A whole question of being civilized

All of the pink was all controlled by a small city on the coast of Italy

                                                         
     At the first mention of the word "empire" I begin to conjure up ideas of massive and powerful civilizations that ruled for an extensive amount of time. The basis on which I usually form my opinion of empires comes from the great Roman Empire. It is the most well known today for their advancements in technology and the hardships that followed their demise.
     The Roman empire started out of the turmoil of the fall of the Greek empire. Starting out as a small city in the Mountains of Italy, the Roman empire was able to conquer and hold a major portion of the Western side of the known world. Not only did they conquer this section of the world, but they held control over it through many different emperors.
     Because of this association to the Roman empire, I tend to associate the word empire with structure and prosperity. The Roman empire maintained its borders much longer than anyone of the time. Therefore, the Romans made many scientific and philosophic advancements. But after the Empire collapsed, the western world turned into chaos and was forced to rebuild itself all over again.
   The idea of an empire being a view between self and other can be based upon the idea of calling yourself a part of an empire. Anybody who says that they belong to the same empire as another citizen no matter the distance has something major in common. Whereas someone who comes from a completely different group has no association to the citizen of that empire and are therefore seen as an outcast to that region.
     A barbarian can be seen as anyone who does not live in the empire and instead has fought off and chooses to stay away from the empire. The only interaction that the barbarians have with the empire is when they are attacking them for goods they need because they know that the empire has an abundance of these goods. The controllers of the empires usually give a very bad image to the barbarians making it seem as if they are uneducated and uncivilized compared to the empire.

                                                   A stereotypical image of barbarians

A standard Roman legion during the height of the Roman Empire