People give Rome wayyyyy too much credit for being one Empire

People give Rome wayyyyy too much credit for being one Empire...

May have been "united" for a time under one emperor. But Roma never had nearly as much land as people think it had.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

I think it's common knowledge that Rome was divided into separate holdings. If you hear different its usually just Romaboo trying to claim his fandom over Rome is best.

Also in a way it really wasn't divided, though there may have beem different holdings once it did unite as one Empire the Politics were very similar and for that reason it was only untill after Rome fell that we realize how much of an influence their political order had on the land it held.

There a strange trend in Roman history. The people became much more roman as the empire started to politically fragment. A British citizen of Rome in 350 shared a lot more culture with the Mediterranean society than the the Britain of 150 AD. There is a similar trend in many of the marginal areas.

It is not just about how much territory you hold, but which territory.

The British and the Mongol Empires are the largest, but a good portion of both was barely inhabited wastelands of either steppe or frost.

Similar to the Caliphates, who count the entirety of Arabia as some glorious millions of km2 of land, even though only the coast was marginally inhabited and the inland just scarce nomadic beduin tribes without any civilizational value.

Rome is important because they either held important territory or they made non-important territory into important territory(western Europe).

That is why the Roman Empire had twice the GDP per capita as basically any other Empire of the time period, including most of the Chinese dynasties.

Similarly in modern times, Russia is fucking enormous, yet it has the GDP of a mere Italy.

It was a lot for their time and the technology they had available.

If you saw a map of the entire world they knew, they had taken most of it at their height. It doesn't matter if they were never truly under 1 rule. Literally no empire that size could be truly controlled by 1 man before the industrial revolution.

(and even then no country ever is controlled by 1 man because he'd need to be a superhuman to be able to control it)

That map mixes up Mecca and Jeddah

there is something wrong with that map my friend.

Romes empire was so impressive because of the technological limitations of the time period. Imagine having to run a political body the size of the modern USA where the most advanced method of travel is by fucking slave-powered boat.

And to add to this, It lasted for at least 400 years. 1400 if you count Byzantium as the ERE and as the continuation of the old empire.

1. map is shit i know. wasnt suppose to be accurate as to prove land, but more land holding and show that rome was always divided, map shows specific time in history where it was divided.
2. when i say land i mean Rome as the main Rome as the Capital and its power never had the whole empire as it is thought to have. Roman empire was divided through out history and to make that statement that the Roman Empire was the largest of its time is utter bullshit when really it wasn't one empire but multiple.

The same can be said of many Roman territories. Roman Africa, Levant, Syria, even Hispania had their population concentrated on the coasts.

Before Constantine divided it though, it was the largest. Whether territories were mostly autonomous or not, they paid respect to and held Rome as their leader.

no, the empire was at it's largest under Trajan

My bad. I was just saying it wasn't really composed of "multiple empires" until Constantine's division.

> The same can be said of many Roman territories. Roman Africa, Levant, Syria, even Hispania had their population concentrated on the coasts.

Somewhat yes, but still densely populated nonetheless.

For comparison.

Rome had 80 million people on 5 million km2.

The Mongol Empire had 110 million on 24 km2.

That is a 16 per km2 to 4.5 km2 density.

The Roman Empire had FOUR times the population density as the Mongol Empire.

Bear in mind that the Mongols also slaughtered like 50 million people during their conquests, so in reality their empire should have had 160 million people.

True, but they also had China, the most densely populated areas on Earth within their borders that also skew the average.

But even with those 160 million, it would bring the difference down by 1-1.5, making the Roman Empire three times as populated per km2.

that map is shit

this is a much better one

thanks user.

That map was bugging me too

what did you mean by Roma never had nearly as much land as people think?

Did the Romans unironically call the Vistula Vistula?

It is autism. Ignore OP.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula
>The name was first recorded by Pomponius Mela in AD 40 and by Pliny in AD 77 in his Natural History. Mela names the river Vistula (3.33), Pliny uses Vistla

>where the most advanced method of travel is by fucking slave-powered boat.
that's an exaggeration, probably from someone who doesn't know better. why do you think the empire was mainly around the mediterranean? because sea transport was really efficient. You could go from rome to egypt in six days in good conditions

ok i'm looking at the figures, it'd actually take about 10 days in good conditions