Suppose Romans had to Build the Empire

Roman aqueducts are amazing but not anywhere near amazing as the off kilter way history presents the Roman Empire.

Call "conquest" what it was: a slave raid. I am aghast that all my life I swallowed the nonsense about conquests. Rome used up its slaves that fast.

Now that modern architecture has analyzed how Roman aqueducts were built, aqueducts are testimony to vast acumen in acquiring and using slaves along with a vast indifference for lives of others. I think the current IDF-HAMAS affair has brought this indifference home to me.

So I would be really interested in what the Romans would have been without the slaves.

* * *

I am thinking first off they would have had to locate near the water instead of making the water come to them.

I am hoping that some of CE shares my interest in this topic.

obligatory Monty Python
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ

They would have become enslaved by another civilization.

I ain't much for supposin'.

I'm not sure what you think you're doing here, but it sounds like a very silly view on history trying to tear down a strawman where supposedly other people and historians deny the Romans used slave labour.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/counterfactuals/

idk