Greatest empires of all time

[Heresson]

Oh so it's American Georgia after all...
So You regret that You are in the States or only that You lost
and didn't become independant THEN?

[Sava]

No Byzantine? WTF is wrong with you?? The Byzantine stood much much longer than ancient Rome.

[The Pioneer]

To Dino:

BBC, a very well and respected news broadcast, had a special the other day on Alexander the Great. It was an excellent 4 episode documentary that followed his footsteps from Vergina to India. Now all the time the guy that was referring to them as Greeks, which together with all the links and statements From Pari, Marko and Paikti should suffice.

On the topic at hand I'd go for the British Empire in terms of size. Last year the leaders of countries that were (are?) British colonies got together, these countries amount to more than a staggering 2 billion people .

I am not sure what you mean with German Empire? And one notable abscence is that of the Austro-Hungarian Empre that once stopped the Ottomans in Vienna and a second one is The Byzantine Empire.

But still you could not lessen any of the named empires they all had and their influences in their times.

I'd go for British, Roman, Chinese, Mongols, Greeks (under Alexander). But my prediction is that the American "Empire", like Tingkai said will at one point become the greatest, the prerequisites are there and the times are ripe.

[Heresson]

Sava, Byzantines are Romans

[Sava]

No, actually they aren't... they considered themselves the continuation of the Roman Empire, but they were not Romans... man, that was almost signature material Heresson...

[Heresson]

In this case, English aren't English and Americans aren't Americans... It's the same state as the one of Caesar's and
Marcus Aurelius', just long after it. The language changed and everything changed, but it was evolution that must have lead to one place or another.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Sava
No, actually they aren't... they considered themselves the continuation of the Roman Empire, but they were not Romans... man, that was almost signature material Heresson...

Sava, the "Byzantine Empire" is term coined in modern times to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire. Actually, the Eastern Roman Empire simply called themselves the Roman Empire or Romania - and Constantinople was officially "New Rome."

Regardless of whether they spoke Latin or Greek, they were "Roman."

[Heresson]

Ned's right... How can it be?

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Sava
No Byzantine? WTF is wrong with you?? The Byzantine stood much much longer than ancient Rome.

Hmm? barely i'd say, the Byzantines were still there in the 13the century etc, but they had no real power anymore... in the end all they had left is is Constantinople and a few spots of land... under Justinianus (in the 7th century or so?) they did regain large portions of the former western roman empire but after the death of this great emperor they started losing land again..

All in all I'd say the Byzantines weren't that powerful..

[Traianvs]

Sumer and Akkad, the first Mesopotamian 'empires' deserve to be mentioned as well, for their time they had an unbelievable technological advance and structure, they came before the Egyptians..

in terms of size i would say
-Rome and Byzantines
-Macedonia
-Inca empire
-British
-Spanish
-Turkish
-Middle-age China

btw i would hardly call America one of the greatest empires... it has no empire

there's the US and that's all... you need more to be a great empire!! The US is a big country though

[Ned]

Trajanus, et al., even after the fall of West to the barbarian horde, the Eastern Empire still considered the lands non under "occupation" by the Germans to be part of the Empire. The King of the Franks, Clovis was appointed consul late in his career. The Franks, as Catholics, were an ally of the East in Justinian's war against non Catholic German and Gothic tribes of the West. But they failed to help - then.

A couple of centuries later, though, when the Eastern Empire's fortunes began to wane against the new occupiers of Italy, the Lombards, the Pope sought the assistance of the Franks. Pepin, the Mayor of the Palace, struck a deal. He was annointed King, and the Franks put down the Lombards.

The cozy relationship between the Franks and the Pope only grew from that point. In collaboration, Pepin's son, Charles (the great, aka, Karl de Grosse or Charlemagne) conquered far and wide to spread the Catholic faith - Justinians original mission. In 800, when Irene, a woman, held the throne in Constantinople, the Pope appointed Charles to be the Western Emperor.

Charles did not want to accept the throne from the Pope. So he sought and was approved as Western Emperor by Irene's successor.

The Western Empire, later called the Holy Roman Empire, continued until 1806, when the Emperor abdicated under pressure from the new Emperor, himself crowned by the Pope, Napoleon.

The story really doesn't end there. In a sense, Hitler was trying to restore the Holy Roman empire in his Third Reich. Had Germany won the war, I believe Hitler would have sought out the Pope for an "official" coronation as Emperor. But, of course, this is pure speculation. I just extrapolated from trends.

The current effort to form the EU is simply the most recent effort to restore the Roman Empire, IMHO.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Serb
I bet, that he'll never find country of Georgia on the World map and that he absolutely sure that Georgia of USA is older then country Georgia.

One more comment: Coca-Cola is urine, CNN is sucks too.

Have a nice day

Don't stereo type my friend it is unseemly. BTW not only could I find Georgia on a map but I could probably find just about any country in the world, tell you its capital, and a fair bit of history for each one.

Saras: you are right I've never been to the former USSR but I have been to Poland, Bulgaria, and I spent eight months in Yugoslavia so I have, tangential, experience with a few former soviet countries. It is still a far cry from the USSR but a stereo type of the American south called for a stereo type of former communist countries. No hard feeligns I hope.

[King of Rasslin]

Try the new Vanilla Coke. It rules!

[Heresson]

"Holy Roman Empire" wasn't in any sense a continuation of Roman Empire. "Byzantine" Empire was continuation of both western and eastern Roman tradition.
Byzantines never accepted silly western claims to the Roman
heritage. They approved imperial title of those self-and-pope-claimed emperors, but never approved their "Roman" title. The all case started because dumb Frank didn't consider Irene the emperor. In another words, claiming that HRE was Roman Empire is sexist!

[Saras]

Stereotypes are fun

Russians - vodka
Southerners - hicks
Polish - both
etc.