Butterflying Rome, who could fill its role as an empire?

Without the Roman Empire to form the early boundaries of modern nations, and to unite the people within those regions to some extent, the Vikings or Normans, or perhaps some Germanic tribes could easily come to dominate Western Europe, or further afield.

A couple of days ago I went on a rant about how this wouldn't happen, and it basically comes down to population yield. While an invading/migrating Germanic tribe could assimilate/conquer tribes in areas of small populations, this seems incredibly unlikely in areas with very dense and sophisticated populations like Gaul, Spain, and Italy. In fact, most of the Germanic invasions that allowed tribes like the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Franks to carve out huge swathes of land for themselves was largely a consequence of the Roman Empire, rather than what many people incorrectly assume was prevented by Rome.

Also, there were quite a few boundaries before Rome. Rome didn't invent boundaries, most anthropologists will tell you boundaries have been around about as long as people have been. And in the iron age, Celtic oppida formed a massive band across much of Europe and functioned surprisingly similarly to Medieval feudal systems. Borders will arise given time, and though they may not resemble modern nations, that doesn't mean the floodgates of Germanic tribes will be opened.

However, in a world without Rome, it's worth noting that Germanic tribes will be much more heavily influenced by Celtic culture, as it seems Celtic, particularly Gallic culture was considered the premier culture before the Roman invasions. Evidence of this can be seen in contemporary Germanic chieftains taking Celtic names (Boiorix of the Cimbri, Ariovistus of the Suebi) as well as Gallic goods and material culture being found as far away as the Juteland Peninsula. So, yeah, there's that :)
 
A couple of days ago I went on a rant about how this wouldn't happen, and it basically comes down to population yield. While an invading/migrating Germanic tribe could assimilate/conquer tribes in areas of small populations, this seems incredibly unlikely in areas with very dense and sophisticated populations like Gaul, Spain, and Italy. In fact, most of the Germanic invasions that allowed tribes like the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Franks to carve out huge swathes of land for themselves was largely a consequence of the Roman Empire, rather than what many people incorrectly assume was prevented by Rome.

Also, there were quite a few boundaries before Rome. Rome didn't invent boundaries, most anthropologists will tell you boundaries have been around about as long as people have been. And in the iron age, Celtic oppida formed a massive band across much of Europe and functioned surprisingly similarly to Medieval feudal systems. Borders will arise given time, and though they may not resemble modern nations, that doesn't mean the floodgates of Germanic tribes will be opened.

However, in a world without Rome, it's worth noting that Germanic tribes will be much more heavily influenced by Celtic culture, as it seems Celtic, particularly Gallic culture was considered the premier culture before the Roman invasions. Evidence of this can be seen in contemporary Germanic chieftains taking Celtic names (Boiorix of the Cimbri, Ariovistus of the Suebi) as well as Gallic goods and material culture being found as far away as the Juteland Peninsula. So, yeah, there's that :)

Plus even IOTL, the Germans never really had the population numbers (Britain being an exception I believe) to ever come close to unseating the native population. Rather they only had the numbers to do a sort of elite transfer, having to still accommodate the Gallo-Romans into their system. And this is after centuries of Germanic urbanization and increased political and organizational sophistication brought about from long contact with the empire.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
A couple of days ago I went on a rant about how this wouldn't happen, and it basically comes down to population yield. While an invading/migrating Germanic tribe could assimilate/conquer tribes in areas of small populations, this seems incredibly unlikely in areas with very dense and sophisticated populations like Gaul, Spain, and Italy. In fact, most of the Germanic invasions that allowed tribes like the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Franks to carve out huge swathes of land for themselves was largely a consequence of the Roman Empire, rather than what many people incorrectly assume was prevented by Rome.

Also, there were quite a few boundaries before Rome. Rome didn't invent boundaries, most anthropologists will tell you boundaries have been around about as long as people have been. And in the iron age, Celtic oppida formed a massive band across much of Europe and functioned surprisingly similarly to Medieval feudal systems. Borders will arise given time, and though they may not resemble modern nations, that doesn't mean the floodgates of Germanic tribes will be opened.

However, in a world without Rome, it's worth noting that Germanic tribes will be much more heavily influenced by Celtic culture, as it seems Celtic, particularly Gallic culture was considered the premier culture before the Roman invasions. Evidence of this can be seen in contemporary Germanic chieftains taking Celtic names (Boiorix of the Cimbri, Ariovistus of the Suebi) as well as Gallic goods and material culture being found as far away as the Juteland Peninsula. So, yeah, there's that :)

On the whole I take your point, but you seem to have misunderstood my point about boundaries and borders. I wasn't suggesting that the Romans invented borders, simply that they had a huge influence on modern day boundaries. There were fiercely contested strictly defined borders between mainly tribal regions, but it is partly due to those tribes uniting against Rome, and partly because of the Roman administration broadly saying 'this region (France, roughly speaking) is inhabited by various Gaulish tribes, let's just call the whole thing Gaul for simplicity'.
 
Cant see another power of the time doing what Rome did.

I think the most likely outcome would be some coalescing of existing tribal groups into large Kingdoms (Gaul & Iberia in the West ~ one or two of the Successor states in the East).

In response to this smaller powers would form Leagues for mutual protection.

Of course the big wild card is one person being born whom would have otherwise been butterflied by Rome's existence. History is full of Great Leaders who carve an Empire from nothing and this could happen ~ keeping it together after their death is another matter though...
 
On the whole I take your point, but you seem to have misunderstood my point about boundaries and borders. I wasn't suggesting that the Romans invented borders, simply that they had a huge influence on modern day boundaries. There were fiercely contested strictly defined borders between mainly tribal regions, but it is partly due to those tribes uniting against Rome, and partly because of the Roman administration broadly saying 'this region (France, roughly speaking) is inhabited by various Gaulish tribes, let's just call the whole thing Gaul for simplicity'.

This is true in a way. It seems tribes had a sense of relatedness though, and could say, for example, Gaul and Germania are two different places, the border is at the Rhine
 
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