Can you take over the world in 50 BC ?

[HemlockGrey]

By the time I'm out of college my Latin studies will be far advanced, so I'll assume I get dropped in Rome then. It would be nice if I got to take a couple of textbooks back with me.

That said, introduce light infantry, stirruped cavalry, and pikemen to the Romans, and incorporate them into the legions. A larger emphasis on light infantry and light cavalry will help them defeat the nimble Parthians, while Swiss-style squares of pikemen should hold off the heavy cavalry. This can later be adopted into Swedish-style pikemen, if need be. Do a helluva lot in resisting the Germanic cavalry.

After beating up on the Parthians, hang around Rome and use the now uber-military of the Romans to invade and take over Germany. Help establish institutions that will slow the decline of Rome later; i.e, help switch it over from a conquest-based economy. Is the library of Alexandria burned? If not, make sure it never is.

If I can acquire an ancient steam engine, since I know those things existed, demonstrate it's power and cheapness relative to the cost of slavery. Introduce the factory system to help switch Rome to a production-based economy. Introduce agricultural advances like the steel plow and crop rotation; introduce the Arabic number system, and the trebuchet. Push for Roman expansion steadily further and further into barbarian territories like Scotland and Denmark, using a conquest-of-Wales style strategy of establishing a high ratio of castles and forts in the conquered territories.

If possible, lead an expedition into Arabia via the Red Sea to ensure that Mecca and Medina never exist, thus eliminating Islam, thus eliminating one of the later Byzantine Empire's chief enemies.

[Zoink]

I'm not so sure. If all goes well:

Let's say you can prepare. You study up on your ancient languages, gunpowder recipes, basic military strategy, consult experts, etc.

You land in 50BC Mongolia and convince a local warlord to unit the tribes using the mongol tactics of later years. He has success, and you assassinate the leader, stepping up from advisor to Khan.

You begin your conquest using typical mongolian strategies, but supplement them with your knowledge of enemy strategy, history, weapons, etc. Add crude cannons /guns for siege weapons, gun powder bombs in catapults, etc.

.... I guess its possible, but I don't see how you would have enough time. The europeans landed in North/South America with better weapons than you'll ever be able to build, and it took them more than a lifetime to conquer all that territory.

[SirNitram]

Let's take stock of the immediate strokes against me.

1) I look Manx. This is bad because the relations with the British Isles were not yet anything resembling good.

2) I'm dressed funny.

3) I don't speak Latin, I gargle it.

That being said, I'm hoping to land in Alexandria, where I will high-tail it to the Library with my sob story about me being a poor foreigner whose last coins were spent travelling to the "City Of Genius". This is an important step in any world conquest scenario: Buttering people up.

Having gotten some philosopher to take me in(Hopefully), I will start a two-pronged assault. Frantic scribblings, apparantly at random, of inventions. First is the idea of movable type and the printing press. Now, the first shot doesn't have to be a perfect copy: Just to instill the idea of a faster way of doing it. Rant, at length, about how not just philosophers could benefit from it.

Assuming they bought that whopper, start manic obsession with steam engine. Constantly play with one, sketching endless notes. Make comments in margins like 'Toothed wheel no good: Screw?' with a little diagram of how to make a screw-driven ship go. Or 'Control bad: Metal guides?' by sketches of a land vehicle driven by such.

Steam power, as in electricity, is a tempting idea, but how to approach it is hard. I can remember how to make electricity(Spinning a magnet around a peice of copper wire will do it, and heaven knows I could do that with the steam toy.), but not really how to store or use it well. I can make some dandy electromagnets(Though why?), and if I just happened on some tungstun I could maybe make lightbulbs. The only immediate use I can think of is seeing it to priests, complete with glass pipes full of mercury vapor and phosphor to light the temples. Maybe the government too. I could make motive power, I think, by reversing the design of the generator(But why, without long range transmission or storage?), or maybe make a telegraph(Gonna need alot of copper wire, guys!).

Hopefully that will have gotten the ball rolling. If my inventions took hold, Rome will be undergoing massive changes. The trouble will be keeping the philosophers on my side; I think I can do that by dumping Decartes into their laps. Following that, a simple telescope turned towards Jupiter should cause some uproar with the introduction of a solar centric system.

From there on, I will try using money I've accumulated to change the world. If steam-powered ships are getting made, I will bankroll expeditions around the world, urging for more and more exploration to expand Rome's might. If I'm remembering gunpowder right(Seagul poop, crushed eggshells, charcoal dust), that will be an interesting exploration as I successfully remodel my house by blasting an iron ball into the yard.

