History and were doomed to repeat it

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Ok, Rome kicked off (more or less) in the 8th century BCE. Within 300 years, it was dominating central Italy, by 200 BCE it had all of Italy, and another two centuries later it was the dominant power in the Mediterranean basin, much of Europe, and the Near East. This happy (for Rome) state continued for another 400 years. The Byzantine Empire (whose inhabitants never for a moment thought of themselves as anything other than Romans) lasted for roughly another thousand years. So, for more than 2100 years, the Roman Empire was the single most important political force in the Western Hemisphere.

'Suffer the fate of the Roman Empire', me arse. They did pretty damned well, I think.

Boru