What if Rome Fell in 268 AD?
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- Опубліковано 31 тра 2024
- In 268 AD, the Roman Empire nearly collapsed. How different might history have been if Rome had fallen two centuries early?
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Chapters:
0:00 The Roman Empire in 268
2:01 Scenario 1: A House Divided
5:24 Scenario 2: Nobody has to learn French
8:32 Other scenarios
Aurelian wouldnt let it happen! 💔
Sol Invictus
Praetorians be like: yea, but what IF...
He didn't.
⚔️ Restitutor ☀️ Orbis ⚔️
We should be nervous just talking about possibility of him not saving everything. He may come back just to teach us proper respect...
Aurelian: *Spares the Life of Zenobia after defeating her*
Romans: "Why did you let her live?"
Aurelian: "You see, I think it was necessary to do it in order to end all this spiral of violence that has devastated the Empire for the last decades. Rome was built, not only with blood, but with wisdom and morality too, even though it seems that the whole world only remembers the blood. As long as there exists only violence, there will only be chaos and lack of control everywhere. Perhaps sparing my enemy's life won't change anything, but what right would I have to call myself emperor if I only thought with my fist and not with my mind? Did Augustus, Marcus Aurelius and many others become gods just with their thirst for blood? I may have started my career as a very bellicose person, but these last few years have completely changed my life. And if I can change, then everybody can change..."
Romans: "You just did it to bang her, right?"
Aurelian: "Yep"
Art
Copiado y pegado
Pero es arte
Amazing
LOL I was expecting after that massive explanation to be something like “Palmyra declared independence again”
@@gabrielalejandrodoldan4722 Quid est? Tuum Latinum sonat valde fractus
I want to imagine a world where Aurelian lived for 20 years and adopted a capable successor and we had another 5 good emperors period.
Probably christianity would be legalized way sooner. Sparing the occurrance of the prosecutions, which would have a deep effect on christianity's history, not only changing its development but preventing the negative view of the roman state during its later stage
Well, the century from the 280s-370s was Rome's last golden age as a united empire. The geopolitical circumstances were so different in the 4th century, that I'm not sure even if you transported Trajan or Hadrian forward that they could've done any better.
No Constantine, no Constantinople, probably no Christianity, no Western Christian barbarian Kingdoms, no Eastern Byzantine Empire. So basically another universe.
Christianity was already a rising religion. Without Rome its spread would not necessarily have halted, but maybe only slowed.
@DieLuftwaffel this is true, but Constantine begun making it the structure society revolved around as it empowered the average person, not just the elite. This was critical during these turbulent times. We'll never understand the fear and hopelessness these people did. True genocide
Didn’t the Byzantine call themselves Romans?
They did. So did everyone else then. Muhammad himself refers to them as the Romans in the Quran.
Christianity would stilll be around, except Arianism would get off the ground instead of Nicene.
I 'm generally very wary of alternative histories but you are a trustworthy source so the speculation was very interesting and thought provoking.
How does this guy not have a tv show of his own yet? I can binge watch his videos all day long. He’s got me so interested in history and encouraged me to read books I would’ve otherwise never picked up. Seriously great content being produced here.
Hey this guy is really good at making roman history videos. He should teach Roman history or something.
This is the most over done joke on UA-cam good job
Hello, try around 936 AD for the 3 crisis we are taught?
He should maybe make UA-cam videos on historic events
@@chychywoohoo shhhh let them have fun. Being an ass is the most overdone thing on the internet so you’re not really one to speak here.
Also he should make videos about other Roman stuff like Polanski and candles.
Seriously though, I love toldinstone's content and am amazed at how many aspects of Roman history and culture he continues to find and explore. Thanks, Mr (Dr?) Ryan, for sharing your knowledge and talents and for the many hours of content.
In 2000 years they might be asking what if America had collapsed in the 1860s
Or just, "What was America?"
Civilisation would have been restored from Canada, the Americans would then be ashamed of their grandparents mutiny against their rightful king 80 years earlier and Americans would have become proud subjects of Queen Victoria, just like Canadians, Australians, etc.
@@Dave_Sisson Communist detected on American Soil. Lethal force engaged.
@@Dave_Sisson that definitely would not have happened.
Its unlikely theres gonna be life on the planet in 2k years let alone civilization
Counterfactuals can get a bit silly (like what if the Romans had a machine gun at Cannae), but this was very fascinating & on point, leaving me hungry for more! Great work as always thanks Garrett.
