What’s Your Civ?

Call it an experiment, call it a game or call it a random thought conjured up from the languid torpor of an absent moment, now used as a weapon to annoy travellers, call it what you like but let me ask you a question: Given the choice of three ancient civilisations which one would you choose to be a part of and why?

Nice header huh? did it myself you know, but anyway, so…

Would You be an Egyptian?

A race born out of a disparate group of desert nomads that grew into a mighty civilisation that lasted 3,000 years until the rise of Persia. The greatest builders of the Ancient world we still marvel at their pyramids, temples and statues. Industry, art, writing and architecture is a mere sample of what the Pharaoh’s accomplished at its height this mighty power of the ancient near east held sway over a land that stretched from Nubia to Palestine and was fed by the wealth of the great river Nile.

Would you be a Greek?

A people of immense intellect, who studied the stars and oceans, explored the Mediterranean sea and gave us Democracy, Law, Ethics, Athletics and Philosophy, not to mention preventing a Persian occupation of eastern Europe. A great people of thinkers and fighters who existed independently  in eternally squabbling city states until the time of Alexander the Great when the old states like Athens and Sparta became vassals of Macedon whose most famous King, Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire before he was thirty. Then later Greece and Macedon became where conquered by Rome. The Romans saw Greek lifestyle and manners the epitome of culture and breeding and pinched most of their ideas about Religion and government, today a person from England might think themselves cultured if they an speak French or Italian but at one time Romans considered the writings of the Greeks a continental education.

Or Would you be a Roman?

Arguably the most successful Empire ever created, at its height, Rome famously ruled over a vast swathe of land that began in the borders of Scotland to the known reaches of the Nile and controlled the whole shore of the Mediterranean Sea. They took what they knew from the other great cultures of the past and perfected their ideas handing down to us far too many legacy’s to count and had not their fabulous Empire been so savagely broken apart who knows how many more. Uncompromisingly ambitions, cruel and descendant she could never offer her citizens what you might call a stable lifestyle or a sense of continual security but through the power of her army able to get pretty much whatever they pleased, the Roman state could further offer its citizens, healthcare, plumbing, exotic trade, good infrastructure and an economy that had monopoly over the whole ancient world.

So what do you think, what’s your flavour? Are you a serene and industrious Egyptian living by the Nile? Or are you a superior minded but fractious Greek? Or yet again are you an all conquering Roman, hanging out at the baths every midday and going to the Arena on Religious holidays ?

And since some of you have asked here’s some rough parameters.

I’m not asking you to judge which was the best, just which is your favourite and why?

Some of you have asked what class you would be from, well that’s completely up to you, its your Time travel after all, the fun of it is doing what you want but if you really need guidelines then go for middle to upper class but just use your imagination.

Others have asked what period it’s in, in this case it’s also pretty much up to you if you have a particular favourite, but again if I’m giving guidelines go for the height of each civilisation.

If you fancy letting me know your thoughts of which and why please either comment below or pop over to twitter and contact @LandofHistory and if you have enough charachter space tag it with #UrCiv, once enough of you have given your input I’ll write something about the results.

Later, Josh.