History is beautiful.

A historical map distributed by the Rand McNally company. Time goes down the map and the relative size of the empire is given by the amount of area that it takes up at any specific time. What strikes me is the historical continuity presented in the map. For example, the Chinese empires rose and fell, but the civilization itself has remained active throughout all of recorded history.

We can also see the emergence of the Roman Empire in classical antiquity and its scale on the map shows the behemoth that it became. Rome was in conflict with all other major powers. Roman gains translated directly into losses for the other empires.

I’m interested to know more about how the Persian empire transitioned into the Seleucid and Bactrian Kingdoms. Furthermore, what was the relationship between the Persians of ancient antiquity and the Sassanian Persians? The greatest asset of such a map is its ability to stimulate such questions.