On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Philip Hart wrote: >]From J.M. Roberts's _Twentieth Century_: > >]"It is the essence of empire that it rules over many peoples..." >He points out that Queen Victoria assumed the title of Empress in >reference to India. The Dragaeran Empire includes a few islands but >nothing comparable to a distant, larger, more populous country. >Anyway, to me the Empire seems more like a big Kingdom under this >definition, given the ethnic cleansing of the Serioli and perhaps >the cat-centaurs. > That does seem to be the usual standard of applying the term, as I think of it. The only counterexample I can think of is the Chinese Empire, which might have aquired the term simply due to sheer size - so perhaps for the same reason, the Dragaeran Empire. But I may be mistaken about China.