Could Rome have developed into a China-esque "eternal empire"

Fourth century Roman Emperors were almost all Christian.


I meant it was pre Christian Church. The dogma around the Emperor wasn't established quite yet and neither were many issues like the nature of Christ or the Trinity. The prevailing values were mainly pre-Christian secular Roman values and outlook.
 
I meant it was pre Christian Church. The dogma around the Emperor wasn't established quite yet and neither were many issues like the nature of Christ or the Trinity. The prevailing values were mainly pre-Christian secular Roman values and outlook.
Christian church was already there.
 
I meant it was pre Christian Church. The dogma around the Emperor wasn't established quite yet and neither were many issues like the nature of Christ or the Trinity. The prevailing values were mainly pre-Christian secular Roman values and outlook.
The Christian church hierarchy predated the official Christianization of the Empire. Hell, this is even post-council of Nicaea.
 

Maoistic

Banned
The Chinese river systems might not be quite as lucrative a place as the Mediterranean, but the Chinese at least didn't have dozens of barbarian groups chomping at the bit of that massively spread out borders.
This is so laughably false that this shows you don't know much about Chinese history. The Chinese were even conquered by these "barbarians" at least two times, by the Mongols and by the Manchus. Aside from them, throughout Chinese history, you have the Xianyu, Di, Rong, Gui, Jurchens, Xiongnu, Tibetans, Korean and Vietnamese peoples, even the Russians and Japanese can count. If China is a single state right now, it's just because of a struck of luck that the Qing dynasty and the Chinese Republic that turned into the current Communist China were able to keep their territories together.
 

Maoistic

Banned
well, I'm just saying the empire never quite died. you simply need someone to control rome. ( if you want it to be western roman)

if you are talking a continuation of rome .. as rome. IE the guals thought of themselves as Roman, etc etc etc.. that was never the case in the empire for most people. even language was diverse. have rome promote more education, a more single language ( yes I know greek, latin were fairly standard. ) but there was a multiude of other languages, coupled with the fact that places like Gual were not exactly Romanized, nor was Iberia.
The Middle east was its own drama center and Anatolia started its shift around 330 AD.

so i'm saying the concept of the empire never died, that is what made china, china. the problem is that in Europe you had vast migrations, lots of wars, black plague, crazy religions and no unifying power after its collapse. China could pretty much rely on the cultural identity being homogeneous with in reason.

In Europe the best you are going to get is the concept of "the empire" being preserved.

The western empire was pretty much toast with the migrations.
This right here. I mean, the European Union is just basically ancient Rome. The Communist regime of China may appreciate the long continuous history of Chinese civilisation, but it doesn't consider itself a continuation of the dynastic empires that ruled China.
 
This right here. I mean, the European Union is just basically ancient Rome. The Communist regime of China may appreciate the long continuous history of Chinese civilisation, but it doesn't consider itself a continuation of the dynastic empires that ruled China.
It actually does.It’s how the CCP justifies its’ control over Xinjiang and Tibet,as well as its’ claim over Taiwan.
 
let me put it this way.. I've already talked if successor states.

the easiest way is to spread Christianity quicker, and have the emperor and the pope (no church splits) one and the same, and at least keep Italy intact for the most part (and roman).

the migrations really were a major obstacle

the idea, the cultural spirit persisted..

Rome its self fell on hard times. It went from Imperial Capital to Religious Center of the Christian world whilst at the same time you still have the eastern empire, that is evolving into its own identity. All nations and concepts evolve.

The holy roman empire tried its best to legitimize it's self as the western empire, even going so far as to marry into the family ;). the ottomans the same for the east. ( new branding ).

Not sure what else you want, the idea of rome is alive and well to this day conceptually in the eu.

Everyone wanted to be the THIRD ROME, Yet Constantinople was not what I would call "Roman" but more Greek/Turkic as time went on. Rome it self fell on hard times. It went from Imperial Capital to Religious Center of the Christian world whilst at the same time you still have the eastern empire, that is evolving into its own identity. All nations and concepts evolve.

Napoleon, Mussolini, Charlemagne, Hapsburgs all envisioned themselves as trying to be the new Rome/Caesar. Each new empire in Europe tried to legitimize itself in such a way, some more than others.


If you could get "Rome" to hang on for another 100 -200 years ( core area, Italy, gual, Iberia), avoid or lessen the massive upheavals caused by the mass migrations. then I could see a stronger fixation on keeping "ROME" as a capital of a western European empire. ( even though its in an awkward location for such a thing.) Otherwise, the capital moved along with the concept
 
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