The Roman Empire: Introduction
One of the most influential empires on Earth, The Roman Empire was the Post-Republican period of Ancient Rome. It included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, Northern Africa, and Western Asia ruled by emperors. From the accession of Augustus Caesar to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a principate with Italy as a metropole of the provinces and the city of Rome as sole capital (27 BC-AD 286). After the military crisis, the empire was ruled by multiple emperors who shared rule over the Western Roman Empire and over the Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire).
The Ancient Rome and the Formation of the Empire
The Kingdom of Rome
According to tradition, on April 21, 753 B.C., Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, found Rome on the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned infants. Actually, the Romulus and Remus myth originated sometime in the fourth century B.C., and the exact date of Rome’s founding was set by the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro in the first century B.C. The twins then decided to found a town on the site where they had been saved as infants. They soon became involved in a petty quarrel, however, and Remus was slain by his brother. Romulus then became ruler of the settlement, which was named “Rome” after him. After Romulus, there were six more kings of Rome, the last three believed to be Etruscans. Around 509 B.C., the Roman republic was established.
The Rise of a Republic
Rome entered its Republican Period in 510 BC. No longer ruled by kings, the Romans established a new form of government whereby the upper classes ruled, namely the senators and the equestrians, or knights. However, a dictator could be nominated in times of crisis. Rome continued to expand through the Republican Period and gained control over the entire Italian peninsula by 338 BC. It was the Punic Wars from 264-146 BC, along with some conflicts with Greece, that allowed Rome to take control of Carthage and Corinth and thus become the dominant maritime power in the Mediterranean. By 51 BC, Julius Caesar had conquered Celtic Gaul and, for the first time, Rome’s borders had spread beyond the Mediterranean region. Although the Senate was still Rome’s governing body, its power was weakening.
Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC and replaced by his heir, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian) who ruled alongside Mark Antony. In 31 BC Rome overtook Egypt which resulted in the death of Mark Antony and left Octavian as the unchallenged ruler of Rome. Octavian assumed the title of Augustus and thus became the first emperor of Rome.
The Great Empire which ruled the Western World
Rome’s Imperial Period was its last, beginning with the rise of Rome’s first emperor in 31 BC and lasting until the fall of Rome in AD 476. During this period, Rome saw several decades of peace, prosperity, and expansion. By AD 117, the Roman Empire had reached its maximum extent under Emperor Trajan, spanning three continents including Asia Minor, northern Africa, and most of Europe.
Emperor Constantine decided to move his government to a place that was safe from foreign invasion. Rome was under attack from barbarian invaders north of the Italian peninsula. In 330 AD, Constantine moved to a city called Byzantium in modern Turkey. Constantine was renamed the city “Constantinople,” which means “city of Constantine” which is now known as Istanbul in Turkey.
The fall of Rome
In AD 286 the Roman Empire was split into eastern and western empires, each ruled by its own emperor. The western empire suffered several Gothic invasions and, in AD 455, was sacked by Vandals. Rome continued to decline after that until AD 476 when the western Roman Empire came to an end. The eastern Roman Empire, more commonly known as the Byzantine Empire, survived until the 15th century AD. It fell when Turks took control of its capital city, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul in Turkey) in AD 1453.
The Roman Empire is gone, but not forgotten. Roman art, architecture, government, and religion are still a part of western civilization. Roman literature, law, and language have been studied and adopted by many cultures. For nearly seventeen centuries, the Romans set the standard for future generations to follow.
Okay. So now, Let’s talk about our topic.
What if the Roman Empire never fell?
Yeah, What if…
First of all, there isn’t an empire that lasts forever. Internal or external factors will always lead to a downfall or a decline in power. As history tells us, this happened with almost all empires like the Roman Empire.
However, Just imagine, What if…?
