A History Teacher Reacts | "What if the Roman Empire Never Existed?" by Alternate History Hub

[Music] [Music] hey youtube welcome back to another history teacher reacts video to mr. Teri's that continue my search for historical knowledge here on the Internet alright today's video on to be checking out is what if the Roman Empire never existed by alternative history hub I mean it seems like an obvious important topic for the fact of how influential importance the Roman Empire has been how many people have our civilizations of an influenced by it how many tried to recreate it basically which is a lot and so I thought this yeah definitely thought this would be interesting and I know a lot of you are very into the Roman Empire so hopefully you'll like joining me here so if you like the original video alternative history hub does love these alternate history videos which can be fun hypothetical kind of videos what if something was different than what had happened in the past and trying to reimagine the kind of world differently that way so that'd be awesome but yeah I feel like we're doing here love to have you as a sub enabled those notifications so you know what my live streams are let's go ahead and get started this video was sponsored by Nord VPN a virtual private network service that provides much needed security in an age where cyber security is more important than ever [Music] that's cool that's beautiful yeah what if the Roman Empire never existed yikes sort of that I wonder if that means Rome in the Empire era so like before Caesar or just at all Rome even republic Rome or Kingdom Rome Rome changed everything not just because of the political system that they popularized in the West which still influences us today not because their language was the forefather I love which still influences us today no I love the Roman mosaic art where you get the small tiles small plaster tiles whatever and then you paint them I just think it looks so cool and of course has so much utility because you can use it on walls ceilings a floor if you wanted to because it is a hardened thing I just I love that style like that's maybe the artistically the coolest thing that they produced because their language was the forefather to all of these languages Rome's simple existence their conquering of Europe transformed a continent just as much as Europeans conquered the Americas and this influence began far before Rome called themselves an empire the roman republic made up the entire italian peninsula it conquered and assimilated so many cultures just in their neighborhood that we only know about them because the Romans knew them all right so you got to ask every time they do ro empire vs Republic are you a you a Roman Republic person or you a Roman Empire person make your opinions known down in the chat or something we all like to imagine a Europe where the Roman Empire simply never fell but after doing some research seeing how much Rome turned Europe into Europe I want to imagine a world where Rome never existed at all this is going to be a journey that alters history more than any other scenario I think I ever did so was existing in spreading into north Europe was what changed the European people from simply the inhabitants of a large Peninsula next to Asia to a fully-fledged important continent on the world scale but what it took to get there transformed all of them in the process under Roman sword and steel where to even begin in this alternate timeline let's set the stage of what Europe are Latika for there ever was a Roman Republic in the first place so traffic people the civilizations and cultures in a pre Rome world will begin in 400 BC most of what we know about Europe and north of Italy is either detailed by Greek or Roman historians archeology and plain old speculation these places were shadowy mythical lands occupied by a savage people far different than the Mediterraneans north of Italy where the ticket you can get like the throne the Greek term the Barbirolli right which like Greeks for people that didn't speak Greek they call them the barber or there's an on Greek speaking people which of course evolves into barbarian which we use today but yeah that's kind of what a lot of these these these people thought of those inland people didn't think of them nearly as civilized but yeah that term comes from the Barbirolli from Greece the regions of gaul Germania britannia in Hibernia the last two simply thought as myths by the Romans until the times of Julius Caesar the people in these lands were the Celts today when we think of Celtic we think of Irish Scottish or Cornish it's not in case ya know Celts were all over the place yeah we people only think about them in like the Irish sense or just the Britannia sense but now Celts were all over the place they were they were very formidable way more than I thought they're all over the European continent a group that has made their name in the islands far north of Europe however these places aren't actually the home you have the Celtic people are their main Ireland and Scotland are more like the last bastion of a people that once controlled most of Europe but we'll talk more about that later south of Rome the Mediterranean was split between three Bizet shion's with colony scattered and dividing the region Arthur the Greeks for centuries had sailed across the sea trustees of the Isle of Sicily Crete and even southern Italy in North Africa the Carthaginians descendants of Phoenicians from modern-day Lebanon say you know the before that like the Greek colonies the Phoenicians were the ones who dominated the Seas I guess even during the Greeks because they built our whole civilization on trade they just had colonies they they ran themselves as small colonies all around the Mediterranean they're the carriers of civilization as we call it in the kind of the history world and because of their so much of their international trade that is what they why they developed a thing their most famous for which is