##VOTE Persia

The Byzantines were attacked on all fronts for about a thousand years. They were attacked by Turkish armies, Bulgarian armies, Goths/Lombards (while in Italy), and Crusaders. This is while maintaining an empire and fighting against internal rebellions which occasionally popped up. The entire history of the Byzantine Empire could be labeled as one of a continual fight for survival. They are also severely under studied in the West which is sad. During the Middle Ages the city of Constantinople was one of the most highly populated and advanced in the world while many in the West had regressed. They are miles and miles more advanced culturally, militarily, economically, politically then the Persians and they left far more records than the Persians. If you look at the Persians most of their records are tax/census based. The Byzantines left 1000000x more records than the Persians and stood far longer against far greater odds.

whereas the Persians tried to advance multiple times into Greece, and each time were pushed out by smaller Greek armies. The Islamic Turks in Constantinople's day Persia tried the same thing with the same outcome.

therefore, both militarily and culturally the Byzantines are superior

The Byzantines were gifted their land. The Persians started small and conquered to get considerably bigger.

true, and I took that into consideration, but they still lose militarily

Ancient Persia is no where near as great as the Byzantine Empire on any metric EVER.

For example just look up Byzantine primary sources and compare them to Persian primary sources. You can judge a great civ by the material they left behind and sorry to tell you, but Persia left behind basically nothing.

You guys are comparing an empire that existed 1000 years prior to the Byzantines. Think about that for a moment. How many records do we have today compared to, say England at the time of the Norman conquest.

Look at what you're comparing through the appropriate lens before you make the comparison. Byzantines barely qualify as Ancient anyways.

ND is right, though his last point isn't necessarily valid because many ancient civs (like Aztecs) would go out of their way to destroy conquered people's art and writings to make them forget they were ever anything other than their conquerors.

Fine. Compare Ancient Greek records to Ancient Persian records.

Same story.

Additionally, this SIMULATION asks us to compare the Ancient Persian Empire to the Byzantine Empire. I think that everything is on the table and should be compared. That's the rule.

@goldfinger if you want to compare the Persians to the Ancient Greeks, the Greeks still win militarily, as history proved, and culturally: Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles, Socrates... Do you really want to go there?

so how much more should the Greeks win if we allow them another 1,000 years of advancements?

also, we forgot to count Chaqa's vote, so it's 3 to 3 currently, right?

Chaqa's vote should be counted.

But the Greeks were a collection of civilizations, none of which could defeat the Persians on their own.

Not to mention the expansion of the Persians was well beyond that of the Byzantines. Persian culture started in a small area on the Persian Gulf, and under the Achaemenids saw some of the greatest expansion the world has seen thus far.

and the fact that a small collection of warring city states was able to thrash the greatest army on earth says a lot.

@Halls - I didn't go there. ND did.

And personally? The Greeks will win this tournament imo. The older they are, the more impressive the accomplishments.

I'll do a more in depth review later, but the Persians did the Byzantines better than the Byzantines did. It took the greatest general in history to defeat them. The Byzantines couldn't defeat the later Persian empires, grew lax and allowed the Muslims to spread out of Arabia, had a very decentralized military and by the time the Turks came around, it was only infighting amongst their enemies that prevented an immediate destruction of their empire

and "size matters not" as Yoda would say

@Goldfinger: "later Persian empires" wrong. The Byzantines did defeat the Sasanian Empire.

The Greeks as a whole aren't in here. There are the Macedonians and I think maybe Athens and Sparta, but not Greeks in general.

And the Sasanids defeated Byzantines. If we include all ancient Persians, they trashed Rome up and down.

They tore up Eastern Rome before it was cool.

Nope. The last major war the Byzantines fought against the Sasanian Empire ended with the defeat of the Sasanian Empire. That's factually incorrect TrPrado.

PLUS this debate is about the Ancient Persian Empire, not about it's successor states.

What impact did the Persians have on our modern world? It's pretty minimal.

The Byzantines on the other hand had a huge impact on the world as we know it, as they are a continuation of the Roman Empire and a crucial part of the history of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, as well as Orthodox Christianity.

Chaqa make sure to do a ##VOTE BYZ because I am not sure your other vote is being counted.

The Byzantines and Persians fought a number of wars, and the Persians also fought the Romans, with perhaps the best war record against either. Persian culture lived on the have influence in the east long after the fall of the Byzantines and helped steer the course of Islam in the east. The Byzantines, however, had declining influence on the world as time went on. After they inadvertently caused the downfall of what remained of their sister empire, the Byzantknes were stranded politically. Then religiously as the West established a church independent of the Byzantines. Then culturally as they were surrounded and fell at the hands of Muslim forces.