Roma Eterna

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Roma Eterna is a 2003 novel by Robert Silverberg which presents an alternate history in which the Roman Empire survives to the present day. The "point of divergence" is the failure of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, followed more obviously by the later mutual assistance between the Western and Eastern Roman Empires against barbarian invasions, and later, the assassination of Muhammad, thus precluding the spread of any Monotheistic religion through the Roman Empire.

More properly the novel is considered a fixup, as each of the ten chapters was first published as a short story, six of them in Asimov's Science Fiction, between 1989 and 2003. The novel obscures this by labeling each story-chapter with a year number (according to ab urbe condita) rather than the title given to the original short story.

[edit] Plot summary

The novel is presented as a series of vignettes over a period of about 1500 years, from 1282 ab urbe condita (AD 529) to 2723 AUC (AD 1970). Most of the story-chapters involve Roman politics, either the competition between the Western and Eastern Empires to dominate the other or the violent creation of the Second Roman Republic in about 2603 AUC (AD 1850). Others describe the first Roman circumnavigation of the world and unsuccessful attempts to conquer Nova Roma.

Many features of our own history are repeated in this history, though under changed circumatances: The equivalent of the 16th and 17th Centuries have bold navigators and adventurers, romanticised by later genertations but unpleasantly brutal and ruthless when looked at closely; in the late 18th to mid-19th Centuries, a decadent old order is overthrown by revolution followed by a reign of terror and the reemrgence of Republicanism; though Italy remains a central part of the Roman Empire, the Latin dialect spoken there develops into a kind of Italian, and the name "Marcus" changes into "Marco"; though Vienna is a provincial capital which never had an Emperor of its own, its population dances the Waltz; by the 20th Century, people travel by cars rather than carriages and by the second half of the century, space flight is achieved...

It concludes, ironically with the first story to be written, when a group of Hebrew citizens in Alexandria preparing to depart Earth in a rocket, which explodes shortly after takeoff. But they will try again, still believing God chose them to inherit the Promised Land, just not on Rome-dominated Earth.

[edit] See also

• Romanitas, another alternate history novel based on the survival of the Roman Empire to the present day
• Warlords of Utopia, still another timeline based on the same assumption, with the protagonst able to visit other alternate Romes.