I was just thinking that since the Roman civilization's technology was so advanced for it's time, if Rome never fell and it's technology wasn't lost which resulted in a set back of roughly 500 years, would we be at our current state of technology that long ago?

Who knows how advanced we could be today?!

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Interesting question. IMHO, technological advance stopped for 1,000 years. The fall of Rome was around 450 AD, the printing press, 1500 or so. You could push it back to 1300 as the start of the technological revolution in Europe because that’s when gunpowder was introduced, but it probably took another two hundred years for gunpowder to gain wide use as well so 450 AD to 1450 AD is a good compromise. Between those two dates not much was invented, although the English advanced metallurgy somewhat. What you purpose, could have happened, if the Romans had stumbled onto gunpowder around 350 AD or so. They certainly had the metallurgical skills to exploit it into military use.

I think a world where Roman culture was allowed to evolve might be a pretty ugly world. Although we appreciate them for the beautiful art and architecture they left behind, they were a society totally based on brutality. Their economic model was pretty simple - conquer a country, sell its inhabitants into slavery, divvy up the proceeds among the army and look for more people to conquer.

Ancient Rome after the fall of the Roman Republic was the model for Hitler and Mussolini's governmental systems. Hitler essentially planned to re-institute the Roman slave economy in Europe. In fact, the symbol of the Roman Empire was the fasces, from which we get our term fascism - Mussolini himself named his movement that just for that reason. The Fasces is a battleaxe wrapped in a bundle of iron rods that was carried by traveling Roman judges. The rods were used to whip delinquents on the spot. The ax, well you know what that was for. It was the symbol for how Rome ruled her conquered world - with utter brutality and violence. The Roman army had a pretty simple policy. If you were invaded or you rebelled, but then surrendered when the army arrived, they let you have your life and only sold you into slavery. Roman collaborators where allowed to remain after the town was looted, in the hopes the town would recover enough to be taxed later, and some Romans might stay as well to do a Pontius Pilate thing for a while, keeping some of the slaves to work what was left of an area. If, however, you resisted, they killed every man, women and child in the town and burned it to the ground. You either got whipped into submissive slavery with the iron rod of Roman rule, or if you resisted, everyone got the ax.

They also never progressed much politically. The governmental model of the Roman Empire from 10 AD or so until its fall never changed much, and the Byzantine Empire, its Eastern brother, lasted until the 1400's with the same governmental form, so I bet if it had lasted it would not be much different today. Fascism is still around, after all.

Part of Rome's downfall was they were bridged between tribal and state government and their inability to evolve new forms doomed them to a system unable to meet unreconized challenges. The tribalism resulted in a lot of foolishness such as hereditary tax collectors and also reversion to cultic emperor after having dabbled in a republican form of governance. Its just too easy to invest power in a family that has proven itself competent as rulers.

(We often have a dalliance with that seduction in this country. Virginia's Lee family is an excellent example of landed aristocrats who's love of country and sense of duty helped guide our country for nearly 100 years. Someday somebody will write a semi-fictional account of them that will be the American version of the Greek Atreides. The Adams family and the Murthas, were others. The Roosevelts, Kennedys and Bushes are modern examples of the same phenomenon. I don't know why this country has never embraced royalty. Its a character defect, I guess.)

The main thing that held from the Romans from adaptation to emerging circumstances was their conservatism. Their resistence to adaptation was such that they'd kick-a$$ rather than change. That worked great so long as citizens were willing to fight but failed when they became too dependent on foreign armies for Rome's defense. Also, their conservatism prevented them from evolving beyond reliance on a conquest-based, slave society.Everything in their lives was institutionalized by religion, including the state, which invested conservatism with the power of deity.

One take-home message is, IMHO, a country that is overly reliant on conservatism dooms itself.

Actually the foreign army thing is relative to something that is happening to us right now- the fall in the birth rate of the native dominant class. With the Romans, it was probably the introduction in the widespread use of lead pipe around 200 AD or so that caused a drop in fertility (and smarts). Since bathrooms and such was the high tech stuff of its day, basically the Roman citizenry was affected and not the slaves or foreigners. The low birthrates forced them to need both more slaves and foreign mercenaries to help them get them. The same thing is happening here in a more modern way, except it is being caused by birth control and abortion among whites and blacks. Latinos, our modern wage slaves, do not practice either method widely due to their more orthodox adherence to Catholicism, as well as cultural factors that encourage them to have large families. No telling where that will lead, but you can pretty much predict that America and Mexico will unite as a single nation over the next century.

