Empire -- Ancient History Encyclopedia

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Timeline

2334 BC - 2279 BC

Sargon of Akkad (the Great) reigns over Mesopotamia and thus creates the world's first empire.
1504 BC - 1492 BC

Egyptian empire reaches greatest extent under Tuthmosis I.
1500 BC

Egyptian empire extends to the Euphrates.
1350 BC - 1250 BC

The Hittite empire is at its peak.
188 BC

Maximum extent of the Pergamon Empire after Apamea peace.
12 Jul 100 BC - 15 Mar 44 BC

Life of Gaius Julius Caesar, founder of the Roman Empire.

Definition

“Supreme and extensive political dominion; esp. that exercised by an 'emperor’ (in the earlier sense) or by a sovereign state over its dependencies. Paramount influence, absolute sway, supreme command or control. Owing partly to historical circumstances, and partly to the sense of the etymological connexion between the two words, 'empire’ has always had the specific sense 'rule or territory of an Emperor’ as well as the wider meaning which it derives from its etymology: Latin, imperium, related to imperare, 'to command’, whence imperator, 'Emperor’.” (Oxford English Dictionary, Volume III, Oxford University Press, 1933).

Examples of Empires in the ancient world include those of Sumeria, Babylonia, Assyria, that of the Hittites, the Egyptian, the Persian, the Macedonian and, most famously, the Roman.

Written by JPryst.