History of Every ANCIENT Empire, i guess...

welcome to a new series where I will be exploring the largest and most influential empires in world history adding them one by one to this map of the world until we have a map of every single Empire in world history this first episode will'll discuss the empires of the ancient era starting from around 2500 BC in total this series will cover more than 45 centuries of History before we begin what is and isn't an Empire is a bit arbitrary the depending on your definition so let me Define what I consider an empire in the simplest terms it needs to be large and influential within the region they're operating in this second criteria is very important just because there is a crazy Empire around in the Middle East that shouldn't disqualify smaller Realms elsewhere from being an Empire finally please do note especially ancient borders are very often disputed the sources I used are in the description with that set up time to dive in we find our very first Empire around Egypt called the old Egyptian Kingdom closely following the N River stretching from the Nile Delta to sedan this is a quite impressive starting point but I do need to admit with the Sahara surrounding it these borders are just an approximation we simply do not know how much they could push their power into the Sahara this Old Kingdom would eventually collapse due to a number of reasons their King may have lived into his night 90 s outliving all of his heirs at the same time the kingdom was dealing with decentralization issues as Governors held more power than the central government all of this was likely coupled with a famine further weakening Central Authority whatever the exact reason collapse the empire did this brings us onto Mesopotamia where we have a couple attempts at Empire but they failed to create lasting success the first true Empire of the region is the Acadian Empire the Acadian were the first to unify most of Mesopotamia their empire began with Sargon of aad who from a single city state managed to conquer his great realm lasting for about 200 years the Acadian Empire would collapse for similar reasons to most empires of the era bad harvests unrest and regionalism divided the realm until eventually being fully destroyed after an invasion from the East back over to Egypt we have a new kingdom emerging known as The Middle Kingdom of Egypt as you can see this kingdom is significantly bigger than the old one Egypt has secured more permanent control over the Oasis of the Sahara now as well as the Mediterranean Coast Where The Heart of the Empire always remains Den Nile this Empire would eventually decline after a series of weak rulers causing Central authority to again decline the death nail would come when from the East the hixus invaded destroying the Middle Kingdom ping ponging back to mesop potamia we now have the rule of the third dynasty of UR interestingly the first dynasty of UR had been relatively small mostly just holding their single City while the second Dynasty is seemingly lost to history this third one now has managed to reunite many of the smaller city states of the region but after a filled invasion of ilam a coalition of their enemies would cause their adise their successor would be Babylon Babylon is slightly smaller than the Acadian Empire used to be but arguably they are more important they would cause a shift in the center of culture in the region as Babylonian became dominant the title of King of Babylon would gain such weight that despite the Babylonian Empire declining greatly with the Babylonian Throne falling to outside Invaders the title of King of Babylon would continue to be used for about 2,000 years by all relevant empires in the region and this is where we enter what in my opinion is the most fascinating period in Middle Eastern history where five states arguably all Empires at some point f a constant economic military and diplomatic conflict over her Germany over the Middle East the first we have already met as it is a reduced Babylonian Empire the second are the matani who are the first ones to eclipse the Babylonians building a massive Empire around the Middle East they would rule for about two centuries before collapsing at the hand of our next Contender which are the Hittites bringing the art of the horse and chariots to the region they were massively successful usurping the matani and becoming the dominant power in Anatolia extending well into the Middle East down south then we have the latest and the greatest Egyptian Kingdom creatively named the new Egyptian Kingdom this would be the final Egyptian ruled Empire unlike the Egyptian Empires that came before Egypt now broke from the confinement of the Nile interacting with a larger Middle Eastern world as should be clear from the map Egypt could very well be seen as the most powerful of the empires of this time this new kingdom is also where much of our knowledge of Egypt comes from as figures like ramises II akatan and tutankamon come from this iteration of Egypt the reason for this is simple we have many more sources from this period than from the ones that came before now the final Empire of the era is the middle Assyrian Empire while they look small they were such a threat to the Hittites and the Egyptians they sorted out their differences and signed a defensive pact binding the Nations together but as far as Assyria goes we haven't seen nothing yet because it's now time for the Bronze Age collapse what exactly happened is unclear but most likely it's a mix of events changes in the climate famine and perhaps most destructively an invasion of the ca peoples from the West who exactly these sea peoples were is unknown but they came from the west and devastated the entire Bronze Age World following this collapse the Hittites completely disappeared the Egyptians went into heavy Decline and Assyria was greatly reduced only Babylon managed to survive largely unaffected but it is in this post collapse Middle East that the Assyrian Empire would bounce back in what we call the Neo Assyrian Empire they Rose to such an immensely powerful position they put all of the former Empires to shame conquering or subjugating quite literally all regions discussed so far the Assyrian Empire would dominate the ancient Middle East for 150 years mainly due to their terrifyingly effective Army and