If Rome Hadn't Fallen

by Timothy Venning

  Monasticism would have continued to grow in peacetime, but with more secular careers open to ambitious and/or literate civilians it would have attracted fewer able candidates and it would have had to rely on Emperors and local landed aristocrats for donations of land and money. It would not be the only centre of learning, as a continuing urban Roman society would have kept secular schools open. In real life, many leading aristocrats in Gaul and Italy chose ecclesiastical careers after the fall of the Empire, there being no functioning bureaucracy in the post-Roman German kingdoms and civil government now being under the control of a German elite. Towns in the more Romanised south of Gaul fell under the leadership of aristocrats of ancient lineage as the local bishops, and their dynasties monopolised the senior clerical offices (c.f. Gregory of Tours’ family).

  This would not have occurred had the Empire continued. Estates were transformed into monasteries by devout aristocratic laymen, such as Cassiodorus in Italy; this phenomenon was underway already before the end of the Empire, as seen by the career of Paulinus of Nola, but if the Empire had continued it would have been one among many options. Certainly the sense of a world coming to an end in invasion and chaos, which benefited the otherworldly preoccupations of the emerging monastic movement, would not have been so strong had Imperial government continued. Monasticism was well underway across the West by around 400, e.g. at Lerins and Tours in Gaul, and would have continued to exert a pull for devout Christians, but would probably have had fewer adherents. The absence of major wars in Italy in the sixth century, though not the absence of plague, would probably have given St. Benedict fewer recruits, and arguably a great Roman noble like Gregory would have had less certainty of following a Church career.

  Military matters

  There would have been less risk of a major barbarian threat to Roman military power in northwest Europe in the seventh or eighth centuries, a period of relative stability between the major movements of Germanic peoples in real life. The caveat here is that a Western Roman military block to westward and southward Germanic incursions in the period after 406 would have prevented the emergence of at least some of the emergent German-led kingdoms of the real sixth and seventh century, most notably the settlements in Spain (Vandals and Suevi from circa 410, and later Visigoths from the 460s), Italy (Ostrogoths’ and their allies from 476/93 and later the Lombards from 568), and Africa (Vandals from 428).

  The pressure of Attila’s empire on the peoples of Germany in the period around 433–52 might well still have led to the Rhine frontier being overwhelmed by refugees then, and to a surviving Western Roman ‘comitatus’ under Aetius after 454 having to accept Germanic peoples west of the Rhine. But a still militarily powerful Western Roman state, with a larger and better-equipped army than the disunited tribal forces ranged against it, would have kept the Empire in the militarily favourable position of Theodosius’ forces around 395. The Empire would have been likely to cede control of northern Gaul and the lands from Upper Danube to Alps as indefensible, leaving them open to the creation of Germanic kingdoms (logically created by the real-life fifth century founders of new states such as Gaiseric, Athaulf and Wallia, the Goths, and Theodoric). Given a lack of ruinous civil wars, the inner provinces should have remained under Roman control, and the new Germanic kingdoms would have been the Empire’s inferiors in resources and military strength.

  The Empire had already adapted to the presence of coherent barbarian polities and armies within its old frontiers, with Theodosius’ rapprochement with the undefeatable Goths in Thrace after 381; and Stilicho was able to hold back and make use of Alaric in the period 395–408. Indeed, as a fellow- German he was to be accused of being suspiciously unwilling to destroy Alaric when he had the chance.35 Similarly, Aetius was able to use the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse and other Germanic states and warbands in Gaul as his junior allies against Attila in 451. Logically, a stable Western Roman polity in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries would have preserved this favourable political and military position with regard to its new neighbours. Had the Rhine frontier been preserved by a line of long-lived and vigorous Roman commanders (Theodosius, Stilicho, Constantius III, Aetius, and perhaps Majorian or Aegidius) the Germanic kingdoms would then have emerged within Germany to its east, at least once the empire of Attila had broken up after 454. East of the Oder line poor soil would inhibit the growth of prosperous kingdoms; in real life the proto-Slav villages have yielded poor archaeological remains. It was no viable centre for resistance.

