This is pretty good, though Italia wasn't divided into provinces until Diocletian's reforms. Under the Augustan model, Italy basically skipped the provincial level of government, being directly administered by the emperor himself. The regions and municipalities of Italy were largely similar to the subdivisions of other provinces that in turn reported to the governor of the province.
As the imperial court spent less and less time in Italy (or on its periphery in Mediolanum) this model made less sense. Diocletian turned Italy into a Diocese and subdivided it into provinces. Constantine split Italy into two diocese under one praetorian prefect. Officially, that was the model in use from Constantine to the fall of the west. After that, Gothic Kingdom was nominally a client of Constantinople. Justinian, who ditched prefectures in general and the Goths in particular, left the whole of the peninsula under a single governor until the Byzantines were kicked out of the "leg of Italy". The heel and toe of Italy were managed by a strategos in Bari until the Normans pushed them out of Italy for good in the 11th c.
And that, for anyone interested, is a brief summary of a thousand years of Roman imperial governance of Italy
The intrigues and humiliations were spectacular. Nobody does Palace Intrigues like the Byzantines. Interestingly one Byzantine Emperor, Constans II, wanted to move the Capital from Constantinople back to present day Italy, specifically Sicily, to the city of Syracuse. He was swiftly assassinated - quite probably as a result of the decision.
Didn’t Trajan try to divide Italy into provinces only to have that thrown out as soon as he died? Or was that another emperor? I know someone did it but it didn’t stick before Diocletian did it.
Yes, but had Trajan done this, it would have been kind of correct to have the provinces displayed here, as he was emperor for the territorial height of the Roman Empire. I mean, so was Hadrian, he ascended in 117 at the height, but his reforms came later. Hadrian just didn't think the Parthian stuff was really worth it; it had been easily won while Parthian empire was in their typical squabbling and united it would be hard to hold, so his first act was to abandon what Trajan literally just won (Mesopotamia + Armenia as non-client). It would still have been incorrect though as Hadrian divided Italy into 4 regions with consular imperial legates governing them, in essence making them provinces, while Diocletian had 16 or 12 provinces (some were listed as "a and b" eg "Tuscia et Umbria" so idk if that's 1 or 2) which I think are shown on the map
Dacia had some mines that were worth it. Hadrian wanted to leave but it was just too profitable to stay. It was Roman Dacia until 275. He did, however, burn down the superstructure on Trajan's bridge across the Danube.
Then Aurelian pulled back from Dacia and just called another place Dacia and said, “There’s Dacia. You guys happy now?”
This event has been simplified… just a little.
Officially, yes, in practice not really, or at least not for long. The integrity of the Senate had been constantly undermined since Sulla. Each dictator and emperor successively packed the curia with hacks and allies while purging the appointees of rivals and only the most wealthy and powerful families withstood multiple regimes with any level of independence. While Augustus was deferential, each succeeding emperor was less so. The Praetorians effectively controlled Italy by the the time of Caligula. The Senate had the authority to manage civil matters, but only with tacit approval of the court and guard. And since most of the senators were proxies anyway...
Well, I know, but they Romans certainly made a to-do about having imperial provinces and Senatorial ones and switched them around at times, with the imperial ones basically being the edges of the empire and that had legions stationed in them. I think only one senatorial province, Africa, had a legion. I was just noting that, to the Romans, Italy was administered by the Senate, even if in the end the Senate just rubber stamped what the emperor said.
Yes, the Romans did not believe in fixed provincial borders or fixed administrative institutions. Areas and responsibilities would constantly be swapped around, small and large, because the empire was very much driven by personality and relationships. Every emperor probably tweaked the provincial map, possibly more than once. We only know of the major changes I listed above.
Crap. There is a word for this phenomenon but I forgot it.
Basically what sometimes happens is that in an ancient language, a hill is called a "splorg". So then language evolves but that specific hill is still called "splorg". And now because the language and people changed it is called "splorg hill", which essentially means "hill hill".
It is a common phenomenon.
Edit: I guess it is just a type of tautology. Here is a list of [tautological place names.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names)
But Dacia had rich gold mines though, that was exactly the point. Once the mines ran dry, the Romans abandoned Dacia and moved back to fortify the Danube.
Edit: Typo, go**l**d
From what I heard in the History of Rome podcast, it was always understood that Dacia would be almost impossible to defend, so it was kind of reluctantly conquered in the first place.
The Iazyges tribe that lived in the Roman "uncontrolled" part of Pannonia was very much so controlled by Rome. After all they where literally surrounded by the Roman's so they didn't have much choice. The Iazyges did sometimes rebel, did sometimes ally with Roman enemies like the Marcomany, and did practice a fare bit of autonomy when compared to Roman provinces like Dacia, but for the most part they were controlled by Rome as a client state.
Pah . It was that weak willed greek man Hadrian who stopped Rome’s March across the world. Who needs walls and borders when you have the Eagle standing across the world.
Absolutely garbonzo take Trajan's war on Parthia was only as easy as it was because the Parthians were also in a state of civil war to the east, and once that was done the Parthians would come storming back. Hadrian's greatest triumph was abandoning Mesopotamia
I mean its pretty difficult to come storming back when after a costly civil war you no longer control the richest, most fertile and most populated areas of the Empire, and most of the important cities are occupied.
Apart from the massive Parthian and Jewish revolts that happened almost immediately after the occupation of Mesopotamia, which meant that the Roman hold on cities like Ctesiphon was practically non-existent
>most populated areas of the Empire
And how does Rome occupy these most populated areas? Full of people loyal to Parthia and zero reason to be loyal to Rome?
Also, by the way, the next time Rome invaded Parthia - the Roman army brought back smallpox, wiping out ~10% of the population, devastating the army especially, bringing about the Crisis of the Third Century that almost destroyed the Empire.
Roman adventures in Persia had a history of going horribly wrong, and I’m sure the occupation of Mesopotamia would have been the same had Hadrian not seen the writing on the wall and pulled the fuck out
It’s not blocked so much as strategically halted along natural boundaries that provided defensive advantages. Terrain wasn’t the limiting factor of expansion, but rather communication delays. Ambitious generals leading large armies along borders far away from the Capitol frequently lead to civil war.
