How Large Was the Largest Ancient Empire?
How Large Was the Largest Ancient Empire?Answer: When referring to Ancient/Classical History, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that Rome wasn’t the only country with an empire and that Augustus wasn’t the only empire-builder. Anthropologist Carla Sinopoli says empires tend to be associated with single individuals, especially — among the ancient empires — Sargon of Akkad, Chin Shih-huang of China, Asoka of India, and Augustus of the Roman Empire; however, there are many empires that are not so linked. Sinopoli builds a composite definition of an empire as a “territorially expansive and incorporative kind of state, involving relationships in which one state exercises control over other sociopolitical entities…. The diverse polities and communities that constitute an empire typically retain some degree of autonomy….” The question here, though, is not what an empire is, although it’s important to keep that in mind, but which and what size was the largest empire. Rein Taagepera, wh