The Roman legionaires were originally comprised strictly of Roman citizens. Through time it devolved to citizens as officers and the rank and file mostly non-citizens. Auxiliairy forces were often entirely members of vassal-states.

The analogy with our own armed forces is a good one.Fewer and fewer people of the upper crust consider military service an honorable, worthy vocation for themselves or their class. When you have everything, why risk any of it? What we learned from the Romans was that people who see the military as a ladder between classes make darned good soldiers. So we offer GI Bill, that brought higher education to the masses. This gives soldiers who served honorably a stake in the the nation's middleclass.

Roman legionaires, upon completion of honorable service were given lands on the frontiers. This served three purposes, it kept enlistment high and it put, tough, experienced men on the frontier, and it gave those men a big stake in settling the frontier to Roman civilization.

The retired legionaires were disciplined and knew how to command people so they did fairly well as farmers. Often knowledgeable in maintaining animals. hence the term "veteran" applied to former members of the legion.

So far, we have not relied on foreign armies to fight our wars. In overwhelming numbers and percent, it is our own citizens' lives whom we risk in war and whom we honor in death.

Bot

We would be speaking Latin

Except in Afganistan.

Well, he was Greek. More likely, Lucky Lucianio would have been appointed governor. The mob really is the expression of the Roman system in the world of today.

There would be an aqueduct across the Pacific to Hawaii.

Would Christianity have flourished?

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Gibbons, in his great work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire(1790?) postulated that Christianity was the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire, since it destroyed the basic Roman religous structure that gave them the ability to rape, murder, and pillage without having too feel to bad about it. Historians still debate that mightily today. After all, subsequent Christian societies don't seem to have a lot of problems with rape, pillage and murder, although they do feel quite badly about it. I've been reading the papers, and sure enough, we do feel quite badly about torturing people and blowing up their houses. That makes a big difference. Gibbons, if alive today, might say we are the Roman Empire, just Christianized, thats all. We watch ball games instead of feeding people to lions, but we are still brutal to our enemies who we invade or rebell against us. But we feel bad about it.

Ballgames? I'll give you ballgames: The Aztecs knew how to make a ballgame mean something.

I think you're right about the role of ritualized spectacular events in society. Its just ritualized combat that performs some sort of strange cathartic function. I have never had any interest in spectator sports, though I liked participating in sports. To me watching sports has all the appeal of watching gambling or paint drying. But society sure isn't reflected in my preferences. As a general rule, all humanity likes combat-emulating sports more than non-combative sports. Why?

Your (Kirk's) 1-paragraph synopsis of Gibbon is pretty good. Its an excellent piece of scholarship (I mean the "Decline...", though Kirk is okay, too) that seems to have stood-up well for two hundred years. Even in its suppsosed errors, it is still a tremendously influential study.

Bot

It's also a fairly readable book, given the 1700's language. His chapters on the Goths and their history is especially good reading. They really were a remarkable people. Popular culture has somehow fixated on Attilla the Hun, who tho he wrecked great havoc, in the end was a minor player, and he and his people slithered away. Alaric the King of the Goths, was the great figure of that time and is barely mentioned. Once he showed the rest of the barbarians that one could walk into Rome at will, that was the end of it. If Alaric and his people had not become Christianized, we would all be worshipping Odin right now. He did as much to perserve Christianity as Constantine did, yet gets no credit. The fact his people, who afterwords populated the areas of Europe most of us come from, adopted Roman ways is the reason we watch football, celebrate the Saturnalia and the Baccanalia, which we know now as Christmas and Easter.

Here's my opinion after not having read any of the other posts yet:

Easy answer..... watch that episode of Star Trek from the 60's for the answer.

Televised gladiator fights, people who worship the "sun" live in caves underground, etc...

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Old Star Trek episodes are the best thing for learning about ancient cultures, hands down. I know everything about the 1930's from Star Trek. Its all in The Book.