All of the stuff you've listed was stolen by force of Roman arms from their proper owners and the Roman Empire fell because its military has stagnated to the point of being unable to continue forcing all the other people to send them the goods (also because Romans were hilariously racist against everyone who wasn't Roman and backstabbed honest barbarians who wanted to serve Rome at every fucking opportunity, which definitely contributed to military stagnation), also Roman engineers were noobs who couldn't even design a decent castle/water supply system to save their lives.
Ah yes, everyone recalls when Rome invaded China. It wasn't stolen from themselves, they were the proper owners as soon as they killed the previous owners and deigned to begin administrating over the conquered lands, and it was not simply requisitioned for free; the movement of so much goods and the logistics involved would create the entire continental trade of europe from the sea and the roads that would continue until the Roman Empire was so weak from a multitude of causes - great plagues spread by the trade the Empire fostered for example quickly put a spell to most trade (more trade = death, self sufficiency = survival, but self-sufficiency also means no dependency upon Rome) and so Rome lost a massive source of potential income for itself - leading to further collapse of trade as vandals begin pillaging Rome's lands and pirates take to the seas, further disrupting trade. Leaping off of decades of devastating civil wars, uprisings and the powerful and aggressive Sassanid Empire (paying them for peace only to have the Persians invade anyways lel) the decline was a great fucking mess :
D
Also lol das raycis, it's funny how ITT people have said Rome fell because they tried assimilating barbarians but at the same time that was successful and tolerant but at the same time they were racist and it wasn't ~o.o~
Roman engineers were noobs who couldn't even design a decent castle/water supply system to save their lives.
Their aqueducts and waterways were so juicy some are still used to supply water to urban centres today Sergarr, BIDF pls
Roman Engineers didn't need to construct Fortresses as appeared in the Medieval era, because siege warfare had not progressed to that point yet - they were fortified logistical centres for allowing armies to remain on continual campaign or as a base to allow mobile patrols throughout the land. It's notable that even at Hadrian's wall, the Roman troops there were not static on the wall, using it to control the flow of people and military patrols. Most permanent ones were often more akin to fortified towns, even fit with their own fortified docks. A great many of Europe's towns and cities can trace their origins and foundings back to Roman camps, with roads connecting them, stores for food and wares, marketplaces and housing for soldiers, auxiliaries and civilians, and juicy waterways. Certainly when it comes to Fortification they wrote the book on it and set the foundation stones. Built by rivers or built by good sites for wells, or built with aqueducts in mind, tl;dr is ur rong
Though it would be pretty neat if the Romans had managed to surmount the whole well-diggers dying of oxygen deprivation thing
Well, if we're talking about Roman Empire, it actually was basically "drafted farmers", more or less. It was a standing army, meaning that 90% of the time the supposed soldiers were busy plowing the fields, with a suit of armour lying somewhere in the shed. Needless to say, the quality of these legions was basically militia-like, unlike ones of Roman Republic.
You've got that the wrong way around, the Roman Republic drew its military from levies of drafted farmers, and its standing army had the addendum that no conscripted citizen would have to serve more than 6 years in a Roman colony, the Roman Army would become a professional standing army made up of volunteers who served minimum terms of 25 years (or death) in the Roman Empire's time, having soldiery be their profession.
Needless to say, the quality of the Roman army after the Augustan reforms was far superior to the Republic, overcoming the deficiencies the Republic's military had. Even auxiliaries moved towards being a volunteer-force of natives, given citizenship at the end of their terms.
Roman Empire >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Roman Republic
I mean how else can you explain the pitiful end that the Roman Empires (both Western and Eastern) have met?
For the Western, it's a long list. For the Eastern, resources constantly had to be diverted against invaders on all fronts, poor use of mercenaries, its great leaders often getting assassinated e.t.c.
They were defending against the Persian Empire, then the greatest military power on the planet - then the Rashidun Caliphate, then the greatest military power on the planet - then the Abbasid Caliphate, then the greatest military power on the planet - then the Seljuk banter brigade arrived and started taking over Anatolia and the Middle East - then the Crusaders arrived, yet when they succeeded instead of returning Byzantine lands just became their own independent Principality and created more Byzantine rivals and so on
Also somewhere along the line they had devastating football bants, only theirs was chariot bants
Fuck the blues, it's all about the greens
It would've got conquered by Muslims, because Romans, of Imperial variety, were actually very, very shitty at fighting. Medieval Europeans were light-years ahead of Romans in terms of doctrine and technology.
Medieval Europeans literally being hundreds of years ahead of the Romans might've helped
I mean contemporary Europeans are literally millennia more advanced than the Romans, we're also millennia in their future lol
All the Romans would've had to do is present a strong-enough face to the Persians at the Tigris and not fuck up by losing all their Forts, allowing them to keep a tighter grip on their client-chiefs. Assuming their military was still too fucked to risk facing the Arab army, get gud, defend the Levant and wait for everyone else to starve to death/go home
It's a pretty big what-if though, so assuming Sassanids and Romans fight as normal and cause each other enough harm without either conquering each other, maybe it'd end up with a tri-polar world with a Caliphate stretching from North Africa to the Persian mountains, everything West of that Rome and East of that Persia
And then anything could happen from there, like surprise invasion from Mongols
In other news, Russians and environmental protection