Not all maps are reliable - - - History Thread - The Many Manly Men of History, War and Civilizations

[Dr_Manhattan]

@JAAJ
Go create the thread sometime

China had less territory and held out longer, does that mean they are better ?

The Mongol had more battles and more territory, the Macedonian also had more than the Roman for shorter. France has won the most battles in history with a kick ass ratio, is near the top in empire size in front of the Mongols (Roman’s aren’t even in the top 10 in total territory held at a single time) and the Romans are pretty far behind in number of people killed.

Love the Romans but if going about militarily only, fighting near peers and conquering foreign tribes…

Napoleon alone is far in the lead in term of military success and that was the beginning of the end.

Roman’s didn’t have the most territory, didn’t win the most battles, didn’t last the longest.

[Lunamoon22]

The nerd in me appreciates these history debates

We should make a thread about it, i seriously love history and Geography

[JAAJ]

@Divine_Lotus
Can you please kindly move the last posts related to history to this thread please: History Thread - History, Cultures, Civilizations, anything related - #14 by SoulStar33
Thank you.

[GianLee]

@Dr_Manhattan @JAAJ History!

[Dr_Manhattan]

@JAAJ

going up to 1500 AD with the end of Byzantium.

Ahem, 500 years before the official ending of the Roman Empire

Blue thing = baguette team
Then the Islamic Empire was going too strong in the south

Catholics banded together under the orders of the pope

Enter the “Outremer”, Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem also known as Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Muslim called it Frankish Kingdom in their sources.

Tripoli French too, best lands, them holy lands

The others got a little something.

By that point, it was ok for Christians to kill, so the French created , funded, ruled the Knight Templars

Though non-exclusionary with members and chapters throughout Europe, the Knights Templar was a French organisation with a French founder. Furthermore, nearly every Grand Master or supreme leader in Templar history was French, thereby making France the seat of Templar power in Europe.

It’s also the French kings who got rid of them, when they were not busy kidnapping popes

Fast forward

Not gonna break down those victories, would be trash talking.

If knowing that most the generals after Napoleon thought and think he was the best is not enough. Napoleon was the Best General Ever, and the Math Proves it. | by Ethan Arsht | Towards Data Science

Beginning of Napoleonic War, all of Europe declared war on France (which means all the most powerful empires at that time).

So the whole Europe declared war on France,
how did that turn out ?

Spain, Britain, Germanic countries and Russia attacked France, France lost in Russia years later. At the 6th Coalition they won, all of Europe attacked France and lost 5 times, surrendered 5 times. All against one and they started it.

Dude made himself Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire

For centuries Europe’s geopolitics was about limiting the French power.

How do you think we got that bling ?

You can see how savage these people are all the time

First ones to kill their kings and started the whole republic/democracy Europeans like so much.
And they did it nasty in public, cutting heads all day for weeks

Lowest retirement age in Europe, you want to increase it, they burn the streets down. The others accepted.

I saw lines of Germans who get less benefits and already have retirement planned to 67yo react like “hmm, maybe we should have protested too, we don’t like that one bit, no sir we don’t” like they never thought of it. The French president said, “by 2030 you’ll retire at 64yo”, French people got crazy, you can see the madness and outrage in their eyes when the news hit. 4 months, they went at it

going against water canon with farm equipements

It’s like every other year, it happens

They want reasons to fight

[JAAJ]

I believe for a proper discussion we need to first look at specific metrics and/or define and agree what metrics we want to look at for comparison.

I am going to argue in favor for the Ancient Romans as the “most successful empire ever” based on the following metrics:

• % of territory conquered from initially owned base line.
  The challenge here is to define what is the baseline.
  The Romans for sure expanded several Ten of Thousands % from their initial baseline. From a small province to 4.4 Mio km².
  The Mongols or the British Empire would probably win here if we would look only at this one metric – but please pay attention to the rest too and look at it as an overall result of these metrics.

• % of the world population living in the empire at its peak:
  For Ancient Romans it was ca. 30% of the world’s population.
  Again not #1 if looking only at this metric alone, but at least in the Top 5 or so.

• Number of years the empire territory was held.
  For the “Ancient Romans”:
  Early Romans & Roman Republic: 753 BC to 27 BC
  Roman Empire: 27 BC to 500 AD
  Eastern Roman Empire 500 AD to 1453 AD
  = 2250+ years in total
  Again, not #1 if looking only at this metric alone. China or Ancient Egypt would probably win here if looking at this metric isolated.