They tend to be very military focused too, which does not make a very convincing scenario when it ignores the cultural and social factors that contribute to an event. especially considering the fall of rome, which is more of an arbitrary point than anything else, deciding a counterfactual scenario based on military battles would ignore the language, religious, social changes that led the western roman empire to "fall"
Really I think we should focus on more important things, like what if Caesar had an orange cream popsicle while at Pharsalus. I think that could have had far reaching consequences/s
Could you imagine if they did tho lmao
@@inspirednamehere6166 Yeah as you say it didnt really "fall" in that single year..the people who lived on those lands didnt disappear and since their culture didnt really change that much either for a while, the changes probably felt a little bit more natural rather than abrupt like we "stupid humans from the future" often like to imagine
@@inspirednamehere6166 Well, he's saying what if the Roman state was never reunited in the 270s. The empire was reunited through military action, and would've remained separate through military failure.
And Roman history, especially in the 3rd and 4th century, is dominated by military action, the army, and the soldier emperors who commanded it.
We’d have a different DLC for Total War
Dont give CA such stupid ideas :D
Yeah like What if Terminator had his phased plasma rifle in 40 watt range..
awesome video! i hope there's a few more what ifs down the line
What if Nero's' fiddle was an electric guitar?
Whoah Nero, that last song was *fire*!!!
A Roman emperor shredding as the eternal city burned is pretty metal
Nero should have been playing "Voodoo Child" by Jimmy Hendrix while tripping on some "Purple Haze" with his head right next to the amplifier while shredding on his custom Gibson SG painted in Imperial Purple and slamming the Wawa pedal.
But nooooo....
He played the Lyre...
SMH...
"Let me stand next to your fire"
Fantastic job, per usual, Garrett 👏
Just bought your book! I love it!
I love everything you do and not only is your content of the highest quality, but you inspire me to finish my degree in the humanities (philosophy, ikr? lol) for nothing more than my own fulfillment. Anyone can tell you love your subject matter; I'm sincerely grateful you share these videos with us🙏
Very interesting video. Thank you.
Excellent content.
Excited to see this!
By far one of my top favorite channels. And I mean I really only have a handful of them.
"Nobody has to learn French" LOL Garrett!
Love the video!
I love “what if” history what a great vid
Like Mike Duncan said, if you measure emperors by their best season rather than best overall rule, then Aurelian was the best of the best…
Love your work doctor, wish you did some Japanese history because that is my true love, but anything Roman or Greek I have in my head it's cool to see that you have already done a video on.Really great channel just subscribed.
A fascinating "what-if" indeed!
Just Subscribed to both of your other channels. At first I did think Scenic Routes To The Past was Secret Routes To The Past from your pronunciation BTW. Just saying.
Only touched on at the end, but the big long term consequence IMHO would have been vis-a-vis christainity. Without the long distance travel and philosophically (/theologically) inclined aristocracy that a solid Roman empire supported, I struggle to see a foreign religion sweeping across Europe as it did. Even the much smaller change of not having a Constantine (only a tiny part of Rome falling in 268) would have changed Christian history so much. Considering just how much the Church impacted both cultural life and high-level politics for the next 1500 years, removing that would have drastic consequences on the rest of history. Encore plus que si personne parler francais
I'm a history student writing my thesis on the iconography on Postumus' coinage. If there's one thing that I learned during this project, it's that the 3rd century was like the year 2020: it started out okay and only got worse due to poor choices. By the time capable management arrived, it was already too late.
Thank you😍
What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?
How the empire fell is just as important as to why.
A very interesting alternate history! The kind that I like.
Wow too harsh on Gallienus at the beginning there. Reformed the army and held things together as best he could, was well on his way to reconquering the west but was constantly betrayed. Fought on the frontlines with his men and took wounds. Lasted 15 years as emperor during a disaster that alone is impressive
The Crisis of the third century had many different inflection points where it appeared history might swing wildly from one end to the other, however I think we place too much importance on any one man's ability to influence it. The changing demographics of Europe (including the growing Christian religion) were leading to the same result.
Aurelian to the rescue. One of the true badasses of Roman history.
"Nobody has to learn french."
*The* *good* *ending.*
oh this ones gonna be good
Where is the photo at 8:32?
You live in The USA and I live in Albania, yet you explain a lot of my history. Thanks for that!
