How could have Rome survived until present day ?
- Thread starter Kaloross
- Start date
Depends where we are counting from. 
Some common tropes are
-Marcus Aurelius with a non-idiotic heir
-No Teutoberg Forest
-No Christianity
-No East/West Split
-No empire, republic stays
etc.
Now for a rational answer.
As long as events continue to favor them within reason. There is no unwritten law that empires MUST fall. It is a slim chance it lasts to the present day, but there is no reason to exclude it from possibility. Climate change is not guarenteed to bring down a civilization. Barbarians can be fought off. There can be few usurpers. Rivals can enter decades of turmoil. It's unlikely, but plausible. For a proper answer, it would require a date from which to start at.
Some common tropes are
-Marcus Aurelius with a non-idiotic heir
-No Teutoberg Forest
-No Christianity
-No East/West Split
-No empire, republic stays
etc.
Now for a rational answer.
As long as events continue to favor them within reason. There is no unwritten law that empires MUST fall. It is a slim chance it lasts to the present day, but there is no reason to exclude it from possibility. Climate change is not guarenteed to bring down a civilization. Barbarians can be fought off. There can be few usurpers. Rivals can enter decades of turmoil. It's unlikely, but plausible. For a proper answer, it would require a date from which to start at.
Anaxagoras
Banned
What do we mean by "Rome" here? As a government or as a civilization? After all, China as a civilization preceded Rome and still exists. It might not be ruled by Emperors (for now; one never knows about the future), but it is still China.
Depends where we are counting from.
Some common tropes are
-Marcus Aurelius with a non-idiotic heir
Commodus was just another usual idiot and does not matter
-No Teutoberg Forest
Just replaced by any other forest a few years later
-No Christianity
Christianity is dramatically overrated
-No East/West Split
Never happened anyways
-No empire, republic stays
In this case Rome falls 400 years earlier
None of these approaches would work.
The 100 C.E. Rome (e.g.) surviving with the same politics and institutions into the modern day is a stretch- the China example is a good one. Something that claims descent from and calls itself "Rome" is not impossible. There have been a lot of decent Byzantine survival timelines here, if nothing else- you just need an acceptable and suitably distant POD. Hard, yes- impossible, no.
@Agricola well aware of these things.
I was pointing out things that people usually mistake for turning points to save the empire.
I was pointing out things that people usually mistake for turning points to save the empire.
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
There are a few really obvious turning points, but the Crisis of the Third Century is the most obvious. It was the first time since Augustus the Pax Romana really faltered. The foundation of the Empire was the control of Mediterranean trade routes, and the Empire's legitimacy rested on its ability to ensure safe trade everywhere in the Med. The 3rd Century was the first time trade was seriously disrupted, and it was the first time regional military commanders declared themselves Emperors without having to secure Italy first. Without control of Italy's necessity to control the Empire, breakup was basically inevitable, even if barbarians hadn't been the ones to take control of the splinters of Western Rome. You also had a lot of knock-on effects like large landowners taking responsibility for neighboring small farmers. In many ways, Dominate Rome looked more like Medieval Europe than it looked like the Principate.
We've talked about the 3rd Century a few times, and I think the conclusion was that it was mostly preventable. Give the Empire access to a new gold supply to prevent debasement of coinage (a robust Sub-Saharan Africa trade is most obvious), and the other factors that led to the collapse can be fended off.
We've talked about the 3rd Century a few times, and I think the conclusion was that it was mostly preventable. Give the Empire access to a new gold supply to prevent debasement of coinage (a robust Sub-Saharan Africa trade is most obvious), and the other factors that led to the collapse can be fended off.
I'd say that preventing the 3rd Century Crisis solves a lot of internal problems and gives the Empire a better head-start to resist the chaos of the Migration Era. I mean, even as late as the 5th Century we have evidences that Rome could, with adequate leadership, muster the resources to face the invasions (Theodosius, Stilicho, Majorian, etc.), and so if we clock back to 200 C.E., when it still had a lot more of vigor, we surely improve its chances of survival in the long-run.
Also, I personally believe that the ultimate cause of the ruin of the empire (and that includes Byzantium all the way to after the 4th Crusade) were internal divisions, even more than foreign invasions. Nevertheless, if we could somehow tweak through the centuries the various problems caused by the foreign invasions, we would, in any of these cases, give a "lease" of life to the Empire. For example, having the Germanic and Steppe peoples migrate in ways that they become less "concentrated" in certain regions, increasing the likelihood of a "breaking-in" like the Goths did in 370s, and creating less dangerous enemies in Persia and Africa. For example, people seem to agree that the Parthians presented a far lesser threat than the Sassanids, and without the likes of Shapur or (much later, I know) Khosrow, we also increase the chances of survival, so we can try the hardest to prevent a Sassanid-like Persian dynasty from ever taking power. The same applies, with the necessary changes, to the Germanic peoples, as well as the Slavs and Turks that comprised the "second-wave" of migrations during the 7th to 9th Centuries, and so forth.
