If Rome survived....

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
And constant German invasions.

Right. And the Poles, French and Russians think they had it bad!

[Ramo]

I believe de-urbanization was mainly caused by the rise of feudalism which was well under way prior to the German conquests.

The Latifunda system (the precursor to feudalism) was enacted to combat the depopulation in the empire. Labor became way too expensive and land too plentiful for the nobility to maintain their dominance, so they implemented feudal controls. The same thing happened after the Black Death in the 14th century.

It was implemented right after one of the most significant epidemics the Roman world faced, where 1/4 to 1/3 of the population died.

[Kepler]

Man, history is not the long suit of this crowd... ;-)

Rome surviving is one of those what-ifs that's too big to really argue about, because it either rubs out most of ensuing history of, if you're a technological determinist, it doesn't matter in the least.

I think it's more fun to assume something little, like what if the Romans -- who, though never long on thinking, were dynamite at application -- had recognized the utlity of steam as a power source. They had steam-driven toys and geegaws, but never made the leap. Granted, it takes metal-lathing to fine degrees of error to really make steam efficient, but when your point of comparison is literally one horsepower...

Another interesting idea, but probably way too big once again, is what if Christianity had never become the state religion of Rome and had died out like a hundred vritually identical cults of the period. Would any other religion have had the ability (and the political and military force behind it) to unify Europe under one whip? What would have happened to the development of Judaism absent its major persecutor, or Islam absent its major opponent? Would Celtic/Germanic animist religions have retained their foothold in the west, and what would that have meant for scientific and political trends?

[Saras]

Re: Romans & steam - been reading William Golding recently?

[Ramo]

Regarding a non-existence of Christianity alternate history, I don't want to pimp the importance of the epidemics any more, but Christianity ultimately gained acceptance because these massive epidemics. Christianity grew-up in an area rife with disease (in constrast to the religions coming from Greeks, Celts, etc.). Therefore, Christianity at least initially had the theological philosophical constructs (life is secondary to afterlife) and practical rituals that were pivotal in dealing with constant epidemics (stressing the importance of nursing). A perfectly fine substitute would be Mithraism, as it shares a lot of the same properties (since Christianity is Hellenized Judaism, Mithraism is Hellenized Zoroastrianism, and Judaism borrowed quite a bit from Zoroastrianism).

[Kepler]

Originally posted by Saras
Re: Romans & steam - been reading William Golding recently?

Nope. Been done? What's his premise? (And why do I know Golding -- it's late. Lord of the Flies?)

[Saras]

Yes, LotF. He made a comic short story how there was (i read it 8 years ago, don't remember the name of that story) an inventor who invented the steam engine, the printing press and explosives, but was ridiculed and generally rejected.

[Traianvs]

They had steam-driven toys and geegaws, but never made the leap.

Scientists and engineers certainly must have seen the afvantages of it, but i guess the senate or whatever feared that these new techniques might make slave labour a bit obsolete (except for servants of course) and slavery was holy in ancient times


And yeah now you mention it, the main cause of the decline was a demographic crisis... I haven't got the pop numbers of Rome through time, but i once saw them, and if you compare the numbers of the late roman period with the period under Traianus... no wonder they couldn't field enough decent armies at the borders... The fact that they took barbarians into their own ranks due to a lack of soldiers says it all really... (unreliable soldiers who may refuse orders or flee combat etc)

[Ned]

Originally posted by Trajanus

And yeah now you mention it, the main cause of the decline was a demographic crisis... I haven't got the pop numbers of Rome through time, but i once saw them, and if you compare the numbers of the late roman period with the period under Traianus... no wonder they couldn't field enough decent armies at the borders... The fact that they took barbarians into their own ranks due to a lack of soldiers says it all really... (unreliable soldiers who may refuse orders or flee combat etc)

And the barbarian soldiers certainly did not know how to build or maintain roads. I can see no other adequate explanation as to why civil engineering virtually came to a halt in the late 300's.

Ramo, can you give us details on the empidemics? I know one hit during Marcus Aurelius's reign. There were others later in the thrid century that must have contributed greatly to that century's disorders. As well, I have heard that Atilla did not take Rome only because it was then undergoing some sort of plague.

It is interesting that most of the diseases seemed not to adversely affect the Germans.