never been civilized in the first place. Since the Magna Carta came roughly eight centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, it would obviously not be in step with Roman law completely. That said, ideals of checks and balances between social classes can be traced back to Greece and Rome.

The evolution of Law with documents like the Magna Carta is similar to the evolution of language. For instance, Romance Languages are not directly Latin, but contain elements of the Latin language in them (some more than others).

Additionally, I didn't know about Greek colonies around the Mediterranean (other than Syracuse and Tarentum, if they count). Could you please explain further?

Additionally, we should examine the size of these colonies and the attitudes they held. For example, if Syracuse were an example, to my knowledge they did not want to expand their borders. Many of these colonies were more enclaves of Greek culture, and would have probably been relatively ineffective at spreading the ideals of Greek culture. Also given the belligerence of some civilizations, such as northern European tribes, it may very well be doubtful that they would even consider ideals borne from a people that they perceive as weaker than themselves.

[bushbush]

Those specific ideals cannot be traced all the way back to Graeco-Roman culture; however, I am not talking about specifics in this instance. I am referring, rather, to the bigger picture, which is to say if they had never been civilized in the first place. Since the Magna Carta came roughly eight centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, it would obviously not be in step with Roman law completely. That said, ideals of checks and balances between social classes can be traced back to Greece and Rome.

I will agree with you the timing part, that regions will probably develop slower if not Romans, but on institutions, like you said, a lot can't be traced back to them, they are distinctive contributions by people later.

The evolution of Law with documents like the Magna Carta is similar to the evolution of language. For instance, Romance Languages are not directly Latin, but contain elements of the Latin language in them (some more than others).

Not really on Magna carta, which is a result of feudal lords' power and weakness of kings = unique situation in medieval world.

Additionally, I didn't know about Greek colonies around the Mediterranean (other than Syracuse and Tarentum, if they count). Could you please explain further?

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/greeks...lonies_550.jpg

Cool map. Greeks problems were that they were slow to penetrate inland. So i will agree that without romans, the inland would take a longer time to be civilized. Many were indeed heavily influenced by Greeks.

Additionally, we should examine the size of these colonies and the attitudes they held. For example, if Syracuse were an example, to my knowledge they did not want to expand their borders. Many of these colonies were more enclaves of Greek culture, and would have probably been relatively ineffective at spreading the ideals of Greek culture. Also given the belligerence of some civilizations, such as northern European tribes, it may very well be doubtful that they would even consider ideals borne from a people that they perceive as weaker than themselves.

I generally agree with what you say here. The timing will be longer without direct occupation and colonization.

[empr guy]

it would certainly be different, but im not sure very different.

and wolf is right, nice signature lol

[Carpathian Wolf]

I think what the Romans gave that was most important was probably the level of stability. Sure they were conquerers but behind those front lines was peace. And for over 2,000 years this entity was not conquered completely by anyone. Every other political entity was usually conquered after at most several hundred years. One could argue for example that the Persian Empire lasted beyond its fall by Alexander the Great only if you ignored the fact that it was completely conquered and taken over. Simply saying history was recorded there during the whole time doesn't change the fact that the people ruling it were a distinct and new group, even if they eventually assimilated into the common culture. I've heard the claim that Egypt as a political entity lasted since the time of the pharohs, or the Chinese like to claim the same starting from Qin. But this is just nationalistic non sense akin to how Ceauescu liked to claim that the current Romanian state during the communist times was the unbroken political continuation of Burebista. Although the people there are his 'descendants' you can't claim a line of succession considering the conquerers that came and went and ruled. Like wise in Egypt with the Macedonian Greeks, the Romans, Arabs or in China with the Jurchen, Mongols, Manchus etc.

[bushbush]

Europe can't claim Rome continuation because Rome fell as a civilization. Chinese civilization however can be traced back to 3000 years ago because they were never INTERRUPTED, in the sense that even outsiders who came in became ASSIMILATED and became A PART of Chinese civilizatoin, instead of like what Romans did to Dacians, razing it to ground, all of its culture and traditions. Today Mongols and Manchus are Chinese-speaking Chinese citizens living in China, Yuan and Manchu didn't change China, they became Chinese. Thus Chinese today can claim their continuation because of this reality.

