States which were destroyed at the height of their power.

wormyguy

Banned
I want a clarification, does destruction mean actual destruction? Cause the Byzantine Empire certainly wasn't destroyed after Manzikert.
Yes. The state must cease to exist.
And to what extent do successor states count against "destruction"?
1. They must maintain the same constitution and/or consider themselves the natural continuation of the previous state. (for example, the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union would not count as "continuity," since they viewed their preceding governments as essentially illegitimate incarnations of their respective states. The Roman Empire and Nazi Germany would, since they viewed themselves as being the exact same entities as the Roman Republic and the Weimar Republic, respectively).

2. They must maintain a comparable level of geopolitical power. (For example, Taiwan or the Free City of Krakow would not count as having comparable geopolitical power to the mainland RoC or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, while the Khanate of Crimea would count as having at least comparable geopolitical power to the Golden Horde in its waning years).
 
I don't know if some of the quickly conquered large empires (Alexander, Huns, Mongols, etc) really count. Those sorts of states tended to be built around one very charismatic leader and have a very difficult time holding themselves together after his death. The only real example of this type I can think of that didn't fall apart after a few decades is the Rashidun Caliphate, and thats probably because it wasn't as dependent on one person as the other examples.
 
The Maya certainly didn't decline from the height of their power, the collapse wasn't that sudden. Assuming of course you were talking about the Classical Maya, although my answer really wouldn't change for the post-classical Maya either.

The Aztecs certainly have a stronger case, but the Inca suffered too much in their civil war I think really to count for this.
 
There was a discussion of CF.net about ducal Burgundy surviving, which got me thinking about other countries that ceased to exist, either through wars inheritance, or revolution, just after the point when they reached the peak of their peacetime geopolitical power.

For example, the Soviet Union would not count because it would not have been at the peak of its power, Nazi Germany would not count because it peaked in power during a war, and Imperial Japan and the Byzantine Empire of Heraclius would both not count because there was state continuity.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania (if uninterupted personal union eventually resulting in political union counts as ceasing to exist)
Grand Duchy of Lithuania reached the peak of power in the middle of 15th century, while ceased in the end of 18th century and was only shadow of the former. I don't think this count as “just after the point when it reached the peak“ even in your suggested the end of the 16th century.
 
The Roman Empire was hardly at its height in Basil's day - it'd been undergoing slow overall slow shrinkage for the longer time; it might hold the record for longest shrinkage, in fact... ;-)

Carthage and the democratic Achaean League, both conquered by Rome.
 
The Roman Empire was hardly at its height in Basil's day - it'd been undergoing slow overall slow shrinkage for the longer time; it might hold the record for longest shrinkage, in fact... ;-)

Carthage and the democratic Achaean League, both conquered by Rome.

What? How exactly to you define the height of a state that existed for 2,000 years? It had many ups, down, and transformations. Under Basil II, it reached its apogee as the classical Byzantine state, having recovered from the immense shrinkage after the dual assault of the Caliphate and Avars in the 7th c. It was at a peak of power, prosperity, and military strength.
 

wormyguy

Banned
What? How exactly to you define the height of a state that existed for 2,000 years? It had many ups, down, and transformations. Under Basil II, it reached its apogee as the classical Byzantine state, having recovered from the immense shrinkage after the dual assault of the Caliphate and Avars in the 7th c. It was at a peak of power, prosperity, and military strength.
The Roman Empire had many peaks, the largest under either Augustus or Trajan (it's debatable), but when it ceased to exist it was most certainly not at its peak.
 

maverick

Banned
The Roman Empire technically fell in the 1450s, not their peak.

Carthage reached its peak before the First Punic War, with its maritime Empire, which was lost to Rome in the first two Punic wars.

The Aztec Empire might be a better example...
 
The Roman Empire technically fell in the 1450s, not their peak.

Carthage reached its peak before the First Punic War, with its maritime Empire, which was lost to Rome in the first two Punic wars.

The Aztec Empire might be a better example...

With Rome, for the purposes of this thread, I think the 4th Crusade is a more natural ending point. The Nicean "restoration" never pieced together even half what the Angeloi had. That said, the Angeloi were no peak of any kind, being pretty easily described as a steady decline from the height of the Komnenian restoration.

As for Carthage, when it was destroyed at the end of the Third Punic War, it certainly was at no peak.

The Aztecs work pretty well, and I think serve to demonstrate a point. Pretty much all states (I can't think of any counterexamples) that can be accurately described as destroyed at their height using the definitions given can be divided into 2 categories. The first are those shortlived states that were built around a single warlord that collapsed upon said warlord's death. The second would be those that were destroyed by an out of context problem, with the most notable examples being the pre-Columbian American states or say, the Khwarezm or the Jurchen Jin Dynasty that were vigorous, expanding states until they got crushed by the Mongols.
 
Oo Over Here!

Wouldn't the Kingdom of Prussia be the best example of a sovereign state that through its military as well as political victories forged a united Deutschland that created the First Reich? These circumstances laid the groundwork for not only its demise as a sovereign entity but also the eradication of the Prussian as a living language and a lot of its culture during the sweeping policies of Germanization that culminated under the Nazi regime?

Lets also not forget the Khmer Empire, which was the largest southeast Asian sovereign entity for all of human history and a cradle of Buddhism for a certain amount of time. The empire ended up peeking and collapsing under multiple regimes due to an array of issues such as overburdening populations concentrated in its key cities such as Angkor Wat combined with deteriorating infrastructure, the Black Death and political infighting between would be kings. Eventually, Khmer as a sovereign entity faded into the pages of time in the face of newly burgeon Thai and Burmese kingdoms. The culture and certain linguistics partially re-emerged in what is now Cambodia.
 
The Shahdom of Khwarezm. They freed themselves from the Seljuks and Khara Khitay, then conquered the Khara Khitays in 1212. 6 years later a flunky insulted Ghenghis Khan and two years later they were obliterated cementing the reputation of the Mongols forever. The demise of the Khwarizmian Shahs seems to be a textbook example of the OP.

ED: Ah, I see Leper of Outremer already mentioned them.
 
Republic of Texas? <snort> Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the first thing they did after acheiving de facto independence from Mexico was petition the United States for entry? If so, the people who are so proud to have once been their own country were sure in a hurry to throw away their soverignty.

True. The Confederacy would have a stronger claim, as they did experience military and diplomatic success between 1861-63.
 
Wouldn't the Kingdom of Prussia be the best example of a sovereign state that through its military as well as political victories forged a united Deutschland that created the First Reich? These circumstances laid the groundwork for not only its demise as a sovereign entity but also the eradication of the Prussian as a living language and a lot of its culture during the sweeping policies of Germanization that culminated under the Nazi regime?
Prussian as living language ended in 17th century.
 
The Maya certainly didn't decline from the height of their power, the collapse wasn't that sudden. Assuming of course you were talking about the Classical Maya, although my answer really wouldn't change for the post-classical Maya either.

The Aztecs certainly have a stronger case, but the Inca suffered too much in their civil war I think really to count for this.
Maybe the dude was suffering from that all too common "Mayans just suddenly disappeared" delusion, which I can't blame him for as they often teach that crap in schools. You can't really say that the Classic Maya were really "destroyed" either in the sense that some outside power came in and conquered them or that their cities were just suddenly and spontaneously abandoned. And even in the case of the Post-Classic Mayans, even they were in a state of decline from their height (the era of Mayapan being the height) when the Spanish came. Aztecs certainly make a good case though.
 
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