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The Greatest Empire in History

The Greatest Empire in History?

  • Persian Empire

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Mayan Empire

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Portuguese Empire

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Spanish Empire

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Russian Empire

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    49
Very cool! I had heard of the Varangian Guard before, and in fact, it appears to be something of a common theme in the East, having Northern Europeans as body guards.

Even the Ptolemaic Egyptians had the Galatian Guard, made up of Galatians, who were a Celtic tribe who had migrated to south-east Europe.

But my understanding was that the Varangian Guard were not cataphracts -- or were they?

If not, what makes cataphracts so cool?

Cataphracts were basically proto-Knights; the ancient world's heaviest cavalry back before the stirrup was invented.

Cataphract.jpg


armenian-cataphract-1-2nd-c.jpg

They originated with the Persian Parthian Empire, were copied by the Greek Successor States to Alexander's kingdom, and then finally by the later Roman Empire. The Byzantines carried on the tradition, though they were honestly a bit outdated by that point in history. lol

Some of the later Byzantine Cataphracts even doubled as horse archers, I believe.
 
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The Byzantine Empire (a.k.a. the Roman Empire's rotten stump of a rump state) was certainly long lived, and reasonably powerful in it's heyday.

However, ultimately, they run into the same problems as the Chinese. They could be a real mess at times, and they didn't really accomplish much of anything. They were mostly only interested in preserving the status quo, and failed rather spectacularly in this goal at that.

The byzantines did more than just preserve the status quo.

The byzantines preserved the Roman tradition of being ahead of everyone else in every conceivable metric.

war technology? They had freaking FLAMETHROWERS. Yeah, over 1000 years before they were reinvented during WW1.
Greek fire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to mention they had bombs.

Arhitecture and construction?
They knew how to make 5 storey high flats. This was more difficult in the Byzantine empire because you need volcanic ash to mix with the mortar in order to make waterproof so that the building doesn't get too much water and collapse on itself, but they knew how to do it and they knew how to make concrete.

Society?
When an illiterate macedonian peasant, born in an unremarkable family who have been farmers their whole existence, can rise up and better himself so much so that he can become Emperor you know you have a society where people are valued according to their worth as people.
Basil I - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The byzantine system of government is key to notions like semi-presidential republics (France, Russia, Romania, and others), to the notion of people who can pursue their dream in a land of opportunity, to always be able to improve oneself and reach as high as you can and so much more.

Science and innovation?
The islamic golden age of science and technology and innovation was during the ~800s to 1100s. About 300 years. Why? because islam conquered much of the north african (cairo, Alexandria) and middle eastern (Jerusalem, Damascus, Bagdad ) cities and territories of the byzantine empire where they had vast libraries with books and tomes of knowledge which arabic scholars grew fascinated with and studied and then improved upon until a given point.

But there are areas where the Byzantine scientific progress has outpaced the rest of the world even with the loss of those important centers. Medicine for one. You had organized medicine in the same way we have them today. they had doctors, nurses and orderlies and they had clinics and hospitals. You had the knowledge of sanitization when dealing with the injured and when delivering babies.

And ofc, the italian renaissance can trace it's origins to XIIth century Byzantine humanism which was an ideological movement that spawned because of all the war with the islamic caliphate and the betrayal of Venice.

And many many more things.

The varangians were mercenaries from outside the eastern roman empire. Germans, italians and a lot of scandinavians would join the varangian guard because it was a prestigious army set up by the byzantine empire to help them fill in the ranks against the ever increasing jihad. They, like the romans, didn't send untrained people to fight so because you had well armed, well trained professional armies, they'd always be outnumbered. They weren't the only mercenaries employed by the ERE. There were hunic cavalry and even mongolian mercenaries. Anyway, I'm not gonna go into more detail about the varangians. I made a whole post a while ago about Ukraine where I explained what they were and what they did, etc. I'll try and find it and link it to you.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/europe/191283-whats-russias-goal-and-can-reach-6.html

Post #56
 
Roman Empire for sure.
 
For me its a 3 way tie between Mongols, Romans and Alexander the Great's empire. If Alexander had lasted and made a proper line of succession his would be the greatest.
 
What?!

Hawaii was taken over by force in 1893.

Hawaii - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Puerto Rico was taken from Spain in the Spanish-American War.

Spanish

So.. What on Earth are you talking about?!

"The Hawaii electorate voted 94.3% "yes for statehood" to 5.7% "no".[75] The choices were to accept the Act or to remain a territory, without the option of independence"

America did not take Puerto Rico from Spain, we liberated it from Spain.
 
