What if no Roman Republic/ Empire?

Hey!
I wonder what would Europe look like, if we had no or very weak Romans. Would Carthage have taken over (Western) Europe? Would there be a muslim Europe? (Would there be Islam at all?) Or what kind of Europe would we have?

Robi
 
With no Rome the Western world (if that concept even survived) would I personally think be based on a Carthaginian/Greek model rather than a Roman/Greek model. Since the Carthaginians were pretty big into it, human sacrifice would probably continue for centuries longer than it did in OTL since Rome was pretty firm on stamping it out even if they did continue to execute people for ceremonial if not religious reasons. It's unlikely Christianity would arise at all or in a very different form and Islam is probably right out. But honestly that's such an ancient POD that you could butterfly any event at all.
 
With no Rome the Western world (if that concept even survived) would I personally think be based on a Carthaginian/Greek model rather than a Roman/Greek model.

Carthage was indeed pretty much hellenised, but didn't prooved too much interested into expanding outside Sicily and Spain (and even there, mostly on coasts). My bet would be on a multi-polar Mediterranean world (especially in east) with Hellenistic civilisation dominating (Punic Hellenism trough Carthage, Gallic Hellenism trough Massilia, etc.)

Since the Carthaginians were pretty big into it, human sacrifice would probably continue for centuries longer than it did in OTL since Rome was pretty firm on stamping it
Simply said, no. Carthage wasn't more enthusiast about human sacrifices than Gauls or Romans did (Yes, buring alive people under Forum Bovianum does counts as human sacrifice).

So far, no archeological discoveries positivly proof human sacrifice was practiced at large, or actually at noticable scale.
Romans were simply pretty firm at disnouncing others as bloody butchers.


It was discussed a bit there


(quoting myself)

There was, but only to really specific occasion and maybe (critically in the last part of Carthage's history) including already dead children.

But it existed, as in Rome (you had the buried alive of Bovianum Forum, or the deserters executed by a roman priest in De Bello Gallico)
 
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