Isn't the Roman Empire kinda overrated?

[The Dark Umbra]

I actually don't think the Roman Empire was overrated. As you said amazing engineering, that last the test of time. Yea the Mongols were just barbarians that didn't add to culture. All they used was force which was unsustainable.Actually how long did the mongols rule and what amazing feats did they leave behind? Also, the Roman Empire shows us America's eventual collapse. Corruption and economic inflation helped them meet their demise. Which is enviable for any republic. 200 years is the accepted life span give or take.

 

[Kargathia]

It's a nice paradox here, isn't it? The Roman Empire isn't overrated because it is overrated.
What they have done is largely irrelevant - what counts is that we still remember them for it.

While the Romans weren't the only great empire, with others conquering more territory and faster, and there are a number of great innovations which others take deserved credit for(and most of what the Romans did was not invented by them, their genius was taking older forms and vastly improving upon them). But there are several reasons why the Roman Empire could rightly be considered the most successful empire there has ever been.

While I agree with your conclusions, I disagree with quite a few of your arguments.

1)Longevity, there was a state that identified itself as Roman for almost 2000 years, only China can claim a longer use of the same name(so far as I am aware). More importantly the Roman Empire was the dominant power in Europe and the Mediterranean for 800 years(roughly 100BC to 700 AD), even losing Italy and Rome itself for the last 200 years of that didn't change their dominant status even if they weren't a huge empire any longer. No other empire or Dynasty can claim that kind of longevity of dominance.

Technically the Roman empire did exist until 1453, but the Byzantines stopped identifying themselves as "Roman" around the fall of Rome. They still exerted influence in the eastern part of the mediterranean, but none at all in western Europe.
And even when taking the 2000 years at face value you're forgetting somebody: the Egyptians. Admittedly they've been less enthusiastic conquerors than the Romans, but the same goes for the Chinese.

2)Related to that, virtually all other empires rise quickly and fall quickly, the Roman Empire rose slowly and fell slowly.

Once again the Egyptians would like to prove you wrong. This time around together with the Greek, whose influence in their diaspora took even longer to fade.

3)Engineering, while not the only great builders and, again, they didn't invent most of what they used to so great effect, but there are a number of Roman engineering achievements that were not surpassed until the 18th century when steel reinforcing came into wide use. They built aqueducts stretching dozens if not hundreds of miles that were carefully built to only descend about 6 inches per mile and provided millions of gallons of water per day, they had running water on the third floor of the coliseum which could be emptied in less than 20 minutes, and the dome of the Pantheon is STILL the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built(that has never cracked, others were built larger, all of them cracked) and no dome was made larger period until 1850.

This one for once is absolutely true, even though you fail to mention one of their larger achievements in that field: roads. Even now we're actively using many Roman roads, and until we tarred them many of them were barely maintained. And yet they lasted two millennia.

4)Law, even the Greeks recognized the Roman preeminence in Law, and as already noted their law codes are still hugely influential around the world.

I'd take "influential" with a grain of salt here, as it is watered down quite a lot since then. The Romans inspired the Renaissance, which inspired the age of Reason, during which many of the laws as we know them today were written.

 

[JoJo]

Yes, but it had a bigger effect on the course of the history of those territories it conquered and due to more being conquered this means more of an impact on the world. Rome had to wait for its successors to do such, almost all of which created bigger, more expansive and more impactful empires.

Impact of an empire isn't just due to size but also due to length of existence. While the Mongol Empire was massive it barely lasted more than a century compared to the Roman Empire which lasted over a thousand years. The Romans gave us Europeans and all those who live in societies descended from ours an incredible amount of culture and influence, far more than any other ancient empire.

snip

Nice first post, I agree with all of that. Welcome to the Escapist, stick to the rules and keep out of the basement and you should do just fine here :-D

 

[Player 2]

Did you watch the last space shuttle launch recently?

If you did you will have noticed that the shuttle was attached to three fuel tanks, the big red one and the two white boosters. The engineers would actually have like to make the white ones (the SRBs) a bit bigger, but they couldn't because they produce them off-site and have to bring them in via the railway.

Why is the railway too small to take bigger boosters?

The standard width between rails on a railtrack in the US is 4ft 8.5inches. This seems like quite an odd number to set. The standard was taken from the British railroad at the time, which in turn was taken from the pre-railroad tramways. The tram makers used that measurement because they were using the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons and the wagons were built that way because if they used any other measurements the wagons wouldn't fit into the wheel ruts in the old English roads and their wheels would break.

Who built the old English roads and the original wagons that made the ruts?

The Romans did. The SRBs on the space shuttle were the size of a Roman chariot.

Also; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

 

[Inkidu]

The Roman Empire was the mightiest empire in the Western world and if you count density I'm sure they conquered more than the Caliphates (plus they conquered Constantinople which was Roman first)

It's romanticized. Chill out. They were once a world power and they had a rich and varied history. Plus America and most of Western Europe (the Romance languages) is founded on Roman ideals and traditions. Seriously, Washington D.C. was going to be called Rome and have it's own Tiber River.

It's not how big you are, it's how you use it.

 

[Verlander]

In terms of plumbing, water management, building, architecture, and military might, they are no way overrated. They can, however, be overemphasised in classes, depending on the country in which you live.

 

[books of war 13]

i think it's because they were really surprised it fell it was on the top of it's game technology 1000years ahead of most people a decent organised army and their empire fell

 

[EradiusLore]

the romans influenced europe which in turn influenced nearly all the world, the others might have had an inpact at the time larger but the roman influence shaped europe

 

[Caveworm]

Greeks and Romans. Huge for the west.

