DBWI: Rome recovered after Brennus the Great's sack

As we most people know, the Gaulish king Brennus sacked Rome in the year (339 BCE*). Brennus so thoroughly destroyed the city and sold nearly 30% of its citizens into slavery. Italia, as it was called, would never recover and would only be split between the Cisalpine Gauls and the Phoenicians from Sicily.



Some people have written this counterfactual positing that if Brennus had only sacked Rome and not put it to flames, that it might be the center of a great independent Empire rather than merely the Western frontier of the Greeks.

Too unlikely for me, Italia was always the Western frontier of civilization. However, the Roman language called Latin I believe just seems like a Hellenized Italic tongue, so maybe the Romans weren't really civilized, merely just copycats of better people.
 
Rome would've remained much as it was before the sack: a negligible Italic city-state. If you're looking for "great empire" potential, you'd sooner find it in the Po Valley, a much more strategically valuable and fertile area. One can imagine the newly arrived Gauls settling down there and absorbing the existing Etruscan elements to form a lasting state under Brennus and his successors.
 
Rome was in a good position to unite the samnite city states (despite earlier conflicts with them over territory) by diplomacy or war, or a combination thereof - the refugees from Rome did lead to a short revival of Samnite culture and government that would eventually be molded into Magna Graecia territory.

I could see a Roman-led Samnite confederacy being a third party in the Carthaganian-Greek (or maybe just Epirote or Syracusean proxies) conflict for Sicily and Magna Graecia.
 

Dolan

Banned
Rome was in a good position to unite the samnite city states (despite earlier conflicts with them over territory) by diplomacy or war, or a combination thereof - the refugees from Rome did lead to a short revival of Samnite culture and government that would eventually be molded into Magna Graecia territory.
Yeah, the Samnite soldiers under Megas Pyrrhos end up formed the core of the Epeirote Empire, before their method of warfare becomes the one who dominated Western Greek and Phoenician Warfare, while Alexandrian Phalanxes continue to dominate the Eastern Mediterranea.

The Skoutati beget their name from their large, square shield; skoutos. They ditch the usual Sarissa pikes, or even Doru spear for a short sword optimized for quick thrust, Gladios. While obviously not good when it comes to frontal attack against Pike Phalanx, these troops also carried a handful of lead-weighted darts (Kestros), that will definitely wreak havoc with enemy pike formation, letting them closing in and exploit the gaps formed between their ranks.

These Skoutatoi troops have many variants, from the unarmored skirmishers up to mail-clad elite Epeirote Agema. Their style of fighting even stayed for very long in Western Europe, with darts and short sword combo being the norm until the maturity of the gunpowder age.

If Roma survived the sack, I could guess that they would use that kind of troops too, and will go on to be the chief rival against the Ptolemaioi.
 
If Roma survived the sack, I could guess that they would use that kind of troops too, and will go on to be the chief rival against the Ptolemaioi.

That is stretching it, IMHO. While the Greeks always had a naval tradition and colonised far and wide, the Samnites never did, and Roma was an inland city. I have a hard time seeing them challenging Rhodos, Syracusae, the Ptolemies, Carthage or even the Epirotes (who always were more of a land power) at sea. At most Roma would unite central Italia and perhaps, if being shrewd and using Epirote, Magna Graecia, Syracusan and Carthaganian disunity (and frequent wars) they could perhaps take Magna Graecia. But Sicily or Sardinia? Hardly.

The Samnite style of war was common in the central and western Mediterranean - the Carthaganians copied theirs from the Celto-Iberians after all (they were using older Greek hoplite style warfare before it), and I'd argue that the Macedonian Hypaspist is the true origin of the Skoutati rather than the Epirote copies of Samnite swordsmen.
 

Dolan

Banned
The Samnite style of war was common in the central and western Mediterranean - the Carthaganians copied theirs from the Celto-Iberians after all (they were using older Greek hoplite style warfare before it), and I'd argue that the Macedonian Hypaspist is the true origin of the Skoutati rather than the Epirote copies of Samnite swordsmen.
Well, their equipments did overlap somewhat, but Alexandrian Hypaspistai used Round Aspis shield, and while their spears were shortened, those are still spears used overarm and not exactly the same tactics with stabbing swords aimed for the guts and center of mass.

As for Hypothetical Roma taking to the Sea... Well... They could reach Tarantinoi by land, and it won't be a stretch that all the shipbuilding industries in Magna Graecia would be theirs.

I do agree that taking on the Syrakousai is ASB after. Their Navy could fight Carthage toe-to-toe, and taking their cities with all the Archimedean Death Rays... I meant, their famed Burning Mirrors and flame projectors... There is a reason why Syrakousai has been an Impregnable Fortress for more than two thousand years.
 
Well, their equipments did overlap somewhat, but Alexandrian Hypaspistai used Round Aspis shield, and while their spears were shortened, those are still spears used overarm and not exactly the same tactics with stabbing swords aimed for the guts and center of mass.

