What if Roman Empire never fell?

[Korin]

So if Western Roman Empire never fell, and they destroyed the Byzantine Empire.

How long you think they would've lasted?

 

or

 

the Western Roman Empire never existed, and Byzantine Empire either.

So the Roman Empire would've stayed as one--how long would've they existed for?

 

 

[caldrail]

No. In the same way that biolgical cells combine to make a human being, so individual human beings combine to make a society, which will display dynamic and naturalistic qualities, including dying of old age, catastrophe, or violence. Older cultures, especially successful dominat ones like Rome, tend toward a lazy middle age and a somewhat docile and ritualistic old age. Nothing lasts for ever, not even our political analogues of biolgical life. Even Polybius said that in 150BC (though he did assume the Roman system was superior and would be an exception - in that, at least, he did not predict the changes that brought Rome into line with everyone else and thus the political aging process took place).

[Number Six]

Even Polybius said that in 150BC (though he did assume the Roman system was superior and would be an exception - in that, at least, he did not predict the changes that brought Rome into line with everyone else and thus the political aging process took place).

 

Actually this is not accurate, but it's a common misconception. Rome was indeed an exception on many degrees but, if you were to quote a passage of Polybius were it's apparent that Rome would not encounter the same fate as the previous empires, you would find none, because there is none.

Parts of Polybius' Histories are missing, hence it's not sure what he assumed to be the final destiny of Rome, hence the common misconception: but it's fairly safe to guess that he would see Rome as lasting particularly longer than other empires, thanks to its own features, but surely not as being aeternal or anything close to the concept of aeternal. A different guess would contradict both Polybius personal philosophy and his stoic background.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Number Six

[caldrail]

Actually Poylbius says these things among others...

...it must be admitted that from this point of view the Laconian constitution is defective, while that of Rome is superior and better framed for the attainment of power, as is indeed evident from the actual course of events....

...But the quality in which the Roman commonwealth is most distinctly superior is in my opinion the nature of their religious convictions. I believe that it is the very thing which among other peoples is an object of reproach, I mean superstition, which maintains the cohesion of the Roman State....

...Such being the power that each part has of hampering the others or co-operating with them, their union is adequate to all emergencies, so that it is impossible to find a better political system than this. For whenever the menace of some common danger from abroad compels them to act in concord and support each other, so great does the strength of the state become, that nothing which is requisite can be neglected, as all are zealously competing in devising means of meeting the need of the hour, nor can any decision arrived at fail to be executed promptly, as all are co-operating both in public and in private to the accomplishment of the task which they have set themselves; and consequently this peculiar form of constitution possesses an irresistible power of attaining every object upon which it is resolved. When again they are freed from external menace, and reap the harvest of good fortune and affluence which is the result of their success, and in the enjoyment of this prosperity are corrupted by flattery and idleness and wax insolent and overbearing, as indeed happens often enough, it is then especially that we see the state providing itself a remedy for the evil from which it suffers. For when one part having grown out of proportion to the others aims at supremacy and tends to become too predominant, it is evident that, as for the reasons above given none of the three is absolute, but the purpose of the one can be counterworked and thwarted by the others, none of them will excessively outgrow the others or treat them with contempt. All in fact remains in statu quo, on the one hand, because any aggressive impulse is sure to be checked and from the outset each estate stands in dread of being interfered with by the others.
Histories Book VI (Polybius)

He's describing a state that corrects itself, implying a dynamic revitalisation, and one that is adapted to success. Go ahead, read it. That's what he says. There's no common misconception at all. This has nothing to do with stoic philosophy. It represents his pride in Roman achievement, particularly in the light of Carthaginian defeats (whose empire he he sees as degenerate, and would shortly be conquered finally in the 3rd Punic War), and his belief that the 'Roman Way' is bound by fate - a superstitious ideal that emerges in Roman writings and one that reflects the realisation of the Roman public of cultural destiny. Perhaps a little self deluded, but they knew they were heading for better things and that instilled a 'feel-good' factor in Roman society (not to mention arrogance), and since Polybius declares superstition as one aspect of Roman cohesion, we can hardly deny his point.

[Number Six]

Polybius never states anything implying that Rome would be an exception to the ending or aging process. I know the passage you just quoted, also for it's one of the most famous of Polybius, but a superior and balanced constitution doesn't make it everlasting as well: this is what Polybius never states, not even in the text above. His praise for the Roman constitution goes hand in hand with his admiration towards Rome, but there is no saying that such a superior constitution would also be an everlasting one.

This opinion is sometimes claimed also with the belief that Polybius expresses some kind of predestination for Rome will last forever, but this is not the meaning of Stoic (and Polybian) tyche: tyche, as an ecompassing force that governs everything, placed Rome at its outstanding position in history, but the concept of tyche doesn't include also a promise for an everlasting empire.

