Could the Roman Empire have survived with today's technology?

We all know that the primary reason the Roman Empire fell was because it was simply too big to defend. It took long periods of time for messages, people, and supplies to get where they were supposed to be. Suppose, however, that the empire existed today, and had today's methods of instant communications and speedy transport. Would it have been sustainable?
 
But given the factors other than "sheer size", modern technology might do more to harm it than help it.

And better communications don't make up for the army failing.
 
Even with today's tech the Empire would still collapse if it isnt able to adopt socially and the way the Empire is governed.

If the only difference the tech then you still have the terrible Roman succession:rolleyes:..and lets just say the idea of modern armies fighting in a civil war on the level the Romans did it is just scary..:(
 

Deleted member 67076

But given the factors other than "sheer size", modern technology might do more to harm it than help it.

And better communications don't make up for the army failing.
How? Wouldn't modern technology allow the army to be better equipped, armed, supplied and give them a huge edge over any of Rome's enemies? Also wouldn't civilian technology help with food shortages, plagues, etc?
 
Didn't it take like 5 days for news of Germanicus death to reach Rome? And with good winds you could get to Alexandria from Rome in two weeks or so. Not impossibly difficult.

Lack of clear succession rules, endless civil wars and an inability to capitalize on Parthian/Persian moments of weakness would need to be done away with.
 
How? Wouldn't modern technology allow the army to be better equipped, armed, supplied and give them a huge edge over any of Rome's enemies? Also wouldn't civilian technology help with food shortages, plagues, etc?

Modern technology would also mean that Rome's enemies are better equipped, armed, supplied, and so on.

"What if Rome had a massive tech lead over its rivals" would be another - perhaps related - what if.

As for the civilian side of things, that's true - but it might not be enough.

"What if we handwaved all the difficulties of maintaining a vast empire?" is practically ASB, as the British found out in the 20th century. That's my main point.


Velasco: Given that Persia was not the cause or even a major cause of Rome's downfall, why would it matter if Rome capitalized on moments of weakness there?
 

Deleted member 67076

Modern technology would also mean that Rome's enemies are better equipped, armed, supplied, and so on.

"What if Rome had a massive tech lead over its rivals" would be another - perhaps related - what if.

As for the civilian side of things, that's true - but it might not be enough.

"What if we handwaved all the difficulties of maintaining a vast empire?" is practically ASB, as the British found out in the 20th century. That's my main point.


Velasco: Given that Persia was not the cause or even a major cause of Rome's downfall, why would it matter if Rome capitalized on moments of weakness there?

Even if Rome's enemies are better equipped, Rome has a huge numerical and resource advantage, especially if they employ Levee en Masse and has the home field advantage in most wars. Also important was the way they handled things, imagine Roman brutality applied to conventional weaponry like artillery or assault rifles.

The empire is vast but its alot smaller than the British, Russian, Spanish empires. The Romans now have an advantage over the British empire in communications and response time, so I think its unfair to compare it to Britain.

Not to mention, mass communication and propaganda can eliminate regionalism, promote a unified language and culture and do wonders for curbing rebellions.
 
Even if Rome's enemies are better equipped, Rome has a huge numerical and resource advantage, especially if they employ Levee en Masse and has the home field advantage in most wars. Also important was the way they handled things, imagine Roman brutality applied to conventional weaponry like artillery or assault rifles.

Conscripting massive numbers of soldiers is probably going to hurt industry, which hurts the economy.

Also imagine that Rome's armies were competent and not exactly undersized pgymies.

The empire is vast but its alot smaller than the British, Russian, Spanish empires. The Romans now have an advantage over the British empire in communications and response time, so I think its unfair to compare it to Britain.

It's more like the USSR, but I know that if I make that comparison people will be outraged at the implications.

Not to mention, mass communication and propaganda can eliminate regionalism, promote a unified language and culture and do wonders for curbing rebellions.

Okay, now I am going to compare it to the USSR and screw the complainers. Those did a fat lot of good for it, and it didn't have major enemies it would actually be fighting wars with on multiple fronts for most of its existence.
 

Deleted member 67076

Conscripting massive numbers of soldiers is probably going to hurt industry, which hurts the economy.[/CODE] Rome does not have to use millions of soldiers, 500,000 or so would do the trick

Also imagine that Rome's armies were competent and not exactly undersized pgymies.
Modern day farming techniques would cause a surplus of food preventing their small size for the most part.

