[Is It Overrated?] The Roman Empire

 The Roman Empire has been described as the greatest empire in history. A juggernaut than conquered dozens of militarily inferior civilizations, to form a mighty empire that ruled over the globe before it collapsed from internal struggles. But does it deserve this reputation, or is it overrated?

Empire size: The Roman Empire is, as its name suggest, an empire, and a pretty large one at that. If there's one thing people know about the Roman Empire is that it was huge. But the thing is, this empire is actually pretty puny compared to others.

All we have to do is look a few inches to the right(on a map, not real life)

As you can see, directly to the east of the Roman Empire is Persia, which commands an impressive chunk of land, and would in fact in the future surpass Rome. Further to the east is a Chinese Empire which is even large than Rome at its peak. And if you want to compare Rome at its peak vs the world's largest continuous empire:

Technological might: The Romans have been praised time and time again for their advances in technology and military strategy. For instance, roads, aqueducts, invention of the phalanx, these were all Roman inventions, right?

Wrong. The aqueduct and concrete roads were invented by the Etruscans, the Roman Phalanx was already used by Chinese and Greek armies for hundreds of years before the Romans had an army, and many other inventions we credit to them such as the postal service and dams were invented by others.

But, it would be unfair to say the Romans weren't advanced. While they did not invent these, they did improve on them. There's a reason nowadays we rave about Roman roads rather than Etruscan roads(their concrete was better and so lasted longer) The postal service was perfected by them, with addresses rather than describing their house. (ie people used to say 'the third house by the river near the two trees with the twelve bird nests' rather than 'Sixth Octavian Street')

Military might: The Roman Army has been described as an invincible juggernaut that swept aside resistance wherever she went. A massive, disciplined army that crushed vast hordes of rabble wherever she went.

To a certain extent, they were right. Now, the Roman Army wasn't perfect, but it was really impressive. Often, Roman armies defeated enemies that outnumbered them, its greatest example being Boudicca's defeat, with 100,000 Britons defeated by 10,000 Romans.

They also had what could be described as one of the first ever integrated defensive networks. For instance, Hadrian's wall was a sort of 'tripwire'. The garrisons, if attacked, would signal for the main army, often deeper in England, to prepare for battle, to counter the breakthrough. If this army was defeated, every major city had a garrison that could be brought together to form a second line of defense.