As for Hypothetical Roma taking to the Sea... Well... They could reach Tarantinoi by land, and it won't be a stretch that all the shipbuilding industries in Magna Graecia would be theirs.

I do agree that taking on the Syrakousai is ASB after. Their Navy could fight Carthage toe-to-toe, and taking their cities with all the Archimedean Death Rays... I meant, their famed Burning Mirrors and flame projectors... There is a reason why Syrakousai has been an Impregnable Fortress for more than two thousand years.

I'm talking the silver shield hypaspists - they had abandoned the over-arm spear for the javelin and swords of varying length, depending on which Daidochi they served, and that was the elite Pyrrhos brought from Epiros and it was into them he folded the Saminte swordsmen, just like he folded the Magna Graceia hoplites into his phalanx.
 
First almost all civilization are copycat of other people, concerning Roma, I could see them become a buffer between the Celtic and Greek cultural area during th antiquity (I know I'm really simplistic to describe the cultural area of Italy during the Antiquity) and control central Italy, considering that the state-city was very militaristic, was well positioned and had a fairly developed culture, it could last a few centuries. (Greek people and Gaulish tribe, need time to digest North and South Italy, it would let some time to breath.)

Concerning the idea of a grand empire, it comes from the Mare Nostrum project, a really interesting book (published in the XIXth century) that never intended to be realistic, until latium people start to use this book as a scientific and realistic book.

In reality, the idea of Mare Nostrum, is to take Roma as an example of the city-state that could become powerful empire under the right circumstance and that explain how could have evolved differently our world if it happened, but it never intended to be serious or an alternate historic book.

Roma is mostly based on army model, not a maritime one, so if their city was not burned, and that they managed to survive and come back, they could have expulsed the Gallic presence of the Latium area, they were not really installed in this period it was pretty far away of their base of the population was not yet mixed, so with the right alliance, they managed to expel Gallic people and conquer North Italy, they will form a powerful state but they will be blocked by the Alpes, that will served as barrier and could never conquer Gauls that get lot of people and was most wealth that North Italy, Greece would have the time to consolidate their rule and Greece + south Italy would have blocked their extension, if they choose to invade Greece instead of South Italy it will be the opposed problem Gaul people would have time to install them and create link with other Gaulic tribe making them impossible to expel.

so in the best case of scenario they could have only become a regional power.

If you choose a wank scenario they could fight against Gaulic tribe and Greek tribe in the same time play their card well and conquer all of Italy, but it would take century and will be blocked by geographical border and since their force will be based on land armies they could never win against Carthage and would spend centuries to fight against their minorities.
 

Arkocento

Donor
Can we stop bashing the Latinites in here? Its frankly silly to think that they havent played a serious role in history, regardless of the destruction of Rome. Granted the Latin League was never meant to be more than a regional player but they were remarkably successful in preventing The Gauls, or Phoenicians in really governing Italia. The Gauls have all but abandoned Italia, and Etruria since centuries ago. The Orator Caecus would write Decades after the City was destroyed.
The Gaulic Empire in Italia is neither an Empire, nor in Italia
The Gauls have such a decentralize state that even Celtica is an incomprehensible mess of Druidic dominate lands, independent cities, and nobles with so much independence that any High King is lucky to gain more than lip service. Cisalpine Gaul is in general considered a defacto free march that continually deals with downright open revolts from Etruscans, and Latins. Magna Grecia of course, does wonder to fund this revolts so often, thats its no wonder everyone considers the Italikoi as nothing but Psuedo-Barbaroi Hellens. The Carthaginians for that matter took Ostia and declared mission accomplished, Granted the city is Phoenician to the core now, but the hinterlands are assuredly not.
I understand that less dominant cultures are generally given the short end of the stick, especially if they dont have Some grand national hero like Alexander, or Leonidas for the Greeks (Pyrrhus too, although frankly it was his losses that he ended up winning the most out of.) Its unfair however to pretend the Latins in general have done nothing, Given it was a Latin of all people Who led the decisive campaign against the Gauls during the Second Graecia-Gaulic War.
 
Rome definitely had a lot of potential, though it's tricky figuring out how far they could take it. It was actually similar to Carthage in a lot of ways, as far as we can tell, and it was already the largest city in Italy at this point. They had a relatively inclusive view of citizenship that facilitated unity in Latinum, for example only requiring the father of a child be a citizen to pass on that status, allowing marriage across city borders, much like the Carthaginian practice of marriage alliances with the Numidians. They were a semi/oligarchic republic with two annually elected chief magistrates; Carthage's ability to survive one devastating defeat after another was crucial to their defeat of Syracuse, Epirus, and the Seleukids, and this was directly tied to the state's ability to avoid blame for the debate and keep legitimacy.
 
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