brutal treatment of defeated peoples this reign of terror would finally come to an end as a coalition mainly led by Babylon and media would bring about the destruction of Assyrian hemony their collapse would lot in the Revival of the Neo Babylonian Empire who would temporarily become the dominant power in the Middle East these Babylonians were best known for their conquest of Judea after which the Jewish people were taken and brought to their capital A massively transformative phase for the Jewish religion but Babylon wouldn't last too long neighboring media was on The Conquest path as well earning the time idle of Empire by themselves but from their southern vastel state of Persia Cyrus the Great was about to make even the Assyrian Empire looks small we are not fully sure how but Cyrus gained control over the entire median Empire creating the Mido Persian or a chinate Empire Cyrus would go on to conquer Anatolia and the Middle East while also pushing his borders East but his successors went even further conquering ever more of the East and pushing into Egypt and Greece too by this point the ACC cinate Empire is only missing Sudan apart from that they literally control all regions previously mentioned and they are easily the most impressive Empire covered so far sorry for the quick intermission but by far most of you aren't subscribed to keep up to date with the two videos I release every single week consider doing so thank you but let's put the cabinets on pause for now and discuss the rest of the world first the Americas where for now we have no Empires to report on or at least we lack the sources to prove these Empires for example we have the nor Chico civilization in the Andes as well as the Mayans in the Yucatan both provide cultural centers but were they Empire Builders we simply do not know judging by every other cradle of civilization surely some form of haimon came out of these regions but I simply don't have to sources to confirm or deny for now America remains Empires a similar story exists in most of subsaharan Africa the empires of this region overwhelmingly occur after the time frame of this first video in Ethiopia however we arguably have the longest lasting empire ever in the Kingdom of axom at its peak it dominated much of the Horn of Africa while crossing over into Yemen as well while there is no official proof for this the Royal House of Ethiopia up to its abolition in 1976 claimed direct descendancy from this Empire the kingdom of axom is perhaps most interesting for being an early adopter of Christianity making Ethiopia an interesting Christian kingdom surrounding by Muslim states for most of its history around 940 ad after about a millennia of existence the kingdom of axom finally fully collapsed just Slightly North we have the kushite Empire Sudan is often sidelined for Egypt but their portion of the Nal was just as capable of civilization not to mention absolutely loaded in terms of gold the kushites offer an interesting opportunity where it's Sudan who after peacefully acquiring Upper Egypt and then conquering Lower Egypt United the region under its control kushai dominance would last until the Assyrians invaded and conquered Egypt away from them from here the kushites would survive for about a thousand more years in Sudan before collapsing moving East we have another roller coaster of Empires as we dive into China along the Yellow River we arguably have the first Chinese Empire in the Shia they are an interesting entity because we don't know if they actually existed due to a lack of sources nothing is certain and that very much includes what they actually controlled still in the grand tail of China they are always cited as the first dynasty so they deserve a mention according to the Legends their final tyrannical king would be overthrown by tang tang immediately launched us into the second Dynasty the Shang Dynasty the Shang did exist no doubt about it and their empire is already quite impressive but what's even more impressive is that they lasted for 600 years as the top dogs in China before finally collapsing at the hand of the xou who immediately launched the next Chinese dynasty interestingly the xou would justify their Invasion claiming that the Shang had lost the approval from the heavens a theme that would be repeated time and time again across Chinese history The JO were fundamental for the future of China introducing confusion ISM taism and legalism to the nation three concepts which would dominate the Chinese ways of life governance and religion for 3,000 years lasting for 789 years the hold a record for the longest lasting Chinese dynasty but this is not entirely Fair the Western X saw the X being dominant in China but their decentralized nature eventually saw most territory lost the vessels while the X kings were restricted to a very minor territory this was known as the spring and Autumn period this would further devolve into the Waring States period as the X vessels got so powerful the emperor lost any semblance of power as the states started ripping each other apart eventually the chin would manage to completely end the small Jo remnants before going on to reunify China under their rule they would l a whopping 15 years before collapsing due to infighting and the death of their Emperor but even their short Reign was instrumental the chin created the concept that China is supposed to be United rather than Unity just being a side effect of a king becoming too powerful the borders of China were also pushed into a shape we almost recognized as the core Chinese lands while Southern China was folded in for the very first time finally the name chin spread from Persia to Rome where it was mispronounced as China giving us our West name for the region after the collapse of the chin we would have a new period of division with 18 new kingdoms emerging the most important ones were the chu in the East and the Han in the west but this period of division would only last for 4 years as the hun would quickly manage to reunify most of China before absolutely crushing the record for the largest Chinese State the H Han are fundamental to Chinese identity the Chinese language and w F ing as well as Chinese people in general are all still named after this dynasty their main accomplishment was the integration of conquered people into the Han identity