  This would enable Romanization and Christianization of the more coherent Germanic peoples, probably the Franks, clearly from Gregory of Tours’ account already ruled by tribal kings (not only the Merovingian line) in the fifth and sixth centuries. Salian and Ripuarian (i.e. those on the Rhine river) Franks, in real life forcibly united by Clovis and his sons from about 480 to 550, already lived in territory within the Roman frontier at the mouth of the Rhine by about 400 and in real life expanded across Belgica in the next decades. If the Western Empire had lost control of that area after the invasion of 406 it could still have evolved into a separate kingdom under the vigorous Merovingian line, but if the Empire kept control of the Rhine area the Franks were the likeliest of the local peoples to cohere into a kingdom east of the river. As with allied German tribal states from the first century, the Empire would have an interest in establishing a friendly dynast who could control his people as its ally on the Rhine; the Empire could thus have backed the Merovingian dynasty as it established an allied kingdom in what became the eastern part of the real-life Frankish kingdom, Austrasia.

  Rome could have been fighting and forcibly converting the disunited tribes of Saxons in the lower Elbe area in the eighth century as Charlemagne did in reality, with more troops so easier success despite the swamps and forests. It could then have moved on to annex other decentralised, badlyarmed tribes towards the Vistula, probably encouraged by a mixture of Church missionary zeal and a practical desire to stop independent tribesmen beyond Roman control aiding their resentful conquered relatives.

  The Viking threat

  In due course, a Roman clash with the Scandinavian Vikings (‘men of the viks/fjords’?) over control of the North Sea and raiding on Britain would have occurred. A united Romano-British kingdom in Britain that had been spared the real-life collapse of the fifth century, using Roman tactics and weaponry and cavalry to defeat raiders, would have put up a successful coordinated defence against all but isolated Viking raids and scared the latter off, particularly if they had a fleet and Roman naval aid. The first Viking attacks on the real-life small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 780s and 790s appear to have been individual raids by opportunists, gathering in intensity and scope to a full-scale invasion by a large army under Viking kings in 865/6. In real life, the successes that the Vikings were having in moving up the great river-systems of France to pillage towns and monasteries encouraged the attacks on Britain, and the Frankish kingdom lacked a competent fleet or (after 840) a united politico-military leadership.

  These problems would not have faced Roman Gaul, which had a Channel naval base at Boulogne (Gesoriacum) and could have called on the Imperial armies for defence. Co-operating Roman ‘duces’ would not have been as militarily weak as the Vikings’ Carolingian foes. The Vikings would have been more likely to attack an easier target, and the precedent of Saxon and Pictish raiding on Britain in the fourth century, if still remembered in Scandinavian sagas or retold by Saxon refugees, have suggested Britain as well as Ireland as a victim. Indeed, the absence of a Viking military presence in the Frankish kingdoms in the mid-late ninth century would have made it more likely that the full force of Viking expansion fell on Britain and Ireland in these decades. But some adventurous Scandinavians would have been content to take on Roman military careers, as men like Harald Hardradi of Norway did in Constantinople in real life.

  A larger, united British kingdom would have had more resources to meet the challenge, including cavalry which the Anglo-Saxons lacked, and th
e Vikings may never have risked challenging such a well-prepared state en masse unless it was weak in its response to raids (as Ethelred II’s English kingdom was in the 990s). The Romans had more sophisticated weaponry in battle than the Saxon reliance on the shield-wall, and importantly had siegeweaponry that could tackle the Vikings if, as in the real-life invasion from 865/6 with its Viking encampments at York, Nottingham, Reading, Wareham, Exeter, and Chippenham, the latter tried to rely on a defended town to defy a local army. The Saxons could not wait outside a welldefended town indefinitely as long as their troops were only militiamen called up for a fixed term of service (the ‘fyrd’), a problem which Alfred of Wessex tackled after 878 by calling up his men in rotation.36 The British/ Romans would have had a professional field-army, and also have had the siege-engines to storm a Viking-held town and the ships to blockade a longship-supplied Viking base on a river like Nottingham (868) and Reading (870–1). Only in 868 did the forces of two Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fight the Viking Great Army together, and Northumbria (866–7), East Anglia (869), Wessex (870–1 and 875–8), and Mercia (868 and 875) were tackled separately by evidently superior Viking forces.