Europe on the other hand, no longer spoke Romance language mostly, in fact, Britain, and many other places speak germanic languages and had their own legal, and political and culutral traditions than the Romans, who fell and their many traditions and culture REPLACED by invading barbarians (the germanics). Thus the interruption.

if you can't understand that, you can't under history.

finally, leave with a consensus by historians.

"THE HISTORY OF CHINA, as documented in ancient writings, dates back some 3,300 years. Modern archaeological studies provide evidence of still more ancient origins in a culture that flourished between 2500 and 2000 B.C. in what is now central China and the lower Huang He (Yellow River) Valley of north China. Centuries of migration, amalgamation, and development brought about a distinctive system of writing, philosophy, art, and political organization that came to be recognizable as Chinese civilization. What makes the civilization unique in world history is its continuity through over 4,000 years to the present century."

nope Europe.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...OCID+cn0012%29

[Machiavelli25]

Europe can't claim Rome continuation because Rome fell as a civilization. Chinese civilization however can be traced back to 3000 years ago because they were never INTERRUPTED, in the sense that even outsiders who came in became ASSIMILATED and became A PART of Chinese civilizatoin, instead of like what Romans did to Dacians, razing it to ground, all of its culture and traditions. Today Mongols and Manchus are Chinese-speaking Chinese citizens living in China, Yuan and Manchu didn't change China, they became Chinese. Thus Chinese today can claim their continuation because of this reality.

Europe on the other hand, no longer spoke Romance language mostly, in fact, Britain, and many other places speak germanic languages and had their own legal, and political and culutral traditions than the Romans, who fell and their many traditions and culture REPLACED by invading barbarians (the germanics). Thus the interruption.

if you can't understand that, you can't under history.

finally, leave with a consensus by historians.

"THE HISTORY OF CHINA, as documented in ancient writings, dates back some 3,300 years. Modern archaeological studies provide evidence of still more ancient origins in a culture that flourished between 2500 and 2000 B.C. in what is now central China and the lower Huang He (Yellow River) Valley of north China. Centuries of migration, amalgamation, and development brought about a distinctive system of writing, philosophy, art, and political organization that came to be recognizable as Chinese civilization. What makes the civilization unique in world history is its continuity through over 4,000 years to the present century."

nope Europe.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...OCID+cn0012%29

Incorrect. Modern European dialects are all variations of Latin, which have mixed up with each other over time. And besides that, ancient Latin remained in a prominent role for over a thousand years after the Roman fall, and is still spoken today. During the medieval period nearly all leaders and upper classes spoke Latin. It was the oil which greased the wheels of politics and diplomacy.

As to the topic, it would be remarkably different, since Rome's technological, industrial and military progress was huge, yet I put ancient Greece on a higher pedistal, since without them Rome wouldn't have existed in the sense we think of today. Greece was the true foundation of the western world (and therefore the rest of the world too, since the west seems to dominate almost everything).

[uzi716]

A world without Rome would be a world ruled by Muslims

[Cornelius Plautus]

A world without Rome would be a world ruled by Muslims

Except Islam may not have been founded without Christianity having been founded, which was spread and made powerful by the Roman Empire!

[Ludicus]

Spanish, Portuguese, and British Imperialists, holding fast to their Classical Ideals, toppled Empires, and plunged entire continents into poverty. Thanks to them, the empires of South America imploded, as did those of Africa.

A black and white thinking?
If the roman coin has two faces (good/bad), the same applies to the European coins - or any other coin.

