07-13-2004, 08:22 PM
I do think this thread is a waste of time, although fun. So here are my two cents worth:<br>
<br>
1) Cannae is an all time classic. Hard to argue against its tragedy. But it is true that rome won the war!<br>
<br>
1) Varus might have won, or to put it better Arminius might have lost (it wasn't easy to pull off that revolt in that way. He was a genius): in that way Rome might have consolidated germany. Hard to imagine the future consequences.<br>
<br>
2) A typical political defeat of rome: Commodus giving up after Marcus' long, bloody victorious wars against marcomanni and quadi, future alemanni. Imperial Rome did not invent a mechanism that could avoid stupid/pathological/... men from becoming emperors.<br>
<br>
3) Valens might not have lost and the goths definitely beaten with the survivors settled and slowly romanized.<br>
No Alaric. Rome, like all human things, would have fallen sooner or later but european history would have been, I my opinion, very different. It still hard, but compared to Varus episonde, it is relatively easier to imagine the consequences of a roman victory at adrianople. Because of the defeat for Rome things went down hill quite quickly after that. The goths were inside roman territory and basically did what they wanted.<br>
<br>
4) The death of Julian is, in my opinion, not significant. Had Julian won he would not have conquered Persia just like Trajan did not, nor Severus, nor Carus. Certainly India was not wide open for conquest. Rome did simply not have the resources. More interesting is the scenario that Julian NOT try the foolish conquest of Persia but find a way to stablize diplomatically the Persian issue with due use of force and not stupid Alexandrine attempts to outdated glory. Had he not wasted precious energy against Persia maybe, just maybe his reing would have lasted longer and the empire might have profited. But he had priorities all jumbled. <p></p><i></i>
<br>
1) Cannae is an all time classic. Hard to argue against its tragedy. But it is true that rome won the war!<br>
<br>
1) Varus might have won, or to put it better Arminius might have lost (it wasn't easy to pull off that revolt in that way. He was a genius): in that way Rome might have consolidated germany. Hard to imagine the future consequences.<br>
<br>
2) A typical political defeat of rome: Commodus giving up after Marcus' long, bloody victorious wars against marcomanni and quadi, future alemanni. Imperial Rome did not invent a mechanism that could avoid stupid/pathological/... men from becoming emperors.<br>
<br>
3) Valens might not have lost and the goths definitely beaten with the survivors settled and slowly romanized.<br>
No Alaric. Rome, like all human things, would have fallen sooner or later but european history would have been, I my opinion, very different. It still hard, but compared to Varus episonde, it is relatively easier to imagine the consequences of a roman victory at adrianople. Because of the defeat for Rome things went down hill quite quickly after that. The goths were inside roman territory and basically did what they wanted.<br>
<br>
4) The death of Julian is, in my opinion, not significant. Had Julian won he would not have conquered Persia just like Trajan did not, nor Severus, nor Carus. Certainly India was not wide open for conquest. Rome did simply not have the resources. More interesting is the scenario that Julian NOT try the foolish conquest of Persia but find a way to stablize diplomatically the Persian issue with due use of force and not stupid Alexandrine attempts to outdated glory. Had he not wasted precious energy against Persia maybe, just maybe his reing would have lasted longer and the empire might have profited. But he had priorities all jumbled. <p></p><i></i>
Jeffery Wyss
"Si vos es non secui of solutio tunc vos es secui of preciptate."
"Si vos es non secui of solutio tunc vos es secui of preciptate."