Of course, as I start to run out of things I remember and submit to old age, I'll begin writing huge diatribes on society. The need of strict laws governing the treatment of slaves(I'm not going to try and bring the whole edifice down straight away.. I'll settle for making it not just illegal but terribly bad manners to treat your slaves badly, and go on about how one day we will have machines as slaves, and those who were once slaves will be our trusted partners), the natural equality of all races and the genders, the concept of Unnatural Selection and the necessity of Evolution(Sorry, guys: It'll be 'Some force has, much like we breed a warhorse, bred creatures for all purposes from some base creature', not full on Darwin.), and the importance of a certain derivative of the cocoa plant.

And if I ever find Paul, I will do everything in my power to get rid of him. I'll regret it, but one life in exchange for millions living better in the future works for me.

[weemadando]

Do I stand a chance in hell of not being imprisoned/enslaved within a few hours? No.

Rome does have laws, you know, and they won't grab people off the street and toss them in jail unless you break them. They aren't hard to avoid breaking, being in most cases reasonable, if the punishments are a bit severe. The worst problem would be street violence. I suppose that if I arrived in Rome I would have to work as a cook until I had enough money for passage to Alexandria. A job at one of the public bakeries would not be impossible to come by, even for a foreigner with bad latin (actually, especially, since a fair number of the citizens received the bread dole and had little motivation to work).

I know that Rome does have laws, I'm graduating with a degree majoring in Ancient Civilisation and the Classics in a few weeks. However, my point is that given my complete and utter lack of knowledge of the language and our somewhat limited knowledge of day-to-day protocols etc, its highly likely that any one of us would say, or do something offensive.

In regards to an earlier point - they did in fact discriminate by ethnicity, the did NOT however discriminate by race. If one was not an acknowledged citizen of the city of Rome (not the Empire), then you have no chance in hell of ever gaining even a marginal degree of power.

[weemadando]

By the time I'm out of college my Latin studies will be far advanced, so I'll assume I get dropped in Rome then. It would be nice if I got to take a couple of textbooks back with me.

Great, so you can speak modern Latin and read and write ancient - well, at least its a start.

That said, introduce light infantry, stirruped cavalry, and pikemen to the Romans, and incorporate them into the legions. A larger emphasis on light infantry and light cavalry will help them defeat the nimble Parthians, while Swiss-style squares of pikemen should hold off the heavy cavalry. This can later be adopted into Swedish-style pikemen, if need be. Do a helluva lot in resisting the Germanic cavalry.

HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DO THAT? Are you forgetting the whole problem that you're just going to appear there - how are you going to convince, the army, the generals, the military consuls, the senate and the emperor that their current order of battle is wrong?

After beating up on the Parthians, hang around Rome and use the now uber-military of the Romans to invade and take over Germany. Help establish institutions that will slow the decline of Rome later; i.e, help switch it over from a conquest-based economy. Is the library of Alexandria burned? If not, make sure it never is.

Errrr - Rome was a conquest based economy, hence it falling later when it WASN'T conquering...

If I can acquire an ancient steam engine, since I know those things existed, demonstrate it's power and cheapness relative to the cost of slavery. Introduce the factory system to help switch Rome to a production-based economy. Introduce agricultural advances like the steel plow and crop rotation; introduce the Arabic number system, and the trebuchet. Push for Roman expansion steadily further and further into barbarian territories like Scotland and Denmark, using a conquest-of-Wales style strategy of establishing a high ratio of castles and forts in the conquered territories.

Again - the big HOW? comes into effect. Some of these are good ideas. Others would be laughed at - assuming you can even gain an audience to demonstrate ANY of this.

If possible, lead an expedition into Arabia via the Red Sea to ensure that Mecca and Medina never exist, thus eliminating Islam, thus eliminating one of the later Byzantine Empire's chief enemies.

Pffft. There was a reason the Roman Empire never pushed too far East. Why? Because the mother-fucking Persians and other nations across there could defeat them.

Also - occupying Palestine didn't stop Jesus being born and Christianity becoming popular. What makes you think that occupying Persia and old Babylon would stop Mohammed and his followers?

Also don't forget that if you push too far east, by this time you'd have to be dealing with the Chinese Empire - who were fairly proficient warriors at this time.