In the very long-run scheme of things, considering all the possible chains of causality, from domestic issues (economic, social, political, cultural, religious, whatever), foreign ones (such as "barbarian" migrations and "civilized" threats), and macro-scale global ones (like a Hunnic, Seljuk or Mongol level scale of invasions, a continental-wide pandemic like the Justinian Plague or the Black Plague, and so forth), are a multitude of variables that influence on the survival of an empire so huge as the Roman, and thus we are reduced to a microscopical study of probabilities, with the objetive of reducing one or another of these chains of causalities to mitigate the negative effects on Roman survival.
Could there be a way to plausibly turn most of the barbarians towards Parthia/Sassanids?
Romanos_the_Fourth
Banned
Here's my assessment of the various choices listed above:
-Marcus Aurelius with a non-Idiotic heir:
Well, that may work. I mean, the elimination of one idiot won't cure all others. A better option would be to have Commodus die early, and give Marcus Aurelius a really, really capable heir, who produces smart children, etc.
-Teutoberg Forest:
Well, yeah. That was a pretty terrible debacle. A Roman subjugation of Germania would probably butterfly around half of the Migration Period. I think (and this may be just me) that Varus would probably have a better chance of beating the Germans if he had avoided the forest altogether. A good way to bring this about is to have Varus heed Segestes's warning that Arminius was up to no good.
-No Christianity:
Oh dear. This is probably one of the oldest clichés in Alternate History, somewhere below 'Lee wins at Gettysburg, leading to a Confederate victory in the ACW.' I think that the common assumption, that 'Christianity made the Romans soft' or that it 'alienated the Empire's pagan majority' is pretty untrue. Constantine the Great was certainly not a pacifist, for example. And then there is the case of Emperor Julian. Although I do retain a certain amount of *cough* admiration for ol' Julian, I do not believe that he was a 'magic remedy' for Rome's decline. I mean, he reigned for only two years, right? And during these two years he accomplished very little besides reverting to/inventing a new form of Hellenic Paganism and getting his army slaughtered by Persians, right?
-No Empire, Republic stays:
I like it, but how on earth? I mean, it was kind of inevitable that some nutter would come along and declare himself absolute ruler of all Rome. Maybe the Senate should pass a law outlawing the 'Dictator' title. A dangerous gamble, but it may work.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
That's about all I can think of. Feel free to comment, and if you completely disagree with what I say, let me know. I happen to not mind being chastised. Seriously.
-Marcus Aurelius with a non-Idiotic heir:
Well, that may work. I mean, the elimination of one idiot won't cure all others. A better option would be to have Commodus die early, and give Marcus Aurelius a really, really capable heir, who produces smart children, etc.
-Teutoberg Forest:
Well, yeah. That was a pretty terrible debacle. A Roman subjugation of Germania would probably butterfly around half of the Migration Period. I think (and this may be just me) that Varus would probably have a better chance of beating the Germans if he had avoided the forest altogether. A good way to bring this about is to have Varus heed Segestes's warning that Arminius was up to no good.
-No Christianity:
Oh dear. This is probably one of the oldest clichés in Alternate History, somewhere below 'Lee wins at Gettysburg, leading to a Confederate victory in the ACW.' I think that the common assumption, that 'Christianity made the Romans soft' or that it 'alienated the Empire's pagan majority' is pretty untrue. Constantine the Great was certainly not a pacifist, for example. And then there is the case of Emperor Julian. Although I do retain a certain amount of *cough* admiration for ol' Julian, I do not believe that he was a 'magic remedy' for Rome's decline. I mean, he reigned for only two years, right? And during these two years he accomplished very little besides reverting to/inventing a new form of Hellenic Paganism and getting his army slaughtered by Persians, right?
-No Empire, Republic stays:
I like it, but how on earth? I mean, it was kind of inevitable that some nutter would come along and declare himself absolute ruler of all Rome. Maybe the Senate should pass a law outlawing the 'Dictator' title. A dangerous gamble, but it may work.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
That's about all I can think of. Feel free to comment, and if you completely disagree with what I say, let me know. I happen to not mind being chastised. Seriously.
There is no one specific way. You can make them survive longer easily enough, obviously, but you are talking them lasting another 500 years after they ultimately fell, and 1500 years after the western half fell.
