Ancient History

From what I learned in school, Tenoctilan was the largest city at the time. Now I may be wrong but that was basically what teachers and textbooks have told me for about the past 4 years...

It was the biggest city in the Americas...

what about Thermopilae guys?
do you really think that some 10000 greeks and 300 spartans could hold for 3 days an army 100k persians and mercenaries?

Also the biggest city at the time has to be Beijing or Nanjing.

Romans were awesome, Alexander the Great was epic, most late Roman emperors sucked ass, Pyrrhus was decent and Carthage... don't even get me started on Carthage.

Sure, just as long as the pass is cramped enough so that weight of numbers is no help, and no-one tells the Persians there's a way around.
From what I can tell (which isn't much), the battle was worth it; somehow the Greeks subsequently held it together and managed to repel Persia eventually. Although it doesn't seem like it would have much of an impact, I assume it ultimately led to what happened after happening as it did. I think were things were pretty close and although Athens was occupied briefly, the 'Greek' was what turned the tide. Perhaps without Thermopylae, that wouldn't have been possible.

Can i point out that end the the Persians still sacked Athens and took Greek, it was only to give the Athenians and others time to escape the wrath of the Persian army. The Greeks under Leonidas only did as good as they did because of there location, anywhere else then the entire army would have been killed before dusk.

In that case, i'd say they managed to make it count if nothing else. And I think Athens' 'Golden Age' was soon after, so all in all I guess it turned out well, for Athens at least. Sparta lost out to Athens I think.

Oh yes Athens, i liked Sparta far better (Expecially later philosophers glorification of the state) And i belive it was the Spartans who won the Peloponnesian war.

Parhaps this is what people were thinking. Not the largest at the time in the world, but rather in the Americas.
It would make no sense for an empire with particularly limited agricultural land and a less effective foodstuff type to grow a larger population.

The Aztecs and the Mayans where very impressive, especially when compared to the backwards as fuck Europeans at the time.

The Spartans technically won the war but Athens could have destroyed them many times.

Doesn't matter if they could have, what matters is they did not.

They won more battles than the Spartans and even won the last battle of the war.

And bigger than all European cities as well.

Also, the Spartans won their wars with Athens. They even at one point set up a puppet government in Athens. Of course the Athenians overthrew that government in time though. Then they made Socrates committ suicide.

The Athenians actually had the Spartans beat many times. And Socrates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War
http://www.answers.com/topic/what-happened-to-athens-after-the-peloponnesian-war

That sounds like a lot of wars to be honest.

What matters is the Spartans ultimately one. They virtually took over Athens at one point. It does not matter how close the Athenians came to winnning, all that matters is the Spartans eventually won the wars, and that this took Athens out of their golden age. In my opinion, this was a major factor that came into play when Phillip II invaded Greece later.

Back to the Aztecs

At the time to witch they where end, they where the most advance of there time there cities where huge with vast populations that rivaled even today's big ones, also i would like to point out it wasn't the guns the Spanish used that killed the aztects but the Disease they brought.


When it comes down too it, The Aztecs where impressive to say the least.

Technologically speaking? THAT I think is an exaggeration. They had no fleets. They had a smaller population than other civilizations. Their city was great, yes, [still in debate about how great] but they had so few.

They never had any geological reason to have fleets, there population was vast any archaeologist could tell you that, Their cities where among the greatest the world has ever seen the Europeans marveled at there divine beauty and awesomeness, and they had quite a bit of cities however they could only build where agriculture was abondent.