Let´s try a different approach:
Citation, FF Armesto,Professor of Global Environmental History and Professorial Fellow in History and Geography at Queen Mary, University of London, and a member of the Faculty of Modern History at Oxford University. Page 506, "Expansion in Global Context":

" ... Portugal played a vital role - or, for its black and native Brazilian victims a letal one - in creating the Atlantic networks around which modern Western civilization took shape: revealing the South Atlantic wind system and linking it to the Indian ocean, and pioneering transfusions of blod and culture across the ocean... finally, in the most fully global context, the expansion helped to carry the "seeds of change" that transformed so many environments and reversed the age-old pattern of evolution. Until the sixteenth century, evolution was on a divergent course, as biota of mutually isolated or barely acessible continents grew distinct ( personal note, as bushbush said : "Chinese civilization however can be traced back to 3000 years ago because they were never INTERRUPTED)
Since then, as a result of the long-range shipping, that spanned oceans and linked continents, evolution has been in a convergent phase where the same crops and livestock - and even the same diseases and human types - tend to recur all over the world"

Or, as Norman Fiering (Prof. John Carter, Brown Library, Director Emeritus) stated:

"...Avoiding on one hand a glorified or triumphal Eurocentrism and on the other a vapid, politicized multiculturalism or decentered "world history" that lacks a coherent narrative structure, the objective study of the facts of European expansion recognizes the central dynamic of modern history, but it does not gloss over the negative and profoundly disruptive effects of that expansion, Such study does not fail to observe as well that in the great global interaction thaty followed, Europe was itself a huge beneficiary"

[Carpathian Wolf]

European civilization was never interrupted either by that standard...

[bushbush]

classical western european civilization and today's western civilization had a serious gap of dark age for centuries (thus the need for revival of many classical ideals) and also the germanic migrations which created new groups, cultures and traditions (for example the emergence of common law together with the civil law). Rome in the east continued for much longer but unfortunately was completely taken over by a different civilization, the muslims and became a part of it to this day, they didn't assimilate the ottomans.

[Manco]

Modern European dialects are all variations of Latin

Lolwut?

The majority of Europe doesn't speak a Romance language silly.

You're giving the Romans way too much credit, and flatly ignore that most medieval and later innovations (including cultural ones) were completely independent and can't be traced back to something vaguely similar in Rome.

[bushbush]

The majority of Europe doesn't speak a Romance language silly.

ya i loled when i saw that.

[Machiavelli25]

Lolwut?

The majority of Europe doesn't speak a Romance language silly.

You're giving the Romans way too much credit, and flatly ignore that most medieval and later innovations (including cultural ones) were completely independent and can't be traced back to something vaguely similar in Rome.

Have you studied Latin? I have, and it can be found in the vast majority of modern european languages. Don't believe me? Try learning Latin. Once you've learnt Latin, many European languages will become much simpler to learn. For sure, they are all different and include other ancient languages associated with the region, but they all have some aspect of Latin (mostly due to Christianity). In the middle ages Latin was the greek of the ancient world. All european diplomats spoke it.

[Dr. Croccer]

Have you studied Latin? I have, and it can be found in the vast majority of modern european languages. Don't believe me? Try learning Latin. Once you've learnt Latin, many European languages will become much simpler to learn. For sure, they are all different and include other ancient languages associated with the region, but they all have some aspect of Latin (mostly due to Christianity). In the middle ages Latin was the greek of the ancient world. All european diplomats spoke it.

You mean, most European languages have Latin loanwords. They aren't Latin dialects. Germanic languages completely lack the aspect that Latin has, in which a sentence can be said in essentially one word: the pronoun and time can be judged from a single verb in many cases. This isn't the case in many other European languages.

The reason Latin is largely grammatically comparable to other European languages, is because they all belong to the same language branch, and are all very related. If I speak German, I can learn French more easily than I could if I spoke only Mandarin; If I speak Spanish, then I can learn Russian easier than I would if I had spoken Swahili.

Obviously. However, in the middle ages its the intellectuals and nobles who matter.

''Intellectuals'' for most of the Middle Ages were monks. They knew Latin because they didn't have much choice, most of the old works were in Latin. That's because all other languages before Latin either lacked a writing system or/and were ultimately surpressed by the Romans. The reason that Latin was learned by monks, and later scientists is because thet had to. Latin was pretty much the only European language which was written down and had it's own alphabet in Western Europe. There simply were no other alternatives. The Latin language and writing became the language of the intellectuals because it had been that of the Romans. In order to regain old knowledge and gain new knowledge, Latin had to be learnt to decipher the old texts.

And, again, I have my doubts many nobles untill the 15th century spoke alot of Latin.