Is Rome Empire all that great?

Question

To many Europeans and Americans...Rome is...

1.the only superpower, and cannot be compared with any other ancient empires like Persia, Egypt, and Han(China)

2.was the first empire that was run by democratic values and cosmopolitical ideal (Greece was an group of indipendent cities, not an empire)

3.built the foundation of our civilization, and even modern society owes countless things to this GREAT ROME

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I mean...Are these all true? Personally I don think so.

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Answer 1

Let me take your theses point by point.

1) As to being the only superpower and incomparable with other powers, I agree with you and most of the other posts in that Rome, even in its heyday, was stymied by the Persians. Nevertheless, Rome's administrative and legal systems were far more advanced than those of their neighbors. Rome's system of roads and their control of the Mediterranean ushered in the Pax Romana, which allowed for unprecedented levels of trade and travel open to many different classes of society. To think that someone like St. Paul, who earned his keep as tent maker, was able to travel around the empire unmolested except by the government is a fairly remarkable idea in late antiquity. The ability to trade and travel unmolested at the height of the Roman empire was a feat arguably unmatched until early the modern era.

2. Certainly Rome, even when ruled by the Senate, was hardly democratic by today's standards. Indeed, part of the transiton from rule by the oligarchic and insular Roman senate to an imperial administration was fomented because of the provincialism of the patrician class. The imperial structure was perhaps more efficient, and more cosmopolitan (a few emperors did rise from the peasant soldiery and from various parts of the empire) than its contemporaries, but hardly a form of government worth emulating at this point.

3. Here is where I tend to agree with the statement. Western society does owe a great deal to Rome. Continental law is almost entirely Roman in origin, unlike U.S. and British law. Rome was also the transmitter of two principal ideological constructs that have invariably shaped western culture more than any others: Hellenism and Christianity. The European enlightenment was founded on both a Christian world view as well as a recovery of classical philosophy, art, and science. My view is that today's western worldview (or worldviews) is/are predicated on the adoption or conscious rejection of enlightenment ideas that themselves are deeply indebted to the intellectual heritage bequethed by Rome. Often this sort of deep historical attachment is overlooked, though I am more than happy to concede that the west has made and continues to make its own advances and mistakes.

Answer 2

Greece: defeated by skill of the Macedonians. Egypt defeated by skill of Alexander the super, then plenty later after the suicide of Cleopatra the Romans filled up the vacuum. The British failed because of the fact they bankrupted themselves and wasted all their materials in combating WWI and WWII. Rome is slightly diverse: Rome replaced right into a sturdy state that needed plenty money, to get all this funds it used 'state capitalism'. yet because of the fact the empire grew and the borders grew to develop into fixed people observed the Imperial overstretch taking type. additionally with the aid of being a slave based society and the intake of recent slaves stopped, the certainty that interior the west the inhabitants gradually fell lower back, over ten million people in over a century and that the West, in assessment to the East allowed the Germanic people to pass into the empire (they did no longer have the money to maintain them out). are all explanation why the Roman empire declined. yet there continues to be Christianity, which replaced into no longer a ingredient why Rome declined, the Roman Catholic Church replaced into filled up it particularly is vacancies with the persons for the Senatorial classification, those people have been exceedingly knowledgeable, knew classical Latin and persevered the Roman custom of the centralized state, interior the Roman Empire the State owned the land, the best value equipment, of direction this replaced into no longer something like the plenty youthful sister ideology socialism. interior the Catholic Church there replaced into and continues to be a similar seen. So in assessment to the different empire that rose and fell, the Roman Empire a minimum of the Western Empire, controlled to stay to tell the story, historians agree that because of the certainty that as quickly as the Roman Empire entered the middle a while you will see a sparkling continuum between the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. So, the Roman Empire did no longer fall. it particularly is nonetheless there and it conquered the great international, albeit in a splash diverse course then planned.

Answer 3

!. Not true because the British Empire, and the Ottoman Empire were as big and as great as them. There was once a time when it was said that the sun never sets in the British Empire.

2. It was not run democratically, there is no proof that it was a democracy.

3. Could not think of any. Please what which is one thing that they left behind that is useful for our socirty nowadays.

Answer 4

I agree with u . thats all rubbish.all these talks are just to exagerate and to show that it was the west that reconstruct the world and human beings owe it to west to live in such world .I study alot in history.As I know
the Persian Empire in Achamenian era had been the greates Empire in the world in military, wealth, culture, art, science lands and so on.

Answer 5

This would depend on your personal outlook. Whether you were born to the Roman Empire, or Conquered by it.

Answer 6

in terms of military YES, but their government, philosophy and religion they got it from Greek and other civilizations

Answer 7

So what do you want ME to say?
Agree? Disagree?