Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-7263041-20130520220135/@comment-6335668-20130521002202

I'm sorry, but Arathor was most certainly an empire. I disagree with Maxen's overly Roman interpretation myself (I'm all about dem Germanic tribes, myself. Mm.) but being upset about claiming there was an Empire is a bit odd.

It also took quite a long time to fracture after the Troll Wars - anywhere from between 100 - 1000 years.

http://www.wowpedia.org/The_Guardians_of_Tirisfal. Empire.

http://www.wowpedia.org/Trol%27kalar. Empire.

http://www.wowpedia.org/The_Seven_Kingdoms. Hardly a quick fracturing.

In fact, we never see reference to a -Kingdom- of Arathor. My guild is actually the one 'breaking' lore there.

Now, let's briefly examine what constitutes an empire. It's a large (geographically) group of states ruled by a common sovereign of some kind, with cultural and ethnic differences, typically assembled through force. Arathor rose out of the violent unification of most of the Human Tribes, who promptly went and formed a few cities of their own - semi-independent city-states, to be precise.

So we have a large state, assembled through war, consisting of a number of quasi-independent city-states who still pledge loyalty to a centralized government. That's a pretty good candidate for an Empire, wouldn't you say?