Ladies, how often does you man think about the Roman Empire?

September 23, 2023 7:45 AM

Answer: It's a lot [Tik Tok]

How Often Does Darius Butler Think About the Roman Empire? [YouTube]

Are Men Obsessed With the Roman Empire? Yes, Say Men. [New York Times]

How often do men think about ancient Rome? Quite frequently, it seems.[Washington Post]
posted by riruro (186 comments total)

Hmm, does thinking a lot about the Byzantine Empire count? What about the HRE? (Personally, I blame playing a lot of CK II for my periods of thinking about those).
posted by nubs at 8:00 AM on September 23, 2023 [12 favorites]

My favorite riff on this topic was a meme image someone made of a pensive dude and some exquisite goth ladies that was labelled “Local Bloke Utterly Obsessed With Roman Empire Because He Too Would Like To Be Destroyed By Goths”
posted by foxfirefey at 8:10 AM on September 23, 2023 [90 favorites]

Mod note: Several comments removed. If folks don't like a post, they're welcome to move on, but please refrain from denigrating something other people enjoy.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:11 AM on September 23, 2023 [23 favorites]

I'm a man and I rarely think about the Roman Empire, except when I read articles about men thinking about the Roman Empire.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:12 AM on September 23, 2023 [35 favorites]

He's a 10 but he won't stop thinking about the Crisis of the Third Century.
posted by PlusDistance at 8:12 AM on September 23, 2023 [36 favorites]

I read the NYT article when it came out, and to me this sounded basically like one of those light-hearted viral things that people enjoy, rather than something about an actual phenomenon.

I do notice though how much advertising to men, particularly around sex/virility stuff, uses that era. Trojan condoms, that online ED meds place called Roman, any number of Sparta references, etc.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:17 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

I mean, I’m a classics major living in the decline of an imperial power at an inflection point where it turns from a republic to an authoritiarian cult of personality. I think about the Roman Empire a normal and sensible amount.
posted by gauche at 8:19 AM on September 23, 2023 [211 favorites]

how often does joe jonas think about the roman empire
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:20 AM on September 23, 2023 [7 favorites]

almost never.

wait does the question include the republic because if so all the time see i've got this great idea for a yaoi series about marius and sulla and like mithridates is this exchange student who becomes sulla's boyfriend but then marius tries to steal him away and
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:20 AM on September 23, 2023 [30 favorites]

I don't think about Rome that much, but I go to sleep listening to the history of Bronze Age civilizations about 3x a week, so. I guess I get it.
posted by penduluum at 8:23 AM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

Times New Roman

Bold.
posted by chavenet at 8:24 AM on September 23, 2023 [52 favorites]

And on Mastodon, the guy who pointed out that many of us think of the Romulan Empire even more often.
posted by Quindar Beep at 8:25 AM on September 23, 2023 [22 favorites]

but how often do Apple II hobbyists think about ROMs
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:35 AM on September 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

I'm currently in the middle of two audiobook histories: MacCulloch's "Christianity: the first three thousand years" and Kelly's "The Great Mortality." The second only touches tangentially on the Roman Empire, in an evidential discussion of whether the Justinian plague was the same illness as the medieval Black Death. The role of the Roman Empire in the first is somewhat more prominent.

(Last night I switched from one book to the other, and went from a discussion of the shittiness of third-century popes to a discussion of the shittiness of the Avignon popes. I was briefly confused about whether I was listening to the right book.)
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 8:39 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

Wait, lemme lecture you about the Petticoat Affair and Julia Sand instead :P

I probably shouldn't judge, I was on a Hamilton obsession for years on end that turned into reading about all the presidents (hence why I know about the above things), but Roman Empire seems like a weird/random one since it's not like a giant awesome musical's been written about that lately?
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:41 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

I liked Actually, the Biggest Roman Empire Freaks Are Women by Luke Winkie in Slate. Excerpt:

Ayelet Lushkov, another professor at UT who counts herself as a lifelong Rome obsessive with a particular interest in Latin literature, goes a step further. She argues that the version of the Roman Empire men might claim to be captivated by—codified in highly aestheticized video games and films, crimson blood splattered on shining porcelain walls, wanton decadence and excess, Joaquin Phoenix pointing his quivering thumb down in Gladiator—is, at best, a highly simplified interpretation of the history. If this is the Rome you’re thinking about, then you’re not thinking about Rome at all. In truth, the empire, like so many other societies, was blemished by asphyxiating bureaucracy, institutional precarity, and flat-out genteel cowardice. Much to the disappointment of the bro-intellectual illuminati, this was not a place worth aspiring to.

posted by Kattullus at 8:43 AM on September 23, 2023 [27 favorites]

I spend a lot of time thinking about the history of Nissin Foods. That’s right, the Ramen Empire.
posted by jedicus at 8:49 AM on September 23, 2023 [50 favorites]

I'm a man and I don't think much at all about the Roman Empire, but when I do, it is with fondness for that time that a slave rose up and saved everybody from a bad, bad emperor and it won the Oscar, how cool is that?
posted by philip-random at 8:51 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

almost never.

wait does the question include the republic because if so all the time.

signed,
x𝕩x69_𝕥𝕚𝕓𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕦𝕤_𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕔𝕙𝕦𝕤_420𝕩x𝕩
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:54 AM on September 23, 2023 [9 favorites]

> Times New Roman

Bold.

oh shit though this gives me a chance to link to my favorite metafilter comment of all time
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:58 AM on September 23, 2023 [34 favorites]

my roman imperial mother-in-law was super annoying, but very much ahead of her time as far as breaking gender-based barriers. in a first, she competed as a combatant in a large entertainment, slaying many worthy men. she met her match when she competed as a Bestiarius, when a lion devoured her in front of thousands

gladiator
posted by lalochezia at 8:58 AM on September 23, 2023 [12 favorites]

"I, uh, was just thinking about the Roman Empire, dear! Honest!"

