Britain still exists as a polity, but the British Empire no longer does, so we say the British Empire lasted such-and-such number of years, because it’s already a thing of the past.
If we’re talking about how long political systems last, it’s going to get very abstract if we count different political systems as one just because they had the same capital (and sometimes not even that), or the same imperial core, or the same ethno-culturo-linguistic citizenry (or rather, first-class citizenry).
It gets increasingly difficult to define continuity if we start claiming the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire were actually the same political entity.
I get that. I only mention it because what people think of as Ancient Rome should include the Republic too, but if you want to be strict about defining only the time it was an empire then that’s fine. America often gets referred to as an empire but it technically isn’t one in the original meaning of the word, however it’s probably the closest it’s ever been to being one today.
Not true. Byzantium lasted a thousand years. The Roman empire lasted no more than 500.
As for the rest, well, fuck fascists.
If you add the Roman Republic too its another 500, but I digress.
We were talking about empires.
Britain still exists as a polity, but the British Empire no longer does, so we say the British Empire lasted such-and-such number of years, because it’s already a thing of the past.
If we’re talking about how long political systems last, it’s going to get very abstract if we count different political systems as one just because they had the same capital (and sometimes not even that), or the same imperial core, or the same ethno-culturo-linguistic citizenry (or rather, first-class citizenry).
It gets increasingly difficult to define continuity if we start claiming the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire were actually the same political entity.
I get that. I only mention it because what people think of as Ancient Rome should include the Republic too, but if you want to be strict about defining only the time it was an empire then that’s fine. America often gets referred to as an empire but it technically isn’t one in the original meaning of the word, however it’s probably the closest it’s ever been to being one today.
Basically this:
Only I’m not sure if that’s referring to Rome or the US…