[hinckley buzzard]

F*n Rome, man. Too bad they never figured out how to handle the problem of succession. If they hadn't had to have a power struggle and internecine war every time an emperor died, they might have lasted a thousand years.

[SunkenCiv]

They figured it out — it was every man for himself. No problem. ;’)

And the Roman Empire *did* last from at least as far back as 335 BC (occupation/colonization of Ostia, and Ostia probably wasn’t Rome’s first conquest) and the generally accepted Fall of Rome was 476 AD, 811 years; the city of Rome goes back some centuries before 335 BC, and the eastern division of the empire (which under Justinian reconquered Italy and a good bit of northern Africa, plus parts of the Balkans not under Byzantine control) didn’t come finally to an end until 1453 — giving us a 1700 year span of Roman rule. From the late “republic” period during which the city-state of Rome marched on all of Italy, grabbed Spain, entered the Balkans, conquered the Alexandrian successor states in Greece-Macedonia and Egypt, that’s still over 1500 years. :’) Rome had it goin’ on.

[eleni121]

The Empire lasted far longer than 1000 years - most of which was called The Byzantine Christian Empire - Greek speaking eastern part of the Roman Empire.

The capital fell to the Islamic Turk hordes in 1453 AD. The last great martyr and Emperor Constantine Paleologus XI- called the Marble Emperor - stayed with his men and died (?) thus ending the second phase of the Empire.