Your picture exemplifies precisely what I don't like about Americanization. The Walmart, microwave culture. I much prefer the cobblestone streets of Europe with its locally owned cafe's and charm.

I think the legacy America will leave on the world, what it will be most remembered for, is it's enterprising nature. Americans are distinctively commercial-minded, enterprising, entrepreneurial, and innovative.

Americans create, package, sell, and profit better than anyone in the history of the world; and that is both our biggest strength as well as our biggest weakness.

Well played. You didn't take his bait.
 
The Bible says that the greatest empire in history will be the beast, so for that reason, I hope another nation beats America out for the title.
 
Of the choices, I'm going to say the British Empire because it brought more civilization to more parts of the world than any other in the list. The "American" empire is not listed, and would be grouped by itself in my view because its real power (beyond the current borders) hasn't been used to conquer and hold land, but has transformed more of the world through its ideals. No doubt we could go on all month about the American empire, because I would expect a lot of disagreement. No empire has been built without significant change and some level of brutality for a period. There's always good and bad.
 
Well, Wikipedia seems to disagree with you.

Wikipedia seems to think that, as Kahn and Cerf both directly say, they had a part in its creation, but it wasn't their invention -- in fact, it was many peoples', because it's not something that can actually BE invented.

However, networked computers CAN be invented, and a Briton did it -- Donald Davies..

The modern format of the Internet, the ubiquitous and universal World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, another Briton.

Who happens to sit at MIT and not Oxford. :mrgreen:
 
"The Hawaii electorate voted 94.3% "yes for statehood" to 5.7% "no".[75] The choices were to accept the Act or to remain a territory, without the option of independence"

America did not take Puerto Rico from Spain, we liberated it from Spain.

Mate, that was after you overthrew the king. And colonised it. AFTER all that, then they voted to become a state.

That's still colonialism.

And as for Puerto Rico -- I am shocked that you think switching one far-off capital for another is anything but colonisation. If the US had 'liberated' Puerto Rico, surely they would have given it back to the Puerto Ricans?

Yet it's still a US territory. Very obviously an imperial holding. Not that that's a bad thing.
 
Absolutely. And Bill Clinton went to Oxford, go figure.

Doesn't change that Berners-Lee is British.

You know I emailed him once, told him I appreciated his work? He actually responded with a thank you. ;)
 
I think it could be equally (and more convincingly) argued that America is 'British' fundamentally in its culture and institutional history. Obviously not what you're wanting to hear, but I have to admit I think that America's global power is A) Significantly less than Britain's at its height and B) Fundamentally not dissimilar to British ideas of how the world should be. America is a product of Britain, directly, and 'Americanization' appears to me to have all the hallmarks of Britain's 'civilising' quest.

Plus, the British Empire was totally global, too.

You posted exactly what I was going to say. The whole system of laws and of course the language make it even more obvious.
 
The American Empire is the greatest in history. It's the only one that has ever truly been global.

The entire world is more or less "Americanized" today.

That's not quite fair. Americans were Britishized first. Some could even claim that the English were Romanized before that.

Is the world truly Americanized? or is it Britishized? Or is it possibly Romanized? I think a fair argument could be made in either direction. American civilization is less authoritative and less invasive than the extensive colonization efforts of the English Empire.

Maybe America does have a little bit of our own flavor and is not so dependent upon the English. The question is: Why am I arguing with myself?
 
The Roman Empire. No doubt in my mind.

I would argue that the Byzantine Empire is legitimately the Roman Empire. The Byzantines certainly saw themselves as Roman - even if they were Hellenistic - and the land itself was part of the empire. Rome existed for something close to 1800 years and was the dominant polity for at least half that time. Add to that the fact that even today we - and much of the western world - still feel their influence it's hard to argue against them as the greatest empire.

To some extent the influence that the pope has is a continuation of Rome.
 
The Bible says that the greatest empire in history will be the beast, so for that reason, I hope another nation beats America out for the title.

Not even in the running. Empire? America? Okay, there was a bunch of disparate native tribes that were heroically vanquished in equal battle (ahem) and lots of land purchased from Napoleon who had not a sniff of interest in New France and more territories picked up as the Spanish Empire shrank and left them behind, but there never has been an American Empire. And that's been a positive thing in American history, that they didn't indulge in imperialism and colonialism when they had the means to do so.
 
Of the choices, I'm going to say the British Empire because it brought more civilization to more parts of the world than any other in the list. The "American" empire is not listed, and would be grouped by itself in my view because its real power (beyond the current borders) hasn't been used to conquer and hold land, but has transformed more of the world through its ideals. No doubt we could go on all month about the American empire, because I would expect a lot of disagreement. No empire has been built without significant change and some level of brutality for a period. There's always good and bad.