the alphabet basically the origination of the alphabet that we use in the West today as an alphabet which is a writing system based on sounds is way more convenient and adaptable than a pictographic writing system where you have to know different language or sorry different character for every word or thing you would want to want to express or an alphabet is based on sounds which you can adapt to multiple languages and have a minimal amount of characters all you really need is a character for every sound a language might make or just combine sounds - so our combined letters for sounds - so that was the biggest thing for the Phoenicians there the Carthaginians were descendants of them creative trading empire that controlled the western sea using people from both Europe and Africa as mercenaries in their Wars to the new and where they you know you see they're they're big I'm sure they're going to talk about it but the big connection with Rome was competing for the islands Sicily Corsica etc over here in the in the Mediterranean which both we have were vying for leading to the Punic Wars are the most famous wars the Romans ever had and Carthaginians ever fought people from both Europe and Africa as mercenaries and their Wars to the north of Rome was a culture group known as the Etruscans or resna natives they called themselves the Etruscans didn't have a single state they were like the Greeks a civilization of people separated into numerous city-states we actually know a lot more about the Etruscans because of their proximity to Rome but we'll talk about them later on so now that the stage has been set let's imagine an alternate world where Rome never existed history especially ancient history is a fickle thing Rome wasn't destined by some divine power to create the largest empire in European history it was a long arduous journey of decisions made over generations rome wasn't built in a day all right that's where that that famous saying gets gets wrong because it's totally true what I'm really trying to say is there are so many ways Rome could have simply never rose the brutality of human warfare has really been forgotten in the modern world even during the most catastrophic events of the world wars the cities destroyed or still rebuilt Hiroshima's Stalingrad and Dresden were obliterated and yet today all are populated cities this is really the outlier in human history for most of human civilization there have been many occasions a city has not just simply destroyed its annihilated its foundation harbors routed the entire populace is enslaved raped and murdered until the only thing left is rubble and nobody can rebuild the city of Antioch was once a center of Christendom before the Muslims killed every Christian in the city in 1260 and Crusades the once an empire but the Romans after three wars wiped it off the map Troy was thought to be just a simple Greek legend until 20th century discoveries revealed it was indeed a real city in western Anatolia yeah yeah that ended up definitely being a real place [Music] Romy's or learn about in college about Heinrich houses the archaeologists the German guy anyway they found it and they so they find what was the rebel with it and they see a lot of char ton of charred like everything was charred all the foundations bleeding credence to the whole it was burned down by the Greeks thing so yeah sometimes took me hard to find it's amazing it's uh it's always been and students ask me all the time is like how do cities just get forgotten you don't I mean like they get destroyed but you have these places in the world that have been consistently populated for thousands of years and how could something just like disappear cuz you know stuff might get destroyed and then especially the ones that don't get destroyed that just get abandoned and forgotten like how did we not know about the Indus Valley Civilisation until decades ago like they were massive and we see their you know small sites all over the place the place in you know Western India or modern-day Pakistan that has been consistently populated forever how does something like that just disappear it's it's fascinating sometimes until he could have met this fate at some time in its history in 387 BC the gulls sacked the city it was this attack which spurred Rome to invest in a culture of defense and military prowess it would never be attacked again it could be so easy that rome was simply wiped off the map if the attack was strong enough or savage enough in this alternate scenario of course it simply could have just been an insignificant city on the Italian peninsula but I wanted to go on that nice little tangent is an alternate 400 BC agent of northern America the city of Carthage has already began its expanse across the Mediterranean the Greeks and Etruscans sustain their own civilizations of city-states moving forward 70 years Alexander the Great still begins his conquest of basically the entire known world at the time the expanse of both civilizations still happen as normal since Rome had nothing to do with any of these the first major change begins around the 200s when the roman republic was supposed to rise and replace the Etruscans so this new alternate italy remains the culturally divided mess that it was before the unifying force of Rome the main dominant power in the region is a previously mentioned Etruscans so who were these people these gentlemen shared very similar history well even the last Roman Kings were Etruscan and the people would be the most to contribute to this new Roman Republic even if the Romans look down on their culture to the Romans the Etruscans were what we would call today they looked down on their northern neighbors as hedonistic sex craved and immoral a weak neighbor which Rome believed could easily be conquered and while they were however even with their Lacs views of sexuality the Etruscans still were fine builders and artisans it's even said many of the contributions we see as Roman were really just adapted