this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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Rough Roman Memes
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The extent of largest empire goes up over time, which makes sense given that we started with no persistent large states at all. Those are all much later than Rome, so it's not really a fair comparison. Bigger than it and earlier, you have the Achaemenid Persians, Alexander the Great, the Han dynasties, and apparently the Xiongnu which may have just been an earlier iteration of the Hun empire. (The Mongol empire characteristically knocked it out of the park, of course, remaining the biggest until the late 19th century, although TBF it was pretty low density)
Looking at the population list, it's just in competition with Han, which is allowed because that's basically the Pacific version of Rome. The Roman Empire was built around ~~an enclosed sea~~ a Latin lake so it's not super surprising it would be lean on dry landmass. After they go nobody comes close by population share for most of a millennia.
Another good proxy is the largest city. Rome was definitely the biggest throughout the Empire period. After that China takes the lead again, with occasional breaks for Muslims in various places, including Merv which I hadn't even heard of before I read this article for the first time.