"What are you two talking about?!?"
"The Roman Empire! What are you talking about?"
"Barbie."
posted by gtrwolf at 8:58 AM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

When I think about the Roman Empire, I always come back to how, ultimately, the empire was destroyed by the gods for its hubris.

So when I look at my life, I decide to live differently.

And better.

Maybe even better than the gods.
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:03 AM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

Ancient Rome is interesting! I seldom used to think about it but then someone on this very metafilter linked to the interesting blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry and then, hey, well, it was interesting. Now I probably think about ancient Rome as often as several times a week, sometimes for extended periods.

I feel like Does Your Man Think About Ancient Rome discourse mixes up several contradictory American tendencies to so-so effect.

Obviously, plenty of people, probably almost all men, are interested in ancient Rome (and ancient Greece and adjacent) out of mistaken and toxic ideas about race and masculinity. (ACOUP has a great series that is basically, "Sparta is bad and also they were a bunch of losers".)

Another piece - interest in ancient Rome, for Americans, acts as a sort of patch over paying attention to our own horrible, violent, racist history of the past few hundred years. Ancient Rome is foreign and even its evils are so spatially and temporally remote as to provide an anodyne way to think about history.

And another piece - the bad idea that there are transhistorical truths or patterns that we can learn by looking at Rome and then slap onto the modern US.

At the same time, I'd say that there are two other non-bad factors: First, American history education is crappy, so many people who would be interested in history more generally get canalized into Rome/Civil War/WWII because that's what is readily accessible on TV and in bookstores. We live in a dumb society that values stupidity; it's not like people are raised to know their way around a library and the bookstores have the same old bunch of history bestsellers all the time.

Second, we live in a really anti-intellectual society. "Lol all those men thinking about Ancient Rome" discourse is partly, of course, a response to the way that women's intellectual interests get positioned as stupid, since lots of cooking/home/trade/craft/art material history stuff tends to get marketed to women and marketed as light and trivial. But part of it is just "thinking about history is boring and dumb and un-self-aware just like having a picture of yourself holding a fish in your dating profile", and that's straight out of American anti-intellectualism, presentism, etc.
posted by Frowner at 9:03 AM on September 23, 2023 [35 favorites]

Does thinking about Romulans a lot count?
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:09 AM on September 23, 2023 [19 favorites]

You can make soap with olive oil and ash. I would blow their minds! All those baths and no soap, how come they never invented soap? They fucking love olive oil.

I think about it all the time.
posted by adept256 at 9:14 AM on September 23, 2023 [10 favorites]

That reminds me, I need to rewatch some Time Team.
posted by SunSnork at 9:15 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

This is such a weird meme. I can assure you I think about the Roman empire in all of its variants far more often than my husband does.
posted by supermedusa at 9:18 AM on September 23, 2023 [14 favorites]

Well, I was reading about the Roman senate (ACOUP) while eating lunch today and I'm going to see Mary Beard on Friday. So, maybe?
posted by antiwiggle at 9:20 AM on September 23, 2023 [9 favorites]

I also need to get my partner (and FanFare, apparently) into Time Commanders.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 9:23 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

> This is such a weird meme. I can assure you I think about the Roman empire in all of its variants far more often than my husband does.

i love the discourse around this meme because inevitably the conclusion people reach is "wait, all kinds of people love to think about the roman empire" and like in a small way getting people to reach this conclusion is p r a x i s because the fash try to monopolize thinking about the roman empire and this takes it back from them
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:24 AM on September 23, 2023 [30 favorites]

I’m way more interested in reading about the historical dominance of Ivy League crew teams. You know, the Row-Men Empire.
posted by caviar2d2 at 9:24 AM on September 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome is a fascinating analysis of the fall of the empire via climate change and emerging diseases. That's a triple-decker catnip treat for super Medusa!
posted by supermedusa at 9:27 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

MetaFilter: blemished by asphyxiating bureaucracy, institutional precarity, and flat-out genteel cowardice.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:34 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

a fascinating analysis of the fall of the empire via climate change and emerging diseases

Metafylsterical
posted by away for regrooving at 9:35 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’ll be honest, I think about WWII way more.
posted by atoxyl at 9:37 AM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

i love the discourse around this meme because inevitably the conclusion people reach is "wait, all kinds of people love to think about the roman empire" and like in a small way getting people to reach this conclusion is p r a x i s because the fash try to monopolize thinking about the roman empire and this takes it back from them

I hope so! I thought it was a funny joke as a joke, but then when I realized some people believed it, I got pretty pissed. I was an archaeology major, I took years of Greek and Latin, and I will tell you -- women are the backbone of classics and archaeology. They start out as creepy obsessed little girls, then they become language students, then they go on digs and do an increasing amount of the study underlying the whole field.

Now, are they the best compensated? Are they getting the tenure? Are they the face of the field? As you can imagine, that's a whole different question. We are certainly lucky to have Mary Beard and others coming into the public eye. For my part, I never got a post-college job in it for the same reason others leave academia, and women's issues are of course a big part of that.

Anyway, the Roman Empire that obsessed me was not actually in Rome -- it was in Egypt, with Egyptians who were Roman citizens, or aspired to be, while deciding which of their Egyptian ways to keep or to discard.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:38 AM on September 23, 2023 [44 favorites]

Nubs, I also think more about the HRE these days than the OG Roman Empire.

17th and 18th century politics are just fascinating. Reform, counter-reform, so much history determined by the failure of the Hapsburg male lines, etc. etc. The sheer amount of history and political evolution in Great Britain and Ireland between the Civil War, Interregnum, Restoration and Glorious Revolution in so short a time. Etc.