Hey dog, what's the tabs to that Roman song in the first bit
Ask Nero
Gallienus is so underated
@toldinstone Dear Garrett, have you heard it said that Octavian was Landed Gentry in Rome?
Hello, great video,
Here are a few questions related to it that I would love that you could dig into in a later video.
Did the former Romans in Germania and Britannia just run south with the fall of the empire?
and that is why there are little to none Mediterranean faces and languages among the current population.
It looks like that did not happen in Hispania and south of France.
Are the Visigoths that controlled Hispania after the fall of the empire related to the later nobility and royal families?
Why are the romance languages closer to themselves than to Latin itself?
Is it a sign that what was spoken in the empire was not exactly Latin?
Was the Middle Ages' former Roman Empire more connected than expected?
All well and historically researched but I was hoping for
Manichaeism becomes the primary religion of Europe or possibly Parthian space programme
Gallienus got that supreme drip
Interestingly enough, the rank and file of the military didn't like him initially because he was seen as a pretty boy who worried more about reading and other nerdy stuff.
Russell Miller did a good job with this video.
Is it just me or did the question in the video title not get answered?
I don't know if you already made a video about that, but I would be interested in how someone from the outside, let's say from what would be considered a third world country at that time, could become a roman. I know they took war prisoners, slaves from conquered areas, but what if a nation or an individual wants to become a Rome by themselves because of all the luxury they have there? Was there a process for that? If yes, what were the requirements? Learning roman language?
Are there any examples of let's say asian romans or black skinned romans?
Depends on the time period.. at the beginning at least your father had to be a roman citizen and later around 212ad (or something like that :D) an emperor (sorry, I forgot which one :D) granted citizenship to every free man so at that point as long as you werent a slave and you lived within the Roman Empire you were a citizen..
Asian Romans, very unlikely... black sinned romans also quite unlikely - people of importance from Africa were also usually white, often descendants of other "important" people who came in years-centuries ago as already Roman citizens or even Greeks back then
Singing in the rain!
Well, if you fall over, dust yourself off and believe in yourself . 'cue the music and singing animals'
Rome was falling for years but the real fall of the ancient mediterranean world ocurred in the year 380 AD.
Please read the audiobook yourself. Thank you for all you do.
More content on persia
Honestly, I think it was so long ago that no one would care. 😢
OKAY so big question i just thought of. how did roman people eat? not what they ate but how did they eat there meals?, like was it chinese style were food was put on the table and every one shared the dish? or was it individual plates and bowls? like in america?
they would recline on the floor and eat off a plate on the floor
Tables but also what the other guy said. Today, in many parts of the world (example, central asia). People eat on the floor, without chairs and with almost no utensils, but still use plates and vases
@Myth yah I know how they sat. But how did they eat? So indivual prepared plates? Or a center food and every one just took some.
"The empire seemed to be on the brink of ruin - and we might imagine a few scenarios that could have brought about its effective collapse two centuries early."
The city of Rome, perhaps, but certainly not the Roman Empire - that would be eleven and a half centuries early. :)
@@jindrichsedlacek7704Good to see someone that understands this.
What if the Roman Republic fell in 396 BCE ?
"nobody has to learn French" 14 year old me would have loved this timeline, French class was a real bread.
What if, what if, what if. This is the macro perspective. However, from the micro perspective, we can all relate to this. I often think about my past. What if I had made decision 2 instead of decision 1. How would my life have been different? It reminds me of the scene in "The Wizard of Oz" where Dorothy confronts the scarecrow and has to make up her mind on which path to follow. Think about it. I do often.
5:25 only good ending
This is so important for Latin Europe… there would be none outside Italian peninsula it Rome fell 2 centuries earlier.
RESTITVTOR ORBIS INVICTVS
Invincible/
Unconquerable Restorer of the World.
The epithet given to AVRELIANVS by the senate after he saved the empire’s ass. Well deserved.
In the scenario where Claudius Gothicus and his staff (Aurelian, Probus etc.) are wiped out, the Germanic occupation would not have been of France and Spain (which would remain the Gallic Empire) but rather of the Balkans and Italy.
If no Latinized French, then no English, shaped by Norman Conquer, today
putting in my vote for long form. anyone second?
👍
All Hail the Sun God
You like helegabulus 🤮
The division of the Roman Empire may have resulted in a "more flexible and eduring commonwealth". (Maybe the U.S. today?)
...and way more continental celtic residues, at least when compared to none...
This was fun. You didn't guesstimate anything which couldn't have actually happened.