It is difficult to imagine a world in which Rome would not fall. Rome was essentially unstable, as all ancient empires and as, God forbid it, all contemporary ones too. For those of you who don’t remember, it was a gold-thirsty empire based on slavery and genocide that enchained the entire Mediterranean rim, destroying civilizations that were militarily weaker, but culturally stronger in many ways: Etruscans, Greeks, Phoenicians, Dacians, Tartessians, Egyptians, Jews, and Celts etc.
If the Empire never fell, The European Dark Ages would never happen. Rome continues to advance, eventually undergoing a period of massive technological growth in the 6th or 7th century, becoming like 15th century Europe. In this time, Rome would expand east and also probably discover the Americas. Rome would later have to battle the Umayyad Caliphate for dominance over Arabia. Rome would probably win due to superior technology like primitive guns and tactics.
The Roman Empire gave the world so much. Science, Engineering, Government & Politics, plus Economics. There is no field of the modern world that lay beyond the influence of Rome, regardless of how tiny or massive that influence be.
Scientific advancement, economic progress and human development would have continued to grow at an exponential pace. Minus the 1000 years lost to the dark ages, humans would have landed on the moon and invented the Internet in the 11th Century, so that today we would now have populated at least a dozen planets in our part of the Galaxy.
Yeah, Alright. I was just kidding. But sometimes, it would have been possible.
Actually, if the Roman Empire never fell, the world by now might be completely different than we think. They might have begun to industrialize. One major thing would have to change in order for this to occur: the Romans have to see the value of the steam engine as more than a toy and take advantage of it.
Rome is by two substantial rivers and the Mediterranean Sea. That is a substantially good place for industrialization to occur even if they have to ship coal from the British Isles to Roman factories to pull it off.
The steam engine was a known technology as far back as Ancient Greece but was lost until it was rediscovered about 1700 years or so later. If Rome capitalized on that technology early on, steel could’ve been standardized centuries earlier than it was in our timeline.
Now I say Rome has to industrialize because of one thing: the Empire collapsed because of communication issues. If you can’t get from one end of your empire to the other at the farthest reaches within a week, your empire will collapse from that because information can’t reach distant parts of your empire quickly enough.
This changes if Rome industrializes because steam engines can easily be adapted into trains. Trains make communication far easier between distant areas, and therefore Rome survives.
They likely would eventually end up conquering the world, slowly but surely. If Rome was able to control its civil wars it would have gone on to become allies with China around 200 A.D. Eventually, Rome would have used China’s invention of gun powder against them and taken over the entire continent of Asia due to its’ stronger economy. Rome would not have stopped there either until the entire world was Roman. If the entire world had become Roman the entire world would have followed Christianity and there would not have been any Crusades for the promise lands of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Also, our technology would have had another 2000 years to develop because there’s no way you’re overthrowing a Rome that can have closer legions mobilized to defend the homeland within minutes and farther Roman Legions there within hours and have them better equipped and better prepared and rested for the fight ahead. It seems crazy I know. Rome likely wouldn’t need slaves at some point so all the slaves would be freed. It is not like Roman slavery was such a horrific system.
Would they colonize the New World? That’s hard to say. It depends on what they want to do with their surplus at any given time to start the age of exploration.
Perhaps the Romans decided to sail to the Americas or China around 1000 A.D., perhaps they exploited the use of uranium for their street lighting and killed their own people when applying it, perhaps the population suffered from HIV or AIDS a lot earlier than now. Who knows if they could have invented the use of petrol for cars or steam power for carriages around 400 A.D.?
In the present day, The City of Rome would the centre of the world. It was the mightiest nation, it was the most successful. No one could match her until she began to get sick and old. But in death? Rome holds more power than ever before. It lives on in the memory, actions and, in a way, proxies that fill our world today.
Our politics, economics, society, cultures, arts, writing and even reading are so different than back in Roman times, but at the same time, we have learned and borrowed so much from the Romans. But what would happen if other cultures that came after the Romans didn’t exist?
It is almost the same if you ask someone to prove that a god (like Jupiter) does or doesn’t exist.
We don’t know, and I don’t know anyway.
Written by: Isira Direcksze