Also, the birth of the HRE gives you a further perspective on how the (OG) Roman Empire did not fall. The center of gravity shifted to the East and they no longer wanted to spend the money and manpower defending what had become Italian backwaters. And the western provinces didn't "fall" so much as relatively quickly evolve into local states from which the HRE emerged. Some technology fell out of use in western Europe but it overall knowledge continued to progress.
posted by MattD at 9:42 AM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

kinda love trolling right wing rome dudes by telling them the empire ended in 1922
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:46 AM on September 23, 2023 [14 favorites]

I think about Rome probably once a week too but it’s because my thinking tends to be very associative, so if I’m looking at the sidewalk and thinking about how concrete is made I’ll be like oh hey the Romans invented that. If someone mentions a the planet Venus I’ll be like oh yeah that’s the Roman name for Aphrodite. I look at a tarot deck and it’s got Roman numerals and I’m like must have taken up so much space back in the day. Etc. There’s so many things in modern day that trace back there, which has been reinforced enough in my brain to automatically make the associations.

I was told that the women’s version of the Roman Empire is true crime/serial killers (by a group of women, who confirmed they think about this EVERY DAY). I do make associations with that occasionally, but I think I simply have not consumed enough true crime/serial killer content to have those associations. I do sometimes think about that lady who was stuffed in a water tank when the elevator acts weird, though.

I have no opinion on the claimed gendered aspect of these phenomenon because as a transmasc he/they lesbian I feel like the whole thing starts to make garbage disposal noises when I try to think about it in the context of my own gender.
posted by brook horse at 9:48 AM on September 23, 2023 [16 favorites]

I mostly think about the Medieval period and the Black Death, but yeah Rome was ok.
posted by emjaybee at 9:49 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

I never really thought about the Roman Empire much more than anybody else, apart from starting the Marcus Didius Falco series. I agree with Countess Elena that Ptolemaic Egypt (and classical Greece) are just more interesting.

On the other hand, I can't stop thinking about the Soviet Union lately. Can't imagine why, I'm sure there's a reason.
posted by MrBadExample at 9:51 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

> I’ll be honest, I think about WWII way more.

> I mostly think about the Medieval period and the Black Death, but yeah Rome was ok.

> I also think more about the HRE these days than the OG Roman Empire.

i've got this rule for myself — which i'm technically breaking right now but like it's a safe space right? — anyway i've low-key vowed to never be the first person in any conversation to mention the russian revolution, since otherwise i'd alienate everyone with continual data dumps about the russian revolution
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:51 AM on September 23, 2023 [12 favorites]

I think about New Roman Times by Camper Van Beethoven pretty regularly.
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:52 AM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

Countess Elena I was an archaeology major too!!! I studied Latin and although I ultimately got my degree in Medieval History (which I never used career-wise lol) I still love it all.

It sucks that so many women have indeed broken the glass ceiling of academia and yet still don't get equal recognition for their work. grumble.
posted by supermedusa at 9:55 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

I think about literary response to WWI a lot, or rather I tend to go on kicks. During the pandemic I started thinking about the Regency, mostly material culture stuff (chocolate - not how you think it was based on reading Regency novels!), since I read a bunch of costuming blogs to take my mind off things. I think about how much weirder the Victorians were than is popularly understood.

"Think about" is pretty distinct from "I do serious reading about", though. Most of the things I just think about are things I read online, mostly fairly decent sources.

Serious reading has been hit and miss since the pandemic, and mostly 18th and 19th century fiction, but I did read some queer history and dip back into some Richard Slotkin books. Also my abiding interest, the history of science fiction writing by marginalized writers.

When I think about, like, ancient Rome, I'm mostly looking for accurate but big-picture stuff, and I'm not looking to originate any arguments. When I'm doing serious reading, I'm looking for a much better-grounded understanding and I'm looking to be able to make my own arguments (however modest) about the subject.
posted by Frowner at 10:00 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't think about the Roman empire that often.

I'm Indian, so perhaps that might have something to do with it?
posted by splitpeasoup at 10:01 AM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

“Why Elon Musk and the Far-Right LOVE the Roman Empire”—The Kavernacle, 23 September 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 10:01 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Mainly I'm obsessed with not having enough time to have a proper obsession. I have a few books I'd love to research and write, mostly just research, but having too little time.
posted by jzb at 10:06 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Well I used to always think about the high middle ages, but my interests have expanded as I sought to understand the sociology and politics of the middle ages, and up until recently I was stuck in the early middle ages, but lately I've been deep diving on the migration era, a.k.a the barbarian invasions of Rome, so yeah, quite a lot, but it's not, like, the focus, y'know?
posted by agentofselection at 10:09 AM on September 23, 2023

wait does the question include the republic because if so all the time.

This is the way.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:13 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

yes it is in keeping with the mos maiorum
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:16 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I mostly think about the 70s through the 90s when I think of the past. The golden age of microcomputers and tiny software houses.
posted by signsofrain at 10:18 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

> I mostly think about the 70s through the 90s when I think of the past. The golden age of microcomputers and tiny software houses.

that is in keeping with the mos mel a real programmiorum
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:19 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Sure, it’s fun to think about the Roman empire, but have you ever tried thinking about a plate of beans?
posted by TurnKey at 10:30 AM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

I think about literary response to WWI a lot
I, too, think about the Dadaist manifestos a lot.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 10:31 AM on September 23, 2023 [10 favorites]

I mean, didn't we just have a whole thread on the concrete formula of the Roman empire a couple of weeks ago on the Blue? I'm not obsessed with the Roman empire, but it's pretty hard with movies, TV, stories about antiquities, architecture, Latin, history, wars, etc. to avoid thinking about it from time to time.
posted by Chuffy at 10:32 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I last thought about it three weeks ago when, while biking home from work, the overactive pun center of my brain spontaneously turned to "SPQR". The best I could come up with was LoudSPQR as a stage name for someone who raps in Latin, which: ehhh I guess is okay.
posted by aubilenon at 10:35 AM on September 23, 2023 [12 favorites]

My daughter texted me a week ago to ask how often I thought about the Roman Empire, and my first response was to confirm she didn’t actually want to be pointing a camera at me before hearing my answer.

