Which was the greatest ancient empire?

[Esioul]

Assyrian Empire

 

[Blue Mythril]

I'm a little unclear on what the term Great is supposed to mean?

However if we're defining Great in terms of the best established and most efficiently run Empire I'll go for the Romans.

For the most significant certainly on western culture I'll vote for the Greeks.

Dammit >.< The "greeks," or the Hellenes, never really had a physical empire empire. The Athenians did briefly, the Spartans had the potential, but chose now to, Alexander started an empire but not only was he not Greek, it also didn't last. If someone were to argue that they had a cultural empire, then perhaps I might accept that (though I'd probably prefer to think of it as a supremacy, monopoly or influence really). I think the question was which was the greatest empire, not which was the greatest or most influential culture or civilisation. The 'Greek' 'empire' was nowhere near great. Sad as that may be to say.

 

[GOLLUM]

Dammit >.< The "greeks," or the Hellenes, never really had a physical empire empire. The Athenians did briefly, the Spartans had the potential, but chose now to, Alexander started an empire but not only was he not Greek, it also didn't last. If someone were to argue that they had a cultural empire, then perhaps I might accept that (though I'd probably prefer to think of it as a supremacy, monopoly or influence really). I think the question was which was the greatest empire, not which was the greatest or most influential culture or civilisation. The 'Greek' 'empire' was nowhere near great. Sad as that may be to say.

Well in that case I go with my initial suggestion, the Romans!!....

 

[direghost]

I have to go with my favorite ancient culture, the Etruscans. Painting in broad strokes, they had the pragmatism and cultural adaptability of the Romans coupled with the artistry and sophistican of the Hellenes. Yup they sure were tough, until Camillus had to come along and ruin everything.

 

[Thunderchild]

Mine the byzantine Empire for their refinemant their civilaisation and their love of beards.

 

[chrispenycate]

Taking an empire as a region taken by military means, we have to consider the Mongols. In the space of a couple of generations they'd conquered Asia from the Pacific to the Mediteranian, starting as a minor nomadic tribe. Certainly, their empire didn't last quite as long as some of the others cited, but this was largely because it was too enormous to administrate with existing communication methods- how long does it take a horseman to get from Pekin to Bagdad? - and if they didn't develope much new in the way of tecnology, they stirred up cultures and allowed cross fertilisation of existing knowledge far faster than the natural diffusion.
Besides, you have to admire someone who can build a thirty foot high pyramid of human heads, using only muscle power, no machine guns or gas chambers - impressive.

 

[kyektulu]

I am finding it hard to choose between aincent Egyptions, Incas, Mayans and Romans... I think I might not be able to choose.

 

[edott]

toss up for me between Rome and the Songhai Empire.

 

[HieroGlyph]

I should have studied History instead of mechanical engineering

This intrigues me now. Especially after the likes of Blue Mythril's reply!

With loose definitions of 'great' and 'power', size and strength and span of time, the Romans must win hands-down. The fewest number of individuals 'controlling' the greatest number of others.

As to cultural influence, religious influence, scientific advancement, border influence, single personal emperor and so on, each has a different answer.

Eight thousand years of China (imagine what that means)... Christianity brought down the Egyptians... Persians influenced all surrounding nations and empires for a great length of time. Without them, I doubt if anyone else would have had the 'drive' to advance civilization, or organization, or knowledge... All of these things give us the story of human civilization. Somethings are re-invented, some things deserve credit to one peoples or a single great mind...

The greatest empire of all is the human brain. Nothing this Earth can offer will defeat its cunning. At least not for a very long time to come.

And my picture of the future? The geatest empire of all will have to be man as an agreeable single unit. The Earth is too small to hold so many people who fight each other. Diversity, sure. Freedom, sure. But there is no freedom without Law. And with upcoming technology, smaller more devastating bombs, and short vision, Rome will be our only testament of a 'great' empire. For we may have destroyed ourselves all too soon...

Apologies for the lecture, folks. But if we appreciate the past and wonder at Empires of old, imagine how someone might ask the same question 2000 years from now......

 

[fallenstar]

ah the glory of the Empires...I must then stay with my ancestry and state the Chinese Empire. But the only difference of my point of view is that us Chinese see all the dynasties as a continum of this Chinese Empire. There are foreigners who conquered the Hans(nationality wise speaking), but in the end all of them were assimilated by the Chinese culture. There was not a single greatest dynasty, it's not exactly comparable in our eyes. They are just one Empire, passing from the hand of one family to another. (like perhaps Lancaster to York and to Tudor)

If there must be a comparable time, then Tang dynasty seemed to be our greatest Golden Age. Size wise speaking it could have been Yuan but because technically when Mongols were in their haydays there was still a South Song dynasty, it didn't really count. By the time the Mongols established themselves in China, the rest of their empire was broken up already. However, Yuan dynasty in history is represented with brutality as well as uncivilized. Civilization was rebuilt by the Ming dynasty, but then China started to decline.

Why was the Chinese Empire greatest in all ancient empires? Its advanced civilization throughout five thousand years (finally behind the West by the last hundred years) influenced the entire Far East, created the unique system of philosophy, moral and writing. The Chinese writing is still the only developed, systematic writing with graphic representation, even when Japanese and Korean have envolved into phonetic languages, yet Chinese characters still must be employed.

What's more, the Chinese Empire was perhaps the only empire with so little expansion and invasion history, if you don't count the Mongols when they weren't technically Chinese yet. All those countries who recognizes the Emperor's overlord ship weren't conquered to do so. The Chinese army always withdraws completely after helping one side win in those little countries in their civil wars. There was few record of active invasion, and usually when the Emperor did that, the Court and the people disapproved it on moral grounds.