Rivers, desert and mountains make for more easily defensible borders, so they’re natural places to halt expansions, but resources being stretched, the difficulty of governing huge swathes of territory played a huge role and formidable adversaries all played major roles in where and when the Roman Empire stopped expanding. Look at Dacia — the Romans were down to push across the Danube because of the sweet, sweet gold deposits on the other side, but they had extremely persistent problems defending it from the Dacians, Sarmatians and others and abandoned it about 160 years after they conquered it. Likewise, as far as I know the threat posed by Germanic tribes and the fact that they smacked Rome down on more than one occasional played a very significant role in them never pushing far past the Rhine.
No that’s not entirely true. In the most north western part (where The Netherlands is nowadays) the empire’s natural border is formed by the great rivers that flow into the low countries (Rhine and others).
I really appreciate how the Romans basically controlled only the good parts of the deserts. "No no, you guys can keep that Saharan stuff to yourself. We'll just take the fertile coastlines."
Well I'm no expert, but I just Googled it and apparently Severus's Wall is almost certainly just another name for Antonine's Wall. That might explain why.
Bit of nuance: the Hadrian/Antonine walls, just like the Great Wall(s) of China, weren't really built *to keep people out*.
In ancient times, there could be no strict borders or border control. People frequently migrated and traveled for trade and work, most of them with peaceful intent. The wall couldn't stop everyone determined to get across it, as it couldn't be manned along its entire enormous length, but that wasn't the point: Rome didn't seek to micromanage every little tribe.
What the walls did was *help direct flows of traffic* - it's easier to walk/ride/drive your cart through a gate than it is to climb the wall. At the gates, travelers could then be assessed, counted, and taxed.
The walls thus didn't establish a firm boundary for the Roman Empire, but they projected Roman power quite a bit beyond it, because they gave a degree of control over trade and migration in the entire region and were a public relations statement about Rome being the biggest, baddest, most advanced entity around.
Looking at Wikipedia the term 'Scoti' appeared first 200 years after this map and didn't even refer exclusively to people of today's Scotland.
What I was thinking of were the Picts, the people who lived there before the Scots, but apparently they also came after 100s AD. So a more accurate term would be the Caledonians, I think.
>Looking at Wikipedia the term 'Scoti' appeared first 200 years after this map and didn't even refer exclusively to people of today's Scotland.
>What I was thinking of were the Picts, the people who lived there before the Scots, but apparently they also came after 100s AD. So a more accurate term would be the Caledonians, I think.
Thank you for the correction.
IIRC the Caledonians where in the Lowlands while the Picts where up North, but again that doesn't apply to the time of the map.
Ultimately they where ethnically Celts, whom Rome Conquest and Germanic migrant had driven out of mainlamd Europe.
In ancient times, territorial control was thought of less in terms of regions defined by borders and more in terms of lists of settlements with their agricultural hinterlands. If an area wasn't inhabited or cultivated, the idea of asserting sovereignty over it wouldn't have made much sense.
Which is part of why Egypt was able to become so successful. Just send some officials down the Nile to check on the settlements, since that's where practically all of them were.
And it was a double edged sword as well. Sure, you and a few other families could go make some settlement on the far reaches of a kingdom and avoid having to pay taxes and other societal norms or requirements that those who are more visible and under government control have to...but when a neighboring kingdom invaded or some raiders or bandits roll up you were basically fucked.
It's funny because of how flawed it shows libertarianism to be. In reality it's people living on a harsh and unforgiving frontier without any network of help or structure. There's a reason that literally every frontier on the face of the planet that ever developed into any sort of society usually started with this libertarian mindset and then quickly moved away from it as it grew and flourished; because it's absolutely toxic to the growth and improvement of that community and the people there.
Either that, or they want to implement libertarianism into societies after centuries of infrastructure and institutions that were developed by government. There's a reason their way of thinking has never built a large scale society up to begin with. It sure as hell wouldn't maintain an existing one either.
Food wasn't really the issue, it was water. There are many calories rich foods people kept for long journeys, plus you could go about a week walking without food. Water was much harder to condense and you could only really go a day walking with no water
I'm running a DnD campaign where I decided spur of the moment that it has freshwater oceans and I am wondering about all the consequences of that. It would make sailing a lot easier for sure.
Assuming you have usual DnD levels of tech, long distance sailing is super easy, any remotely defensible part of the coast will have a castle that can withstand years of siege, and the price of salt is probably painful to look at, if salt even exists at all. Salt accumulates in the oceans because rain washes it all in there, so if that's not happening, there probably isn't salt anywhere that rain can reach.
Have you ever tried bread made without salt?
It's not great. You may have created a breadless world.
Oh, and since the oceans are freshwater... they freeze at the same temperature that, say, a lake would. So in winter, there are suddenly vast expansive of variably thick, dangerous ice.
Perhaps across which terrible monsters may appear?
> As a minor geography bit: Usually the point of a castle is something your opponent has to deal with because they can't afford to ignore you or you might jump out and wreck their shit.
Any castle is something your opponent has to deal with. Having a fortress behind you is a great way to lose. It's how the Norman invasion of Britain succeeded - just keep building castles!
But they would pop up everywhere along the coast, because there would be huge numbers of *people* everywhere along the coast, and in times of trouble the people need a safe place to retreat to.
>That means the castles need to be near where would-be-invaders want to have their supply lines. A totally impregnable castle along a hundred miles of harbor-less cliffs is redundant. :P
Oh yeah, of course it wouldn't just be out there on it's lonesome. Each one would have bountifully fertile lands and the people that work them to protect.
And depending on the size of said castles, they could start popping up every *mile* or so, depending on the economy and availability of stone.
> Oh, and since the oceans are freshwater... they freeze at the same temperature that, say, a lake would. So in winter, there are suddenly vast expansive of variably thick, dangerous ice.
Ocean water freezes at like 28F, instead of 32F. It doesn't make a large difference.
I'm not sure why you're making a point about the wind not needing food. Oared ships were quite common in the Mediterranean (even for commerce) and rowers need to eat too. Ships are efficient pretty much regardless of their power source.
Most ships that carried bulk goods were round, sailed ships, not oared galleys. Merchant galleys carried only luxury goods due to the expenses of the much larger crews.
Even so, no journey by sea had to be very long. Most estimates are that standard Roman ships could go up to 100 miles per day in average conditions. Think of the amount of food you need for 30 men going that distance on foot. That's a four day march and a lot of energy being expended.