When I told her it was normally just a couple or three times a year, but coincidentally had included the day before, she was incredulous. She asked why. I said we are American citizens in 2023, living through the decline and fall of the American empire. Why aren’t you thinking about it frequently? Hadn’t she ever heard that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it?

Of course, those who do learn from history are doomed to watch as everyone around them repeats it anyway, so maybe ignorance is bliss after all
posted by pwinn at 10:42 AM on September 23, 2023 [11 favorites]

I can't tell if I'm just not being imaginative enough about what "think about the Roman Empire" means or if I have a bad memory or what, but... what? Why are you all thinking about the Roman Empire so damned much? Is there something wrong with me that I DON'T think about the Roman Empire so damned much? Is this actually a weird ha-ha-gotcha meme that's actually untrue or a joke but I don't know because I can't read the articles? I am utterly baffled.
posted by chrominance at 10:45 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Like if I think "oh yeah that's the name of a Roman god" in passing is that like "PSYCH you just thought about the Roman Empire you DUNCE"? Did I just lose The Game?
posted by chrominance at 10:46 AM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think about the ancient Greeks about as often.
posted by Chuffy at 10:47 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

You can make soap with olive oil and ash. I would blow their minds! All those baths and no soap, how come they never invented soap? They fucking love olive oil.

you barbarians can have my strigil when you pry it from my cold, oily hands. which'll probably be really easy.
posted by ZaphodB at 10:56 AM on September 23, 2023 [9 favorites]

I had some thoughts about this a few days ago. Mostly, it's "eh, great start for some basics of civilization, but there really isn't a good reason to randomly think about the Roman Empire, IMO"

Mostly, it's a fun meme that makes you go "hmmm" but the real fun is asking non-white men or women in general, how often they think about the subject
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:57 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

I think that some of it might just be the pervasive influence. If you speak a language that's largely or partially evolved from Latin, or live in a culture that uses Greco-Roman architecture for many if not most of their governmental buildings, or whose system of law regularly uses Latin words for things, then it's gonna come up, whether or not you think of the specific political entity as a thing unto itself.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:57 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

C'mon, people, The Bro-Man Empire is just sitting there, waiting for its moment

probably going to get conquered by the visicalcs or something
posted by phooky at 11:13 AM on September 23, 2023 [14 favorites]

Not a man, but I think about the Roman Empire frequently. Usually in the context of sorrow over the decline of classical Latin (modern English is such a mess) and a burning desire to, some day, know what silphium tasted like.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:14 AM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

I really enjoy a Caesar salad, does that count?
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:23 AM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

You've got to say it right or the servers won't understand you. The trickiest part is making sure you pronounce all the 'u's as 'v'.
posted by phooky at 11:24 AM on September 23, 2023

I really enjoy a Caesar salad, does that count?

No, that originated in Tijuana.
posted by LionIndex at 11:26 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

a burning desire to, some day, know what silphium tasted like
FoB, did you see this FPP (from last year)?
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:34 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well, there are some scholars who think that the 'v's are pronounced 'five', but it's still a matter of debate.
posted by phooky at 11:35 AM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

sometimes I like to think about the weird fact the Romans had no tomatoes!
posted by supermedusa at 11:54 AM on September 23, 2023 [7 favorites]

Hmm, does thinking a lot about the Byzantine Empire count? What about the HRE? (Personally, I blame playing a lot of CK II for my periods of thinking about those).

The first, yes. The second, no.

Could go either way on Romulans.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:59 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

TVTropes on Space Romans.
posted by plep at 12:15 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I actually think about the Roman Empire a lot, but that's because I'm slowly making my way through Gibbon
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 12:18 PM on September 23, 2023 [7 favorites]

*sigh* Yet another way in which I fail to meet the societal expectations of being manly in this day and age. As it happens, however, I fully meet them in one other aspect: not giving a shit about such expectations.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:19 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

a meme image someone made of a pensive dude and some exquisite goth ladies
source
posted by one for the books at 12:34 PM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

Jordan Shanks thinking about the Roman Empire at some length
posted by flabdablet at 12:38 PM on September 23, 2023

Ray Walston, LD I slogged my way thru Gibbon 2 years ago. it was worth it and laid a great foundation for some more modern reading I wanted to do on Rome. (happy to share book recs if you like)
posted by supermedusa at 12:45 PM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

I didn't think about Ancient Rome very often until this story started going around last week and now I can't NOT think about Ancient Rome it shows up in my feeds so often
posted by dis_integration at 12:45 PM on September 23, 2023

Not that it's bad. I like to think about Ancient Rome I guess
posted by dis_integration at 12:49 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ben-Hur? Hardly knew'r
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 12:58 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Since it's my job, I think about the Roman empire for a few weeks every spring. To get to that job, I thought a lot about the Roman empire decades ago. That's how academia works.

My students have obviously played a lot of games and watched a lot of movies, so part of my job is to sort the art from the facts.

That said, at our last open evaluation, the students asked for a more global approach to history, and the students articulating it were white males. I think/hope they were following the Pippi rule: if you have a lot of power, you need to show a lot of grace. Meaning that they were expressing what their fellow students of color and other genders felt unable to say out loud.