from what the Etruscans already had many of the builders of the aqueducts and arches were Etruscan you could say Rome had a great way of copying others after they had already conquered them like Disney the less evil and Italy with Etruscan influence is split into multiple different states perhaps never truly banding together with the Etruscans culturally dominating the north and the southern tip of the peninsula being controlled by the Greek colonists these colonies were not short notice - either they existed up until the Roman legions came and effectively kicked the Greeks out without Rome it's very likely the Greeks simply would have stayed in Hellenized the region making it no different than the other islands they owned or Western Anatolia well I can't say very likely because there's always a chance that another power would come and control this area more specifically Carthage the Punic Wars really were the deciding turning point for Western civilization a battle between who really would influence Europe even if neither side truly knew the full implications of this without Rome to truly beat back the influence of the North African City Carthage is left completely alone to colonize most of the western Mediterranean effectively change region by themselves because yeah it's almost like what would roam the Roman Empire just be the Etruscan Empire and and be as powerful as it was because they were very powerful had an economic advantage that would have had if they were basically left uncompetitive in the Mediterranean so that would totally be a thing as a trusk and never sorry the Carthaginians become what Rome becomes now how different would that have been than the Roman Empire I don't know maybe it could have been very similar right there are a lot of common influences being a you don't influence by the Mediterranean world now this affects so many things but I'll try to explain them quickly first of course is the starting point for culture in Western Europe this alternate Europe is now like North America without the colonists it's left to its own devices and destiny Carthage takes the mantle as the empire that influences the people of Gaul and Iberia just not in the way that Rome did what I mean so much changes since Rome isn't around I just don't mean in terms of territory so in this world where Carthage now has free reign to control this portion of Europe what would they do they want it conquer and push back the people like the Romans did if anything their influence is more subtle Carthage was a trading empire they spread colonies far and wide to get more riches from other lands it was different than the Romans who invaded to defend Rome Carthage defended its riches Carthage what it conquered Gaul like the Romans did but influenced them with trade and connections Carthage as well was a naval power they didn't dominate like the infantry of Rome they would be less most militaristic than the Romans which isn't saying much but Roman German plus militaristic societies I've ever existed [Music] but yeah it almost seemed like it would be because there were benefits to being to joining the enrollment Empire if you were foreign group right they would make deals with places to basically bring them into the empire all right under tribute and one thing the Romans were known was for giving rights to conquered people's right even citizenship rights right but it says like with the with the carthaginians people would be influenced to them not not just would be under they become under their influence of their empire not because of military threat but because of the obvious incentive of being a part of their trade empire so wonder if that means they wouldn't be as many rebellions or really as much cultural influence because if you're you would have been a problem most likely under more Roman control more Roman influence if you were under their empire than of the Carthaginians based off of that just the whole idea being economically successful rather than just something to defend and and be focused on that like the Romans were Hannibal was the exception not the norm earthers didn't have the tactics of rome either until hannibal but even if they directly mirrored rome which is unlikely the position of their capital would put them in a disadvantage imagine trying to control the province of Gaul while being across the sea conquering Gaul was a gargantuan task for even the Romans to do and they were neighbors on land so be it from their love for money instead of blood or their incompetence or simply geography a Europe dominated by Carthage is ironically a less changed one there is no great empire to change the continent in its image and so the native tribes are left to define themselves so Europe would be even more diverse which is amazing now because Europe incredibly diverse right you see with all the conflict and languages and all that's a religious differences so it's hard Helen let's imagine an even more diverse one but I guess that would have happened because there wouldn't have been as much cultural influence so all the different parts of Europe would develop more independent more quickly rikes a lot of that diversity that did happen an actual history was after Rome fell right and you had the Germanic kingdoms all you know and and and and the whole feudal structure that ends up kind of taking over Europe and getting more individuality that way and then even with failed attempts at truly continental empires like the Holy Roman later on you know it still feels to do that but definitely following the the the the logic here development is slower over the course of millennia however with Carthage the Celts still have a chance to absorb some civilization if you will the coastlines of France Spain and Italy might belong to Carthage but anything more would be too difficult to accomplish and far more costly to matter this transforms what we view as the West it isn't simply Europe but really the Mediterranean Sea as a whole wouldn't be nearly as much