Rome survive in the Italian Peninsula

Why is just Italy so out of the question long term? As far as I know Italy is if anything more defensible than the ERE was in a lot of ways.
 
Why is just Italy so out of the question long term? As far as I know Italy is if anything more defensible than the ERE was in a lot of ways.

Italy isn't out of the question as long as they have North Africa. The problem was, for the last couple centuries, Italy essentially lived off the other provinces-it produced almost none of its food, the Italians were not used to serving in the army (or even for a lot of the time, not paying taxes), and it didn't generate much revenue. The loss of North Africa was so devastating because that was where all the revenue and grain for the west came-Italy needed North Africa.
 
Italy isn't out of the question as long as they have North Africa. The problem was, for the last couple centuries, Italy essentially lived off the other provinces-it produced almost none of its food, the Italians were not used to serving in the army (or even for a lot of the time, not paying taxes), and it didn't generate much revenue. The loss of North Africa was so devastating because that was where all the revenue and grain for the west came-Italy needed North Africa.

Rome and some of the other major cities, no? Even at the height of Empire I'd think the majority of Italians were either slaves or peasants out in the countryside, and working on farms - they just wouldn't have been producing enough of a surplus. The giant overgrown city of Rome couldn't survive the cutoff of imported grain, but I'm unaware that there was mass starvation throughout the peninsula.
 
The Romans would have to make some major changes that they were unwilling to do OTL.

Modernize the military, as the legion system had become obsolete to face the barbarian heavy cavalry. Meaning adopting something more like Swiss pikemen and mounted archers

If not already adopted, adopt better saddles, bridles, stirrups, and horseshoes

Allow Italians to serve in the Roman military again

Essentially default on the Imperial Debt, which while making speculators rich was destroying the Roman economy

Breed Louis Pasteur 1400 years sooner, or else break out of the "The Greeks already learned everything there was to know about medicine" mantra

Prevent Krakatoa from blowing up in 536 AD(year?):rolleyes:, thereby preventing the Wasting and multiple sweeps of plague

Give Italy a sense of nationalism 1400 years in advance

Free the slaves

Prevent serfdom from taking hold

In short, ASB (if you include Krakatoa)

See Sprague DeCamp's "Lest Darkness Fall".
 
Modernize the military, as the legion system had become obsolete to face the barbarian heavy cavalry. Meaning adopting something more like Swiss pikemen and mounted archers
The legion system seemed to be working fine for Belisarius 100 years later...the Diocletian system in my opinion worked well.


If not already adopted, adopt better saddles, bridles, stirrups, and horseshoes
Shouldn't be too hard for someone to design stirrups-as done in Cato's Cavalry.

Allow Italians to serve in the Roman military again
I believe they were, they just didn't like it-which meant that when an emperor forced the Italians to contribute more, he didn't last long-which is a serious problem.

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It's not ASB by any means. Though of course, its going to be very difficult. All they really need though is North Africa-and really to keep N. Africa that might require they regain Spain.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
We know that the Senate continued to function in Rome into the early 7th Century; its last recorded act was commissioning some statues in 603 AD. Perhaps the Senate could have asserted control over Rome itself amidst the chaos of the Gothic War and the subsequent collapse of Byzantine rule in central Italy in the succeeding decades. Rome under the Senate could have then become one of the various small states competing for control in Italy, but the fact that it was ruled by the Senate would give it an unbroken continuity with Rome.
 
How it will affect the linguistic history of the Italian peninsula?

If the literary language reflect changes in everyday speech, then pretty similar to OTL Italian except maybe more conservative spelling, eg. Victorio for Vittorio, Caesare for Cesare, and Julio for Giulio.

If a lingually conservative literati is retained like in China, changes may be more limited, but these may still occur as IOTL in the literal Latin:
- Merge of vocative to nominative and ablative to dative, functions remain separated by using prepositions.
- Articles emerges.
- Deponent verbs regularized into their active forms.
- Cardinal numbers no longer decline, but unus "one" might retain its declension when used as a pronoun.
- Progressive voice appears.
And wild guesses in vernacular Latin:
- Further disintegration of cases into nominative and oblique or totally disappear like IOTL, replaced by deliberate preposition, and word order shifts to SVO from SOV.
- Passive voice replaced by esse "to be" + active voice.
- Future tense replaced by infinitive + habere "to have" due to consonant shift of Vulgar Latin making the preterite and future homophones, this may or may not influence the written language.
 
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