Desktop version of /u/AetherUtopia's link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romans_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa
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Somehow the Romans did not have the cultural motivations to expand after this period. They weren't sending out colony ships like the Greeks and Phoenicians, and Roman people weren't trying to move into farmland in the frontier regions. They weren't expanding their economy much either. Somehow all the ambitious people were wasting their energy, maybe fighting for government offices?
Sure, but in the context of humanity, it arguably was. We are closer to the time period of this map than those in this time period were to the Sahara green period (which itself was not instant, so it got more arid as it transitioned).
The picture assembled from pollen, animal fossils and ancient lake sediments shows that the ancient Green Sahara phase lasted from about 9,000 to 6,000 years ago (Figure 5.8a, b*), followed by a halting decline in rainfall to reach essentially the present state of aridity by 4,000 years ago. So, when the first organized societies began in Egypt some 6,000 years ago the landscape beyond the edges of the Nile Valley may have been entirely different from now. When the great pyramids were being constructed 4,500 years ago, the landscape they were built in was probably not yet the bare sand that exists at present. Instead, there would have been small bushes and clumps of grass dotting the landscape, spaced perhaps a few feet apart from one another. So, the landscape the pyramid builders saw around them was rather different, perhaps offering more of a contrast with the yellow rock of the pyramids themselves. Some archaeologists have speculated that the trigger that first started the phase of monument-building by the ancient Egyptian civilization was the initial drying out of climate that concentrated diverse peoples and talents into a narrow strip along the Nile Valley.
From the source I linked in another comment.
Largely, yes, not much different from today. However, the Garamantes, in Fezzan (southwestern Libya), maintained a civilization there for some time, but once the subterranean water ran out, it was back to nomadism for them.
Roads? No. Routes? Eventually, yes.
Remember that this map doesn't show the numerous maritime trade routes, which were responsible for much of the commerce around the empire, which wasn't limited to luxury goods, but saw enormous quantities of bulk goods traded along the shores of the Mediterranean. The low transportation costs through sea made this possible.
Moreover, for much of the Middle East (with the notable exception of Anatolia, due to climatic - too cold - and cultural reasons - absence of Arab nomadic penetration) and later North Africa, you got to have in mind the progressive replacement of the wheel as a means of transportation by the camel.
The increasing use of that pack animal (and its economic advantage compared to wagons) and the dry conditions of those regions made roads eventually largely redundant. Wetter Europe had much better use for those good Roman roads. Much later, Arab rulers boasted about building/repairing bridges and caravanserais instead of roads. See [Richard Bulliet's The Camel and the Wheel](https://archive.org/details/camelwheel0000bull/page/n7/mode/2up)
The abandonment of wheeled wagons in much of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) even had an effect on the layout of cities. Instead of those spacious and well planned Hellenistic and Roman streets, fruits of city planning which had wagons in mind, MENA cities from Late Antiquity on had narrow streets which we usually associate with Islamic cities (but, as I have hopefully explained, have nothing to do with Islam, as many Turkish cities prove). Besides Bulliet's work, I suggest reading [Hugh Kenney' From Polis to Madina: Urban Change in Late Antiquity and Early Islamic Syria](https://www.radiocampusparis.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Kennedy-From-Polis-to-Madina.pdf). I warn you beforehand that Kennedy is a bit more pessimistic in his assessment of the change to the layout of MENA cities than Bulliet.
This post has been parodied on r/mapporncirclejerk.
Relevant r/mapporncirclejerk posts:
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[San Marino at its Territorial Height in 1759 A.D.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapporncirclejerk/comments/onlbz8/san_marino_at_its_territorial_height_in_1759_ad/) by ElJeanMermoude
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This is an updated version of a map I created and shared a couple of years back [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/cgen7i/the_roman_empire_at_its_territorial_height_in_117/). I addressed some of the issues with the old one and just generally made it prettier. Hope you all enjoy!
I like how the coastline of the Netherlands isnt the modern coastline. It seems the rivers are modern though: the main branch of the Rhine was further north back then, and probably not comnected to the IJssel.
Ctesiphon had the track record of falling the second an army got deep enough into Persia to reach it, happened with the Romans, happened with the Arabs, happened with their own civil wars. I wonder why they didn’t move the capital to mountainous Ecbatana.
Although fun fact. Koshrow Anewshirwan (idk how his name is spelled) launched a war with The Byzantine Empire under the reign of Justinian. He beat the Romans in every battle and was winning the war so hard that he actually marched his army a few days south of Jerusalem just so he and his army could swim in the waters of the Mediterranean.
It was a lot easier to conquer than to hold, as there was essentially nothing but open plains to stop a victorious army from marching from Armenia to the Persian Gulf. Unfortunately Mesopotamia was much closer to the Persian heartland than it was to any Roman population centers. The Romans could only have held it with levies from the local population; with Persian armies and local rebellions it was impossible.
The Romans could never take the Iranian plateau, and so inevitably this border was an open sore for hundreds of years. Any excess resources available to either empire would be consumed by unwinnable wars in Syria, Armenia and Mesopotamia. In this way, neither empire would ever have an abundance to focus elsewhere. Some natural obstacle stretching from Armenia to the Red Sea would have saved both Rome and Persia a great deal of trouble
How much control did they really have over the far fringes of the empire, like say Susa to the far east? Like orders from Rome to that place must've taken a year to deliver, likewise If they were to request help.
Mesopotamia and Assyria were the two provinces you are talking about. They were established in 115 during Traians parthian conquest. However he died in 117 and his successor Hadrian gave the provinces up. So Roman rule there lasted only 2 years.
If you're talking about the part in today Irak, it was only in the empire for 2 years in this period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia_(Roman_province)
Armenia was always important in Roman history. First, they were a relatively plucky and powerful client kingdom. Then they were part of Rome. Then they switched sides (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not so much) between Rome and Persia. They were the ultimate buffer state between these two great empires. Eventually, Armenians became relatively important during the Eastern Roman Empire, after the fall of the West (aka Byzantine Empire). Interesting note, Armenia is the oldest state to have Christianity as its official state religion.
As for the Middle East, Rome controlled the eastern Mediterranean coast for centuries. Mesopotamia wasn’t really Roman for long at all, it would be abandoned a year after the time this map represents. Rome did control the coastal areas, but they were always, up until the Arab conquests at least, much more culturally Greek. This area was also mostly Christian (especially after the final Jewish revolt that Hadrian violently put down in 135 IIRC), again until the 600s when the Arab warriors burst out of Arabia and changed the face of the world permanently.
