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Rome was more impressive for its greater size and for its superior military.
Byzantium was more impressive for its greater wealth and for its greater longevity.
I'm going to violate your ground rules and pick the Roman Empire over the Byzantium Empire simply because the latter began simply as the eastern half of the former.
The Byzantine Empire began as Eastern Roman Empire but over time it evolved into something unique. It had it its own religion and Greek language supplanted Latin. Its culture, administration and the military changed quite a bit from the original Roman period.
While the Roman Empire (as well as the Republic during its last 100 years or so) was unquestionably the superpower of its day, with almost no serious enemies. (At least until it went into decline, excepting the brief crisis in the middle of third century).
The Byzantine Empire, on the other hand, was constantly besieged by powerful enemies - the Parthan Empire, the Arabs, the Turks. In the Balkans, various Slavic tribes (Bulgars, Russians) were another source of trouble. The Crusaders proved to be the ultimate backstabbers.
Treating these as two separate empires, rather than Byzantine just being an "offshoot"....which empire are you more impressed with?
Kind'a hard to do since the Byzantine Empire was an offshoot of the Roman one.
I'm impressed with the ability of the Byzantines to hold on as long as they did but I find the Roman Empire much more impressive, for it's rise if nothing else.
I would have to ask the question, "In which year?" to give any real response. Overall, clearly Rome, as it encompassed both. Towards the fall, and after, the Byzantines. It is almost impossible for me not to think of the Byzantine empire as an offshoot of Rome.
Justinian built the Hagia Sophia, had Roman law codified, and reconquered a lot of the lost territory. He was the last emperor to have Latin as his court language.
Once they switched to Greek they contributed nothing of cultural or scientific signficance to the world. They're left to rest on holding back Islam, and even then western Europe did a noticable bit of the heavy lifting.
The Western Roman Empire was more impressive because it was a Empire created from anew on a Virgin Land. Indeed, during the initial centuries of the Empire, Western Europe was a barbarian territory scarcely populated. Rome had to created a Empire from scratch, create infrastructure, bring inhabitants, build acueducts, roads, institutions and "Civilize" inhabitants.
On the other hand, Eastern Roman Empire occupied a heavely populated and civilized territory that was part of the Hellenistic Empire. Such a territory, thanks to their enormous population, was capable of keep away invaders while the Western Roman Empire bacame an empty and barren land incapable of defending themselves from a few barbarians.
I'd have to go with Rome for all the reasons cited. Afterall Byzantium was the offshoot/descendant of the Roman Empire and had a much easier time creating itself as it basically inherited the work of Rome and the primary sources of wealth for the Roman Empire.
The Western Roman Empire was more impressive because it was a Empire created from anew on a Virgin Land. Indeed, during the initial centuries of the Empire, Western Europe was a barbarian territory scarcely populated. Rome had to created a Empire from scratch, create infrastructure, bring inhabitants, build acueducts, roads, institutions and "Civilize" inhabitants.
On the other hand, Eastern Roman Empire occupied a heavely populated and civilized territory that was part of the Hellenistic Empire. Such a territory, thanks to their enormous population, was capable of keep away invaders while the Western Roman Empire bacame an empty and barren land incapable of defending themselves from a few barbarians.
Disagree with the first part. Western Europe was densely populated even before the Roman times simply because it had ample farmland and good climate. There were many peoples inhabiting the ancient Italy, France, and Britain like the Ethruscans, Gauls, Brittons, Belgae, and many others. They simply lacked the central authority which prevented them from building large infrastructure projects.
It took Rome over 500 years - more than twice the age of the United States - to expand to its full size in the west. This shows that Western Europe wasn't quite "virgin land".
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