  The provinces of post-Roman Britain should have been more coordinated. But a minority government, civil war, or resurgence of separatism in the Celtic kingdoms would have given the Vikings their chance and a major attack by a force of land-hungry Norwegians (or unconquered Danes) by circa 850 cannot be ruled out. Any serious British defeat and/or civil war in Britain could have led to a Roman reconquest, either directly or via an expedition to back up a pro-Roman candidate for the throne of the main kingdom in the South. The joint efforts of the British kingdom and a Roman expeditionary force should have outmatched any army that the Vikings could gather for a direct challenge, particularly if there had been naval attacks on the Vikings’ fleets as well. Denmark may already have been occupied by Rome, and if not it would have been an easy target for retaliation on land from Germany. Even a united Norwegian state such as that ruled by Harald Finehair (circa 920) or Olaf Tryggvason (990s) would have been vulnerable to a Roman North Sea fleet invading while the King was away fighting in Britain or Ireland.

  The main Viking threat would have come from Norway, probably via the sea routes to the Hebrides and the Irish Sea to evade the Roman North Sea fleets. Rome would have been in a naval position to defeat any invasion by a massed fleet, though the manoeuvrable Viking longships would have had an advantage in evading their pursuers or in hit-and-run raids and Rome would have had to adapt its usual shipping to North Sea conditions. Rome may not have bothered to interfere with small Viking settlements in the isolated and agriculturally poor Orkneys and Hebrides. The likeliest area for large-scale Viking settlement would have been Ireland, which would have been likely to have a number of provincial kingdoms around 800 barring a major Roman military initiative to aid or conquer the High Kings. In real-life England in 865–70, the Viking Great Army picked off the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms one by one and even compelled one small kingdom (East Anglia) to lend them assistance to conquer another (Northumbria). The divided political nature of ninth century Francia was also invaluable to them. Ireland would thus have been their most tempting target. A prolonged bout of raiding or settlement, in real life, fortified bases on rivers accessible for their longships (Dublin, Waterford, Limerick), would have necessitated Roman intervention there if the local rulers proved inadequate defenders and the Church was complaining to the Pope about the sacking of monasteries.

  Rome would probably have tried to impose pro-Roman chieftains in the nearer areas of Norway that their summer-time expeditions could reach from Britain or Denmark, South of Trondjheim. The serrated coastline and mountains would have impeded direct conquest and made the usual networks of roads and forts impractical, except in the Oslo plain where a Roman province could have been established to co-ordinate regular military intervention against such chieftains as continued to aid descents on Britain and Ireland. The Western Empire, like the East with their restless and potentially hostile Russian ally from 988, would have been keen to bind the Norse to them as allies. Thus the creation of the West’s own Varangian Guard of ferocious Viking mercenaries is a logical possibility, together with Viking officers emerging as Roman generals (as Germans did in the fourth and fifth centuries). By the eleventh century, talented scions of Viking kingly families such as Cnut the Dane and Harald Hardradi would have been natural recuits to the Roman army and possible senior generals, even commanding Roman fleets against their kinsmen. Given a weak ruling dynasty and factional strife over power in Rome, a senior general of Viking origin could have emerged as more likely to have set up a vassal Norwegian High King, in this case imposing Christianity on him too, than to have attempted full conquest.