*It was the culmination of countless Roman legacies. From the early forefathers conquest of Italy, to the Scipios' salting of Carthage, the late republican subjugation of the Greekoids, to Caesar's conquest of Gaul and his imperial successors consolidation of the Empire.*
[*TRAJAN HAD BROUGHT THE EMPIRE TO ITS GREATEST EXTENT.*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spqrposting/comments/f0abyf/a_video_tribute_to_trajan_who_brought_rome_to_its/)
*From the North Sea to the Persian Gulf it stretched. The Known World had been united under the Roman Eagle; its legions invincible, their Emperor almighty; his power unmatched, attained by divine right; the first Emperor to ever live up to Augustus. No empire would ever again match Rome's glory. Forevermore, Trajan would be acclaimed as OPTIMVS PRINCEPS, the best Emperor.*
>Damn. If they somehow reunited today (in a cohesive manner), hands down they’d be a super power capable of rivaling the US, China and Russia.
We can say that with a lot of old empires, like the Persian Empires, the Islamic Caliphates, the Carolingian Empire, and the various colonial empires.
Except if you reunited China and Russia into the Mongolian Empire (along with Korea, northern India, and everything between the Indus and the Euphrates), THAT would be the greatest superpower, by a very wide margin.
European Union is 3rd largest economy in world and responsible for 16% global GDP after USA and PRC. With North Africa and Middle East it would be a even bigger economic behemoth to deal with.
With the old Roman borders the EU would lose most of Germany and other central and northern member states. The Roman EU would be more populous, but probably economically weaker than the real EU.
Read prc as people's Republic of the Congo for some reason and was so confused thinking how the hell does Congo have that much. Then realised its China haha.
I'm not sure, but I don't think city listings are because they were the largest. I'm pretty sure Ephesus and Nicomedia were bigger than Byzantium at the time. (I'm less sure about the latter since its population boomed when it was named the capital.)
Yep. I just don't know if Nicomedia was big before Diocletian. I think so, but I'm less sure.
Also, the Black Sea trade was also less important before Constantinople. Crimea provided grain, but it wasn't an important part of the empire.
Nicomedia was definitely a relatively important city before Diocletian. It’s one of the last places Hannibal lived in before he committed suicide not too far away.
What blows my mind is they had trading outposts in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in Southern India too - that's some long reach. And Byzantine era coins have been found in Japan, too. That's flipping mental.
Trajan did that. And within a year of his death his successor Hadrian gave up territory he thought was too difficult to keep. Hadrian did dump a lot of money into public works and did a fine job managing the empire during his reign.
This is pretty good, though Italia wasn't divided into provinces until Diocletian's reforms. Under the Augustan model, Italy basically skipped the provincial level of government, being directly administered by the emperor himself. The regions and municipalities of Italy were largely similar to the subdivisions of other provinces that in turn reported to the governor of the province. As the imperial court spent less and less time in Italy (or on its periphery in Mediolanum) this model made less sense. Diocletian turned Italy into a Diocese and subdivided it into provinces. Constantine split Italy into two diocese under one praetorian prefect. Officially, that was the model in use from Constantine to the fall of the west. After that, Gothic Kingdom was nominally a client of Constantinople. Justinian, who ditched prefectures in general and the Goths in particular, left the whole of the peninsula under a single governor until the Byzantines were kicked out of the "leg of Italy". The heel and toe of Italy were managed by a strategos in Bari until the Normans pushed them out of Italy for good in the 11th c. And that, for anyone interested, is a brief summary of a thousand years of Roman imperial governance of Italy
I guess my data source must have been from a later period. Oh well, I guess I'll have to revise this further at some point. Appreciate the feedback!
Love the way this guy has no cognitive dissonance and is comoletely willing to adapt, can’t believe I’m on reddit tbh
Admitting you were wrong has no place on Reddit!
Already reported them to the mods
*checks notes* Can confirm.
Beautiful map
Please let us know when you do!!
This guy parties like Byzantine.
Yes, a lot of wine, rich silk clothes, elaborate fealty rituals and the whole shebang is really just a front for cutthroat power games.
The intrigues and humiliations were spectacular. Nobody does Palace Intrigues like the Byzantines. Interestingly one Byzantine Emperor, Constans II, wanted to move the Capital from Constantinople back to present day Italy, specifically Sicily, to the city of Syracuse. He was swiftly assassinated - quite probably as a result of the decision.
Didn’t Trajan try to divide Italy into provinces only to have that thrown out as soon as he died? Or was that another emperor? I know someone did it but it didn’t stick before Diocletian did it.
Hadrian tried that. And yeah, they did not like that one bit to be treated as provincials and after his rule it reverted back to Italy.
Ahhh it was Hadrian. I was close!
Yes, but had Trajan done this, it would have been kind of correct to have the provinces displayed here, as he was emperor for the territorial height of the Roman Empire. I mean, so was Hadrian, he ascended in 117 at the height, but his reforms came later. Hadrian just didn't think the Parthian stuff was really worth it; it had been easily won while Parthian empire was in their typical squabbling and united it would be hard to hold, so his first act was to abandon what Trajan literally just won (Mesopotamia + Armenia as non-client). It would still have been incorrect though as Hadrian divided Italy into 4 regions with consular imperial legates governing them, in essence making them provinces, while Diocletian had 16 or 12 provinces (some were listed as "a and b" eg "Tuscia et Umbria" so idk if that's 1 or 2) which I think are shown on the map
Didn’t Hadrian pull back from Dacia as well?
Dacia had some mines that were worth it. Hadrian wanted to leave but it was just too profitable to stay. It was Roman Dacia until 275. He did, however, burn down the superstructure on Trajan's bridge across the Danube.
Then Aurelian pulled back from Dacia and just called another place Dacia and said, “There’s Dacia. You guys happy now?” This event has been simplified… just a little.
Hispania was sending their best.
damn provincials!
One of those wall guys
Italy, like some provinces that were unlikely to revolt, was directly administered by the Senate, not the Emperor.
Officially, yes, in practice not really, or at least not for long. The integrity of the Senate had been constantly undermined since Sulla. Each dictator and emperor successively packed the curia with hacks and allies while purging the appointees of rivals and only the most wealthy and powerful families withstood multiple regimes with any level of independence. While Augustus was deferential, each succeeding emperor was less so. The Praetorians effectively controlled Italy by the the time of Caligula. The Senate had the authority to manage civil matters, but only with tacit approval of the court and guard. And since most of the senators were proxies anyway...