Not disagreeing with anything you said, but I believe that Mental_Wizard himself was just pointing out that those are clichés commonly seen in Eternal Rome TL's, he was not actually arguing that any of these could allow a surviving Rome.
Which gets me to another interesting thought - without any intentions of derailing the thread, obviously - what are the worst clichés regarding the Byzantine Empire? Belisarius becoming an uber-emperor and restoring the whole empire (never seen it with my own eyes), or Islam non-existent?
The only way I could see a Roman Empire surviving is if they undergo some extreme territorial losses in return for stability and defense. Perhaps one emperor during the Crisis of the Third Century decides to cut the empire's losses and consolidate around Italy. This basically would've resulted in the loss of Gaul and Britannia to the Gallic Empire, along with Egypt, the Levant, and Anatolia to Palmyra; resulting to borders similiar to the Republic in 146 BC. Italy could easily be defended from the Alps, and troops could easily be transported to defend the Adriatic Coast, Africa, and Greece (although Hispania might prove hard to defend and might also be abandoned).
The main problem with this scenario is that no emperor would plausibly act so rational and forward-thinking; and that's not to mention that the people of Rome themselves would see this as cowardice and might as well replace said emperor. This empire could easily keep the culture of the Romans to the modern day: religion, dress, and an evolved, but pure(er) form of Latin. Such a Rome wouldn't really be a "Roman Empire" anymore, but I don't see any other way to keep the Empire as it was surviving.
The main problem with this scenario is that no emperor would plausibly act so rational and forward-thinking; and that's not to mention that the people of Rome themselves would see this as cowardice and might as well replace said emperor. This empire could easily keep the culture of the Romans to the modern day: religion, dress, and an evolved, but pure(er) form of Latin. Such a Rome wouldn't really be a "Roman Empire" anymore, but I don't see any other way to keep the Empire as it was surviving.
Basil II has a son and that somehow butterflies away the Turkish migrations to the West, the degradation of the military, the monetary troubles, and the collapse of the Anatolian frontier in the 11th century. Maurice isn't overthrown preventing the Byzantine Sassanian War and butterflying away Islam. Manuel wins at Myriokephalon and reconquers all of Anatolia and the Levant.
Regarding Rome I believe that mitigating the Migration period would be enough to safe the Roman Empire, at least for a few more centuries. It really got hit with wave after wave of barbarians within a relatively short period of time and combined with the other issues discussed here they gradually took their toll. Avoiding the disaster that was the Battle of Adrianople, either by Roman victory or simply reaching a diplomatic solution with the Visigoths would remove the worst invasion of the first wave. Obviously it won't solve everything, there were a lot of problems with the Empire by the late 4th century early 5th century, but it would give them time to fix some of their issues before the later waves arrive.
Roman-Goth alliance turns back the Huns north of the Black Sea? Goths stay where they are and the Huns never reach Europe? Probably not plausible.
Another issue that needs to be solved is the decline of the Roman middle class.
Since Diokletian the undivded roman empire was ruled by a senior Augustus in the East and a junior Augustus in the west. In 476 the senior Augustus in Constantinople was Zeno. And his junior Augustus, who was enthroned by Zeno's precedessor, was Julius Nepos. Unfortunately Nepos' magister militum Orestes usurped the throne for his son Romulus Augustulus.
So if you could ask any roman in the 5th century, when the roman empire was divided, he would not understand, what the hell you are talking about. The diivision of the roman empire is a modern invention.
Redbeard
Banned
The Russian Zars claimed to be the true heirs of (Byzantian) Rome, and they lasted until 1917 - I guess that is close to our time.
The Holy Roman Empire under the Habsburgs claimed to be the heirs of the (west) Roman Empire, and HRE existed until 1806.
I guess we could find plausible ways to have at least one of these exist in some form today.
Some would claim that EU today is the continuation of the Roman Empire. If so it IMHO would have to be in one of the more fragile periods of the original Roman Empire.
The Holy Roman Empire under the Habsburgs claimed to be the heirs of the (west) Roman Empire, and HRE existed until 1806.
I guess we could find plausible ways to have at least one of these exist in some form today.
Some would claim that EU today is the continuation of the Roman Empire. If so it IMHO would have to be in one of the more fragile periods of the original Roman Empire.
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
You missed the most obvious, the Ottoman emperors claimed the title Sultan of Rum when they captured Constantinople and lasted in that capacity until 1922.
I'm interpreting "Rome Survives" to mean that the Roman Empire continues to control Rome. Otherwise, I think OTL gave us about as long-lasting a Roman Empire as we could imagine.