  If the smaller and militarily weak Irish states had been unable to cope with Viking plundering in the eighth and ninth centuries, their Church if not the proud chieftains could have sought aid from Rome as the leadership of Christianity, leading to the despatch of an expeditionary force. Roman technology and numbers should have prevailed over the invaders, but Rome is unlikely to have been able to afford the troops for direct control with most of the Western army still needed in Jutland/Norway/Eastern Germany. By this date the East had the naptha-based secret weapon, ‘Greek Fire’, to burn flammable wooden ships. It was first used against the Arabs in the siege of Constantinople in 674–8, and the West would have used this against Viking longships to devastating effect.

  Chapter 5

  The Western World –

  Some Further Speculation

  Rome in the Americas?

  It is not hard to see many Vikings considering it preferable to emigrate west along the Atlantic seaways in search of easier targets, and thus colonising Iceland earlier and in greater numbers than they did. Given the likely early Roman response to any serious Viking attacks on Britain, a conquest of Jutland and landings in Norway could well have occurred by the 830s if Viking raiding had followed the same trajectory as in reality. Many real-life explorers were adventurous exiles, e.g. Erik the Red the discoverer of Greenland.

  The lack of available farmland for an expanding population in the narrow Norwegian fjord-valleys is usually accepted as a major reason for expansion overseas, with exploratory voyages showing the raiders the lack of resistance to determined attack. Summer raiding was followed by settlement, the latter first occurring on the Shetlands, Orkneys, and Hebrides, where there was little loot and the recent DNA analysis would indicate that the newcomers nearly wiped out the proto-Pictish locals.1 The timing and scale of the Vikings’ assaults on the Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Pictish/Dalriadan, and Frankish kingdoms is better-known due to the literary evidence. It seems to have built up during the first half of the ninth century, aided by the poor military response, which in the case of a surviving Western Roman Empire would have been different. It also utilised the opportunities offered by a civil war, e.g. that between Aelle and Osbert in Northumbria in 866 and in Francia in the 840s.

  Used to maritime North Sea raiders since the Germanic attacks of the mid-third century, the Empire would have provided a centralised European response and it would have had a far larger fleet than the limited ones sporadically available to the real-life local defenders. The first fighting fleet of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom was ascribed to Alfred by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and was later used to make him the ‘father of the British navy’.2 Charlemagne is recorded as building a Frankish fleet to thwart the Viking raids, and he and his successor Louis the Pious endeavoured to build up an allied and Christian kingship in Denmark to control the local warriors; but these initiatives did not last. Under the Roman Empire, there would have been as determined a response as met the seaborne Germans in Britain in the days of Carausius (280s) or Count Theodosius (367–70?). Land-hungry Vikings, who abandoned their attacks on Wessex for weaker targets in 878 and 896, would not have been satisfied indefinitely with Ireland, or may have been defeated there thanks to Roman intervention. Earlier and larger-scale movement
to empty lands in the Atlantic was a logical alternative, with the shipbuilding technology for such voyages already extant by the ninth century.

  The pressure from Rome in Europe and unprofitability of raiding Roman lands could also have led to an earlier Viking discovery and substantial settlement in America, the climate being optimal for sea voyages into the area in these centuries. The climate of Greenland was warm enough for scattered settlements well up the West coast in real life around 950–1100, though it is a matter of dispute as to whether worsening climate or Inuit attacks later weakened the colony. Little is clear about the state of the North American climate around AD1000 and it is now linked to the ongoing climate change debate. But the Viking settlements in Greenland evidently had enough grass in summer to feed substantial cattle-herds or flocks of sheep, and Greenland could have sustained a reasonable émigré population at around this time. Similarly, Labrador and Newfoundland, and possibly Nova Scotia, are candidates to be the elusive ‘Vinland’ where allegedly vines could be grown. It is uncertain if this claim was merely spin by over-optimistic early voyagers in order to recruit more settlers (Leif Erikson is the suspected culprit) or a reflection of a genuinely warmer climate, but in any case pressure on land in Roman-dominated Europe would have been likely to encourage the Viking voyagers to sail as far south as they needed to find good agricultural land.3