Oh and I suppose that I should add that at the outset there was a fifth major faction - Kublai and Hulegu’s younger brother Arigh-Boke in Mongolia, a traditionalist that challenged Kublai for supremacy. But he was soon broken and Mongolia was absorbed back into the Great Khanate.
Yes, yes, I know - More than you ever wanted to know about the internal politics of the Mongol Empire :D.
The question seems to come down to how to measure Greatest. It seems to me that simply calculating the area covered at the peek of expansion is a very poor measure. Perhaps it would be possible to measure the volume of land of an empire in square-kiliometer-years or the volume of polulation in people-years.
Looked at this way, I am sure that many shortlived empires would not look so great after all. The Chinnese and Roman empires might aquire a more realistic place.
I suspect that the British empire would rate vey high on any system.
How about the empire’s power relative to the countries of it’s time. (power being wealth, military, and land control)
How much more powerful was, say Rome, compared to the rest of the world, in relation to how powerful the USA is in comparison to its world?
Well, in their day, Rome and China were basically the USA and Russia in the cold war. I mean, there were no other challengers at all, period. And they were so far apart they didn’t ever fight.
Of course, the USA and Russia are much less likely to be overrun by naked barbarians with horses, spears, and axes, or fall apart due to squabbling nobles… well, the US of A, anyway 
In terms of land poer year, CHina wins, but then, it had certain advantages of chance. The fertile rice paddies could support a larger population, and China had no real competition from without, and a good position to expand in all directions save East.
The Romans, on the other hand, hand to contend with the Sea, many powerful neighbors (the Greeks, Carthage, Egypt, Judea, many other East Medditeranean States). For this reason, ROme was more involved and effective in trade rather than in outright conquest. Their territories had smaller populations than China.
All else being equal, I suppose Rome and China really were about equal.
Disagree :). States like the Parthian Empire, the Kushan Empire, the later Neo-Persian Sassanian Empire, and Gupta India were substantial, wealthy, and quite capable of defending themselves against Rome and China. They weren’t as powerful* as Han China or Imperial Rome, perhaps. But they were too strong to be dismissed as empty challengers.
I have this pretty cool Rand-McNally “histograph” that plots the “relative power” over time of the 12 or so largest empires of the time. The graph supposedly took into account many of the factors discussed in previous posts. Rome was by far the most powerful relative empire - roughly twice as poweful as the US during the cold war. Unfortunately the poster is old and stops short of the fall of the USSR.
Sorry, I think maybe that my question was kind of amibiguous. I admit that I did not explain what I meant by greatest.
Thus is an ‘in history’ question not a ‘now’ question. Therefore this rules out USA. I was also asking for an empire that was challenged, unlike the British Empire.
I think that Triskadecamus has already answered my question.
By the way how large was the Mongolian Empire.
In terms of land conquered and size of army, Rome was not that great. It’s land was not even that big and it failed to control it. Also it grew too slowly compared to other empires.
Quoth Triskadecamus:
Was there ever such a time, in recorded history? The Hebrews under David certainly used guerilla tactics, and I’m hard-pressed to think of any earlier account of warfare.
Now, admittedly, guerilla tactics seem to be one of those things frequently forgotten and re-remembered by various states, so your comment would hold for certain times and places.
Good point, but these never did make a dent in the larger Empires. They were like England, Trukey, and Iraq in the Cold War: strong and important, but not impressive compared to the big 2.
Lenny G, I must dissent. Greatly
Like I said, Rome had to operate under certain constraints. It had no natural advantage save the relatively good strategic position for defensive military action (i.e., it was good for keeping out invaders because of the sea and the rivers and mountains of Italy) but did not have a great position to expand. That same position did help its trade considerably.
I disagree completely with you assesment of the ability of Rome to control its provinces. The Romans brought their rule and command for centuries to the provinces, which were governed by and large fairly and honroably, if not always pleasantly. It was only the mortal blows of the germans that eventually took Rome down.
Your point about Rome not growing quickly is completely irrelevant. Quick growth has nothing to do with being a great Empire. Indeed, history has shown that the Empires born fastest die fastest (see Alexander,among others).
Also, Rome expanded essentially to the lmits of civilization. They were hemmed in by the limits of human development. Beyond Roman borders in Brittanica and German lay a much more primitive society. Beyond the far Eastern Borders lay other kingdoms (and believe me, the Roman borders wen all the way to Georgia and Afganistan!) too far away to conquer, and too the South were a few desert tribes aand the great Sahara. Rome expanded as far as it was in her interest to. Certainly, I believe the Roman Empire was much more effective in terms of using its resources wisely to expand than the Chinese.
But the British Empire certainly was challenged - by the French, the Dutch, the Portugese, the Spanish, Russia, the German States and, later, the united Germany. Throughout much of the expansionist period of its history the British Empire was at war with at least one of these countries.
Indeed it was the enormous cost of fighting the two World Wars that was one of the major factors in the decline of the British Empire.
The question of which is “greatest” is objective, and thus better suited to Great Debates. I’ll move the thread there for you.
How big was the Mongol Empire?Was it bigger than Russia?
Two questions:
Was the Mongol empire really bigger than the Soviet Union at its peak(including Eastern Europe). Looking at the Atlas of World History and doing rough eye-ball comparisons my impression is yes but I couldn’t be sure.
Secondly was the British empire really bigger than either of them. I guess this may be true but only if you include all of Canada and Australia and all the princely states in India as well as the rest of the empire. Even then I am not sure.
Has anyone actually calculated the total area for the three empires at their peak?
Eyes goggling at the idea that Roman-era Judea was “powerful.” In any case, Roman expansion was pretty fast in the period from Pompey to Octavian, & not a passing wave like, say, Alexander’s. The Romans conquered, they built infrastructure, they kept territory, and they absorbed peoples into their culture. Not for nothing do people from Portugal to Romania still speak dialects of Latin. This simply isn’t true of the Mongols nor Alexander.
I plead ignorance on Asian empires contemporary to Rome. But both for sheer cultural influence and for enduring political control, Rome, Spain, & England are titans.
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This simply isn’t true of the Mongols nor Alexander.
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Nonsense. The legacy of Alexander and his successors left an indelible mark on the east. His former territories held onto Greek much longer than the West was able to maintain Latin.
I’d like to offer a dark horse contender. The only knock against the Inca Empire is that it didn’t have the endurance that others already mentioned had. They did, however, experience phenomenal growth in their day, mainly due to the ‘inefficent’ manner that the empire was passed down the royal line. The Inca also have the distiction of being the largest and most complex (in the anthropolical sense) Native American society.
At their height the Empire had a population of 10 - 12 million people and covered an area of
The only problem is that the empire only lasted about 100 years. Like so many other peoples, they were screwed as soon as the Spanish arrived.
Oh, we conquer all right. We’re just less upfront about it. More of “let’s install the government we want” than “we’re taking over and our flag is flying over your land”.
For sheer entertainment, you can’t beat the Mongols. As a mark of respect to opposing monarchs, they avoided spilling blood by rolling them in carpets and kicking them to death. You just can’t argue with that kind of thinking.
The ‘greatest ever empire’ was the British Empire, it controlled 27% of the worlds surface, was totally unmatched for military supremecy. It was efficent, forward looking, progressive. I know that some of it was taken slighlty illlegally, but at the time that wasn’t an issue. And finally it never actually collapsed, we just gave countries their independance over time, The Queen is stil the monarch for Canada, Australia and many other countries. I think that it was the greatest empire ever, although the Empire in Star Wars did control the galaxy so maybe that should win, but it was brought down, so then again…