IF ROME HAD NOT FELL...

Here's an ad showing a car of the Roman Empire of another earth where Rome did not fall on Star Trek TOS Season 2 episode 25 "Bread & Circuses"

 

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Shouldn't it read "IUPPITER VIII"?

After all if Rome never fell I assume they would have been able to put all those pesky Germanic speaking barbarians in thier place and make them learn some proper Latin

I do think it's an interesting thought excercise to consider what might have been done differently to keep the western empire from collapse and how that might have changed history.

 

..lVPITER Vllll...?...lol, there's holes all in that episode as such, but yeah it's an interesting alternative view tho.

 

The exact balance of factors is debated, but I think there's broad agreement that the Roman Empire was extremely resilient and collapsed because of a number of challenges that it couldn't deal with at the same time. Loss of the surplus from the North African colonies was a particularly important context, in my view. Their loss also made it harder to control the Med. So any number of small things done differently might have saved the empire - or at least delayed its demise.

But through its long history there wasn't much dynamism. They kept doing the same thing the same way. Production was left to slaves so there was no commercial revolution, and the great scientific leaps were made by the Greeks. Something like modern science seems to have existed for a short and brilliant period, but that was before the Romans. So probably more of the same: no great collapse into the dark ages, but no industrial revolution either.

 

And instead today we have cars like the Honda Holy Spirit...

 

Well, we would all be here stacking sestertii in case of a government collapse, which I am sure happened 2000 years ago as well.

 

If Rome hadn't fallen - always an intriguing thought. Below is a book discussing some of the possibilities from the university library where I work.
MB.


AUTHOR Venning, Timothy.
TITLE If Rome hadn't fallen : what might have happened if the Western
Empire had survived / Timothy Venning.
IMPRINT Barnsley : Pen & Sword Military, 2011.
DESCRIPT'N xvi, 184 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.
ISN/STD # 9781848844292

 

Interesting thread. Agree that the empire wasn't overly dynamic in terms of innovation. And the policy of requiring wealthy city dwellers to fund local government past the point where they could contribute led to the depopulation of cities and other problems. The army, also, was a huge drain on resources and remained so throughout the Imperial period, the civil wars of the 3rd and 4th centuries also contributed to a loss of manpower and the necessity of enrolling increasing numbers of barbarians in the ranks, til the point where they made up the majority of the forces in the 5th century.

The monetary economy also suffered so that in the fifth century taxation was often in kind, a preview of the middle ages. I don't agree with Gibbon's thesis that Christianity was to blame, but the decline of the centers of learning (Alexandria, Athens) also was a factor, along with a certain close-mindedness of the population and also amongst the elites. Witness the destruction of the Serapeum by an enraged mob of Christians. Financially, too, the empire started to crumble in the 3rd century with the debasement of the coinage, and the policy of paying off barbarians in gold to not attack led to a net outflow of payments that was not offset by increasing the tax burden. The British empire faced a similar financial crisis in the early 20th century, where productivity declined and the political structure had to be abandoned.

 

I would like to think if the Roman society had survived it would look something like this today.

 

No one stays in power too long..you think we're gonna have Google, Facebook, Amazon in the future..course not..

 

We'll probably have Googzonbook.

 

last time I checked..Rome is still there..with 600HP Lamborghinis..instead of 3HP Chariots..

 

AmaGooBook, I think. With subsidiaries including SpotiFlix for streaming and Fed/UPS for physical delivery.

 

Both of these are long disproven myths started by such outdated historians like Gibbon and some others, and especially the Athene-myth have been perpetuated by authors not properly educated in history because it is easy to memorizing so well that they're usually have passed over in popular culture and even some modern works made by non-experts.

The Academy of Plato was already destroyed during the first century BCE by the Roman general Sulla. it was then “rebuilt” 500 years later by the Neo-Platonists in the late fifth century CE. There is no institutional connection or continuity to Plato’s school. So the idea that a school of Plato existed throughout 800 years and survived wars, pillages, burnings and then just to be shut down by Justinian is entirely wrong.

What Justinian shut down was Neo-platonist philosophy that attacked Christianity. Other philospfical schools in Constantinople and Alexandria, that did not attack Christianity continued to exist. It is also from John Malalas that we hear Justinian closed down that Neo-Platonist activity, but he is not saying that Justinian closed down the entire philosophy and all schools.

Euclid’s geometry, Hippocrates’ and Galen’s medical works, Ptolemy’s astronomical works, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Thucydides’ historical works, Demosthene’s rhetorical speeches, Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophical and natural philosophical works were studied and recopied throughout whole Byzantine timeline. – What was destroyed was works that attacked Christianity, no more different when Pagan Augustus ordered the destruction of the Sibylline Books.

From “The Beginnings of Western Science”, David C. Lindberg address it. David C. Lindberg is a well-known name for us who study or read the history of science.

So does Peter Brown, who is a well-known name for us who study late antiquity.

It is a myth. Not actual history.

The Great Royal Library and Serapeum are not the same building. The first one is a library and the second one is “just” a Pagan temple.

The Great Royal Library was destroyed by Julius Caesar in 47 BCE. The source materials say so.

Serapeum was destroyed in 391 CE by Theophilus. However Serapeum (a Pagan temple) is NOT the Great Royal Library. – We have in facts 7 sources about that event and none of these sources are mentioning anything about a burning library or burning books as they are only mentioning that a pagan temple was destroyed. – It was Edward Gibbon who get the wrong. In 1980 a guy named Carl Sagan read Gibbon uncritically and spread that myth in TV despite it has nothing to do with actual history:

http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm

http://armariummagnus.blogspot.dk/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html


In “Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science And Religion” by Ronal L. Number(also a historian of science) it also rejects it. Just as Peter Brown does who is a scholar of late antiquity.

It all can be boiled down to the fact that a lot of casual readers, inclusive Sagan, are learning their history from outdated materials such of Gibbon instead of relying on modern scholarships.


If you are willing to give me some days i will create a thread about it to elaborate it more easily. I just need some days.

 

Well put Herberto. Looking forward to your thread.

 

Herberto:

I like the way you critically analyze history. This thread might help your research:

http://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/18310-hypatia-of-alexandria-martyr-v-mythology/#comment-128625

 

This is a most interesting thread.

If the Roman Empire did not fall, then I might have been able to put my high school years of studying Latin to some practical use!

 

studium in Dudus^^

 

I like it.

Caesars Palace: "Anyone can feel like an emperor."

 

I've walked out of there a few times feeling more like a heavily-taxed citizen...