[HemlockGrey]

HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DO THAT? Are you forgetting the whole problem that you're just going to appear there - how are you going to convince, the army, the generals, the military consuls, the senate and the emperor that their current order of battle is wrong

Hence my original idea of doing an independent conquest of Parthian with mercenaries. I wouldn't need an extremely organized army to start with, as I know the tactics of the Parthians and I know how to improve the Roman system in order to defeat them in their homeland. They could also be lured into Syria, as they did eventually invade, and once there defeated, as they were historically.

If political factors make it impossible to conquer the Parthians, severely trouncing their military will do.

Errrr - Rome was a conquest based economy, hence it falling later when it WASN'T conquering...

Exactly why you'd want to switch it over to a production-based economy, like I said.

Again - the big HOW? comes into effect. Some of these are good ideas. Others would be laughed at - assuming you can even gain an audience to demonstrate ANY of this.

An independent conquest of Parthian territory, or, at least, severely defeating the Parthian armies(opening the way for Roman conquest) would certainly make a name for myself.

Pffft. There was a reason the Roman Empire never pushed too far East. Why? Because the mother-fucking Persians and other nations across there could defeat them.

Hence the military improvements designed to deal with cavalry armies.

Also - occupying Palestine didn't stop Jesus being born and Christianity becoming popular. What makes you think that occupying Persia and old Babylon would stop Mohammed and his followers?

Preventing Mecca or Medina from ever being settled would eliminate the spawning ground of Islam. However, something like it will probably just pop up someplace else, so it's most likely a futile idea.

Also don't forget that if you push too far east, by this time you'd have to be dealing with the Chinese Empire - who were fairly proficient warriors at this time.

Eastward expansion would not push as far as India and would certainly stop before the Tibetan plateau.

[StarshipTitanic]

Hence my original idea of doing an independent conquest of Parthian with mercenaries. I wouldn't need an extremely organized army to start with, as I know the tactics of the Parthians and I know how to improve the Roman system in order to defeat them in their homeland. They could also be lured into Syria, as they did eventually invade, and once there defeated, as they were historically.

If political factors make it impossible to conquer the Parthians, severely trouncing their military will do.

Even if you do destroy the Parthian's power and eventually conquer them, it doesn't mean the indiginous people will particularly like you.

Exactly why you'd want to switch it over to a production-based economy, like I said.

Production of what, exactly? No one needs a mass-produced amphora jar when everyone's wife and their bitch makes them from scratch.

An independent conquest of Parthian territory, or, at least, severely defeating the Parthian armies(opening the way for Roman conquest) would certainly make a name for myself.

Yes, as an insanely dangerious enemy! And you'll need to learn more than Latin. Persia and the east is Greek territory.

Hence the military improvements designed to deal with cavalry armies.

The Parthians are cavalry archers and the Swiss pikeman formation has a worse defense against arrows than a typical legionary.

Preventing Mecca or Medina from ever being settled would eliminate the spawning ground of Islam. However, something like it will probably just pop up someplace else, so it's most likely a futile idea.

You'll have to do away with Christianity, too. You can't afford people like the Patriarchs arising and challenging your power or a religion that preaches love thy neighbor. You need a violent and unobtrusive religion and Rome already has one.

God may not like it, but I don't have to worry about such things.

Eastward expansion would not push as far as India and would certainly stop before the Tibetan plateau.

But Siberia is full of nasty barbarians during this period, what happens when they push your huge borders?

My solution to such cultural diversity is to just kill them off and repopulate areas with nominally loyal Romans. Mass conscription of their youth will give you a titanic amount of skirmishers and you can win battles with sheer numbers. Genocide is the only answer to keeping your nation stable because you're going to piss off a LOT of peoples with the systematic destruction of their native governments.

The best route to conquering the world is to conquer Eurasia first as it has the only powerful governments. The only way this is possible with the technology already existing is adopting Mongolian tactics. I seriously doubt anyone can industrialize fast enough for motorized transport not confined to a rail in less than 60 years (Assuming you're around 20 and will live to be 80). Then split your forces. Send some across the Bering Sea to Alaska and the rest to Australia and then Africa. Hopefully, that general is trustworthy enough to conquer Africa in your name and not take over the Empire. Meanwhile, in Rome, shipbuildings who I hope you can teach should have created some sort of boat seaworthy enough to cross the Atlantic (I'm assuming the campaign/resettlement will take approx. 30 years). That will resupply the Americas army, assuming they can find you and you can find them. Oh who am I kidding...

[Gandalf]

Assuming I could overcome the language issue, I'd try to convince the Romans to sail over to, then conquer America. Because why the hell not. This would keep the conquest based economy up, and could be a huge population centre.