Unfortunately, my course has been terminated. Management didn't understand why engineers needed to know history. I haven't been fired and I haven't given up. My students have written in their formal evaluation that it was the only course that made sense of all the other courses.
posted by mumimor at 1:04 PM on September 23, 2023 [26 favorites]

I'm a history nerd so I suppose I am biased but look at what mumimor's students are saying! an understanding of history provides a context to all other learning, to all understanding of the world around us and how we got here.
posted by supermedusa at 1:07 PM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

You can make soap with olive oil and ash. I would blow their minds! All those baths and no soap, how come they never invented soap? They fucking love olive oil.

I think about it all the time.

L Sprague de Camp wrote kind of a fun fantasy — Lest Darkness Fall — about a practical minded American man who was transported back to Ancient Rome at a critical period and introduced a bunch of 'why didn’t they think of that?' innovations, first to support himself, and then possibly with the larger purpose implied by the title, though I don’t remember how it turned out.

I do remember he introduced double entry bookkeeping and distilled spirits, however.

Golden Age SFF in general was fairly deeply imbued with the grandeur of Rome, I’d say.
posted by jamjam at 1:26 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think of them every time I see a bull ring in popular culture and remember the gladiatorial combat in a ring in Hispania isn't that far from us.

I think of how the Xians and the police act like the Pharisees and the Legion.

And being born under a surgery named after a murdered tyrant has given me a head start as it were.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 1:35 PM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

I once offended a Romanophile by saying that the politics of the late Republic and early Empire were similar to those of many Latin American countries. Apparently comparing the politics of Julius Caesar to that of Juan Peron doesn't go over well.
posted by clawsoon at 1:35 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm going to see Mary Beard on Friday

Unless anyone's building a time machine to visit ancient Rome I believe you've won the thread.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:35 PM on September 23, 2023 [10 favorites]

> I still don't know why Dune is revered, with its worship of white saviors, imperialism, eugenics, and generally ignoring any inhabitant of the Empire that isn't somehow privilege-born.

dune is best enjoyed as a book about trashy aristos fucking up everything they touch. like i like the villeneuve movie but if i were picking anyone to direct an adaptation i'd pick sofia coppola.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:43 PM on September 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

L Sprague de Camp wrote kind of a fun fantasy — Lest Darkness Fall — about a practical minded American man who was transported back to Ancient Rome at a critical period and introduced a bunch of 'why didn’t they think of that?' innovations, first to support himself, and then possibly with the larger purpose implied by the title, though I don’t remember how it turned out.

That was a great book, or at least it was to me, when I read it. I'm nervous about ever revisiting it. I have found as an adult that de Camp's prose can be really bad. Not to mention a high probability of other problematic stuff.

But still. Distilling liquor was the time traveler's first move; low capital and nice opportunity for profits. Has influenced my reading of history of science books, as I now always try to come away with at least one invention that I could implement that would make me rich, were I teleported back in time.

As to whether Darkness falls:

The traveler happens to be a history professor who's an expert in 6th century Rome, and his goal is to prevent the dark ages by decisively defeating Justinian, thus preventing the massive depopulation and de-urbanization that decades of warfare brought to the peninsula. It works.

I still don't know why Dune is revered, with its worship of white saviors, imperialism, eugenics, and generally ignoring any inhabitant of the Empire that isn't somehow privilege-born.

I kind of felt the same way, but with the movie release a lot of smart people who are also SFF nerds (Nation writer Jeet Heer, for example) have been talking about their experience with it. And making the case that the book is fairly clear that Paul is a monster who creates a dystopia, and the first sequel removes any doubt that this was the point.

I didn't get that, but my teenage reaction to it was that it started out great and got worse, which is exactly how I would have reacted to a deconstruction of the young-white-male-SF hero back then. So maybe? I will re-read when I get a chance and see if I agree.
posted by mark k at 1:45 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Sure, it’s fun to think about the Roman empire, but have you ever tried thinking about a plate of beans?

Beans are described in ancient Greek under the name of dolichos (e.g., by Theophrastus, the father of botany) and fasiolos (e.g., by Dioscorides). The corresponding Latin words are faseolis (cf. Caelius Apicius, De Re Coquinaria 8.6.1.2) and phaselus/faselus (cf. Publius Vergilius Maro, Georgica 1.227; L. Iunius Moderatus Columella, De Re Rustica 2.7.1.2, 2.10.4.3, 2.10.4.8, 10.1.1.377, and 11.2.75.5). Due to the similarity of the name, the bean was also considered to have been introduced to Rome from the Greek-Roman city of Phaselis, in ancient Lycia, hence the name for the genus.

Corrado, G. (n.d.). Food history and gastronomic traditions of beans in Italy. Journal of Ethnic Foods. Retrieved September 23, 2023, from https://journalofethnicfoods.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42779-022-00122-x
posted by kirkaracha at 1:48 PM on September 23, 2023 [10 favorites]

hippybear 1000% agreed. when I say I think history gives context I do mean world history, definitely not just the G-R that we are overly fixated on in the West.

When I studied the Crusades, we studied the Islamic side of things too: their art, lit, culture, perspective on a bunch of illiterate smelly French knights crashing their party...
posted by supermedusa at 1:51 PM on September 23, 2023

I spend more time thinking about the Gaul of some people
posted by srboisvert at 1:51 PM on September 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

The YouTube algorithm makes sure I think about Ancient Rome daily.

I still don't know why Dune is revered, with its worship of white saviors, imperialism, eugenics, and generally ignoring any inhabitant of the Empire that isn't somehow privilege-born.

That's like saying 1984 was glorifying authoritarianism.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:52 PM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

L Sprague de Camp wrote kind of a fun fantasy — Lest Darkness Fall

Frederik Pohl wrote a short-short story that was kind of an answer to this. It's a little hard to find, but it's called (according to Google and ancient memories of mine) "The Deadly Mission of Phineas Snodgrass".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:11 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think about The Roman Empire often. Other empires too.