A small patch work of german-speaking non-Christian states...man that would have been sweet. I wonder if paganism would have remained Polytheistic?
What if Rome fell in 286 BC?
Rome didn't fall in 268, so your title is incorrect. I think that you meant to say "What if Rome had fallen in 268".
4:28 Speaking of Zenobia, the Steven Saylor's novel "Dominus" gives a really interesting background to the Roman senator who married her. In said novel, the senator, whose name is Gnaeus Pinarius, is a man who became miserable after losing his wife and son in the Gallienus plague. However, his life seems to make sense again when he falls in love at first sight with Zenobia during her entry into Rome as a prisoner. Unable to forget about her, he manages to convince Aurelian to let him marry her. However, the matrimonial experience with the queen ends up being really disappointing and distressing, since the woman shows him little affection and barely agrees to make love with him, always with great reluctance, making him feel enormously powerless, since he doesn't dare to force her for fear that she would poison him. Then, his soul is completely destroyed when he finds Zenobia having a torrid and passionate lesbian encounter with his own sister. Feeling the most unfortunate man in the world, Pinarius watches his whole world and dignity crashing down, until an apparition of the God Antinous (Hadrian's lover) makes him find his way and also gives his life a 180 degree turn. Instantly going from being a pitiful Simp to King of the Chads, Pinarius confronts Zenobia, blackmailing her into not allowing her to sleep with his sister again if she didn't agree to make passionate love to him whenever she could until he impregnated her and gave birth to a son (instead of a daughter, as the Queen actually wanted), finally managing to arouse in her a certain interest in him. The most curious thing about Pinarius is that he lived past the age of 90, not dying until the Roman Empire was Christianized under Constantine
Lol
Jesus Christ that's a actual twist
holy shit
This story is horrifying. Not based at all
Eleven people liking an exemplary paragraph of "why alt.history is always cringe fanfiction"?! What the heck ...
The dream of Rome is invincible.
I think it would have been a good thing because first, any empire falling is good on its face, and second, because Christianity hadn't fully spread throughout the Roman Empire, we might have gotten a more religiously pluralistic society in Europe, which is better.
EDIT: A lot of people dying is bad, but that would have been the case no mstter when it fell.
Don't forget Arianism being evangelized to the barbarian tribes outside of the Empire.... the barbarian raids were excaberated by differences in Christian faith
We would be 200 years in the future…
It is spooky fun, this. If Coventry had not been bombed by the Germans in 1940, I almost certainly would not be making this comment.
That's true. If the Human League hadn't written Dare I probably wouldn't be writing this comment right now
@@basilbrush9075 I recall a girl who during the 'new romantics' craze who got an eye infection because of her hair-style. Your existence is perhaps due to a chance meeting in the waiting room of a doctor's surgery?
This was just a history lesson
Amazing We are watching history repeat itself.
We are watching traitors invite them in this time
I've noticed you make some very slight pauses between words. Is that a purposeful narration style, or just the way you talk?
Mah man probus
I think Christianity would have survived in a more diverse Europe. Over time, religions rise and declined based on how people think. Once people started thinking in terms of 1 creation 1 God there were serveral religions in contentions but beliefs based on local spirits were due to decline.
...had fallen...
...had did fellened...
Fell upon
To think history would have drastically changed forever if Aurelian just said: "Meh. Palmyrian women are not my type. Let the Empire be ruled by other loser..."
Lol 😆
can you do a what if Rome discovered aliens and were given incredibly advanced alien technology?
Europa would still be pagan.🥲
Love that.Nobody has to learn French!!😅Nor should they!!😅😅
Dr. G! I have watched your posts for all these long years not for 'what if?' but for 'what was!'. Stray not from what made you great, or Nemesis will turn her stony gaze upon you and all your works. PS - all the toldinstone merch finally arrived, though those disposable Roman sponge toilet wipe things, well, not the quality I was expecting. And those sponges, Jeez, rough...
Use Sphagnum moss instead.
@@basilbrush9075 That does not grow up here. I just use smooth stones, like the Greeks.
In this modern age we like to pretend violence doesn't solve anything, especially political violence. In the words of Justin Trudeau, "If you kill your enemies, they win." Justin Trudeau definitely said that. Yet look at Aurelian. Do you think he was soft? He knew war his whole life. He was no stranger to political violence, having won a civil war that he arguably started. And yet if only he had been just a bit more ruthless, just a bit more paranoid even, then he could have purged the Praetorian Guard and avoided his own assassination. If only he used a little more political violence, like Augustus did with his proscriptions, then maybe Rome could have had a lasting renaissance. I know we say violence is not the solution. History, however, seems to think it is.
