Introduction
Long before countries came up, empires were used do define a person’s kingdom. Empires are estimated areas of land, companies or in general properties that are owned and ruled by a specific person known as either emperor or empress who has a lot of power and influence. In comparison to contemporary times, more empires existed during ancient times. There are several examples of empires that existed. They include The Roman empire, the Persian empire, Indian empire and the Parthian empire, there are also a lot of other empires that were also formed. Most of the empires were formed almost in the same way although they all had different beliefs. An emperor was mostly selected from a respectable clan because he was seen as a leader and was civilized to since the nations had to have some form of leadership and civilization. Emperors were formed out of respect from wars. If an emperor spotted a particular area that was interesting and he wanted it as part of his empire due to its richness in resources or other attractive factors, he would select some of his men and send them to investigate the area. If it was perfect then he would let the people living there know his intentions of ruling the region. Some of the people would try to oppose his intentions and this would lead to war, if the emperor conquers which he mostly did then he would take over the area and preside over it and the people there would be forced to abide by his laws. This pattern went on and on till the emperor had a really big empire in his name.
Main body
For an emperor to build his empire he had to face many challenges and opposition and it was not smooth process altogether. The most common challenge being resistance and opposition from different people. As mentioned earlier, a province or area had to be conquered first before it submits its people to the leadership of an emperor. Sometimes the wars were really ugly leading to the death of a lot of people all in the name of power. At other times an emperor found himself at the position of having to protect his people and property from other emperors. Having to make people follow your orders can be such a huge task because there are others who will tend to rebel. So the emperor had to really struggle to get respect from the people.
The reason why there are quite few empires remaining is because most of them failed. They were not strong enough to overcome challenges that emerged. Rome for example was such a strong empire and its falling received a lot of reviews “the fall of Rome should be understood as a transforming event instead of a cataclysm ”(Streich par. 1 ). The struggle for leadership was what started to crack the empires. The normal procedure for most of the empires was succession which brought up a lot of quarrels and fighting.
The people had freedom of worship and due to different beliefs, they started drifting apart as they could not agree on a lot of things thus their unity was weakened. This lead to the emerging of war and unjustly killings. “ The Romans, in spite of their official, hawkish, state religion, were surprisingly tolerant of other beliefs, as long as the practitioners did not appear as potential rebels” (Bloch par. 8).
Economically empires depended on natural resources for everything such activities included; mining, which was very common, farming and quarrying. So when there were changes in weather or surrounding environment, it caused a hindrance in them continuing in most of their activities. This way their values declined economically.
Conclusion
In spite of these challenges some empires were successful in that they were able to survive in this conditions and while others were succumbing they were still strong. Although Rome’s empire fell it was still strong and it took a long time for it to totally fail and it is usually ranked as successful. The British empire was also able to withstand a lot of pressure and challenges and it emerged successful.” The British empire represents the world’s most influential and powerful political and economic entity”(Foster 7).
Works Cited
Foster, Stuart. The British Empire and Commonwealth in World War 2: Selection and Omission in English History Textbooks. n.d. Web. 2010.
Bloch, Nini. The Accidental Empire. n.d. Web. 2010.
Streich, Michael. The Fall of the Roman Empire. 1978. Web.