I've recently read Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar. I highly recommend it if you like to think about The Roman Empire sometimes.
posted by ovvl at 2:19 PM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

> Did I just lose The Game?
chrominance, I think you just lost The Roman Empire. Edward Gibbon's ghost just gave you a hard stare.
posted by BCMagee at 2:30 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I still don't know why Dune is revered, with its worship of white saviors

The rest of the stuff is fair, but Paul is explicitly not a savior; he absolutely destroys the Fremen and enough Fremen recognize this to attempt to assassinate him.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:31 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

> Meaning that they were expressing what their fellow students of color and other genders felt unable to say out loud.

As someone who thinks about ancient history a lot, I find that I think about Rome mostly because that's all everyone else wants to talk about. I want more coverage of classical India and Pre-Han China because I feel like I've already heard all there is to be said about Rome and Greece.

That's why I wish ACOUP would step outside his comfort zone and make his next Civic Governance series about Han China. I'm not trying to speak up for the subaltern or something, I just think it's the topics that get discussed less often from which we stand a better chance of learning something new. I've chewed the Rome gum until all the flavor has run out.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:04 PM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

Every person on Earth, not just men, should daily think about the Roman Empire because the Empire never ended.
posted by mistersquid at 3:05 PM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

Sure, it’s fun to think about the Roman empire, but have you ever tried thinking about a plate of beans?

Not if you’re a Pythagorean….
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:15 PM on September 23, 2023

I wonder what they're comparing it to.

Like, it's not terribly rare for me (a man) to think about the Roman Empire, but I don't think it's particularly more common than a whole bunch of other things that I sometimes think about. So (if I'm more or less a typical man with respect to this), maybe what this stuff really says is not really that I think about the Roman Empire a lot, but that the typical woman thinks about the Roman Empire very little. Or perhaps is even somehow put off or antagonized to some degree about the mere thought of someone ever thinking about the Roman Empire at all?
posted by Flunkie at 3:33 PM on September 23, 2023

Speaking of World History, here's my favorite 2-semester class on the historiography of World History where Richard Bulliet dissects the textbook for which he was the lead editor: The Earth and its Peoples. It's 46 lectures of historiographical (self-)criticism, historical anecdotes, and possible alternative narratives.

Bulliet's interests include Islamic social history, history of technology, and human-animal relations.

Also, there's this 20-lecture series on Islamic History. Both this and the World History lectures have some really poor audio at times, but they're worth it.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:44 PM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

All bros lead to Rome.
posted by Ishbadiddle at 3:56 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Surely that's Greek.

The Pythagoreans flourished in Italy, and their philosophy (after a fashion) experienced a resurgence in the early Imperial period, eventually feeling into Neoplatonism, the scourge and ruin of Western philosophy. So, thoroughly Roman.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:57 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove wrote Household Gods, a direct reply to the de Camp book. Jo Walton has opinions about it.
posted by bonehead at 4:02 PM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

"In Italy" doesn't mean "Roman", though, let alone "not Greek". They flourished in Magna Graecia, didn't they?

I mean, I don't doubt that maybe later they were also present in significant numbers in Italy when it was pretty thoroughly Roman, but that can be said of a whole lot of things that aren't really "thoroughly Roman".
posted by Flunkie at 4:03 PM on September 23, 2023

making the case that the book is fairly clear that Paul is a monster who creates a dystopia

A different dystopia.
posted by Flunkie at 4:06 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

By the way, The Onion has a recent take on this.
posted by Flunkie at 4:11 PM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

I think a lot about Asterix. Can we get a pun about menhir?
posted by aesop at 5:08 PM on September 23, 2023 [7 favorites]

I mean, I don't doubt that maybe later they were also present in significant numbers in Italy when it was pretty thoroughly Roman, but that can be said of a whole lot of things that aren't really "thoroughly Roman".

Sure? But they left at least some influence behind that helped spark the Neopathagorean movement of the early Empire and fed into Neoplatonism, which became the dominant philosophical substrate of the mid-to late-Empire (and the Medieval period). So it was pretty central to Roman life, probably more so than the Stoicism modern Right-leaning types like to fetishize. Maybe that is a take-over of “true Roman values” by degenerate Greeks, but it’s not like the Romans produced much native philosophy of their own.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:55 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I almost never think about the Roman Empire. I often do think about Emperor Norton.
posted by mike3k at 5:58 PM on September 23, 2023 [11 favorites]

I was not aware that men spend so much time thinking about the Roman Empire, and I run in predominantly masculine circles outside of work. For my part, I spend leisure time thinking about the Neolithic, Copper and especially Bronze Age times. A previous Metafilter post linked to the Fall of Civilizations podcast, and it has sent me on an ancient history journey: https://youtu.be/d2lJUOv0hLA?si=J98cF3R6Owh7MzSH. The Romans appear as almost our contemporaries by comparison.
posted by SnowRottie at 6:17 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I do occasionally think about roamin' umpires...
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:19 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

all the good parts of neoplatonism were just footnotes on parmenides
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:41 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

huh.
like Seneca, everytime I log in.
posted by clavdivs at 8:44 PM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

almost never.

wait does the question include the republic because if so it has been brought to my attention that i have made not one but two exquisite jokes about mos maiorum and neither of them have been favorited and let me tell you back in the day they wouldn’t have let that sort of thing slide
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:47 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’m so confused. The last time I thought about the Roman Empire was probably in the mid-to-late 1970s.
posted by MexicanYenta at 9:32 PM on September 23, 2023

mos maiorum and neither of them have been favorited and let me tell you back in the day they wouldn’t have let that sort of thing slide

It's all in the gens.
posted by clavdivs at 9:46 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is like some not-elephant mindfuck. I’m now interested to know how often I think of the Roman Empire, but I couldn’t guess. It’s not like I can reasonably collect data now though, is it? Have a little notepad with tally marks? Every time I looked at the notepad I’d think of the Empire.

