AHC explain this map

Roman_Empire_Trajan_117AD.png


I found this image while I was looking through sum guys AH TL, so I was wondering could this have been ever achievable, an empire that connected the entire Mediterranean Sea.
 
Well the biggest thing that seems implausible to me is the language of all the place names - I can't quite figure out what it's supposed to be. The capital of the whole Empire, for example, seems to be in territory which belonged first to the Rasna and then later the Celts. A lot of the names seem to be corrupted versions of Greek, but Megale Hellas never reached that far north - perhaps a synthesis of Hellenic and Celtic culture? Doesn't really explain everything though it would explain why they seem to rule most of both the Celtic and Hellenic worlds.

In general I'm tempted to say an Empire along these lines is possible. Alexandros Megas, for example, ruled essentially the eastern half of the map and more. Of course this empire would seem to after the fall of the various Diadochi, given that the Parthyaea have moved south and overrun most of Iran. Presumably given time they would expand further westward, since this seems to be in the early migration era. Presumably the Saka and other Iranians are pressuring them from the west, and in a few centuries the Germanic peoples are going to come under pressure from the steppe as well. I expect, however, with such a unified empire those peoples would be easily assimilated.

[I'm assuming that the script and date are using some translation convention, since neither those characters nor that specific date would make any sense in a world without a Roman Empire]
 
[I'm assuming that the script and date are using some translation convention, since neither those characters nor that specific date would make any sense in a world without a Roman Empire]

OOC: the best map in my opinion of the Roman Empire at its peak and it came with the writing.
 
I guess it's plausible if you ignore all common sense about how empires that size work. An empire that connects the entire Mediterranean Sea is doable, but all that extra land in northern Europe, Mesopotamia, it's clearly a blatant wank for whatever empire that's supposed to be (capital is apparently "Roma", so let's call it the "Roman Empire" if that works).
 
My first thought is how is this Empire supposed to keep off the Parthians in Babylonia*?

My second is the capital of such an Empire. Why Roma? It's not in a very strategic location, nor is it where you'd expect a great Empire to come from. IOTL it was a fairly the Capital of a relatively small Kingdom in the area, before getting sacked by the Celts and eventually taken by Pyrhus the Great in his Italian Wars. It seems to have been a minor center of administration under his empire before getting wiped off the map by Fedelmid. How it came to either dominate an alternate reality or grow large enough to justify ruling an empire of this scope from is anyone's guess.

*With a PoD apparently after Alexander the Great, most of these terms are probably fine.
 
117 AD? That's ridiculous. I guess if there were another Alexander, but one was already borderline unbelievable in his conquests.

I feel like the capitol must have moved there later. A dominant empire originating in Latium seems bizarre. This looks like it should be centred in Anatolia somewhere.
 
Seems to be the language of on of these primitive Italic nations, maybe the Samnites or the Osci. Can anyone read and transcribe the names? Their alphabet seems to be a corrupted version of the Tyrrhenean one, but I skipped all my Rasna classes at the gymnasion.

As to how this happened: do you remember the user BRUTUS_007 on the forum? He wrote a crazy ASB timeline about a city named Ruma, which was historically destroyed by Porsenna in 508 BC. In his TL, Ruma becomes a major power in the Mediterranean Sea. It first allies with Athens to conquer Carthage, before it defeats the Attic hegemony and install its own democratic league in western Eurasia.

The story became really crazy when a Ruman strategos named Alexandros conquered Mesopotamia (see the map above), then rushed into Persia and even made India into a Ruman satrapy. The end was a bit unrealistic: Some obscure barbaric tribes eventually rushed into the Empire and simply destroyed it. In about 50 years, the strongest empire of the world dissolves - simply ludicrous. The rest of the story was fun, though.
 
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Wait wait wait wait, you've lost me. They can somehow hold that empire together... but they lose to a bunch of random barbarians? And if I'm not wrong, wasn't it the Germanics? This reads a lot like some way too long setup for a massively ASB Germanowank.

Guns of the Rhine?
 
Well, my guess is a Roman-wank Mediterranean, where Latin is the mother tongue of the empire.

I mean obviously it's a wank of "Roma", but what is Latin? I mean sure the Latin tribes would have used their own language (presumably with similarities to Rasna and the Safineis language) but surely Koine would be the dominant language of this empire? I can't but see these Roma becoming Hellenized.
 
Civilized Thyrreneans, by Zeus! Even the Rasna haven't fully adopted the hellenic culture until now, so why and how should primitive Latin shepherds learn even one word of Greek?

Until now? What is this absurd Hellenist chauvinism? Rasna culture has a long and distinguished tradition independent of whatever you revisionist Hellenes want to paint it as. They're no more Hellenic than the Celts of Pritanion - even if their culture has absorbed Greek influences in the early colonial era.

Despite what you shallow purists believe, cultures mix. It's a silly, frankly provincial attitude to assume otherwise. In our modern era commerce and industry have created a global oikoumene. This is the age of networks and interfaces, and individuals more equipped to reach their telea than ever before. Do you even realize how much of your own language is foreign, or that the gods you worship were imported from Syria and Egypt? Even in the era of the successors your culture was altered unrecognizably, despite the clinging attempts of some atavistic Doric philosophers to claim only their heritage was true Hellenism.

Come on, it's the 695th Olympiad for sweet Serapis' sake. We're supposed to be civilized. Act like it, people.
 
There actually was a short period in real Roman history when the Romans conquerred Mesopotamia and Armenia. However sustaining them is not doable in the long term
 
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