• Kill-to-Loss ratio of the army:
  Describes the actual success rate of the army.
  I don’t know the exact numbers for the various civilizations but I would argue that Romans were pretty good and had a very good kill-to-loss ratio.
  If you for example look at the Battle of Boudica, were 1 Roman soldier was killed for 200 Celtic soldiers.
  Romans might take actually 1st place here but I am not sure about that.

• The soldier-to-civilians-ratio:
  Indicates how well the army was doing and how many % of the population of the empire had to actually fight to keep borders and order in check.
  I think for Ancient Romans it was something between 10-20% of the population who were military folks.

• GDP and overall wealth level:
  I would argue that the Romans were far ahead compared to any other civilization at the time, like at least 10-20x ahead. GDP maybe 2-3x than that of their neighbours and luxury levels like 100-1000x than that of their neighbours (speaking about public bathes with heated floors, alimony for children, equaducts, public roads etc.)

• Average life expectancy:
  Again, I would argue that it was probably much higher than that of the neighbouring states in comparison for their time.
  Roman medical knowledge was extremely advanced and thus average life expectency was higher than in their neighbouring countries.
  They even disinfected surgical devices in boiling water, something that was only rediscovered in the 19th Century.

• Impact on the world:
  This metric, even isolated, makes Ancient Romans to take the 1st rank:
  Most of the world, or a major part of, TODAY:
  …uses the Roman letters
  …uses the Roman calendar and time system
  …uses Roman based laws
  …adopted Roman based human rights
  …adopted a Roman religion
  …speaks in a Romanic language (including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian)
  …60% of the words in the English language were influenced by Latin or have Latin roots
  …which means that more people Today speak a language with Roman origin than any other language (!)
  …Law, medical and sciene terms – all Latin
  …Roman planet names
  …Roman month names
  …Roman boys and girls names

Metrics which I would NOT consider as viable or useful are:

• % of the world’s land area or total square kilometers conquered:
  Because conquering empty deserts and forests is not an achievement. Holding those is not an achievement either since there is no one to protect these territories from. An achievement is if you can conquer and hold strongly populated and civilized areas over a long time. So area percentage or area in absolute numbers is not a helpful empire success indicator in my opinion.

• Number of battles/wars won, as these usually do not matter because these rarely decide the fate of an Empire. As described above, what matters is the actual result (civilized area conquered and held) combined with the kill-to-loss ratio of the army.

[Dr_Manhattan]

@JAAJ

GDP and overall wealth level:
I would argue that the Romans were far ahead compared to any other civilization at the time, like at least 10-20x ahead. GDP maybe 2-3x than that of their neighbours and luxury levels like 100-1000x than that of their neighbours (speaking about public bathes with heated floors, alimony for children, equaducts, public roads etc.)

We’d have to compare with China on this one. I’d like to see something on it.

Also, their empire was bordering water, mountains and desert for the most part. So not has hard to defend.

They also attacked disparate tribes, not countries of similar technological level. Not messed too much with the Persians.
That’s the big problematic thing in comparing.

Cause what they did was similar to the Europeans colonizing remote lands of unorganized technologically behind people.

Also, travel took forever, everything was slower, the hegemonic powers get replaced faster and faster.

In the last 30 years we got internet. We didn’t have satellites 80 years ago. They didn’t evolve that much beside getting richer and switching to stone buildings.

Time moves faster, wars are shorter and deadlier. More empty space on their side.

The casualty rates are increasing at every war even if just based on conditioning and overriding the empathy of soldiers.

They couldn’t organize a defense or communicate easily. Not like the others even wrote anything.

How many metropolis did the Roman have ? Mostly empty space they barely controlled or cared for

[JAAJ]

@Dr_Manhattan

Cause what they did was similar to the Europeans colonizing remote lands of unorganized technologically behind people.

Isn’t being technologically advanced an achievement in the first place?

Don’t all the “wins” and achievements in the end mostly come down to the level of technological advancement compared to other civiliations during the same time?

Technological advancement requires open mindedness, inventiness, rational thinking, planning, organizing, execution, maintaining, motivating humans etc.

@Dr_Manhattan

Also, travel took forever, everything was slower

That makes it even more of an achievement for the Romans, because they did all that without proper maps. The Romans overcame the “slow pace” of their times by building stone roads (that even last to this day).

All technological advancement needs to be looked at in comparison to the technoligcal advancment of the other competitive states at that time.

PS:
The only reasons Europeans were able to colonize other countries is because of tech advantage (war ships, guns, cannons, medicine). They also brought European diseases with them that viped out up to 90% of the local populations before combat would even happen…

[Dr_Manhattan]

@JAAJ

Don’t all the “wins” and achievements in the end mostly come down to the level of technological advancement compared to other civiliations during the same time?