When I was heavily playing Total War, I could probably have told you. If the Byzantines count (and I think they do) there’s a sword in my lounge-room with some association.

(also, do actual Romans have different answers to this question, what with all the ruins and the SPQR access-hole covers?)
posted by pompomtom at 9:48 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think a lot about Asterix.

I suppose I'm more of a Vitalstatistix guy, but I support your position.

Asterix is a far more suitable and effective hero type. But I guess he just feels fantastical, a kid's hero. Whereas Chief V, he's every politician everywhere all the time. Not bad so much as inherently full of himself and almost never the right man at the right time.
posted by philip-random at 9:50 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

The Onion has a recent take on this.

From the link:

“The Roman Empire is certainly one of the most fascinating periods of human history, which is why I decided to get a PhD studying its culinary customs and—wait, why are you asking me about this? Aw shit, did this become a weird men’s rights thing? Fuck.”
posted by philip-random at 10:00 PM on September 23, 2023 [20 favorites]

I think about the Roman Empire constantly, but in the Philip K. Dick sense.
posted by hypnogogue at 10:18 PM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

How did Roman Billionaires spend their money.
posted by clavdivs at 11:49 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’m pretty into the Akkadian Empire these days.
posted by Doleful Creature at 11:56 PM on September 23, 2023

I do a daily multi-choice quiz with my workmates during the morning tea break, and it seems like there is a Roman Empire related question (or wrong answer) every other week. There's the odd Shakespeare question too, which can involve the Roman Empire.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 12:25 AM on September 24, 2023

I have never thought about the Roman Empire. Even reading this thread, I'm just thinking about the fact that people are talking about the Roman Empire. But the Empire itself? Nope. Nothing.
posted by straight at 1:50 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’m so confused. The last time I thought about the Roman Empire was probably in the mid-to-late 1970s.

To be fair, it was more recent then.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:04 AM on September 24, 2023 [22 favorites]

Funny. Lately it's been Mesopotamia for me. But more a vague neolithic/early civilization daydreaming when the crush of dumb modernness gets to me and as vague rpg game pondering
posted by AngelWuff at 6:54 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

It's popular to call the period after the decline of the western roman empire a dark age, but it's got nothing on the Bronze Age Collapse. Now that was a Dark Age. The Medievals didn't even have to reinvent writing!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:02 AM on September 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

Every time I looked at the notepad I’d think of the Empire.

I just lost The Game.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:03 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

does it count to lay in bed in the middle of the night thinking about Pompeii when I cannot sleep? cause I did...
posted by supermedusa at 7:40 AM on September 24, 2023

This is all just subliminal marketing for the next Gladiator. In case you didn't know yes there is going to be a Gladiator 2 and it is coming next year. I just found out and needed to share.
posted by bitteschoen at 7:59 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

mistersquid: Every person on Earth, not just men, should daily think about the Roman Empire because the Empire never ended.

I enjoyed that little essay (though it derailed my evening for about fifteen minutes on a fruitless quest to learn the origins of the last name Hydomako) but it made the common error of taking a quote of Philip K. Dick’s and try to explain it as if it was written and thought by a reasonable person. Here’s the opening paragraph:

“The empire never ended,” was a phrase that science fiction author Philip K. Dick was fond of using now and then to describe the state of our world. He was referring to the alleged “fall” of the Roman Empire; however, his sentiment is that there was no fall, but only a changing of the guard. That is to say, Mr. Dick felt that the Roman Empire has merely changed hands a few times over the course of history, and its mentality has never quite escaped the ruling elite who structure and guide our society. He saw all around him, here in our modern world, hands of the Roman Empire shaping the course of our lives.

No. This is not what he really meant. When he said “the empire never ended” he meant that it was still the year 77 CE and all of us real human beings, those who weren’t androids, had been deceived by an evil demiurge to think nearly two millennia had passed since the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, to hide the fact that he was about to return and free us from this reality, into a better one, as soon as he had rewritten the past to make a better universe for the true believerS. The empire never ended, it had been rewritten into a different form by the evil demiurge.

By its brevity, this is still more comprehensible than what Philip K. Dick really meant. However, he also meant the thing B. E. Hydomako wrote, because he was intelligent enough to see that his words could be interpreted in different ways. But it wasn’t what he really meant.
posted by Kattullus at 11:22 AM on September 24, 2023 [14 favorites]

I've been listening to the I, Podius podcast while I do the dishes so I've been thinking about the Roman Empire and which british actors have appeared on both I, Claudius and Blake's Seven or Doctor Who.
posted by gamera at 12:27 PM on September 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

I asked a friend how often he thinks about the roman empire. He asked if this was about that meme, then said "never" and went on a rant about those weird right winger dudes who all but fetishize that stuff.

Pretty sure I think of Rome more often, but in the context of ancient fast food and apartment buildings. Which they had! When you get takeout, instead of feeling lazy, remind yourself you are part of an ancient urban tradition.

Also: Romanes eunt domus.
posted by cmyk at 12:35 PM on September 24, 2023 [8 favorites]

Crud! I knew I had to send someone a get well card!
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:51 PM on September 24, 2023

I blame the Etruscans.
posted by clavdivs at 2:44 PM on September 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

does thinking about thin-crust marinara pizza count
posted by daisystomper at 3:32 PM on September 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

Being classically educated, I have thought on the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire a fair bit.

But it was first a road trip in 2019 where I stayed in a few campgrounds with people who had painted iconography - not just images - of Trump on their trailers and talking to them, and then of course all of 2020 and Jan 6 2021 that made me think...what if Caesar was actually just like Trump. (As opposed to vice versa.)