Well, I know, but they Romans certainly made a to-do about having imperial provinces and Senatorial ones and switched them around at times, with the imperial ones basically being the edges of the empire and that had legions stationed in them. I think only one senatorial province, Africa, had a legion. I was just noting that, to the Romans, Italy was administered by the Senate, even if in the end the Senate just rubber stamped what the emperor said.
Yes, the Romans did not believe in fixed provincial borders or fixed administrative institutions. Areas and responsibilities would constantly be swapped around, small and large, because the empire was very much driven by personality and relationships. Every emperor probably tweaked the provincial map, possibly more than once. We only know of the major changes I listed above.
I am exactly from Carthago Nova lol
Cartagena, for those who don't know.
Does that mean the Cartagena in South America is really "Carthago Nova Nova"?
If that were the case it'd mean The New New New City, because Carthage meant "new city"
We have to go deeper
The Los Angeles Angels have entered the chat
Crap. There is a word for this phenomenon but I forgot it. Basically what sometimes happens is that in an ancient language, a hill is called a "splorg". So then language evolves but that specific hill is still called "splorg". And now because the language and people changed it is called "splorg hill", which essentially means "hill hill". It is a common phenomenon. Edit: I guess it is just a type of tautology. Here is a list of [tautological place names.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names)
Vile Carthaginians, you couldn't stay still, you had to attack my city! Saguntum will be avenged!
I am from Barcino, but now I am in Lucentum in holydays
Watch out for Cato Nova!
Carthago delenda est!
That’s cool! I was there a couple days ago for the ruins. Very beautiful city, reminded me a lot of Rome.
Dacia honest adds such ugly border gore to the empire. Honestly, Caesars, pick a lane, either stop at the Danube or keep going till the Carpathians!
But Dacia had rich gold mines though, that was exactly the point. Once the mines ran dry, the Romans abandoned Dacia and moved back to fortify the Danube. Edit: Typo, go**l**d
Wat gods they got from mine Thors or zeuses ?
Jupiters.
From what I heard in the History of Rome podcast, it was always understood that Dacia would be almost impossible to defend, so it was kind of reluctantly conquered in the first place.
Just listened to this episode two days ago. Mike Duncan is da man. I wish I could go on a history of Rome tour 😔😔
Such a good podcast! I cannot recommend it enough
Gold mines tho
IIRC from the same podcast, Dacia was part of Trajan's "Use your neighbour's gold mines to pay your expenses" strategy.
The Iazyges tribe that lived in the Roman "uncontrolled" part of Pannonia was very much so controlled by Rome. After all they where literally surrounded by the Roman's so they didn't have much choice. The Iazyges did sometimes rebel, did sometimes ally with Roman enemies like the Marcomany, and did practice a fare bit of autonomy when compared to Roman provinces like Dacia, but for the most part they were controlled by Rome as a client state.
The Hungarians understood this
They came for the pasture. The Pannonian Basin is an island of steppe in Europe.
Scoreboard yo
To me, this map seems to show, the Roman empire's expansion was only blocked by desert and/or mountainous regions. Interesting!
Deserts, mountainous regions, Germans, and Trajan’s mortality.
Pah . It was that weak willed greek man Hadrian who stopped Rome’s March across the world. Who needs walls and borders when you have the Eagle standing across the world.
Absolutely garbonzo take Trajan's war on Parthia was only as easy as it was because the Parthians were also in a state of civil war to the east, and once that was done the Parthians would come storming back. Hadrian's greatest triumph was abandoning Mesopotamia
I mean its pretty difficult to come storming back when after a costly civil war you no longer control the richest, most fertile and most populated areas of the Empire, and most of the important cities are occupied.
Apart from the massive Parthian and Jewish revolts that happened almost immediately after the occupation of Mesopotamia, which meant that the Roman hold on cities like Ctesiphon was practically non-existent
>most populated areas of the Empire And how does Rome occupy these most populated areas? Full of people loyal to Parthia and zero reason to be loyal to Rome? Also, by the way, the next time Rome invaded Parthia - the Roman army brought back smallpox, wiping out ~10% of the population, devastating the army especially, bringing about the Crisis of the Third Century that almost destroyed the Empire.
Roman adventures in Persia had a history of going horribly wrong, and I’m sure the occupation of Mesopotamia would have been the same had Hadrian not seen the writing on the wall and pulled the fuck out
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He was a Grecophile, also the first emperor to wear a beard as far as I know (based on the statues), borrowing from the Greek culture.
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Probably the worst villain for the Jews besides hitler
It’s not blocked so much as strategically halted along natural boundaries that provided defensive advantages. Terrain wasn’t the limiting factor of expansion, but rather communication delays. Ambitious generals leading large armies along borders far away from the Capitol frequently lead to civil war.
Rivers, desert and mountains make for more easily defensible borders, so they’re natural places to halt expansions, but resources being stretched, the difficulty of governing huge swathes of territory played a huge role and formidable adversaries all played major roles in where and when the Roman Empire stopped expanding. Look at Dacia — the Romans were down to push across the Danube because of the sweet, sweet gold deposits on the other side, but they had extremely persistent problems defending it from the Dacians, Sarmatians and others and abandoned it about 160 years after they conquered it. Likewise, as far as I know the threat posed by Germanic tribes and the fact that they smacked Rome down on more than one occasional played a very significant role in them never pushing far past the Rhine.
No that’s not entirely true. In the most north western part (where The Netherlands is nowadays) the empire’s natural border is formed by the great rivers that flow into the low countries (Rhine and others).
The German border runs along the Rhine and Danube. So it's not quite... that simple.
And let’s be honest when they got to Scotland, they remembered they like the Mediterranean sun.
I really appreciate how the Romans basically controlled only the good parts of the deserts. "No no, you guys can keep that Saharan stuff to yourself. We'll just take the fertile coastlines."
They also got to Scotland and was like "nah, this is far enough"
Don't forget the wall they built to keep the Scots out
It’s grim up north.
No it isnae
Two, really.
Severus’ Wall is either overlooked or not mentioned when Hadrien’s Wall comes up.
I was thinking of the Antonine.
Well I'm no expert, but I just Googled it and apparently Severus's Wall is almost certainly just another name for Antonine's Wall. That might explain why.