Wanna do a collaboration?
But Rome did fall in the 3rd century!
Constantine is not Rome anymore, it can be considered a kind of Roman renaissance, but it was fundamentally different, christianized, authoritarian and empoverished in the Western half.
Sounds like the U.S today. As they say history repeats
It doesn’t repeat. It rhymes.
We don’t see presidents and vice presidents taking generalship or VP’s being declared president while their former superior has to face them with a rival army.
The US is MUCH more stable than Rome ever was.
If anything, the US resembles the Late republic before Caesar’s conquest and after the social war
You seem to make numerous takes based solely on your opinion, rather than points you can actually defend and prove
@@jtgd Really?
How about starting with 200 Trillion in unfunded unpayable liabilities and the decline of the U.S dollar since 1913 with the debasement of the currency which will get worse now that the yuan will also be used to purchase oil. And all melting pot of culture which is being accelerated through illegal immigration for starters. Sure, real stable with all the bank failures over the years as well
Facts not opinion
@@jtgd This right here, in glowing lights with sparklers and river-dancing.
Rome fell in 1848 when schools started teaching national languages instead of Latin.
True Christianity doesn’t rely on the empires around it,
True Christianity lives in the shadows were the light shines allowing full clarity of an individual’s actions…
It always has,
It always will be,
Now, and forever.
When can historians stop calling Iberia simply Spain? Really bothers Portuguese people and it’s incorrect. Call it Iberia or Hispania....
Dont worry he is not a historian
Spain is derived from Hispania. Roman Portugal was Lusitania.
But the term Iberia was used first by the ancient Greeks and later as a less common name by the Romans, so I agree with you there.
Take a chunk out of Spain then we can talk, until then videos for plebs will almost certainly default to Spain to denote the rough geographical region as easily as possible as to move on without data-overload. Personally I agree, Hispania works and is more accurate (Iberia less so though cuz Caucasus Iberians intensifies), but getting bothered by it is just silly.
Edit: Fixed a typo
@@theeccentrictripper3863 Sure let’s just start calling Gaul France to simplify and annoy the plebs... 😂
I agree. One thing in spain other is Lusitania, better call hispania. Its more accurate . And plz Stop saying that Portugal is spain. We dont says that USA its UK.
8:29 non-Christian? Unlikely, Christianity was already on the rise before Constantine. A 200 year earlier collapse of the Roman West would have forced Diocletian and other emperors to accept Christians in the armies of the still stable eastern provinces due to manpower shortage. In the late crisis, the Edict of Gallienus was valid, giving this new faith the liberty to spread far outside the empire.
Without a transmission system like a centralized empire Christianity would have a much harder time rising to the same critical level of prominence necessary to achieve total cultural hegemony like in OTL. It would probably still exist but be much more heavily concentrated in Greece, Anatolia, and the Levant and would most certainly not enjoy the reputation of universal truth without significant dispute.
@@theeccentrictripper3863 It's not like there weren't Christians in the Roman West (Italy, Gaul, Spain etc.) who would have had contact with the Eastern Christians on theological issues (there were councils, called synods, before Nicaea and the bishoprics that made up the Church).
While the road systems of the empire helped the spread, the conversion of the Slavs in the 9th century showed that that wasn't necessary, all they needed is relative unity and no persecutions.
The Christians had successfully defended their claim to universal truth to their pagan opponents (their debates with pagans are attested) and were about to compile the canon by the late 3rd and early 4th century. Most heresies by them were just technicalities.
They were rising in number, while Greco-Roman polytheism was decentralized and devolving into mistery cults. Some were led towards hellenistic philosophies (among them Marcus Aurelius), Aurelian founded the Sol Invictus cult to rival the monotheism of the Christians.
This proves, that Christians were not reliant on Constantine's victory over Maxentius, who himself promised them privileges. Plus the Edict of Serdica, which was issued by Galerius, guaranteed them all necessary liberties. All that hasn't happened by 268 but these developments were set in motion by the period of peace thanks to the Edict of Gallienus (259).
So I do agree, that Christianity would have been diffused slower but certainly not stopped.
Is this written by Chatgpt?😂
Great content, but your wooden, monotone delivery is nearly unbearable.