No Rome

say rome isnt founded what would happen. will the Etruscans rise as the dominant power in the world. Would Carthage be the dominant force in the Med. in 100 BC Would the Selueciud Empire have survived.
 
Well, one of the most enduring thing about the Romans was their Republic (yes, even after Caesar & Augustus, they kept to the notion of it being a Republic). Without that notion of government, you'd probably have many more rise and falls of various kingdoms and empires. Liken it to an Ancient World midevalism, with successions of kings fighting over different areas, one or another rising to prominence for a time, and then giving way to someone else.

It was partly the Roman distaste of one man having supreme authority (and all the capriciousness and eventual instability that leads to) that gave them a system for political stability (relative). Combine that with their military discipline, and you had an overwhelming force. Until someone else combined those two forces in a similar way (highly-trained, discplined military with plotical stability) you'd have a much more fragmented Mediterranean - probably kingdoms centered on the various Greek colonies scattered around the rim.

Perhaps the Gauls get enough time to organize into a more coherent force, and play a more indeoendent role in history? A Carthage-splinter state in southern Spain?
 

ninebucks

Banned
Well, one of the most enduring thing about the Romans was their Republic (yes, even after Caesar & Augustus, they kept to the notion of it being a Republic). Without that notion of government, you'd probably have many more rise and falls of various kingdoms and empires. Liken it to an Ancient World midevalism, with successions of kings fighting over different areas, one or another rising to prominence for a time, and then giving way to someone else.

It was partly the Roman distaste of one man having supreme authority (and all the capriciousness and eventual instability that leads to) that gave them a system for political stability (relative). Combine that with their military discipline, and you had an overwhelming force. Until someone else combined those two forces in a similar way (highly-trained, discplined military with plotical stability) you'd have a much more fragmented Mediterranean - probably kingdoms centered on the various Greek colonies scattered around the rim.

Perhaps the Gauls get enough time to organize into a more coherent force, and play a more indeoendent role in history? A Carthage-splinter state in southern Spain?

'Republic' may be a uniquely Roman word, but it isn't a uniquely Roman concept. Throughout the Greek and Phoenician world, the trend was to move away from absolute rulers - even Carthage, which Rome regarded as its enemy, was always described by Roman writers as being a republic, and equal in terms of political governance to Rome.

The standing army, yes, I will admit, was a Roman invention, but I would say that it arised less due to strokes of genius, but more due to neccessity. Any empire arising in this period would have to eventually assemble a standing army.
 
'Republic' may be a uniquely Roman word, but it isn't a uniquely Roman concept. Throughout the Greek and Phoenician world, the trend was to move away from absolute rulers - even Carthage, which Rome regarded as its enemy, was always described by Roman writers as being a republic, and equal in terms of political governance to Rome.

The standing army, yes, I will admit, was a Roman invention, but I would say that it arised less due to strokes of genius, but more due to neccessity. Any empire arising in this period would have to eventually assemble a standing army.

There were other republics, yes, but what I'm positing is that it was the balance the Romans found between authority (paired Consuls elected for one year terms) and the checks (Senate) underpinned by popular support (annual elections) that gave them stability. I believe Carthage did have one head-of-state that held the position for long-term, and IIRC was hereditary. That's what I mean.
 
There were other republics, yes, but what I'm positing is that it was the balance the Romans found between authority (paired Consuls elected for one year terms) and the checks (Senate) underpinned by popular support (annual elections) that gave them stability. I believe Carthage did have one head-of-state that held the position for long-term, and IIRC was hereditary. That's what I mean.

Well, Carthage did have a senate, and actually it did frustrate Hannibal's plans at a crucial moment in the second Punic war, causing Rome to emerge as the eventual victor.
 
Carthage will probably dominate africa and Iberia (except for Ptolemaic Egypt), and another Greek empire in east europe + asia

possibly a united celtic Gaul too.
 
Well if you readed good i said ´´Rome isnt founded´´

which is why I was writing about the differences between OTL where there was a Rome, and one where there wasn't a Rome nor it's idea of government that provided the stability that allowed them to conquer the Mediterranean world... I readed real good, better than you understooded.
 
So

Carthagian domination of west-Med :confused:
Macedon is still there :confused:
United Celtic Federation (greek Influence) :confused:
Pontus rules Anatolia :confused:
Smaller but existing Seluecuid empire :confused:

Bigger Armenia
Smaller Parthia
 
You may still end up with an Italian kingdom, possibly the Etruscans or one of the Greek city-states (wasn't Brundisium orginally Greek?).

Heck, give it long enough, and the Germannic tribes might even settle down.
 
1) Rome's most important republican institution was its army. In constrast to Carthage, Rome of the Punic Wars fought with citizen soldiers drawn from levees, rather than mercenaries financed by lucrative sea-trade. The public spirit which enfused the traditions of these armies was sufficient that when Rome's army became a professional, paid force separate from the citizenry and loyal to its individual commanders, it did not become the wholely mercenary affair that the armies of the Alexandrian successor kingdoms did. This contribution to republican thought was wholely divorced from the model of Carthage and one not likely to have been seen in a world without Rome. Perhaps the Germans or the Celts might introduce something like it in terms of the levee, but given both people tendency to fight en masse without the close order drill tactics of the Romans, that legacy remains highly dubious.