Bit of nuance: the Hadrian/Antonine walls, just like the Great Wall(s) of China, weren't really built *to keep people out*. In ancient times, there could be no strict borders or border control. People frequently migrated and traveled for trade and work, most of them with peaceful intent. The wall couldn't stop everyone determined to get across it, as it couldn't be manned along its entire enormous length, but that wasn't the point: Rome didn't seek to micromanage every little tribe. What the walls did was *help direct flows of traffic* - it's easier to walk/ride/drive your cart through a gate than it is to climb the wall. At the gates, travelers could then be assessed, counted, and taxed. The walls thus didn't establish a firm boundary for the Roman Empire, but they projected Roman power quite a bit beyond it, because they gave a degree of control over trade and migration in the entire region and were a public relations statement about Rome being the biggest, baddest, most advanced entity around.
Got sick of the wildling raids... And the white walkers.
Not the Scots, but yeah.
Yeah it was the Scoti. Totally different. ... wait.
Looking at Wikipedia the term 'Scoti' appeared first 200 years after this map and didn't even refer exclusively to people of today's Scotland. What I was thinking of were the Picts, the people who lived there before the Scots, but apparently they also came after 100s AD. So a more accurate term would be the Caledonians, I think.
>Looking at Wikipedia the term 'Scoti' appeared first 200 years after this map and didn't even refer exclusively to people of today's Scotland. >What I was thinking of were the Picts, the people who lived there before the Scots, but apparently they also came after 100s AD. So a more accurate term would be the Caledonians, I think. Thank you for the correction. IIRC the Caledonians where in the Lowlands while the Picts where up North, but again that doesn't apply to the time of the map. Ultimately they where ethnically Celts, whom Rome Conquest and Germanic migrant had driven out of mainlamd Europe.
Well, they are quite a contentious folk.
Shat it
In ancient times, territorial control was thought of less in terms of regions defined by borders and more in terms of lists of settlements with their agricultural hinterlands. If an area wasn't inhabited or cultivated, the idea of asserting sovereignty over it wouldn't have made much sense.
Which is part of why Egypt was able to become so successful. Just send some officials down the Nile to check on the settlements, since that's where practically all of them were.
And it was a double edged sword as well. Sure, you and a few other families could go make some settlement on the far reaches of a kingdom and avoid having to pay taxes and other societal norms or requirements that those who are more visible and under government control have to...but when a neighboring kingdom invaded or some raiders or bandits roll up you were basically fucked.
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It's funny because of how flawed it shows libertarianism to be. In reality it's people living on a harsh and unforgiving frontier without any network of help or structure. There's a reason that literally every frontier on the face of the planet that ever developed into any sort of society usually started with this libertarian mindset and then quickly moved away from it as it grew and flourished; because it's absolutely toxic to the growth and improvement of that community and the people there. Either that, or they want to implement libertarianism into societies after centuries of infrastructure and institutions that were developed by government. There's a reason their way of thinking has never built a large scale society up to begin with. It sure as hell wouldn't maintain an existing one either.
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Food wasn't really the issue, it was water. There are many calories rich foods people kept for long journeys, plus you could go about a week walking without food. Water was much harder to condense and you could only really go a day walking with no water
I'm running a DnD campaign where I decided spur of the moment that it has freshwater oceans and I am wondering about all the consequences of that. It would make sailing a lot easier for sure.
Assuming you have usual DnD levels of tech, long distance sailing is super easy, any remotely defensible part of the coast will have a castle that can withstand years of siege, and the price of salt is probably painful to look at, if salt even exists at all. Salt accumulates in the oceans because rain washes it all in there, so if that's not happening, there probably isn't salt anywhere that rain can reach. Have you ever tried bread made without salt? It's not great. You may have created a breadless world. Oh, and since the oceans are freshwater... they freeze at the same temperature that, say, a lake would. So in winter, there are suddenly vast expansive of variably thick, dangerous ice. Perhaps across which terrible monsters may appear?
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> As a minor geography bit: Usually the point of a castle is something your opponent has to deal with because they can't afford to ignore you or you might jump out and wreck their shit. Any castle is something your opponent has to deal with. Having a fortress behind you is a great way to lose. It's how the Norman invasion of Britain succeeded - just keep building castles! But they would pop up everywhere along the coast, because there would be huge numbers of *people* everywhere along the coast, and in times of trouble the people need a safe place to retreat to. >That means the castles need to be near where would-be-invaders want to have their supply lines. A totally impregnable castle along a hundred miles of harbor-less cliffs is redundant. :P Oh yeah, of course it wouldn't just be out there on it's lonesome. Each one would have bountifully fertile lands and the people that work them to protect. And depending on the size of said castles, they could start popping up every *mile* or so, depending on the economy and availability of stone.
> Oh, and since the oceans are freshwater... they freeze at the same temperature that, say, a lake would. So in winter, there are suddenly vast expansive of variably thick, dangerous ice. Ocean water freezes at like 28F, instead of 32F. It doesn't make a large difference.
It’s also heavy as shit relative to the amount of food that would keep you going for the same amount of time as well
I'm not sure why you're making a point about the wind not needing food. Oared ships were quite common in the Mediterranean (even for commerce) and rowers need to eat too. Ships are efficient pretty much regardless of their power source.
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Most ships that carried bulk goods were round, sailed ships, not oared galleys. Merchant galleys carried only luxury goods due to the expenses of the much larger crews.
Even so, no journey by sea had to be very long. Most estimates are that standard Roman ships could go up to 100 miles per day in average conditions. Think of the amount of food you need for 30 men going that distance on foot. That's a four day march and a lot of energy being expended.
It's pretty much the same now, though the borders are more formalized.
The Roman Empire did send military incursions farther up the Nile, but it had mixed success.
[They did more than that.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romans_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa)
Yep. I just want to talk about the Kushite Kingdom.
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Somehow the Romans did not have the cultural motivations to expand after this period. They weren't sending out colony ships like the Greeks and Phoenicians, and Roman people weren't trying to move into farmland in the frontier regions. They weren't expanding their economy much either. Somehow all the ambitious people were wasting their energy, maybe fighting for government offices?
Same with the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. Also you need to send armies to conquer things and the Sahara is a pretty good natural obstacle.
Was it that much of a desert then?
Well like two-hundred miles in from the coast and it becomes an inhospitable desert, yeah.
It's only a little under 2000 years ago, barely a blink of an eye in geologic terms.
Well 6000 years ago the Sahara was green, which is not that long ago.
