Most sucsesfull empire in world history

The Roman Empire.

It was the example of what should be an empire.

Is influence is so great that, nowdays, much of we consider "modern" is a heritage of the Empire.

In truth all western civilization, and the cultures influenced by european colonial powers, have a great debt to Rome.

Originally posted by kurt The Roman Empire is over rated. Eurocentrism gets on my nerves so much.

The mongol empire at one time was quite a bit bigger, and rome in its state as perhaps the most powerful nation of its' time lasted roughly five hundred years-perhaps less.

Rome was extremely successful-but it was not the biggest and quite possible did not last the longest.

It was, however, one of the few who depended to a huge degree on organization and political savvy, rather than military might or crude control.


Edited by TheARRGH - 12-Nov-2007 at 22:47

yeah If you want to get technical, the Roman empire actually lasted over 2,000 years (from the founding to the fall of Byzantium)

    The world's most successful empire as well as nation as well as being the world's first empire is the ancient Pakistani empire of Indus.

    Along with the civilizations of Egypt and Sumer it was the world's oldest civilization, and at 2.5 million square kilometer it dwarfed the contemporary civilizations of Egypt and Sumer by several times. All along this vast area the same wieghts were in use, as well as a standard script as well as standardized bricks. What's more unlike other civilizations this empire seemed to had little civil wars as not even a single burn layer has yet been excavated so far.  The empire seemed to have been run along democratic lines with no signs of any single figure wielding absolute power. And the end of it saw an out flux of  people who founded the empire of the Hittites and Mittani. And its legacy can be gaged from the fact  that since that time the regions which formed this empire have been the most wealthiest regions in the world until the occupation of British. In 300 B.C when Perisa occupied the indus region the tribute which this region generated was larger than the tribute of all the other regions combined and Persia ruled all of the known world then sans Greece and China.   

Originally posted by bilal_ali_2000 along with most of Africa was one of the wold's most underdeveloped regions.

Originally posted by Sun Tzu yeah If you want to get technical, the Roman empire actually lasted over 2,000 years (from the founding to the fall of Byzantium)

certainly, but rome as we know it-the only true superpower, incredibly successful and in control-was far shorter. Egypt lasted for an incredibly long time too, but under different systems and with different rulers. Rome was in a similar boat-byzantium and so forth were certainly descendents of the roman empire of earlier days, but they were distinct enough that I don't really consider them part of the all-encompassing "rome," but rather almost as new states.

The ptolemaic dynasty in egypt was "egyptian" (greek, ethnically, but more or less egyptian leaders), but when we think of "egypt" we think of the pharoahs and so forth, before it was just a province of someone else.

Originally posted by Constantine XI Originally posted by bilal And its legacy can be gaged from the fact  that since that time the regions which formed this empire have been the most wealthiest regions in the world until the occupation of British. In 300 B.C when Perisa occupied the indus region the tribute which this region generated was larger than the tribute of all the other regions combined and Persia ruled all of the known world then sans Greece and China.   What is your source for this? According to Herodotus the total tribute levied by the Achaemenids amounted to 14,560 silver talents - excluding non monetary tribute such as eunuch boys and exotic animals. Out of this, he calculates the Indian tribute to amount to 4,680 talents after converting the value of the gold dust they paid in tribute. It is by far the largest of all the tributes, but it doesn't even come close to being more than all the others combined.

    I have heard this piece of information from many sources chronicling about the Achaemnid times but to give a precise source i will have to do a bit of searching. However just take my word for it that i have heard about this from many sources. And i was under the impression that Herodotus also said that the tribute of this region was more than all the other combined. I remember  reading somewhere that herodotus said
"India was rich richer, in fact than all the provinces combined".
However to give a precise source i will have to do some research











Edited by bilal_ali_2000 - 14-Nov-2007 at 14:19

Originally posted by Constantine XI Herodotus does say India was certainly the richest of all the Achaemenid provinces, and those figures he provides show that out of the 20 tributary provinces that India was easily the wealthiest. He also refers to it as the most populous. Though he does not claim it was wealthier than all the other provinces combined. Specifically he says "the Indians, the most populous nation in the known world, paid the largest sum (out of the 20 provinces listed in the Achaemenid Empire)" (p 213). He then goes on to calculate the value of the tribute using the standard Babylonian silver talent as the common measure of tribute value for all provinces. My source for this is: Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey De Selincourt, 2003, Pengiun Classics, London. pp. 212-213. - Book III Also you can find the book on www.gutenburg.org and it should be available to read from there.

That quote which i gave you is exactly as i remember reading it where Herodotus does says that this region was wealthier than all the provinces combined. However i don't know somebody may have been putting his words in Herodotus's mouth. I will get back to you in this one.  

Here is the link
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Geography/achaemenid_india.htm

Here are the excerpts 
"India was described by Herodotus as fabulously rich, richer, in fact, than all the other satrapies together in terms of annual tribute"