What if the Roman Empire never fell?

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cowscows
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16 Feb 2013, 11:36 am

I was just thinking to myself, what if the Roman Empire never fell. Would we be more advanced?



Fnord
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16 Feb 2013, 1:32 pm

I think that it may be likely that the Western World would not have had to endure ~1000 years of religious oppression between the Fall of Rome and the Renaissance.

There are literally dozens of publish works of speculative fiction covering this very topic (Link to Wikipedia List). My favorite is"Roma Eterna" - "... a 2003 novel by Robert Silverberg which presents an alternate history in which the Roman Empire survives to the present day."

I recommend it.


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naturalplastic
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16 Feb 2013, 2:40 pm

The two opposite ends of the Eurasian landmass became political unified into gigantic empires at about the same time.

The warring kingdoms of the Yellow River watershed became unified by a ruthless emperor named "Chin". He died and his family was overthrown and the Han dynasty took over.
The Han dynasty ruled for the next four centuries.

That Empire still endures- the inhabitants named themselves after the subsequent dynasty- and call themselves "the sons of Han", but we in the west call the country after that first unifying emperorer and call it "China".

A few decades after the unification of China a certain major superpower in the west was finnally destroyed by its superpower rival- Carthage was sacked by Rome- and the age of the Roman Empire began.


Both empires went strong from 200 BC unitl about 200 AD.

Then China descended into a second warring states period - but soon became united again.

Rome also started to decline after 200 AD.

It finnally collapsed around AD 500 when the barbarians overran.

One Barbarian tribe tried to recreate a western empire upon the ruins of rome but the Frankish Empire didnt last beyond a generation.

So the middle ages kicked in.

What if Rome had never collapsed?

You dont need speculation about parralell universes.

All you have to do is look at that other empire on other side of the eurasian landmass.

China is still here.

Just look at china.

For most of the middle ages china was more civilized than europe. Then after 1500 europe caught up and china stagnated.

If Rome had never collapsed?

Well- only the western half of the empire collapsed.
The Eastern half of the Roman Empire morphed into the Byzantine Empire- and lasted until 1453 AD.

IF they had somehow shored up the western empire you just would have a bigger version of the Byzantine empire.

For better or worse ( probably better AND worse) you still would have had a christian middle ages.

The Ming Dynasty Chinese had an "age of discovery" ( 1400 to 1480)that predated the european age. Huge fleets were sent from china to cross the indian ocean- they reached as far as east africa.

But precisely because china was one big empire- there was no competetion between nation states. The voyages were stopped. Stopped at about the same time that Portugals Henry the navigator began to send exploreres around africa to the east- and a certain Italian sailor was trying to talk the kings of europe into financing a voyage to the west.

Had europe also been one big empire- there would have been no rivalry between portugal, spain, holland, and later England and France to fuel the age of discovery.

So europe would have ended up one big conservative christian version of the celestial empire of china. America would not have been discovered. And europeans today would be living like the chinese peasants were living in the nineteenth centurey under the Manchu Dynasty.



Prof_Pretorius
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16 Feb 2013, 5:32 pm

I've recently read an account of the early scientists in the Middle Ages. The author's thesis was that we narrowly escaped being a stagnant, largely agrarian society. You cannot assume that science would just happen like it did.


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