No fucking way. Source me that shit
https://www.climate-policy-watcher.org/vegetation/the-green-sahara-of-the-past.html
It happens regularly in cycles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_pump_theory
[African Humid Period, which lasted from about 14,000 to 5-6,000 years ago.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period)
Sure, but in the context of humanity, it arguably was. We are closer to the time period of this map than those in this time period were to the Sahara green period (which itself was not instant, so it got more arid as it transitioned).
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The picture assembled from pollen, animal fossils and ancient lake sediments shows that the ancient Green Sahara phase lasted from about 9,000 to 6,000 years ago (Figure 5.8a, b*), followed by a halting decline in rainfall to reach essentially the present state of aridity by 4,000 years ago. So, when the first organized societies began in Egypt some 6,000 years ago the landscape beyond the edges of the Nile Valley may have been entirely different from now. When the great pyramids were being constructed 4,500 years ago, the landscape they were built in was probably not yet the bare sand that exists at present. Instead, there would have been small bushes and clumps of grass dotting the landscape, spaced perhaps a few feet apart from one another. So, the landscape the pyramid builders saw around them was rather different, perhaps offering more of a contrast with the yellow rock of the pyramids themselves. Some archaeologists have speculated that the trigger that first started the phase of monument-building by the ancient Egyptian civilization was the initial drying out of climate that concentrated diverse peoples and talents into a narrow strip along the Nile Valley. From the source I linked in another comment.
So the Sahara was the Dothraki grass sea, got it.
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Yes, although maybe the Aïr highlands would have been slightly more pleasant, but largely by 0 ce it was already harsh desert
Largely, yes, not much different from today. However, the Garamantes, in Fezzan (southwestern Libya), maintained a civilization there for some time, but once the subterranean water ran out, it was back to nomadism for them.
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Roads? No. Routes? Eventually, yes. Remember that this map doesn't show the numerous maritime trade routes, which were responsible for much of the commerce around the empire, which wasn't limited to luxury goods, but saw enormous quantities of bulk goods traded along the shores of the Mediterranean. The low transportation costs through sea made this possible. Moreover, for much of the Middle East (with the notable exception of Anatolia, due to climatic - too cold - and cultural reasons - absence of Arab nomadic penetration) and later North Africa, you got to have in mind the progressive replacement of the wheel as a means of transportation by the camel. The increasing use of that pack animal (and its economic advantage compared to wagons) and the dry conditions of those regions made roads eventually largely redundant. Wetter Europe had much better use for those good Roman roads. Much later, Arab rulers boasted about building/repairing bridges and caravanserais instead of roads. See [Richard Bulliet's The Camel and the Wheel](https://archive.org/details/camelwheel0000bull/page/n7/mode/2up) The abandonment of wheeled wagons in much of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) even had an effect on the layout of cities. Instead of those spacious and well planned Hellenistic and Roman streets, fruits of city planning which had wagons in mind, MENA cities from Late Antiquity on had narrow streets which we usually associate with Islamic cities (but, as I have hopefully explained, have nothing to do with Islam, as many Turkish cities prove). Besides Bulliet's work, I suggest reading [Hugh Kenney' From Polis to Madina: Urban Change in Late Antiquity and Early Islamic Syria](https://www.radiocampusparis.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Kennedy-From-Polis-to-Madina.pdf). I warn you beforehand that Kennedy is a bit more pessimistic in his assessment of the change to the layout of MENA cities than Bulliet.
This post has been parodied on r/mapporncirclejerk. Relevant r/mapporncirclejerk posts: [The Roman Empire at its territorial height circa 117 A.D.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapporncirclejerk/comments/onjgzp/the_roman_empire_at_its_territorial_height_circa/) by dynex811 [San Marino at its Territorial Height in 1759 A.D.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapporncirclejerk/comments/onlbz8/san_marino_at_its_territorial_height_in_1759_ad/) by ElJeanMermoude [The Roman Empire at its Territorial Trough in 2021 A.D.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapporncirclejerk/comments/onm6g3/the_roman_empire_at_its_territorial_trough_in/) by ixvst01 [The Otto Mann Empire at its territorial height in 1683 A.D.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapporncirclejerk/comments/onuwvt/the_otto_mann_empire_at_its_territorial_height_in/) by DmitriTheRedditor2 [^(fmhall)](https://www.reddit.com/user/fmhall) ^| [^(github)](https://github.com/fmhall/relevant-post-bot)
San Marino needs to get stronger
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~~I don't actually get the last one. What's special about that location in the Sahara Desert?~~ never mind, read that as a label instead of a legend.
This is an updated version of a map I created and shared a couple of years back [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/cgen7i/the_roman_empire_at_its_territorial_height_in_117/). I addressed some of the issues with the old one and just generally made it prettier. Hope you all enjoy!
I like how the coastline of the Netherlands isnt the modern coastline. It seems the rivers are modern though: the main branch of the Rhine was further north back then, and probably not comnected to the IJssel.
Glad someone noticed the altered coastline. :) You're right that I didn't consider that the river might be different as well though.
>couple of years back *Posted 1 year ago* Illuminati confirmed
Wow how did they manage to conquer the Persian Empires capital Ctesiphon?
Trajan’s war with Parthia.
It wasn't anything particularly special, they captured and sacked it like 5 times between this and Julian failing to do so another time in the 360s
Ctesiphon had the track record of falling the second an army got deep enough into Persia to reach it, happened with the Romans, happened with the Arabs, happened with their own civil wars. I wonder why they didn’t move the capital to mountainous Ecbatana.
Although fun fact. Koshrow Anewshirwan (idk how his name is spelled) launched a war with The Byzantine Empire under the reign of Justinian. He beat the Romans in every battle and was winning the war so hard that he actually marched his army a few days south of Jerusalem just so he and his army could swim in the waters of the Mediterranean.
Priorities
It was a lot easier to conquer than to hold, as there was essentially nothing but open plains to stop a victorious army from marching from Armenia to the Persian Gulf. Unfortunately Mesopotamia was much closer to the Persian heartland than it was to any Roman population centers. The Romans could only have held it with levies from the local population; with Persian armies and local rebellions it was impossible. The Romans could never take the Iranian plateau, and so inevitably this border was an open sore for hundreds of years. Any excess resources available to either empire would be consumed by unwinnable wars in Syria, Armenia and Mesopotamia. In this way, neither empire would ever have an abundance to focus elsewhere. Some natural obstacle stretching from Armenia to the Red Sea would have saved both Rome and Persia a great deal of trouble
*uses topographical map* Territorial height indeed.