Training videos, guides, recordings would help out with competence issues.

It's more like the USSR, but I know that if I make that comparison people will be outraged at the implications.
Okay, now I am going to compare it to the USSR and screw the complainers. Those did a fat lot of good for it, and it didn't have major enemies it would actually be fighting wars with on multiple fronts for most of its existence.
Ight you got me there
 
Modern day farming techniques would cause a surplus of food preventing their small size for the most part.


500,000 or so would not be enough to hold down or defend that large an area in the 20th century (or tech-population equivalent of). Not even close.

Training videos, guides, recordings would help out with competence issues.

Ight you got me there
And they would help out the enemies of the Romans too, unless we're determined to pretend Rome's enemies are blithering idiots who barely manage to make fire while Rome launches a-bombs.
 
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Except, Armored Diplomacy, aren't you're forgetting the big problem - how to make them last long in the first place to get today's tech? It's not space bat, but definitely WAY HARD - remember, the OTL Romans failed, though they had a pretty amazing run.

Even if it survived continuously, my guess it probably would've through at least one more revolutions and likely be Commie or Iranian-style theocracy, but Christian, or as fake democratic as Russia under Putin. Remember, China, a similarly long-laster, has hardly kept its same government, has it? Nor Japan. No more than Rome OTL did.

And, remember, it's hardly likely to have anything like Rome's height of turf. And it's likelier to be around Asia Minor (Turkey) and Istanbul than Rome, because that was more strategic - that's the Eastern so-called Byzantines lasted FAR longer than the Western Romans.
 
I doubt, communication was seen as a huge issue by the Romans. Augustus introduced the cursus vehiculorum (was named differently in these early times). In the beginning, the romans used horse relay, with changing horses and riders at the stations. But then the romans went back to a system, where just the horses were changed. The horse relay is up to 5 times faster (250-500km/day), than the new system (80-150 km/day). The romans obviously thought, that this is sufficient.

The growth of the roman economy was pretty much limited, after they had romanized the empire. With new techonlogies a further growth would have been possible. But it is hard to say, how history would have changed thereby. Economic growth and technology was just one reasons beside a lot of social reasons for the Fall of Rome.

You should also consider, that one important reason for the Fall of Rome was the strength of the Germans (and the various steppe-tribes). They catched up greatly in terms of economic/population growth, organization of the society and military equipment, training and tactics. One main reason was the unintended development aid of the romans to their direct neighbours over centuries.

This transfer of knowledge and technology would happen also with your new technologies, too. One exception: it is a miracle, why the Germans never learned how to siege a city correctly. The first real threat for fortifications arose with the Huns.
 
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The Germans managed well enough to take the WRE and for the Goths to fight back against the counterattack in Justinian's day.

That's good enough.
 
Do we?

Size didn't prevent the Roman Republic and then Empire being easily the most powerful state in the Mediterranean world for a good seven hundred years.

Until the Arabs and then the Turks started seriously weakening it, I would argue that the Roman Empire (which the Byzantine Empire was) was the most powerful state in the Mediterranian from at least the Second Punic War into the 10th century. So that gets it to 1200 years. If that is a failure, wouldn't every other empire on Earth have to be classified as an unmitigated miserable failure?

and lets just say the idea of modern armies fighting in a civil war on the level the Romans did it is just scary..:(

Look at the Congo Wars (1994-whenever they finally decide to stop fighting) and you don't need to think about.
 
IMHO the question would be more on the lines of whether the peoples of the Roman Empire had today's attitudes towards nationality, nationhood and so on, or if this remained subsumed beneath the kudos of being a Roman citizen?

If nationalism rises, it would be very hard for Rome to handle, given the imperial internet, Roman Twitter and so on.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
IMHO the question would be more on the lines of whether the peoples of the Roman Empire had today's attitudes towards nationality, nationhood and so on, or if this remained subsumed beneath the kudos of being a Roman citizen?

If nationalism rises, it would be very hard for Rome to handle, given the imperial internet, Roman Twitter and so on.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

If nationalism rises in the same way it did OTL, wouldn't there be significant portions of the Roman Empire that would think of themselves as Roman? I could easily see large numbers of Gauls, Hispanians, Greeks, Anatolians, and even a few Britons of deciding that they were Romans living in the provinces rather than nations living under the Roman heel. At the very least, if nationalism arose in the later periods of the empire, but before the thing started falling apart, I would be surprised if some of those areas were worse than, say, Scottish nationalism.
 
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