So, Polybius does his job as historian with describing the constitution of Rome the way it appears to him: yet all the possible praises do not mean that Rome is an exception to the regular course of history. Discussion of the perfect form of State was a common topic in Greek political thought, and this is what Polybius is about: but even a dinamic, self-regenerating constitution doesn't mean an everlasting one.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Number Six

[gilius]

Rome never fell because it was included in the Byzantine Empire; west and east both continued and the Holy Roman Empire was formed as the First Reich. The Roman Empire itself certainly never fell, but just evolved into a Christian Empire that throughout the Middle Ages tied peasants to the land after Constantine's reforms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pontifices_Maximi

The Pope is now the head of the Roman Empire of today (the church and state of the European Union and Catholic Church)

[Number Six]

There is a famous article by Momigliano from 1973 called La caduta senza rumore di un impero (which translated roughly as 'The noiseless fall of an empire'). In this fundamental essay Momigliano argues that nobody really noticed the so-called 'fall' of the Roman Empire back in 476 or around that date. Long has been since Momigliano's essay and the fact that the Roman Empire never fell has now become common knowledge among historians and partly also among part of the general public; it's also general opinion of the historians that the so called barbarian kingdoms had long-unrecognized traits of continuity and communion with the Roman Empire itself; finally, no major discontinuation is postulated anymore in economy and social order between late Roman Empire and Germanic kingdoms. Nowadays historians tend to see the period from the 3rd to the 8th century and even onwards as a continuum, without the previously postulated traumatic divide caused by Germanic 'invasions' (which aren't either called invasions anymore).

 

Said all the above, it's true that the Roman Empire never fell (not before 1453) and evolved instead. But claiming that "the Pope is now the head of the Roman Empire of today" is a bit hazardous and makes little sense to me. The Pope is the heir of a political tradition that goes back not earlier than the 7th century (claims of political dominion are a late event in the history of the Church) and, surely, connects the Pontifical State (which was part of the Eastern Roman Empire at that date) to the Roman tradition. But being an heir doesn't make him the head of the Roman Empire itself. The tradition isn't even continuous: we may argue that the Pontifical dominion was, at times, mere part of the French or German kingdoms / empires, lacking real sovreignity: can't reduce that complexity to a simple and direct political legacy, which could as well be claimed by the Merovingian Gaul and onwards. Let alone the fact that the Pontifical State ceased to exist in a meaningful sense during 1870.

Edited August 10, 2013 by Number Six

[caldrail]

There is of the famous quote that the Holy Roman Empire wasn't holy, wans't Roman, and wasn't an empire.

[Number Six]

That's Voltaire.

[Virgil61]

Rome never fell because it was included in the Byzantine Empire; west and east both continued and the Holy Roman Empire was formed as the First Reich. The Roman Empire itself certainly never fell, but just evolved into a Christian Empire that throughout the Middle Ages tied peasants to the land after Constantine's reforms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pontifices_Maximi

The Pope is now the head of the Roman Empire of today (the church and state of the European Union and Catholic Church)

 

I've seen this before but only on the internet, honestly there isn't a contemporary historian worth his or her salt [at least none I'm aware of] who'd posit this as a thesis.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Virgil61

[GhostOfClayton]

Didn't the Holy Roman Emperors still refer to themselves as 'Roman Emperor'?

[Number Six]

It was variable. Charlemagne himself started with this intitulatio in his documents: Karolus serenissimus Augustus a Deo coronatus, magnus ac pacificus imperator, Romanum guberans Imperium. This is from 801, after the coronation, while Charles was still in Italy. Meanwhile his seals had the formula Renovatio Romani Imperii. But, after the peace with Nikephoros in 812, it was decided that Charles would keep an imperial qualification, but not the name of Roman Emperor: he was acclaimed Basileus, meaning Basileus Francorum, not Romanorum (for the latter belonged to the Byzantine Emperor); Basileus Francorum is a title that sometimes appears in later literary sources.

In 813, the son and successor of Charles, Louis the Pious was crowned by his father, not by the Pope. In the same year, Charles changed the formula on his seals from Renovatio Romani Imperii to Renovatio Regni Francorum, which will be used also by Louis. Charles' biographer, Ehinard, will not say much about his Roman Empire: he will be "the Emperor who nobly expanded the Frank kingdom", like his epitaph says in Ehinard. Not much about the glories of his Roman Empire.

 

It was the Roman Church that continued to cling on to the idea of a translatio Imperii. The same idea will come back with the German Emperors of the 12th century, but the Carolingians, beforehand, were done with it.

Needless to say that the translatio Imperii is just a political claim: nothing institutional nor substantial.

Edited August 14, 2013 by Number Six