Debate Night: Aztec vs. Rome
First published: Monday October 2nd, 2023
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Before We Begin
This is my first Debate Night blog. Please tell me your thoughts on it in the comments! I hope you like it!
Premise
The European civilizations have long been thought superior by historians. But why? Is it because they had greater technologies, or is it because of Spanish prejudice and racism toward the Aztec and Inca? The Spanish portrayed the Aztecs as savages, broadcasting their brutal religious sacrifices to the world in documents. Most people do not know of the Aztec chinampas, an amazing food system. Or of their landfill that allowed the city of Tenochtitlan to prosper. On the other hand, the Romans controlled much of Europe. Caesar was, arguably, more brutal than the Aztecs. His soldiers are said to have killed almost 90,000 people in a few hours. And the Roman concrete led to an advanced infrastructure system that led to domination of the ancient European world.
Instructions
Debate about whether the Romans or Aztecs were more advanced. Why do you think this? This is intended to be an enjoyable and educational activity.
Rules
2. be open-minded. Even if you disagree with someone, try to understand their point of view, or at the very least do not just call them wrong.
The Last Word
I hope you have fun debating over this topic. It never hurts to do research if you do not know enough to debate. And as a friendly reminder, please keep this peaceful. See you next time, JetPunkers!
When it comes to the Americas, Aztecs did have toys with wheels but they never developed carts, chariots and so on.
Personally, I'm not too sure, since I don't know a whole lot about the Aztecs. It's one of my knowledge gaps.
However, I do know a fair bit about the Romans, and though basically all forms of pure mathematics and true science pretty much disappeared during their rule, they were great architects and engineers. You know about the aqueducts. But the Coliseum is so close to a perfect circle that we couldn't replicate it today even with all our technology. The Romans were certainly the most advanced civilization in their time and for the next thousand years afterward. The Aztecs also didn't have many tameable animals either, I think, except llamas, while the Romans had all the Old World quadrupeds to work with. Lots of domesicateable animals equal civilizations with large cities.
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4. Kosovo: Country or Not?
5. Taiwan: Country or Not?
6. Palestine vs Israel
I think another important factor to mention is longevity, in the sense of both the existence of said states and urbanization. The Aztec Triple Alliance lasted little under a century while the Roman state lasted for (arguably) over 2000 years.
Urbanization wise, a lot of settlements that were built by the Romans still exist today and a lot of them are major cities (e.g. Cologne, Barcelona, London, etc.). This is (unfortunately) not really the case for most native American settlements, with only a handful actually still surviving to this day (e.g. Tlaxcala, Texcoco, Cholula).
I might be forgetting something, but that's my input.