they were so successful in this that the rough shape of the Han roughly correlates to all following dynasties as well as being the core lands of the Han people to this very day the Han would rule China for 400 years only briefly interrupted when the throne got CED founding the sheen dasty after lasting 14 years the Han would be restored to power again they would continue to rule until a major Rebellion as well as disloyal generals caused the collapse of the dynasty this power vacuum would be filled by three new kingdoms battling for Supremacy two of these are empires in their own right in the north we have the way and in the South we have the Eastern woo we don't have time to go into too much detail on this period but in the following decades the the wayi would manage to take over the third Kingdom before themselves falling to infighting their place would be taken by the Xin dynasty who would then launch a successful Invasion South roughly reunifying China as it had been under the Han but soon afterwards the north would be pestered by barbarians and rebellions seeing the North lost again still from the south the Jin continued to rule most of China for roughly 200 years before being usurped by the Leung Dynasty this would start a complicated period of the northern and southern dynasties where power in China was split into two this period would last for about two centuries going back in time a bit to look at the North First the former chin would managed to unite the region but don't hold your breath they would soon collapse after losing a battle to the Jin after another period of division the northern way would manage to centralize power this Northern way would then go on to push the the Border South significantly before internal divisions saw the Empire split between an East and West way this split would last another 50 years from there everything shifted the East was usurped by the northern Chi while the West would fall to the northern Xiao who shifted their borders further south the Xiao would then manage to reunite all of northern China before themselves being overthrown by theu Dynasty while all of this was going on the South had a similarly chaotic period troubled with weak dynasties we start with the Leong who were best known for weak Emperors leading to their overthrow by the southern cheat their cruel rulers would cause rebellions again leading to the rise of the leang dynasty they would again be a weak monarchy further declining Southern Chinese power soon being overthrown by the shin the S were seemingly incapable of finding goodly leadership so as it's time to look at China as a whole again the Chen would fall from an invasion from the sui and China is finally whole again this is where we will leave the Eastern giant until the next episode moving up north we now have difficult choices regarding step Empires it's hard to say what is and isn't one in this vast area the cians are sometimes shown as big as this but due to their nomadic nature they only control a small part of this directly other nomadic Empires who look impressive on a map often suffer from major decentralization as well as it's just a bunch of tribes uniting temporarily nomadic Empires are often deceptively large this looks like a pretty big state on the map but they could never compete longterm with Persia or China for all of these reasons across this entire series I will only mention a few important or absolutely massive empires in the Eurasian steps and one of these that absolutely does need to be mentioned are the Shu they are depending on who you asked the largest Empire discussed in this video and spent most of their existence in Mortal competition with thean for 60 years thean would submit themselves to be tributaries of the chongu sending silk rice and alcohol to keep the peace eventually though Dean broke this status and managed to defeat the now much weaker Chong nuu even turning the tables and making the chongu a tributary instead through infighting the chongu would then face a slow collapse into irrelevancy it's time to move to China's little brother Korea Korea and menuria were divided for most of this period with no clear Empires while the Chinese were constantly attempting to control the region themselves but during one of China's periods of division the first Regional Empire would rise as the goo managed to take over over most of the region their place in the spotlight would last for about 300 years before a coalition of its enemies led to its demise this moves us down to the Indian subcontinent which was the most difficult one to determin Empires for this is your average map of India due to its division there just isn't any clear Empire to be found beyond that there are few sources for the early civilizations and whether they have Empires or not this small state is where we find our first Empire as the mahada start their route to expansion their first iteration is under the shisha Dynasty they had already United most of Northern India giving a pretty decent start to Indian empire but the shisha would soon be overthrown by the nand Dynasty and these nand would manage to further consolidate Northern India under their rule but allegedly they were rather unpopular their rulers were of low birth while a abusing power and setting high taxes from the West Shandra Gupta Moria would take advantage of this Conquering the entire magada Empire this would be the start of the Maria Empire and just look at its size India may have started late in terms of Empires but man did they learn fast the Maria would be instrumental in spreading Buddhism across Asia while ruling over most of India for more than a century but eventually the Empire would fall into decline with the def coming after a coup against the emperor leading to the start of the shunga Empire but first let's go down south to the saav vahana Empire they had seized most of central India during the decline of the Moria and at their Peak they would control most of central India while going through a lot of ups and downs the santav vahana managed to last for more than 500 years before falling into irrelevancy meanwhile in the West after the collapse of the moras the the Indo cians became the first Empire in India that came from outside Conquest this would be a theme that would continue across Indian history these cians themselves would be