separation of southern your the northern part of the Mediterranean so like modern Europe and then southern Earth's are northern Africa they're southern Mediterranean it would be far more culturally the same because it's very different now right very different now la has to do though with later with history with the Islamic kingdoms right that come over in the eighth ninth centuries across northern Africa and of course into Spain that that really drove a divided culturally between Carthage and Greece Tunisia eventually is seen as the home way into the West like we see the Greeks today influencing the Northern Europeans with a naval fleet and growing numerous colonies scattered across every Shore but would Tunis have been a like a intellectual and cultural center like Rome was probably not but maybe to some extent speaking of those people let's talk about the Northern Europeans themselves Europe at this time really was split into numerous major tribes like the Native Americans so who truly were the celts when you think of celtic people today we think of ireland scotland in the small pockets and france and spain like i said earlier though these were not the Celtic homelands the Celtic homeland has actually believed to be in southern Germany and the Celtic people spread out to reach the coast of Portugal and even central Anatolia at least before Rome the Romans had a thing with conquering a territory and changing it into their culture today this is celebrated as bringing the foundations of Europe and that isn't a negative in any way it certainly kick-started the formerly tribal need is in the founding their own kingdoms and emulating Rome to compete but this still came at a high group do you ever feel like you're being watched the browser you're using is allowing your behavior to be exploited and monitored some websites allow over cause so let's talk about southern Gaul at the time of Julius Caesar in our own timeline 1958 very different the gulls in the south began giving into Roman customs eventually establishing more orderly territory producing wine and consuming it they cut their hair and began to dress more like Mediterraneans than their northern cousins or the long-haired Gauls the long-haired Gauls were called so because they were not so receptive to the Romans and their lands and were far enough away they would be very difficult to influence in fact when they began to believe the Romans were overstepping their boundaries in preparing to annex their people they rebelled this began what was known as the Gallic Wars which is overly complicated and doesn't need to be explained by the end of their rebellion against Roman expansion a third of all Celts were killed another third were sold into slavery leaving only another third in their place big what if their I you know Gaul would have been a massively important state rags they were powerful and took a long time to Caesar but I'd say you know it took took a long time for them to get incorporated into Rome the Roman Republic but that would be like the most power that'd probably be the most powerful state in Europe if the Roman Empire to existed because the Carthaginians would not have been able to influence that far but with how powerful Gaul already was that would be an incredibly powerful state no doubt be no France right right there just be Gaul or something these wars in the encroachment and assimilation by the Romans were not unlike the natives in America the culture was pushed back people killed in what was effectively a genocide until the last bastion of Celtic culture left was on Ireland and Scotland which just so happened to be past the Roman borders after this genocide happened the German migration began fleeing another enemy in the east and it was this German invasion / migration that ultimately led to Rome itself being destroyed and the demographics of Central and Western Europe being changed forever but what if there was no room to weaken the Celts since Carthage is the wild Interac house operating with the Celts the Celts in a way it could still be influenced by a civilized culture but it'd be slower less militaristic and less prominent so these Celtic cultures might still remain themselves just with a Carthage Flair these lands we see as romance or Latin instead are much more like Ireland or Scotland they wouldn't be a single nation but I could imagine there'd be a closer tie compared to the mix up of Latin and Celtic Speedy's in our own timeline in terms of religion well a lot changes but I'll get into that in the yeah what do you do with the whole Christianity thing it rising up it doesn't exist maybe it never even branches out from Judaism in general very different that way right you just have a bunch of pagan worship right polytheistic partly religions the next video the Celts might not stay in their territory forever the Germans were going to invade south no matter what simply because of the Huns yet without such a weakened state it could be imagined the Celts would hold on better than the Romans did that wait is that his hair or a mustache like his head hair either way interesting artistic representation there and so by Rome expanding north and interacting with these tribal people peacefully and not they exchanged ideas that they had gotten from the Greeks and the Greeks got from Crete and Crete got from Egypt yet without that militaristic force going so far north into the forests of Gaul or Germany or Britain and establishing colonies the foundation of basic kingdoms and things we associate with medieval Northern Europe would never have taken place because there'd be no case so Rome Falls feudalism develops because of the lack of a continental protection I guess after own fall so you know get the feudal structure so you don't get a lot of those monarchs you don't get the the the culture that came with feudalism right the whole nights and Lords and all that stuff least at least to the extent that we did see actually in real life so that's interesting socially