How would Europe develop in the absence of Rome?

And even had the Germans conquered all the Celtic lands, they would have been spread so thin as to make assimilation a near certainty.
You see after the fall of the Western Roman Empire the Germans conquered some Roman lands but these Germans were not just assimilated. In a few centuries there appeared a new culture with a Romanized language but politically very different from that of the former Roman world.
Some Romano-Celtic peoples were assimilated by the Germanic tribes themselves like in Britain for example.

My guess that the Germanic conquest of the Celts in this alternative TL would be similar to the Germanic conquest of the Romans in our TL:
- some Celtic tribes would be pushed away or assimilated by the Germanic tribes;
- most of the Germanic conquerors would spread rather thin on the Celts, but that would not be just an assimilation pure and simple. In a few centuries that would be a fusion of the Celts and the Germans like the fusion of the Germanic conquerors and the Romans in OTL. The Celtic language would most probably dominate over the Germanic language in the conquered lands as the result. But politically this civilization would be something like "the Dark Ages" of our TL, maybe even worse.

We can postulate that with or without the Romans Gothic tribes would have continued to migrate southeast towards the Black Sea. Depending on butterflies, it is possible that a similar situation may arise with a Hun-like group that greatly resembles the circumstances that caused the Goths to migrate across the Danube. Without Rome, and depending on the demographic and political stability of the Balkans around 300 A.D. is it possible to get a Germanic speaking Balkans like what we see with the Slavs?
Without Rome we would have a strong rich united Dacia there which might block this migration.
We might have our guesses and hopes about Celts or Germanics united into a big empire in the alternative TL without Rome. But that would be a mere speculation as in this period of time (V cent. B.C. - II cent. A.D.) these ethnic groups were not united in our TL.
The only 'Barbarians' which were united into a strong stable state twice were the Dacians. This state was a real menace to the mighty Roman Empire and considering its' immense natural wealth Dacia might be one of the greatest civilizations of Europe.
 
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