As I was sitting at a coffee shop with LuLu yesterday I overheard a conversation at a nearby table. They mentioned the recent Tiktok trend where men are asked how often they think about the Roman Empire. The surprisingly common answer to that inquiry - "a lot/everyday/every other day"
Now according to these people - two men and a woman - this was "probably a lie," designed to woo potential female partners, and that no guy thinks of Rome that often. What woman, other than Mary Beard, would grow faint at such a line wasn't made clear. Nor am I alleging these were America's best or brightest scholars: one of them said that the only time *he* thought of the Roman Empire was when he was watching a movie about it, "like 300" - which of course is a movie about Greece, not Rome.
Now a few weeks ago Junie, asked me this very same question, phone in hand, probably to comply with that Tiktok trend. And my answer was an honest "A few times a day."
I assure you, that wasn't to reel in a lady or because Rome was a "patriarchal, militaristic society," or any other drivel that haters use to dismiss the answer. My reasoning is simple: Why wouldn't you think of Rome often?
Not just the Empire, but the Republic that proceeded it, and Byzantium that followed it. The built a society that spanned three continents and lasted 800 years (1800 if you don't exclude the Eastern half of the Empire); not the largest empire in history, true, but no doubt the most influential to modern life. Law, politics, language, construction, you name it, the Romans had a hand in improving it.
I think of their roads and their cement every time I drive over streets like Logan Avenue in Milwaukee, riddled with so many potholes you think it was target practice for artillery; I think of their language whenever I look up a term of art in the law; I think of their role as conquerors and their willingness to embrace change when I think of Christianity; I think of their art and their architecture and their weapons and their Senators and their Emperors and . . .
Well, I think of them often.
And NOT just when I watch "300."