While they did have an insane military industrial complex for their time, it’s not all wins based on technological advancement. The proof, once the Franks and the others invaded them, it created a dark age because Roman knowledge was lost.

Also, the Roman while resourceful took from the Estruscans, Greek and others they managed to invade.

Even their religion were knock offs, because technology is not always necessary.

Technology is one of the biggest factors but many more technologically superior foes have lost.

Ahem
Afghanistan, that’s recent enough ?

Geography is equally if not more important.

[Dr_Manhattan]

I’m sorry I couldn’t wait and dragged you into messing up the manly thread

I am

[JAAJ]

Every civilization knocks off from others.
Would be stupid not to do so.
But apparantly Franks were pretty bad at knocking off:

@Dr_Manhattan

The proof, once the Franks and the others invaded them, it created a dark age because Roman knowledge was lost.

Instead of learning, they mostly destroyed.

But not all was lost, as still:

@JAAJ

Most of the world, or a major part of, TODAY:
…uses the Roman letters
…uses the Roman calendar and time system
…uses Roman based laws
…adopted Roman based human rights
…adopted a Roman religion
…speaks in a Romanic language (including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian)
…60% of the words in the English language were influenced by Latin or have Latin roots
…which means that more people Today speak a language with Roman origin than any other language (!)
…Law, medical and sciene terms – all Latin
…Roman planet names
…Roman month names
…Roman boys and girls names

[JAAJ]

@Dr_Manhattan

Geography is equally if not more important.

Facts!

@Dr_Manhattan

I’m sorry I couldn’t wait and dragged you into messing up the manly thread

Don’t worry, Divine Lotus will move the posts to the history thread.

[Dr_Manhattan]

I focused on the military, but it’s gonna be interesting to compare on that front too.

I’m not arguing whether the Romans created a lot, that would be foolish. France tried for too long to rival and copy the Roman Empire even with the literally named “Holy Roman Empire” they launched.

But I’ll have to disagree on things you attributed to the Romans.

Also this

@JAAJ

Instead of learning, they mostly destroyed.

From the Metric system and others, France created and discovered a lot of universally used tech during the medieval period and Renaissance. Way more than people would think of.

I’d even go as far as saying that on similar timescale, the Romans invented less.

[JAAJ]

If you destroy more than you learn, you cannot become technologically advanced or superior to other civilizations.
Europe went into a Dark Age because more was destroyed than adopted and improved.
The Romans clearly learned and adopted more than they destroyed.

@Dr_Manhattan

From the Metric system and others, France created and discovered a lot during the medieval period and Renaissance. Way more than people would think of.

That would be interesting to look at.
How much did the French invent compared to other nations.
I am aware of at least a hundred of famous French inventors, scientists, artists, doctors, philosophers, thinkers, architects, musicians…
The French are definitely in the Top 5 here historically.

[Dr_Manhattan]

@JAAJ

Europe went into a Dark Age because more was destroyed than adopted and improved.

As much as I love the Roman Empire that sht got corrupt to epic levels and was already regressing, it folded like a house of cards.

And if it wasn’t for European help and Christian solidarity with the stigma of slaying fellow Christians. The Byzantine would have folded much faster.

Btw, I think they will renovate the coliseum

[Vishal]

@Dr_Manhattan

My beard is ready for the Jihad

Jihad???

[JAAJ]

I agree.
I believe the Roman (Western) Empire collapsed for these main reasons:

• Inflation of their currency
• Feminism and refusal of young Roman men to create families
• Thinning out of the army with non-Romans
• Too many borders to protect at the same time
• Christian dogma replacing religious freedom

@Dr_Manhattan

Btw, I think they will renovate the coliseum

Very nice

[Dr_Manhattan]

All empires fall the same way, don’t they.

We’re watching one imploding right now

They are due for a comeback before the final fall

[Srboslav]

facial wig hahaha

[SoulStar33]

@Dr_Manhattan

They also attacked disparate tribes, not countries of similar technological level.

Greek Powers and Carthage were the Superpowers of the Mediterranean, quite advanced for their time and Rome conquered them both; I have not read the whole discussion, gonna do it later; France was a Powerful Kingdom throughout Middle Ages, yet the English almost conquered them, but overall, after the fall of the Western Rome, the Franks conquered pretty much anything in Western Europe (minus Iberia) and then France was born out of Charlemagnes Legacy, a Fierce Kingdom, later a Mighty Empire; I’m not a history buff (I watch some documentaries, I read a few articles here and there), but I would put the Roman Civilization/Roman Republic and Empire as the Greatest, at least in the Western World, at least until the Renaissance or maybe even up to the Industrial Age, in some aspects.

Edit: gonna read your conversation a little bit later.