Daily Archives: October 19, 2026

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Types of Empire & Imperialism (Special Mention) (13) Republican & Democratic Imperialism

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Republican imperialism at its finest – Vercingetorix throws down his arms at the feet of Julius Caesar (1899) by Lionel Royer (public domain)

 

 

(13) REPUBLICAN & DEMOCRATIC IMPERIALISM 

 

Republican and democratic imperialism seem obvious oxymorons.

Well, certainly democratic imperialism does – republican imperialism somewhat less so as it simply requires that the imperial state be a republic rather than formal monarchy or government by emperor.  Indeed, the top empire in my Top 10 Empires originated as republican imperialism although it evolved into a formal empire – the Roman Empire. Other examples of republican imperialism include the Venetian Empire as well as the modern French Empire (once France was a republic) and less formal empires such as the American empire, Soviet (and modern Russian) empire, and the Third Reich.

However, democratic imperialism remains an oxymoron – “the intersection, overlap, or tension between democratic political systems at home and the practice or justification of overseas empire, hegemony, or foreign intervention.”

The third top empire in my Top 10 Empires, the British Empire, is perhaps the classic example of democratic imperialism, albeit progressively over time with increasing enfranchisement – which coincided with increasing reluctance or sentiment for maintaining its empire. However, that was reflected also by other empires such as the American empire or those of increasingly democratic or enfranchised western European nations – at least French, Dutch, and Belgian empires, as well as arguably also German and Italian empires.

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (Special Mention: Revised) New Entry (13) Turkic – Timurid Empire

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Map of the Timurid Empire in 1400, Demis Map Server (from reference The Jalayirids: Dynastic State Formation in the Mongol Middle East Map 3, Wikipedia “Timurid Empire” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(13) TURKIC – TIMURID EMPIRE

 

Yeah, you know those horse blitzkriegs or nomadic empires by mounted nomadic pastoralist tribes from the Eurasian steppes – “those psychos on horseback” – that keep popping up in my top ten history lists?

A large number of them were Turkic, as one of the more prevalent ethnicities of Eurasian mounted nomadic pastoralist tribes – particularly after the so-called Turkic expansion throughout Eurasia from the 5th century AD onwards.

They are distinct from the Mongolic peoples but the Turkic expansion overlapped with the Mongol Empire as the latter enlisted Turkic peoples and confusingly gave rise to various Turko-Mongol “traditions” or ethnocultural syntheses. And to confuse things further, the Turkic expansion extended to the Middle East – giving rise to Turko-Persian tradition – and more famously, Anatolia, as the origin of the Turks who formed the Ottoman Empire and present nation of Turkey.

There’s enough Turkic empires for their own top ten, originating with the first definitive Turkic empire in the 6th century – the Göktürk Khaganate, variously titled the First Turkic Khaganate, the First Turkic Empire, or Turkic Khaganate, which also “became the first Central Asian transcontinental empire from Manchuria to the Black Sea”.

Indeed, Turkish nationalists have compiled their own top ten of Turkic empires, or rather, a top sixteen – the 16 Great Turkic Empires, albeit counting some disputed as Turkic, going back to the Xongniu or Huns.

However, one empire that is not disputed as Turkic – or rather, Turko-Mongol – is the Timurid Empire, founded by Timur or Tamerlane, “the last of the major nomadic conquerors of the Eurasian Steppe” and in doing so, mauled other states of such formidable reputation as the Golden Horde, Mamluk Sultanate, the Ottomans, and Delhi Sultanate. Or as I like to call him, the Timurnator. He was even eyeing off Ming China before his death

“The Timurid conquests and invasions started in the late 14th century with Timur’s control over the Chagatai Khanate” – one of the successor states of the Mongol Empire which I otherwise would have seen as the runt of the litter – and ended at the start of the 15th century with the death of Timur. Due to the sheer scale of Timur’s wars, and due to the fact that he was generally undefeated in battle, he has been regarded as one of the most successful military commanders of all time. These wars resulted in Timur’s supremacy over Central Asia, Persia, the Caucasus, the Levant, and parts of South Asia and eastern Europe, and they also resulted in the formation of the short-lived Timurid Empire”.

While his empire persisted for a century after his death, it slowly fragmented but one of his successors, his great-great-grandson Babur, conquered India to forge a whole new empire that was arguably the most powerful imperial state in the subcontinent prior to the British – the Mughal Empire, which survived even in decline to the nineteenth century.

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythology Horror (6) Classical Mythology

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Yeah, they tear him apart after what we see here – and one of them is his mother. Pentheus being torn apart by maenads in a Roman fresco in Pompeii (public domain)

 

 

(6) CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY

 

Remember my introduction’s reference to modern horror fiction prompting to mind Greek dramatic tragedy and its catharsis – its intense feelings of fear and pity?

Well, here we are, as classical mythology was the usual subject of that Greek dramatic tragedy and catharsis. Or for that matter, the usual structure of Greek dramatic tragedy of hubris followed by nemesis, with the latter usually personified as the goddess Nemesis or similar figures such as the Furies.

And as I said, it wouldn’t take too much to tweak most Greek tragedies into horror films.

The Bacchae by Euripides demonstrates the horror inherent in classical mythology. The tragedy is based on the myth of Pentheus, king of Thebes, who is opposed to the new god Dionysus and his cult. It’s easy to see it as modern horror fiction, from the folk horror of The Wicker Man to cosmic horror – Dionysus as Yog Sothoth, perhaps?

A conflation of folk and cosmic horror pretty much sums up the horror of classical mythology, particularly the latter with brutal divine punishments or cruel divine wrath. There are also monstrous creatures and the body horror of metamorphoses, often combined – and both tend to be instruments of divine punishment or wrath. Even when your adversaries or antagonists are human rather than supernatural in classical mythology, it often resembles slasher horror.

As for the Bible and Biblical mythology, modern horror fiction tends not to adapt classical mythology directly – few or no minotaurs, sphinxes, chimeras, or hydras for example – but instead draws on its themes, tropes, and above all its templates of dramatic tragedy.