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What if the Roman Republic, instead of the Seleucid Empire, had united the Mediterranean? While the Roman-Carthaginian rivalry did lead to Rome's destruction, the Ptolemaic-Seleucid rivalry was just as intense. If the Romans were just a bit luckier, and the Hellenes less, perhaps the Romans could have bested Carthage, which would have given them a position to invade Hellas, then Egypt, then Syria, sort of a reverse of Seleucid expansion.

Would such a Roman 'empire' destroy Hellenic civilization and lead to barbarism from the Pillars of Heracles to Sogdiana? Or would the Romans, like the proto-Macedonians, acknowledge their own semi-barbarity and become Hellenes themselves?
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