destroyed by an invasion from the parthians from the west but more on the parthians later on the shunga themselves basically started at their Peak uring Maria power from here they would spend the next 150 years slowly collapsing under attacks from outside but in the north a new Empire was forming the kushin Empire they were a nomadic Confederation who would strike deep into India but due to their decentralized nature it would collapse relatively quickly after forming this leads to about 200 years without a real Indian empire until in the East a new one emerges starting small and humble they would rise to conquer most of India again managing to keep it together for 200 years the these centuries under Gupta Reign would be the Indian golden age in terms of art literature and science while trade also flourished but eventually this Empire 2 would weaken a western Invasion would rock the state and the final Indian empire of this video has also collapsed after this short detour we finally return to the ainet Empire which is facing off against the macedonians led by a charismatic young man with dreams of great who decided to invade the Persian Empire you'd expect the macedonians to lose but thanks to military advances and great leadership Alexander was actually highly successful against Persians upon marching into Egypt Alexander declared that he was the son of Zeus a bit awkward considering his generals all knew his real father but regardless Alexander seemingly couldn't be stopped conquering most of the former Persian Empire what an epic and large empire it is surely meant to l oh never mind the Empire has already split up after the untimely death of Alexander out of these successor States I consider two empires in Egypt we have the bames this is the Egypt we know from their interactions with Rome with Cleopatra as their central figure while their ruling Clause were Macedonian Greek monarchs they did adopt the Egyptian way of ruling stuning themselves Pharaoh at their Peak they controlled much of the Eastern Mediterranean but their fall we will come back to later as it is linked to the Roman Empire our other Empire is less welln the cusd Empire it already starts absolutely massive receiving by far the most land from the Macedonian collapse but from here it was pretty much just a slow decline for the soluset perhaps their biggest crippling blow came from when the lits attempted to invade into Greece only to be met by Roman Legions who kicked them out the peace treaty was devastating to Salu it Prestige while also having to pay heavy War reparations to the Romans their full collapse would come from an invasion from Parthia who took over the most important Persian parts of their empire shortly after the crippled soluset would fully collapse we shall return to the parthan shortly but first let's meet a new region the Western Mediterranean here we find the carthaginians a trading empire that began at is a Phoenician colony in junis before growing to dominate The Western Seas with no local threats nothing can stop this Empire wait hold on some angry Latin just conquered all of Italy then learned how to boat and in a series of Wars conquered Carthage and indeed most of the Mediterranean from here a great conqueror named pompy would launch a campaign to the east conquering most of that region another great conqueror Caesar would follow this up shortly after by Conquering the West the two great men would fight a Civil War which Caesar came out on top in ruling as a dictator until his assassination upon his death the Roman Republic would split in two as Octavian the nephew of Caesar would face off against Mark Anthony a former general of Caesars Egypt would side with Mark Anthony in this conflict as Octavian defeated his Empire he would also integrate Egypt into Rome Octavian rebranded himself as Augustus while tearing down the Republic and becoming the very first emperor of the Roman empire under these Emperors the state would expand to its peak forming this massive Mediterranean Empire after the Romans adopted Christianity it would also spread that religion across the Empire but after centuries Rome fell into decline then the hanik Empire devastated Eastern Europe in the process pushing Germanic peoples into the Western portion of the Empire and Rome unable to deal with this pressure saw the Western portion of the empire collapse the East would struggle on in reduced form but their story we will come back to next video The hanik Empire itself would also collaps nearly as quickly as it Rose as we have come to expect from nomadic Empires now finally we have the parthians they were always a major rival to the Romans over control of the Middle East until a rebellion from the south with see the new assassinate Empire conquer the parthians they would be the new rival to the Romans and after a major victory looked like this at their Peak but this would be their final hurrah as from the deserts of Arabia a new religion has sparked the rise of the first Islamic caliphate which would soon completely upset the traditional balance of power in the region and spoiler alert they will bring down assassinates during these conquests and this gives us our final map map at the end of the first video this is every piece of territory once controlled by an Empire at its peak during the ancient era we can see that a lot is focused on this specific region of Eurasia with subsaharan Africa and the Americas being the most notable absentees here is a map of every ancient empire overlaid to make it more clear let's make them all the same color we can see the core of Empires in this era is around the Middle East and Egypt Persia Northern India and all of China this also shows why Empires like Rome were so unique not because they were big but because they were the first Empire in a large amount of territory in Western Europe as it stands only 20% of the world's landmass has been part of an Empire next episode we will discuss the early medieval Empires and fill the map up some more but for now that's will end this video thank you all for watching and to continue watching click on one of the two videos on screen now

Channel: Possible History

Views: 503,330

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Id: trVAQ0hmy0Q

Length: 27min 59sec (1679 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 09 2023