 

[DeathChairOfHell]

You clearly haven't read on enough. When Julius Caesar conquered Alesia it was against the city's defense which was inferior, but from the outside also came thousands and thousands of gaul soldiers attacking, and this army was superior to the roman's. However, Vercingetorix was successful in battle because he was strategic, unlike the army outside of Alesia. He couldn't command these men and therefor they attacked in the same way the had always done, and lost against the romans.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Yeah, because shaping the development of European society is nothing compared to conquering a bit of territory.

Really? One of the major bases of the English (and many others, particularly French) language is Latin

Except it isn't. English is a Germanic language.

Except it is. English is a hodge-podge of German and French, French being a Latin-based language.

It is Germanic but due to isolation and other factors borrows many words from Latin but that does not make it a Latin language. If borrowed words was the criteria of a language being derived from another than all languages may as well be the same. Just because Irish(Gaeilge) borrows words and uses(well currently) the Latin alphabet does not make it based in Latin, neither is it a Scandinavian language because it borrows words from those languages it is also neither based in English because in recent times it has borrowed English words.

This is what google is for.

OT: Maybe they do go a bit overboard with the civilisations influence but it has been quite influential over the years. It has given birth to many different words, a whole style of architecture(although borrowed style but whatever), Western and Central Europe would be a very different place without the Romans. This is not to say other places haven't added to the world.

 

[Nieroshai]

They, um, conquered the entire western world, and their culture and traditions are still infused in the civilizations they conquered? Why do you think almost every European language is a derivative of Latin?

 

[spartandude]

um the roman empire is credited for starting western culture and for having the largest empire ever and when it collapsed it sent Europe into the dark ages. saying that such a gigantic period in history is over rated doesn't make a lot of sense.

British Empire was the largest

and besides as many people have said the Romans had a bigger impact on the west so we cover it more where as eastern countries cover eastern empires

also didnt the roman empire (arguably) last from 509BC (birth of roman republic)until 1453 (fall of constantinople)
thats quite a while

 

[Kargathia]

Yeah, because shaping the development of European society is nothing compared to conquering a bit of territory.

Really? One of the major bases of the English (and many others, particularly French) language is Latin

Except it isn't. English is a Germanic language.

Except it is. English is a hodge-podge of German and French, French being a Latin-based language.

It is Germanic but due to isolation and other factors borrows many words from Latin but that does not make it a Latin language.

For the sake of correctness I'll point this one out. English does not borrow much from Latin. Almost everything you'd say would be borrowed from Latin actually is derived from medieval French, as spoken by the descendants of William the Conqueror.

Of course they did get some, but nowhere near the scale of what you'd be expecting when comparing English and Latin dictionaries.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

It is Germanic but due to isolation and other factors borrows many words from Latin but that does not make it a Latin language.

For the sake of correctness I'll point this one out. English does not borrow much from Latin. Almost everything you'd say would be borrowed from Latin actually is derived from medieval French, as spoken by the descendants of William the Conqueror.

Of course they did get some, but nowhere near the scale of what you'd be expecting when comparing English and Latin dictionaries.

It does in certain areas like Religion but yes all the main words are definitely not Latin also you kinda messed up with the quote.

 

[schiz0phren1c]

Damn you all! lol
I have to go watch The life of Brian again now!(not that that's torture or anything)
also...
aqueducts!

 

[thiosk]

rome is one bamf.

super bamf.

Rome (just the one city) had a population of a million people, sanitation, trade, art, science, and law.

Yeah, other ancient societies did stuff too, but Rome was damn near modern.

 

[Simalacrum]

I mean it didn't conquer too much to make an impact on the world, yah it had great engineering feats but so did the Chinese, the Arabs, the Indians etc. Yah it conquered alot but the Islamic Caliphates conquered more, ALOT more that had a greater impact on world history and scientific development, and yet in history classes they're just skimmed over while the Roman Empire is raved about alot. Moving on the Mongol Empire conquered MUCH more and had an even greater impact then the Roman empire, all the way from Korea to The Ukraine to Egypt, a testament to this is that Baghdad before the Mongol invasion was one of the most prosperous cities in the world, after the Mongol invasion however it never got to the richness and prosperity it once had. And yet again they're not as talked about in detail as say Greece or the Roman Empire.

I might even move onto say Caesar is even MORE overrated, he just conquered a big country of barbarians by laying seige to its capital, not a huge strategic masterpiece at all considering he did it by walling it in, he tried to conquer Britain, but failed. He changed the Republic to an Empire, but I can't think anything else he did or anything to make him the iconic leader of Rome. Later leaders would conquer much more then he did and again, I don't recall any of them making a difference in world history beyond Europe.

It could be arguable that the Roman Empire inspired the European ones, Russia more then any other, so in that sense its important as these empires would basically conquer most of the world and bring into submission the rest barring a few exceptions.

Sure, you could compare it to a lot of other big empires like the Macedonian empire under Alexander the Great, the Mongolian Empire under Genghis Khan, or the British Empire, to name but a few.

Do you want to know why the Roman Empire is far more widely regarded in comparison to those empires?

Because while those empires lasted merely a single generation for some (Alexander's empire crumbled pretty much as soon as he died, and Genghis' empire had a similar fate), or just one or two hundred years (e.g. the British Empire), The Roman Empire, from its humble beginnings as the republic of Roma, to the splitting of the West/Eastern Roman Empires, the transformation into the Byzantine Empire, all the way down to its final collapse at Constantinople, lasted in some form or another for 1,400 YEARS.

Empires need time to spread their influence, to really put a mark in history - a generation of a single great leader is simply not enough to really cement yourself in a cultural manner. But the Roman Empire is the longest lasting empire of all time (save possibly China, but, then again, the Chinese have had a massive influence on society too), and thats what makes it not at all overrated.