I saw a tiktok talking about why white supremacists like the Roman Empire so much and he was 100% right but at one point he says “When you see a farm you think of Roman agriculture, do you think about Cesar Chavez and the UFW? When you see a railroad you go ‘oh that’s the width of a chariot’ but do you think about the immigrants that built that railroad?” which made me go

Although mostly when I think about the Roman Empire it’s either “how is this bad shit the fault of the Roman Empire” or “man the US sure is collapsing”

Anybody that says it’s because Rome was such a massive part of history, ask them how much they think about the other grand civilizations run by non-caucasians in Eurasia or Africa that were just as important for history

One of my coworkers has been asking people this. Apparently I’m the only man she knows that doesn’t think about Rome regularly.

sorry, im busy researching important roman history: esoteric trans cults that would sever their genitals and throw them at rich people

(sweating profusely) It’s only because I’m writing fantasy fiction set in the iron age! I swear!

“So anyways, back to why Krushchev is a revisionist traitor.”

ngl Julius Caesar is a fascinating figure, but being a Rome nerd is pretty cringe

It’s for white supremacy nerds or other people who only really have a minor interest in history but want to seem like a classically educated knower of things so they read one book (if that) on Rome because it feels like the most historical thing of all history so dropping the names Vespasian or Caligula into conversation makes their balls hard

I’ll cop to it. I probably think about Ancient Rome like once a week

I almost never think or talk about ancient rome. Outside of actual historical conversation why would anyone talk about rome?

People keep bringing it up for some reason

Rome is actually pretty cool, but these losers focus on a very narrow slice of time between the Marian reforms and the Year of the Five Emperors, basically a grand total of 3 centuries. Go anytime before this time period like how the Etruscans had a huge impact on Roman society, religion, and Latin or after this time period like how Roman heavy infantry was ditched while Roman light infantry would be the basis in which medieval infantry would descent from and you’ll receive blank stares. All the actual cool shit like mystery cults and curse tablets are ignored so we can drone on about the Battle of Cannae or how Caesar got owned at the Senate. Even within that time period, they would rather simp reactionary losers like Cicero than some dude who tried to fuck Caesar’s wife by pretending to be a woman during a women-only religious ceremony. They definitely do not like when you say that the Byzantine Empire was just some fake name made up by some German living in a polity that was neither Holy nor Roman nor an empire when the Byzantines were by all accounts the actual Holy Roman Empire.

I think Rome is one of those topics I know just enough to know how little I really know about it. Which is probably more than most of the dudes who think about it all the time