# The first empire arose in Egypt? The first civilization arose in Mesopotamia? Does that make sense? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 20, 2014, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265 "2014-01-20T10:42:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/21 "2014-01-23T09:16:45Z")
That uses a very specific, pedantic definition of Empire (what Wiki politely calls a [semantic construction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire#Definition)) (I mean, that effectively says you’re only an Empire if you call yourself one.) - and it leaves out a lot of historic empires (the afformentioned Mongols, the Inca, the Ashanti…). ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/22 "2014-01-23T09:18:54Z")
Then Japan isn’t an empire? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/23 "2014-01-23T09:23:24Z")
To me, Empire requires Imperial doctrines - notions of supremacy and not assimilationism. If the Egyptian early dynasties had been Empire, the Upper Egyptian crown would _be_ the Egyptian crown after unification. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/24 "2014-01-23T09:25:15Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Then Japan isn’t an empire? They _were_ one, but now it’s just a relict title. Japan _now_ is not an Empire (_in the political sense_) - I don’t think Empire exists any more. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/25 "2014-01-23T22:30:00Z")
So the criteria for an empire are : “foreign hegemony without integration”. Is that correct? ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/26 "2014-01-23T22:36:53Z")
> **[Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire)** > > An empire is a political unit made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) exercises political control over the peripheries. Within an empire, different populations have different sets of rights and are governed differently. Narrowly defined, an empire is a sovereign state whose head of state is an emperor; but not all states There ha... An imperial political structure is established and maintained in two ways: (i) as a territorial empire of direct conquest and control with force (direct, physical action to compel the emperor’s goals) or (ii) as a coercive,hegemonic empire of indirect conquest and control with power (the perception that the emperorcan physically enforce his desired goals). The former provides greater tribute and direct political control, yet limits further expansion because it absorbs military forces to fixed garrisons. The latter provides less tribute and indirect control, but avails military forces for further expansion.[2] Territorial empires (e.g. the Mongol Empire, the Median Empire) tended to be contiguous areas. The term on occasion has been applied to maritime empires orthalassocracies, (e.g. the Athenian and British Empires) with looser structures and more scattered territories. The Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great (24th century BC), was an early large empire. In the 15th century BC, the New Kingdom ofAncient Egypt, ruled by Thutmose III, was ancient Africa’s major force upon incorporating Nubia and the ancient city-states of the Levant. The first empire comparable to Rome in organization was the Assyrian empire (2000–612 BC). The Median Empire was the first empire on the territory of Persia. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/27 "2014-01-24T01:43:53Z")
There isn’t any real meaning to the word Empire. All the lines you guys are trying to draw here in the thread would either include almost every major political force in history or exclude them, which suggests to me they aren’t very fine terms. I suspect van Doren (without reading his book) may have just been talking about something quite different. MrDribble’s definition of Empire seems tied up with the ethnic/colonial concept of “imperialism” which didn’t exist until the 19th century and thus shouldn’t be the foundation for defining a concept that is much older. I’ve read a lot of the older histories and the classical concept of Empire as I’ve always seen it expressed is where you have one political entity (terminology gets murky, most don’t consider any true State to have existed prior to the late Renaissance for example, so say Kingdom/polity/etc) that goes out and conquers and then subjugates other political entities and forms a super-entity made up of the central ruling organs of the original entity plus its subject entities. This means pretty obviously the Romans had themselves an Empire, actually even prior to being a monarchy as the Republic was practicing a form of Empire. Other obvious Empires would be the British, Babylonian, Persian, Alexander’s Empire. The Akkadians and early Egypt are harder to say. The Akkadian Empire as it were was more of a unification of independent city states, but not really a conquest of what we’d consider whole, large scale multi-city political entities. Likewise with Egypt I don’t know enough and I’m not sure anyone does to know if the Egyptian conquest was a case of subjugation or true unification, if the latter it would be harder to fit in the classical idea of Empire. But there is no correct definition of Empire, it’s a word that has always had very very loose meanings. Further to answer another question, the Angevin Empire would never be considered a true Empire in its time because by the 1000s and later Europeans had a very