What if the Roman Empire Never Existed?

this video was sponsored by nordvpn a virtual private network service that provides much needed security in an age where cyber security is more important than ever [Music] 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 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 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 the romans existing and spreading into northern 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 was like before there ever was a roman republic in the first place who are the people the civilizations and cultures in a pre-roam world we'll begin in 400 bc most of what we know about europe north of italy is either detailed by greek or roman historians archaeology and plainly speculation these places where shadowy mythical lands occupied by a savage people far different than the mediterraneans north of italy were the regions of gaul germania britannia and 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 a group that has made their name in the islands far north of europe however these places aren't actually the home of the celtic people 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 civilizations with colonies scattered and dividing the region the greeks for centuries had sailed across the sea colonizing the island of sicily crete and even southern italy in north africa the carthaginians descendants of phoenicians from modern-day lebanon had created a trading empire that controlled the western sea using people from both europe and africa as mercenaries in their wars to the north of rome was a culture group known as the etruscans or rasna as 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 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 were still rebuilt hiroshima 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 is not just simply destroyed it's annihilated its foundations are uprooted the entire populace is enslaved raped and murdered until the only thing left is rebel 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 carthage was 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 rome easley could have met this fate at some time in its history in 387 bc the goal 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 on the coast of northern africa the city of carthage has already began its expanse across the mediterranean the greeks and etruscans sustained 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 happened 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 the previously mentioned etruscans so who were these people the etruscans and romans shared very similar history hell 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 looked 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 well they were however even with their lacks 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 but less evil an 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-lived 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 and 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 and effectively change the region by themselves 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 wouldn't 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 wouldn't conquer 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 hannibal was the exception not the norm carthage 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 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 a sea split between carthage and greece tunisia eventually is seen as the homeland to the west like we see the greeks today influencing the northern europeans with a naval fleet and growing numerous colonies scattered across every shore 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 and the small pockets in france and spain like i said earlier though these were not the celtic homelands the celtic homeland is 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 natives into founding their own kingdoms and emulating rome to compete but this still came at a high cost so let's talk about southern gaul at the time of julius caesar in our own timeline in 58 bc the gauls 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 galls the long-haired galls 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 and preparing to annex their people they rebelled this began what was known as the gaelic 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 these wars and the encroachment and assimilation by the romans were not unlike the natives in america the culture was pushed back its people killed and 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 roam to weaken the celts and gulls since carthage is the one interacting and trading with the celts the celts in a way 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 flare 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 speakers in our own timeline in terms of religion well a lot changes but i'll get into that in 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 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 forest of gaul or germania or britain in establishing colonies the foundation of basic kingdoms and things we associate with medieval northern europe would never have taken place instead these lands might have remained much like sub-saharan africa in a way primarily tribal and rural with a few distinct tribes being influenced by far away kingdoms and adopting customs from them 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 it'd be a 40 minute video and the next video will focus on the greek world 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 nordvpn a vpn is a virtual private network basically what nordvpn 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 nordvpn allows you to do that and it works on any ios or android phones and windows or mac for computer nordvpn is offering my viewers 66 off a two-year plan that's about 3.99 a month just go to nordvpn.com slash altist or 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Channel: AlternateHistoryHub

Views: 1,407,259

Rating: 4.9178901 out of 5

Keywords: vpn, von client, vpn network, free vpn change id, vpn web browser, AlternateHistoryHub, alternate history, what if rome never existed, roman empire, history of rome, punic wars, carthage empire, carthage, ancient europe history, celtic history, celtic, celts and rome, rome and carthage, rome expansion, history of the roman empire, what if the roman empire never existed alternatehistoryhub, roman empire never existed, roman empire never fell, what if, alternate history hub

Id: 0ImebebQAGs

Length: 17min 10sec (1030 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 28 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/MrSunshine92]

>Early Rome is destroyed

Carthage: Its Free Real Estate

[u/Vance87]

We’d all be speaking Phoenecian?

[u/Cellceair]

When in Rome wait.....

[u/Senki_]

Degenerates like Cody belong on a cross.

[u/BradyvonAshe]

with out rome: https://youtu.be/Qc7HmhrgTuQ