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Originally Posted by Kokukirin
Fair points. At the very least Latin might become an extinct language soon after the hypothetical Roman demise. Perhaps Germanic languages would be more widespread.
But how the cultural differences would play out is very much open to imagination. The cultural centre of the world remained in Greece, Egypt, and Persia. Whoever took over Rome would inevitably be heavily influenced by the Greek culture. In terms of cultural inheritance, I think the outcome will not be very different from the actual history.
I think the biggest change is in military. Roman Republic/Empire was militarily nigh-unbeatable for centuries. It is highly doubtful that Gallic or Germanic tribes could replicate such success. Even if they could conquer the Greek Empires like the Romans did, they most likely could not hold on to the gains for long. Without the stability provided by a super power, how the region would end up is really beyond my imagination.
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The thing is, at that point Rome was just a backwater civilization with little to call an empire. Were they lost to history, their heavily Mediterranean cultural inheritance from the Greeks would never filter into Western Europe at the rate it did.
If the Gauls conquered Rome, they would not then transfer Greek knowledge as the Romans had, for this was prior to Rome exerting any influence over Western Europe. Of course, Greek merchants were already having an influence on the Celtic peoples as far back as the Hallstat cultures, but the influence had more to do with status symbol items like wine and amphorae. Material culture, values, philosophy, and of course religion were all heavily altered in Western Europe by the Roman Empire. In their absence, there would be no Christian Europe, far less philosophical ideology from the Greek masters (individualism being a big one), and probably a number of other intangible cultural qualities would be different. Remember, while the Celts and Germanic tribes were related to the Romans, they were in many ways completely separate cultures, cut off for thousands of years.
Your assertion that military differences would be the main discernible change I would have to disagree with. For a parallel, look at Japanese culture. Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan has opened its culture to the West and actively promoted cultural diffusion so as to better compete. In the span of 150 years they have made a massive transformation and while their culture is still quite different from Western cultures, the similarities are striking for such a short period of change. One can see how, in a Roman-dominated Europe, the Celts would be forced to adopt Roman ways to survive, much like the Japanese during the Meiji era. Except in the Celts' case they had hundreds of years to be assimilated and lose their culture. Without a Roman empire to unite and homogenize these disparate groups around Western Europe, the cultural traditions of the West may have been completely different.
But yes, militarily things would be completely different. Which would tie in to different ethnic lines along Europe. Germanic invasions, as well as Latin settlement, could have happened at much different rates. The Celts, who were more or less absorbed by all the latecomers into Western Europe, might have continued to exist as a cultural group.