The term used to describe the power exercised by an empire in a situation where the subject people accept the rule of the emperor is called .

The first known empire was created by an immigrant group of Semitic people led by Sargon who settled in northern Sumer and called their empire .

The Medes and Persians who first appeared east of Mesopotamia around 1300 B. C. E. were , meaning that their culture and language were related to some of the same groups who came to inhabit Europe and northern India.

The core values of early Greek culture are presented in Homer's , the story of the Trojan War.

Darius I of Persia sought to create a smaller, more efficient government by increasing the number of administrative units, or , faster than his empire expanded.

Greek victory at Marathon was ensured by the use of troops who formed solid phalanxes of soldiers arrayed in tight lines.

Within the Greek polis, the was the civic and market center, with clusters of buildings for trade in goods, ideas, and political decision-making.

According to the historian Thucydides, Athens began its push toward empire in the later 5th century B. C. E. by issuing its claims bluntly in statements of (power politics).

The Alexandrian Empire and its successors built a Hellenistic , that is, a unified urban culture, encompassing vast lands and diverse peoples.

When Alexander sought to create a large empire, he was disregarding the thinking of , his teacher, who argued that there was a natural limit to the size of a state.