2) If the role of civilizing conqueror is left to a Greek power, there is substanital question about whether the concept of citizen would ever fully divorce itself from localized (i.e. city) ethnicity. One of Rome's greatest political revolutions was to grant Roman citizenship to non-Romans, a practice unthinkable to a classical Greek city-state: in the second century BC, after sucessful vanquishing its Italian allies in the Social War, Rome began the practice of granting citizenship rights to select groups within its empire; this practice continued for more than four hundred years until the third century AD when the Roman Emperors granted citizenship to all free males within the Empire. The expansion of citizenship paved the way for Roman law and legal institutions to pave the way for those we know today. Alexander's conquests had led to the univerisalization of Greekness: Greek in the third and second centuries became the outflow of education and learning, not birth. It was only the Romans who continued this through to politics (and then the Christians who exported it into the spiriutal realm). Hence while it might have been possible for the Greek Leagues of the 2nd century BC, the Achaean and Aetolian, to expand and perhaps unify and even refine further federal insitutions, the notion of Greeks granting, for example, Gauls or Germans equal citizenship rights seems unlikely.

3) If no power emerged which could take Rome's historical place in the development of Western history, then that history might have taken a wholly different turn: perhaps the Hellenic Kingdoms, expanded westward would create sufficient regional unity to create nations of their subjects and then nation-states, as previously suggested by comparing them to medieval kindgoms. Perhaps Celtic or German tribal culture might have been granted leave to contest Carthaginian mercantilism and Greek learning. Perhaps the Hellenic kingdoms would be reunified, expanded, and eventually constitute the basis either for an Empire minus the republican thought of Rome or for an enduring, monolithic, culturally homogenuous Empire.

My personal favorite is a revival of Greece itself: a union of the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues through their amalgamation with a thrice-resurgent Athens, allied with Alexandria and Sicily against the Carthaginians. Eventually, it would contest against the Hellenic monarchies in contest not of Greek vs Persian, but of freely associated, federally-bound citizen subjects against monarchists and mercenaries. Citizenship might remain less than universal, but only in the sense that more layers of political rights might remain and hence less amalgamation of large political groups. At some point, the multiplicity of these groups if properly incorporated into a group (as shown by the legacy of the Alexandrian conquests) would serve as a bulwark of their liberty. The truest test of such a League would of course be barbarian invasions, probably the Huns and Mongols, perhaps even the Arabs. The perseverance of more democractic/republican forms of government as in Rome need not have forestalled the eventual reassertion of monarchy as the Confederation expanded or eventual regional fragmentations, but would as in OTL have left the introduction of liberal values like human rights, freedom of religion, freedom of speech/thought to a speculative future.
 
It's quite possible that one of the Italic tribal amphictyonies develops into the hegemon of the peninsula. Rome made itself leader of the Latin League and then ruler of all Italy. A similar development could well have happened in the Oscans, the Samnites, the Sabines or any of the other recently urbansed, Greek-influenced tribal societies. So even if Rome is not founded, a similar power has good chances of arising. In its early days, Rome had rivals in ITaly.
 
It's quite possible that one of the Italic tribal amphictyonies develops into the hegemon of the peninsula. Rome made itself leader of the Latin League and then ruler of all Italy. A similar development could well have happened in the Oscans, the Samnites, the Sabines or any of the other recently urbansed, Greek-influenced tribal societies. So even if Rome is not founded, a similar power has good chances of arising. In its early days, Rome had rivals in ITaly.

From what I know, all of Rome's rivals were significantly more Hellenized than Rome herself. At the very least, Rome always seemed the most unique of the Italian city-states. Indeed, much of Rome's success was due not just to her political institutions but the surprising violence on a hitherto unconsidered scale of her conquests. An Italian hegemon without that violence might not become the master of Europe.
 
say rome isnt founded what would happen. will the Etruscans rise as the dominant power in the world. Would Carthage be the dominant force in the Med. in 100 BC Would the Selueciud Empire have survived.

Not really possible.

The site of Rome was at the best ford across the Tiber in all of Latium. It was perfectly placed to exploit the salt trade travelling from the site of Ostia to Etruria and beyond. It was relatively easily defensible.

In other words it was inevitable that a settlement would be established there and also inevitable that over time it would grow to dominate the immediate vicinity. The great struggle to establish hegemony between Rome and Veii could have turned out differently and the latter would become dominant. Yet it would only be a matter of time before Rome became richer, more populous and militarily stronger.
 
well

I personally would like to see the rise of a Celtic empire, keep in mind the Celts were the guys who conquered nearly everything in their path until they got to Rome, and if they couldn't conquer you they were probably going to culturally assimilate your ass.
 
A later rise of rome :confused: nah then i think the celtic empire is more fun.

if rome´s rise is later then the barbarian invasions would be during the height of the empires power. i know you cant expect that the timeline wont change expect for some numbers but well.
 
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