What if the Roman Empire remained?

[Phowett]

That "What would the rennaisance have looked like without gunpowder?" topic got me thinking: What would Europe and the Mediterranean (and possibly the rest of the world) be like if the Roman Empire remained strong for a lot longer, or even if it was still around?

What if the empire never split up in two? What if they defeated the Northerners? What if they conquered them? What if they expanded further? What if... well I guess you guys know what I mean.

So get on with it.

 

[fusangite]

There are two things that could have either prevented the fall or allowed for the rebuilding of the Western Roman Empire:

1. The cessation of tribes migrating west out of central asia either because the Great Wall was never built or because of some other force to prevent the cascade of westward migrations.

2. Mohammed never being born and Islam never threatening the Eastern Empire, thereby allowing it to continue Justinian's program of re-taking the West.

These two realities would produce very different alternate timeline Roman Empires, both of which would be intriguing settings for a game.

 

[Sarevok]

No one knows.

 

[fusangite]

No one knows.

Well, obviously if someone "knew" we wouldn't be discussing it. This thread is a speculative thread just like the gunpowder and polytheism threads.

 

[jgbrowning]

There are two things that could have either prevented the fall or allowed for the rebuilding of the Western Roman Empire:

1. The cessation of tribes migrating west out of central asia either because the Great Wall was never built or because of some other force to prevent the cascade of westward migrations.

2. Mohammed never being born and Islam never threatening the Eastern Empire, thereby allowing it to continue Justinian's program of re-taking the West.

These two realities would produce very different alternate timeline Roman Empires, both of which would be intriguing settings for a game.

I think the 2nd of your suggestions would be the most interesting. Byzantine history is often overlooked and, upon inspection, quite interesting.

joe b.

 

[fusangite]

I think the 2nd of your suggestions would be the most interesting. Byzantine history is often overlooked and, upon inspection, quite interesting.

I could imagine some quite interesting ideas off here:

1. A variant of the 8th century Moorish invasion of Spain in which the Moor equivalent are Byzantine Christians, levied from the same area of North Africa as the Moors came from.

2. An emperor, following Constantine's example decides to create a new imperial capital in Germanic area of the empire and attempts to elevate it to a holy see. I could see some fascinating clashes here -- a giant metropolis in the middle of the forests of Germany with Orthodox Christians, Arian heretics and pagans. One could fit a lot of D&D into that.

3. A variant of the crusades take place except in reverse: the Nestorian Christians and Jews try to seize the Holy Land from the Empire. One could also use a lot of contemporary history to texture something like this.

These three would make for great backdrops against which to run a half-classical half-medieval campaign that would give some sense of atmosphere by mixing the tropes of Roman history with those of medieval history.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

One other aspect of keeping the Empire around is how you want to deal with the issue of slavery and small land holders.

The Romans in the west had massive problems because of their reliance on slaves. Even when it worked well it still meant they had no reason to develop power source technologies. If they did get rid of slaves, Christians aren't pro-slavery generally, and kept their cities from depopulating we might see a much higher level of technology.

In both West and East, the empire had major problems balancing the concerns of the small land holders and artisans who made up the armies and the majority of the economy with the large land holders and merchants who controlled the government and most of the trade-routes. Their tilt away from the interests of the small holders made it very hard to maintain the dynamic fighting forces and colonization models they had used so successfully in their early years.

If you could get them to drift the other way you would see a Europe of a very different color. Including super strong nations and armies. Like China only with powerful guilds and peasants who were a lot less starving and impotent.

The church would be even more dominated by politics than you would normally see in the west and probably have a lot less high level hierarchy. Though local bishops would likely have a lot of power. Religion would likely be a lot more mystical and challenged by philosophy rather than complemented by it.

I would predict the emergence of civilized German kingdoms which would either be assimilated or turn into satellite nations or antagonists.

A strong empire would change two major migrations at least:
Vikings- into Russia in a much larger way, probably come to dominate Scotland and might make more efforts to colonize Vinland.
Arabs- would see greater emphasis on moving into sub-saharan Africa since its better than facing Byzantine/Persian pressure.

Mongols would last longer with Rome as a trading partner and another pressure on the Arabs, Europe was never something they were very interested in, and would probably become Christian, they nearly converted anyways and with a strong ally to gain...

 

[Jamdin]

You might want to take a look at the review of Kirk Mitchell's "Procurator" trilogy (Procurator, The New Barbarians, Cry Republic) at http://www.intempol.com.br/news/procurator-trilogy.html about alternate Roman Empire stretching into the modern machine era. Not all the issues like slavery are addressed but it sounds interesting. The books can be found at amazon.com

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

It has been done for RPGs - see GURPS Alternate Earths.

It features "Roma Aeterna", a timeline where Rome never fell, the current year is 1878 (by our recogning), and the Roman Empire stretches from India to just East of the Rockies...

GURPS - is there anything it doesn't cover?

 

[tleilaxu]

I think squid would be more popular as a food source