What's your favorite ancient empire?

How far back does “ancient” start in the gist of this question?

@Hypocrisy_Central Ancient refers to the time before the Middle Ages. Basically before the fall of Rome.

Not an empire, but I liked learning about ancient Greece. I don’t have any specific literature to recommend. I just liked learning about in in class.

The Iconian Empire.

Um..

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All of them?

I guess it depends on what you think of as an empire. My most favorite civilisation surely didn’t qualify, since it was hardly feudal. (I love iron age through early medieval Ireland)

It’s a tossup between Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and that’s only because I don’t know enough (yet) about China and Byzantium.

Read all the history!

If you’ll allow something medieval, the Seljuks are fascinating.

And the Olmec, Toltec, Maya..

The Celts

Rome, from 150 BCE to 100 CE.

I studied this period quite a bit in college, and I found it the most interesting. The end of teh Republic, the start of the Caesars and Imperial Rome. The days of Apuleius.

Greeks. Lots of smart guys back then who made a difference.

And they were into doing things naked.

The civilisation of China interests me especially the Tang period around 600 to 900AD. What first got me interested was a book of translations of Chinese poems called “The White Pony”. I liked the Tang poets especially Li Po and Li Shang Lin, Tu Mu and many others. “Poems of the Late Tang” by A C Graham was another one. I liked the attitude these poets had to life. It resonated with me and through the poems I got a sense of life in Imperial China albeit through the eyes of the literary and cultured few.

Egyptian Empire. I love ancient Egyptian culture that is teeming with divine beings (better than modern Gods) and supranatural application in daily activities.

I’ve fascinated by the Egyptians and their knowledge of mathematics. 3000 years ago they know the Earth was round – and calculated its size to within a few %. 2500 years later there were people in Europe still arguing the point. (There are still some loons who insist the Earth is flat.)
Their engineering expertise was fantastic. Satellite imagery has shown the pyramids were laid out with such precision some can be dated to within a few years by knowing the exactly location of the Pole star at the time they were being built. 5000 years ago Thuban was the pole star used by the Egyptians. Due to Earth’s precession and star movement the famous North Star is the one we use now.
The Egyptians used cosmetics and had a basic understanding of chemistry as well.
IMO had they developed a more user friendly form of writing and a more equitable system of wealth ownership and distribution they would have been in power for much longer.

Maybe the island of Lesbos when Sappho lived. Most of the ancient civilizations held women in such inferior positions and enforced slavery so it is hard for me to like them. Perhaps Babylonia although I don’t know much about it.

@Jeruba The purpose of using topics that are key words in the topic thesaurus is that they direct Jellies to your question who have identified those fields as interests. Using your own topics adds interest but doesn’t necessarily aid in directing posters to your Q. Of course, Qs for you doesn’t seem to be working now so it is probably irrelevant.

The Spartans. The Greeks come in a close second.

I am fascinated by the ancient Greeks. I got a graduate degree from an odd college where I read enormous amounts of literature from many different subject areas. Ancient Greek thought was where we started everything from politics to mathematics to literature to history in all our classes. So much began there.

The Gauls
Asterix was cool beans

I too am fascinated with Rome and the transition from Republic to Empire. Though lately I’m fixated on the era of Justinian, the one thing of which I’m increasingly convinced is that the odds against long term survival of a system wherein the people govern themselves are depressingly large. The “people” just aren’t up to it.

It’s a cliched answer, but I have to say Rome, perhaps because I know the most about it, but I find it fascinating the large amount of the civilized world they controlled for so long. People love to emphasize that Rome fell and declined, but they were quite literally the center of the world for several centuries, which is more than most empires can claim.

Well, apart from the aqueducts, and sanitation, and the roads, and language, and national defense, and medicine, and public baths, and wine… what have the Romans ever done for us?

Don’t forget the arch, the law and cement.

Obviously the roads, the roads go without sayin’ don’t they…....