Originally Posted by Whispering Death

Romans sure do stand in the forefront.

An interesting one to throw into the mix might be Imperialist England, they did more to globalize and modernize the world than anyone.

And of course I can't leave out my native country, we Americans are so awsome :P

Its hard because the world went from Egypt, to Greece, to Rome, to Italy, to Spain, to England, to USA and thats just the "West", not including the Muslims, Indians (Actually from India) and Asia as a whole.

Romans...they never lasted. It had a west and and eastern one. The eastern which was called Byzantine, and its capital was constantinople, was conquered and fell....

Farvahar, the symbol of God and goodness in Persia



Tomb of Xerxes in south of Iran, near Shiraz



The persian empire map. The biggest empire of the history



Persepolis (city of pars). The palace of Achaemenid dynasty.



Bam citadel in south of Iran. This citadel was ruined by a massive quake in December 2003. SIGH

wooow...just imagine this place when it was still standing..and bustling.

All civilizations have some great achievements, but few civilization can survivie for a long time.

Thus, I think the greatest are those who can survive. That leaves India, Egypt and China.

Originally Posted by MightyMacbeth

Romans...they never lasted. It had a west and and eastern one. The eastern which was called Byzantine, and its capital was constantinople, was conquered and fell....

Yeah they only lasted what? About 2000 years? Appx. 500 B.C. until the Byzantine Empire fell in 1453 to be exact.

And if anybody thinks Rome has vanished I suggest they take another look at architecture, science, medicine, language (haven't heard many people speaking ancient Persian lately but Latin roots are in all Western languages), government, literature, etc., etc., etc.

yet they dont know call themselves romans anymore...

sadly, they are gone.

spartans? they were good honorable and capable warriors. They never feared anything..

Havent u heard.."A spartan comes home with his shield or upon it", now thats quite a something..

Yeh the spartans had a good military but it was the first facist city state as well.

it cannot be even called a civilization...

it is just a part of whole Greek City states civilization..

by the way....Spartas left nothing (art, literature) except a model of facist state.