fixed term and understanding of Empire. To them there was only one Emperor, there could not be multiples. The true Emperor traced back to Charlemagne, was crowned by the Pope (at least initially), and claimed some form of descent from _the original_ Empire of the Romans. Europeans didn’t view Empire as something you aspired to, there was only one Empire and one Emperor. At least at that point (the Middle Ages in the age of Henry II), by the “Age of Imperialism” they had a different idea where they took on a more “modern” view of “Empire” as something a state could acquire for itself in the form of overseas colonies (but it didn’t necessarily carry with it the political creation of an “Emperor”, as the Empire was seen more as the property of the State itself.) Interestingly the genuine Roman Emperor who ruled from Constantinople at this time and actually had a genuine political lineage traced back to the Emperors who ruled Rome were not considered genuine (at least theoretically) by western European Christians. Part of the political fiction involved with Charlemagne becoming Emperor was the idea that since the Greeks had installed Irene as Empress the imperial throne was vacant since no male held the title and the Pope felt free to give it to Charlemagne. Despite that writings throughout the rest of the existence of the Byzantine Empire (a term I hate but use due to its ubiquity) contemporaneously referred to its leaders as the “Greek Emperor” or similar terms when the writer was a western European, suggesting at least in casual conversation western Europeans still mostly regarded the Byzantine ruler as an Emperor as well thus muddying my point about there only being “one” Empire in the minds of the Euros of Henry II’s time. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/28 "2014-01-24T02:48:22Z")
Martin Hyde. Perhaps you can recommend some useful books on ancient empires and what constitutes an empire. davidmich ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/29 "2014-01-24T02:54:15Z")
BTW, Martin van Doren states : " The first empires grew up in major river valleys of Africa and Asia. Egypt, which believed itself to be born of the Nile, was probably the first of all. It was organized and unified sometime between 3100 and 2900 B. C. , and it endured as a semi-independent state for about three thousand years, until the Roman conquest in 30 BC." “The History of Knowledge” p.4 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/30 "2014-01-24T07:05:58Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > MrDribble’s definition of Empire seems tied up with the ethnic/colonial concept of “imperialism” which didn’t exist until the 19th century and thus shouldn’t be the foundation for defining a concept that is much older. Firstly: It’s **MrDibble** , thanks. Secondly: the idea that imperialism didn’t exist before the 19th century is, quite frankly, ridiculous. There are no components of 19th Century imperialism that don’t also apply to earlier empires, including the ethnic components. I agree that there are multiple possible definitions for Empire - I’ve stated what mine are and how I think that doesn’t apply to Old Kingdon Egypt. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/31 "2014-01-24T15:14:33Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > Martin Hyde. Perhaps you can recommend some useful books on ancient empires and what constitutes an empire. > davidmich I’m talking about non-modern impressions of what the term Empire means, so we’re just talking all the classic histories. Stuff like Gibbon etc, the issue is reading those books may be of some historical interest just to be familiar with them but history is a living field and pretty much none of the old histories from them are still considered to be very good as actual historical sources. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/32 "2014-01-24T15:15:56Z")
I’m going to go with the caveat “That we know of”. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/33 "2014-01-24T15:33:15Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > If you want to be very technical, the British Empire was an empire because Queen Victoria was Empress of India, a title she took from the last Mogul Emperor. Before that happened, the term “British Empire” didn’t exist. There are only 5 imperial titles in the world: the Western Roman Emperor, the Eastern Roman Emperor, the Indian Emperor, the Chinese Emperor and the Japanese Emperor (the Ottoman Empire was also an empire, although its ruler was not referred to as “emperor” in English). If you claimed one of those titles, and ruled a kingdom, then your kingdom was an empire. If it you didn’t, you weren’t. > > Thus, the Angevin Empire wasn’t an empire because it was ruled by a king, not an emperor. I don’t think there was such a thing as Emperor of India until Edward VII. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265/34 "2014-01-24T15:35:14Z")
Yes Martin Hyde. Peter Turchin in “War And Peace And War” doesn’t trust Gibbon either.But it would be nice to read a scholarly book on the subject of what constitutes as empire, although I do understand now that the definition is fairly fluid. His focus is more on the life cycle of empires . He doesn’t really define what an empire is. davidmich [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-empire-arose-in-egypt-the-first-civilization-arose-in-mesopotamia-does-that-make-sense/679265.md?page=1)