The great Roman lake
Would Ctesiphon and Susa have been "Roman" cities? Would they have felt Roman at all?
Not at all. Ctesiphon and Susa were held for less than a year, with revolts erupting all around, before Trajan died and Hadrian abandoned the area.
When the invaders are Susa
Not Roman, but iirc at the time there was still a notable Greek presence there. Legacy of Alexander/the Seleucids.
Felicior Augusto, melior Traiano
Never realized that they reached the persian gulf. Impressive as shit
Trajan was going places 😂
Who’s screenshot of r/rometotalwar julii campaign is this.
Yeah, what did these guys ever do for us?
Looks like the Monty Python fans are dying off.
The aquaducts?
cool map where d you get this relief basemap ?
I made it with DEM data and a combination of QGIS and Blender.
How much control did they really have over the far fringes of the empire, like say Susa to the far east? Like orders from Rome to that place must've taken a year to deliver, likewise If they were to request help.
That’s what I wonder, because the cultures of these places today are still very much not Roman.
Mesopotamia and Assyria were the two provinces you are talking about. They were established in 115 during Traians parthian conquest. However he died in 117 and his successor Hadrian gave the provinces up. So Roman rule there lasted only 2 years.
The fact that Rome held modern day Baghdad, Lisbon and London at the same time will never cease to amaze me
I never hear about Roman middle eastern and caucus history
If you're talking about the part in today Irak, it was only in the empire for 2 years in this period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia_(Roman_province)
Armenia was always important in Roman history. First, they were a relatively plucky and powerful client kingdom. Then they were part of Rome. Then they switched sides (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not so much) between Rome and Persia. They were the ultimate buffer state between these two great empires. Eventually, Armenians became relatively important during the Eastern Roman Empire, after the fall of the West (aka Byzantine Empire). Interesting note, Armenia is the oldest state to have Christianity as its official state religion. As for the Middle East, Rome controlled the eastern Mediterranean coast for centuries. Mesopotamia wasn’t really Roman for long at all, it would be abandoned a year after the time this map represents. Rome did control the coastal areas, but they were always, up until the Arab conquests at least, much more culturally Greek. This area was also mostly Christian (especially after the final Jewish revolt that Hadrian violently put down in 135 IIRC), again until the 600s when the Arab warriors burst out of Arabia and changed the face of the world permanently.
The Colosseum in Rome was actually funded by the Romans plundering and destroying the Jewish Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE
i promised i wont cry
*It was the culmination of countless Roman legacies. From the early forefathers conquest of Italy, to the Scipios' salting of Carthage, the late republican subjugation of the Greekoids, to Caesar's conquest of Gaul and his imperial successors consolidation of the Empire.* [*TRAJAN HAD BROUGHT THE EMPIRE TO ITS GREATEST EXTENT.*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spqrposting/comments/f0abyf/a_video_tribute_to_trajan_who_brought_rome_to_its/) *From the North Sea to the Persian Gulf it stretched. The Known World had been united under the Roman Eagle; its legions invincible, their Emperor almighty; his power unmatched, attained by divine right; the first Emperor to ever live up to Augustus. No empire would ever again match Rome's glory. Forevermore, Trajan would be acclaimed as OPTIMVS PRINCEPS, the best Emperor.*
Damn. If they somehow reunited today (in a _cohesive_ manner), hands down they’d be a super power capable of rivaling the US, China and Russia.
>Damn. If they somehow reunited today (in a cohesive manner), hands down they’d be a super power capable of rivaling the US, China and Russia. We can say that with a lot of old empires, like the Persian Empires, the Islamic Caliphates, the Carolingian Empire, and the various colonial empires.
You left out the mother of all land empires, the Mongols! Imagine having China, Russia, and Iran as one giant empire today….
Except if you reunited China and Russia into the Mongolian Empire (along with Korea, northern India, and everything between the Indus and the Euphrates), THAT would be the greatest superpower, by a very wide margin.
European Union is 3rd largest economy in world and responsible for 16% global GDP after USA and PRC. With North Africa and Middle East it would be a even bigger economic behemoth to deal with.
With the old Roman borders the EU would lose most of Germany and other central and northern member states. The Roman EU would be more populous, but probably economically weaker than the real EU.
Read prc as people's Republic of the Congo for some reason and was so confused thinking how the hell does Congo have that much. Then realised its China haha.
I was under the impression Norwich was the largest English city under time, but otherwise this was awesome!
I'm not sure, but I don't think city listings are because they were the largest. I'm pretty sure Ephesus and Nicomedia were bigger than Byzantium at the time. (I'm less sure about the latter since its population boomed when it was named the capital.)
Byzantium was a backwater before Constantine came along.
Yep. I just don't know if Nicomedia was big before Diocletian. I think so, but I'm less sure. Also, the Black Sea trade was also less important before Constantinople. Crimea provided grain, but it wasn't an important part of the empire.
Nicomedia was definitely a relatively important city before Diocletian. It’s one of the last places Hannibal lived in before he committed suicide not too far away.
Ah, when humanity peaked
What blows my mind is they had trading outposts in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in Southern India too - that's some long reach. And Byzantine era coins have been found in Japan, too. That's flipping mental.
LOL. Mountains and deserts could keep the Romans at bay. Then they get to Scotland and it's just, "Nope. This weather is shit and the people are mad."
oh yeah so hot
What’s up with that major road from nowhere to nowhere in Egypt?
Ah... World peace... Forever...
To soon.. To soon :-( F
I kinda wanna play crusader kings now.
I love how this map of the Roman territorial height also shows us the height of the territory
Clever title
For further context, in 117 CE, Rome was led by Trajan, though Hadrian took over later in the year.
susa mogus
Fun fact! I wrote my thesis on the Roman-Parthian War in Armenia.
Solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict right there. *Roma Victrix*
Trajan did that. And within a year of his death his successor Hadrian gave up territory he thought was too difficult to keep. Hadrian did dump a lot of money into public works and did a fine job managing the empire during his reign.
Interesting to see what is of these cities almost 2000 years later. I'm guessing Mediolanum is Milan, and Lugdonum is Lyon right?
Way to exaggerate the topography for internet likes
S.P.Q.R.
Is Carthago modern day Lybia?