Besides, without the fasination of one day finding China, I don't know if all the explorers of the West would be so motivated and could get financial backings that easily.

 

[HieroGlyph]

Well said, Fallenstar. (I made sure to mention China after stating Roman, above.)

China has remained a Nation unto itself, though. Long lived and near always independant. And hasnt been a Nation to dominate other nations, which is the kind of empire (by unspecified definition) that folks here are talking about.

But I do agree. China has to be the greatest civilization of all time, to-date. Longevity, integrity, civility, knowledge and wisdom, art and... ( equates to culture )


HG

[Oh, maybe you'd like to start a thread claiming just such a thing, FS ]

 

[Allanon]

for me its the brits, sorry im a true blue, you ask for the greatest empire, it depends on what you consider to be great.

great in size or great as in what they did for civilisation?

but still it would be british for me, who did have the largest of the empires.

 

[Loki]

It hast to be the Japenese Empire that actually started WW2 in 1937 with their invasion of China (not the Germans with their invasion of Poland in 1939 as we are popularly taught) although we think of Pearl harbor as their entry. Flush with two navel victories over Russia, ingnoring their more recent land defeat by the Russian army--these fools armed with airplanes that were little more than fast flamible kites, grossly inferior small arms that were designed for civilian crowd control at best, a respectable navy (without radar,) tanks that were so lightly armored rounds from opposing tanks would simply go in through one side and out the other, high as hippies on their Bushido code, their cult of the Emperor, and their notion of their own racial superiority, swept the lethargic Europeans from their Asiaian colonies, threatened Australia, shot up the American Pacific fleet, before they were hammered into submission taking huge casualties, and often vaingloriously dying in battle to the last man (hense leaving no record of their military blunders for their own high command to learn from,) and ultimately bartering their fledgeling incursions into biological warfare to the Americans in exchange for the emperor's vindication. We can thank them for introducing large scale fanatical suicide bombers into the lexicon of modern warfare as well. Gotta love them for being such violent egoticentric idiots, willing to sacrifice an entire generation of their youth for vanity, and basically playing the part of the heavy in a road runner cartoon--you know, the one where he doesn't take the fall into the river bed miles below until the cloud cover thins enough for him to ctually see he's overshot the cliff again.

 

[HieroGlyph]

...great in size or great as in what they did for civilisation?...

"greatest ancient empire"

Word is "ancient", fellow Brit

 

[DJ_Schumi]

The British Empire as non of you know is the sole empire that has managed to "peacefuly" cease but managed to leave a total chaos behind it. Except America which in my understaning shouldn't even be considered as a British Colony as now it has absolutely no resemblance is the British Isles as oposed to other colonies. What do I mean by my statement is that the Britished might have left their colonies fairly peacefuly but created a state in such that the remaining country would collapse mostly. Fortunately for the Aussies it wasn't so and I must say that they even managed to outrace the British although no one would admit so.

The Roman Empire was a very good empire in my opinion and managed to have been fairly stable for most of its time in a region that has always been unstable.

The "Macedonian" Empire as you call it is my favourite best for 2 reasons. It was short but was managed by Alexander the Great and only by him. He was Alexander the very Great actually since he managed to merge all the greek kingdoms of that time, and believe me its a very hard task to do. With all them he managed to conquer the whole Persian Empire, made the Egyptians knee infront of him and marched all the way to the borders of India. On top of that on his way he brought scolars from Greece to teach and civilise the people there. Even recently there has been news of a tribe in Afghanistan region that has blonde hair and talks a greek dialect!

 

[Gwydion]

Rome and Greece. Greatest contributions in terms of science, architecture, and orginazation of government and armies. China third, greatest techno contributers, and some very intresting philosophies. Mongols fourth, cause they introduced mobile units and armies. Japan fifth, cause they had samurai!

 

[electricdragon]

I would not really say roman empire. to me a good empire is one that makes it to the 20th century and/or one thats influence that has permantly stuck there

So No. 1 for me is probaly the Ming Empire, No. 2 Persia, No.3 Mungal Empire(cant spell) No.4 Ottoman empire(Suliem rocks!) and No 5. Egyptian Empire

 

[Fightin gobbo]

Would the Celts BC spreading far and wide across what we now know as Europe be classed an an ancient empire? Their way of life has influenced almost all of the above mentioned empires in one way or another.

Hate to say it man but we wernt an empire meerly a savage and insane subculture of the germanic race

We were bloody good warriors,carpteners and black smiths tough!!

if were taling empires id go with either the persians or assyrians
persians were one of the biggest armies and were the greatest archers! and assyrians were good archers and Great at siege warfare

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

The Roman empire has to be my personal favorite. Partially because they just rocked the world for a loooooong time, and partially because I took Latin in high school, which ended up being a course about the Roman empire rather than learning the language (which is a shame because I took Latin just to know something very few other people did, and I don't remember the very little we actually learned anymore). The Romans mastered military technique, and actually used what is still considered one of the most viscious close-combat weapons - the Spanish short sword (aka the "Gladius"). They also had impressive social programs not seen before, as well as plumbing and architecture advancements, and inventing concrete. Plus, they really knew how to build roads - not like the crap we build today. They dug down three feet to lay the foundation for their roads, and guess what - the Appian Way is still in Rome today! And as far as I know, no potholes.

I could not have said it better myself! Ave Caesar!

 

[Hawkshaw_245]

I vote for Rome. I've always thought they really showed how a great empire should be built. AND how mismanagement can tear one down.

Their military conqests, their engineering feats, their road networks and trade that spanned the known world....you gotta love Rome.