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| | Empire (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22) |
 | | For many centuries, the term "Empire" in the West applied exclusively to states which considered themselves to be successors to the Roman Empire, such as the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, or, later, the Russian Empire ruled from the "Third Rome" (Moscow). |
 | | The actual political concept predates the Romans by several hundred years: empires began to appear soon after the first cities made the necessary administrative structures possible. |
 | | The Holy Roman Empire, itself in a sense a re-constitution of the Roman Empire, underwent many transformations in its long history, fissuring extensively, experimenting with federalism and re-constituting itself as the Austrian Empire - vastly different in nature and in territory. |
| empire.iqnaut.net (1542 words) |
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