what would happen is something the most famous a most famous thing that came out of yeah Europe in the Middle Ages the old feudal structure is totally gone so society completely a friend instead these lands might have remained much like sub-saharan Africa in a way primarily tribe level in rural with a few distinct tribes being influenced by faraway kingdoms and adopting customs from them yeah and the whole city idea really kind of starts with Rome - and the highly urbanized population centers and the reason they were able to do that was being able to manage resources at a higher level than almost anybody in the world for example getting in fresh water through through aqueducts right allowed cities to just literally house a population much bigger than you now so yeah be far more like a frontier than anything else no no big cities probably the only big cities out there would be probably bigger cities would be close to trading cities however I will talk more in detail about this in part two and yes there will be a second part the scenario so long I had to split it up otherwise maybe a 40-minute video and the next video will focus on the Greek chorus 22 Eastern Europe and the very existence of the Abrahamic religions themselves so stay tuned for that this is Cody of alternate history hub Rome was never able to secure their borders but you can secure yourself that's why this video was sponsored by Nord VPN as a VPN is a virtual private network basically what Nord VPN does is it secures your information whenever you go online by accessing a private network with military-grade encryption you can protect yourself they have thousands of servers from 60 countries that you can access and with a simple interface it's easy to set up say I want to have a new address from Britain well I can do that or India Nord VPN allows you wanna and it works on any iOS or Android phones and Windows or Mac for computer nor VPN is offering my viewers 66% off a two-year plan that's about 399 a month just go to Noor VPN comm slash alt hist or click the link in the description to sign up and start protecting yourself that's Nord VPN dot-com slash alth ist and use the code autist at checkout and get started today I'm sure I've talked about it before but this truly is an important service and I recommend that you get it all right ok so yeah I mean I'm following along I had not before seeing this title had not think about the impact on the celts before because they almost get erased from history I mean they really do and totally change what people thought about is very very few people understand that the Celts were a mainland European people first and you really only think of him as a very distant ancestor maybe in the cold Britannia especially especially Ireland but seeing there is how they probably then would have emerged as the dominant power in mainland Europe especially Northern Europe as just kind of the the way the style of Carthaginian culture would not have been one necessarily on inland conquest right overland conquest as they were a trading empire so what that would have done with the celts being kind of the main players in northern europe that was those good to think and the power of gaul what that would have been like it's probably the most powerful nation I guess Celtic nation I guess you'd say that would definitely be possible so a video to would definitely talk it's got to talk about like yeah the effect of Christianity I mean depends on how far a far they want to take that because of Rome's role obviously in the spread of it as Christianity started within the Roman Empire so yeah have you stood to see a little bit more of that let me know if you'd like to see the part two on this if there's something I should fast-track into and to continue on with this whole Roman Empire never existing thing if that's something I should fast-track or kind of move on to other things come back to this it may be at another time but also go ahead and if you'd like to make some predictions too about stuff that would you think would have changed major things that would have changed of Rome had never existed stuff that maybe would get would happen if they haven't talked about yet like effects on Christianity effects on future kingdoms cultural implications if there's things you think then share them down get some discussions you can do that in the YouTube channel or the sorry the YouTube comments if you have not joined our discord server definitely join that we have a 4,000 people at this time and of people and the Rome channel on my server is one of the most popular ones and one of the most yeah well discussed ones so that could be a good a good topic conversation alternate history if Roman Empire had not existed so definitely love to have you as someone to join that if you like this channel and the whole I alternate history thing whether you're sub to them and ah please go down my description and click on the link so you can get them a like like them their video get them views and sub to them if you're into that makes for some fun discussions that way love di have you guys this up as well one way you can also support the channel is to join the patreon starting at simply a dollar a month membership the lowest I can I can set it there you can support the channel at its lowest here which at the very least gets you access to polls that I put up I put a bulb about once a week to fast-track a certain video so you get a little more influence there and also you can get discord benefits if you join as well so that's just another way to join but thank you so much for simply just being here and watching and being part of my journey to become a better teacher and share what I can along all right with that we'll go ahead and end here we'll see you soon bye [Music] you

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 47,124

Keywords: react, history, rome, roman empire

Id: 4UppVYRGyns

Length: 32min 23sec (1943 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 24 2019