So I realised that we haven't had a good "What if..." in a while so I thought I would make one. What if the Marian reforms never took place and the Roman military structure stayed as it was? So what do you think?] GO SLY!
Why did you say "Go sly!"? Anyway, we just had a what if about the invasion of Czechoslovakia but whatevvs. And someone else would institute the Marian reforms. It was bound to happen. Anyone with a brain could see that the Romans had almost no manpower pool with their current system. Someone else would have certainly instituted the system.
I hate what if questions with a passion, they don't matter. History isn't about what could have happened but rather, what did happen.
What if Julius Caesar wasn't assassinated? What if the 12 apostles were crucified as well? What if Christianity wasn't spread to the Roman Empire? What if Nero was never born? What if Germany won WWII? What if Germany won WWI? What if the French won the Franco-Prussian war? What if America didn't win the Revolutionary War?
That's not true. Many people find the idea of "what could have happened?" a very exciting prospect. To properly understand what did happen, you have to understand how history could have branched off-wards and see how it could have shaped the world. "History is about what happened" is strictly academic. Only real professional historians think like that. Have you ever listened to Dan Carlin's podcasts? He does a good job at explaining it.
I have never listened to Dan Carlin, and I hate podcasts. I would much rather converse over the effects of 1493 on a golbal level than "What would have happened if Penis had invaded Vagina in 665 BC?"
Quit being so uptight, what if questions are awesome. Anyway what if the Eastern Roman Empire had won the battle of Manzikert?
What if Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc.) didn't exist and everyone was still pagan.
What if commuinsts didn't win in the chinese civil war? What would happen if the Korean war was won by northern or southern side?