If you’ve even so much as gotten a whiff
of history, you might have heard of names such as the Frankish Kingdom or the Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies or the Anuradhapura Kingdom, and you might have also heard of the Roman
Empire or the Ottoman Empire or the Russian Empire and wondered why some monarchies are
called kingdoms and others empires? So with all that in mind, you might wonder,
what exactly does the term “empire” mean, and is there enough historical significance
behind all this pedantry to give KhAnubis an easy video for this week? If you look from the samples I gave in the
intro, you might have come to the conclusion that an empire is like a kingdom, but bigger. Indeed this is how the terms are normally
used, as a kingdom is basically a nation-state ruled by a king, whereas an empire generally
span a vast-- often diverse-- area, namely with multiple smaller states under its control,
like with the Persian Achaemenid Empire, whose ruler was known as the King of Kings, due
to the arrangement of their empire (even though they technically didn’t call it an empire,
but we’ll get to that in a second). That being said, this whole thing is a lot
like trying to describe the difference between states and provinces (a story for another
time), in that there might be a sound definition, but nations are often just going to use whatever
they feel like, especially if one gives them more prestige. The term ‘empire’ came-- not as a way
to better categorize historical powers-- but as a way for someone in ancient Rome to justify
themselves having all the power *after* 509 BC. You see, Rome initially started off as the
Roman Kingdom, but then they had this one king who sucked so bad that they not only
deposed him but disbanded the idea of having kings at all, establishing the senate-run
Roman Republic in its place. The Senate generally elected consuls to oversee
the affairs of the Republic-- at home and on the frontier-- they elected two at a time
for one-year terms as a way to make sure no one could gather too much political power,
as wanting to be king in the Republic was essentially the worst crime a Roman could
commit. Thus, when this guy named Augustus did get
all the power for himself and established a hereditary office where he was in charge
of everything, he needed to convince the Senate that he wasn’t a king, he was just the…
commander, yeah commander! Or in Latin, imperator, which yeah I think
you can see the etymological pattern here. [It’s kind of like how an absolute dictatorship
might call itself a republic, as all that “republic” really means is a country without
a monarchy]. So ‘emperor’ (and therefore ‘empire’)
were originally made up as ways for someone to essentially become king of a realm where
kings were a serious taboo, but this definition gradually changed as it was noticed that the
Roman Empire was different from the smaller kingdoms that rose after its fall, not just
in how their rulers preferred to be addressed, but also in another crucial way. Now, Google defines an empire as “an extensive
group of states or countries ruled over by a single monarch, an oligarchy, or a sovereign
state”, suggesting that the qualifications for being an empire aren’t necessarily being
ruled by someone who calls themselves an emperor, but being an entity with multiple groups under
one’s control. This definition could include basically every
country throughout history that has spanned multiple different regions, including Russia,
the US, India, etc., however an empire’s territories are generally in an unequal, subservient
relationship to the ruling power (and if they are democratic, they don’t generally give
the subservient territories much of a voice). This however is in contrast to more equal
commonwealths, or federations, who are still largely centralized but give their subdivisions
more of a say in how everything is done, as is the case in countries like Russia, the
US, or India… wait a minute. That’s definitely one restriction (besides
control over other powers) on the qualifications of empire, as an empire is almost inherently
unequal in terms of where the resources flow and who makes all the decisions. The Roman Empire was actually a great example
of this, as they only expanded into other regions, conquering numerous tribes and kingdoms
and bringing them under their fold, to gain access to more wealth and resources. Another relevant example would be all the
European colonial empires, with colonies set up mainly for the benefit of the home country,
regardless of the human or environmental cost on said colonies. The colonial empires also bring up another
characteristic in that the territories (in this case, colonies) of an empire might have
been administered by a far off country on pretty much all levels, but they might not
have necessarily been /part/ of that country. For instance the British Empire wasn’t so
much a supersized United Kingdom, but rather the United Kingdom and a whole bunch of Crown
Colonies, either ruled over directly from London or with some autonomy, in which case
they were referred to as self-governing colonies, but still didn’t necessarily have a say
in British or Imperial politics. Empires can have a lot of upsides for those
in charge, but they can be expensive to maintain, and it’s when the costs of administering
and defending a colony surpass the benefits from its resources, location, or influence
that an empire has a bit of a problem. In a sense this is how empires fall, basically
when they can no longer pay the bills and their provinces or colonies are left vulnerable
to be either taken by another empire or to gain independence. Being an empire was something nations used
to brag about, but after the devastation of the World Wars and the subsequent disbanding
of all the colonial empires (as well as the emergent power of the nation-state), calling
a country an empire became almost more of a condemnation, perhaps notably in the concept
of American Imperialism, an idea that refers not only to America’s westward expansion
through the idea of manifest destiny, but also to a perception of American foreign policy,
largely in Latin America and the Caribbean, often touted in these circles as “America’s
backyard”. The idea of calling the United States an empire,
as you can probably tell, is not one meant as a compliment to the US, but as a strong
critique. Technically only one empire still remains,
but only in the sense that one country has an emperor, that country being Japan, which
is about as individual-nation-state-y as you can get, so it’s not really much of an empire. Thank you as always for watching. If you want to support the channel, you can
check out the Patreon page or the merch store, or even just like the video, share it with
someone who might be interested, and subscribe to learn something new every Sunday… except
this coming week, because this week’s video (as part of a group collaboration) will actually
be out on Friday, so stay tuned for that.