Hm. I'm going to ask for examples of countries that have been transformed through American ideals. American culture, yes, definitely, and America's contributions to the arts through music and film are enormous but that's not empire. Empire is land. Territory. America became the nation it is at the cost of a lot of collaterals but, honestly, excepting Hawaii and Alaska America has confined itself to it's natural borders ("54.40 or fight"! aside). And that's a good thing.
 
There's one option curiously missing from the choices we can select from.
 
It depends on how 'great' is defined, of course; my vote was a toss up between the Roman and the British empires, in terms of the best positive impact on the world. I went with Rome, since it made possible the rise of Western culture and the spread of Christianity, the most positive radical paradigm and social revolution in history. The British colonial legacy was far better than any other empire's; their former colonies have fared better than any of the other colonial empires.

The U.S. was never much of an 'empire'; yes, it's popular with hysterical neurotics to claim it is, but in real life it isn't, and wasn't.
 
That's not quite fair. Americans were Britishized first. Some could even claim that the English were Romanized before that.

Is the world truly Americanized? or is it Britishized? Or is it possibly Romanized? I think a fair argument could be made in either direction. American civilization is less authoritative and less invasive than the extensive colonization efforts of the English Empire.

Maybe America does have a little bit of our own flavor and is not so dependent upon the English. The question is: Why am I arguing with myself?

:lol:
 
I think it could be equally (and more convincingly) argued that America is 'British' fundamentally in its culture and institutional history. Obviously not what you're wanting to hear, but I have to admit I think that America's global power is A) Significantly less than Britain's at its height and B) Fundamentally not dissimilar to British ideas of how the world should be. America is a product of Britain, directly, and 'Americanization' appears to me to have all the hallmarks of Britain's 'civilising' quest.

Plus, the British Empire was totally global, too.



America hasn't been very British for at least a century, if not longer. I'd say that even the Britain of today is so radically different from the British Empire in its heyday as to be practically a different creature.... thus the above assertions are not, IMO, very accurate.

Many Americans may be Brit-by-blood more or less, but our culture developed amid a very different atmosphere and circumstances. There are fundamental differences that cannot be swept under the rug.
 
America hasn't been very British for at least a century, if not longer. I'd say that even the Britain of today is so radically different from the British Empire in its heyday as to be practically a different creature.... thus the above assertions are not, IMO, very accurate.

Many Americans may be Brit-by-blood more or less, but our culture developed amid a very different atmosphere and circumstances. There are fundamental differences that cannot be swept under the rug.

On the contrary, I think literally every major facet of American culture is fundamentally British.

The US speaks English -- from Britain. The US follows the common law -- from Britain. The US political system mirrors the House of Commons and House of Lords, and many political theorists even think the US's system ought more accurately be called Parliamentary than Presidential, because besides Obama, nearly every president has sought the approval of Congress and adhered to Congressional supremacy.

The US venerates English traditions, celebrates British holidays, uses British measurements, and all of its 'formative legends' are fundamentally identical (or outright identical) to those in Britain. Places in the US are named after Britain, and monuments and statues are all in British style.

The US teaches a historical causal chain starting in the same place as Britain's, and following Britain's until 1776, at which point it diverges -- but even then only slightly. Fundamentally, the US has always and continues to look to Europe, Britain in particular, for its 'raison d'etre'.

The US is founded on British ideals of Enlightenment and Protestantism. American democracy? English Civil War/Parliamentary Supremacy. American religion? Thank God for Henry VIII.

The US is built off of British principles of free-trade and entrepreneurism. Industrialism, itself a British invention, was and maybe remains the guiding force in American economic thought.

Even things as minor and minute as the US flag are directly based on Britain, along with things like the US national anthem being in cadence with British marching songs of the time, and the US taking its naming and military conventions directly from Britain.

In sum, the US is thoroughly and totally British -- with the caveat that they don't really like being called such. Yet their language, culture, art, history, government, laws and people are all identical or directly descended from British traditions.

It seems rather obvious from my viewpoint, but I stress that it's not a bad thing. For some reason, some might take this all as an insult -- but it's surely not meant to be. After all, you ARE colonists, how could you possibly not be based off the coloniser? But at the same time you've done something wonderful and exceptional with what Britain has given you, which we all think is very impressive.

Just as a child must acknowledge the parent, don't try to claim the US is not the child of Britain. Instead marvel at what that child has accomplished -- or to quote Isaac Newton: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
 
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