Some people write Hamilton, some people have these thoughts thanks to Mr. Maynard in grade 9 and his worship of De Bello Gallico.
posted by warriorqueen at 3:52 PM on September 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

Ancient civilizations are interesting to me and I hope they all know I think of them often. Please also know I think you did a terrible job the whole time but perhaps they can take solace in the fact we're doing a bad job too.
posted by GoblinHoney at 4:10 PM on September 24, 2023

I am cis female and think about the Roman empire a lot because I run a D&D game (currently on hiatus) set in a somewhat magical post-Roman Britain. So the men who play in my game also think about it for that reason.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 4:12 PM on September 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

But do they buy books on the subject? In the (new) books stores I go to, I'd have to say, it's pretty slim pickings.*

On the other hand, the proprietor of a used book shop I frequent tells me that the subject flies off the shelf.

Go figure.

*(Esp compared to WW2 and the US Civil War)
posted by BWA at 5:06 PM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

i think alot about whether propertius got garbled in transmission or he really was a modernist avant la lettre
posted by graywyvern at 5:09 PM on September 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

When it just started to go viral on TikTok, but before any of the media had covered it, I asked my mom, 87yo, to ask the men in her Yiddish Club the next day. I figured that they'd have been the least likely to have heard about the trend. There were five men there that day, all in their late 70s through early 90s. Two men did answer.

One man said he'd thought it about the Roman Empire the night before, and thought about it at least a few times a week; one said he'd been talking about it with his grandchildren earlier in the week, and thought about it fairly often. A third said he couldn't quantify it, but yes, he thought about it frequently. (She suspects they couldn't hear her well enough to understand the question.)

Oddly enough, even though my mom is vivacious and plucky but not at all academic in nature, nobody in attendance thought to ask her why she'd asked.

I tagged half a dozen men friends on Twitter. One was shocked I don't think about it constantly, a few were of varying but notable frequencies, and only one (surprisingly, older than the rest of us by decades) said "never."

This past week or so, a less viral but related trend is asking "What is women's equivalent version to the Roman Empire?" What are we thinking about so much of the time? It ranges from the dark (being kidnapped, assaulted, or murdered) to the more lighthearted (Darcy's hand after helping Lizzie into the carriage in the 2005 Pride & Prejudice, Tom Holland's "Umbrella" performance) to the complexity of our thoughts about Princess Diana.

But the one that seems to stop women in their tracks seems to be thinking about the loss of their friendship with their ex-best friend.

(For those specifically seeking historical periods/events women are thinking of, the most common answers seem to be Tudor England, Regency England, and the Triangle Factory Fire.)
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 5:10 PM on September 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

I last thought about the Roman Empire while watching TV with my partner, with whom I enjoy many shows about the Tudor period, and the Regency. This particular program, however, was called Domina, and focussed on Livia Drusilla, wife of Augustus Caesar, and her many adventures.

As we have just bought reclining chairs for our lounge, as the drama unfolded, I was able to simply lie back and think of the Roman Empire.
posted by Sparx at 5:53 PM on September 24, 2023 [8 favorites]

an old friend once told me a story about his father when Roosevelt dimes first came out. his father received one, tossed it back and said: "I don't want this commie dime." there is some prescience there as the dimes before were Mercury heads and the reverse had the Fasces which adnorns the United States seal and hanging on Congresses wall.
posted by clavdivs at 6:24 PM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

warriorqueen: and then of course all of 2020 and Jan 6 2021 that made me think...what if Caesar was actually just like Trump. (As opposed to vice versa.)

I'm sure we all remember Arizona GOP chair urges Trump to heed Flynn and 'cross the Rubicon,' alarming people who get the reference.

But you've got me wondering if Caesar ever hawked Caesar Steaks. Are we sure that wouldn't have been more of a Sulla thing?
posted by clawsoon at 6:27 PM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Don't think about the Roman Empire...
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:28 PM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think about the Roman Empire every time there’s a story about police dictating terms to politicians, which unfortunately is pretty often these days. How the emperors had to create a special corps of bodyguards to protect them from their corps of bodyguards and so on, etc.
posted by rodlymight at 8:09 PM on September 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think a lot about Asterix.

WOKE BARBARIANS ARE TRYING TO MAKE YOU WEAR PANTS
posted by zamboni at 9:01 AM on September 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

This meme would be way better if it weren't pointlessly (or rather, pointedly) gendered. As is, it's a continuation of the popular "men versus women with time machines" memes that portray men as intellectual historians and women as frivolous.

One of the first viral examples of which was LITERALLY this:

> "Time travel: *is invented*
> Girls: Yes I can relive the best moment with my ex.
> Boys: Don't go to the senate julius!"

This latest version omits the part explicitly denigrating women but it's implicit in the gendering. I pointed this out to some guys friend and baffled, they was like: "But men really do think about Rome the most. Look at the memes" and I had to point out... like... bro, they're not asking women. Pointing this out makes me feel like an uptight humorless feminist or whatever, I guess that's what I am, but the gross underlying message is so obvious if you're aware of internet discourse more broadly... it's a bummer because it would be so fun to talk about how ancient Rome is interesting but the gendered aspect is so bleh.
posted by Emily's Fist at 10:01 AM on September 25, 2023 [6 favorites]

Trump might be a closer fit to M. Licinius Crassus, who lost a battle to the Parthians, after which (as legend would have it) his captors poured molten gold down his throat to comment on his reputation for being wealthy and greedy.
posted by gimonca at 10:17 AM on September 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

i've been over here trying to avoid saying "the ancient world was so vastly different from the modern one that direct comparison between political figures is a bad idea that inevitably flattens out the distinct particularities on both sides to an extent that makes all comparisons useless" but then gimonca rocks up with that crassus comparison and i'm like, whoa.

i mean the similarities in this case go deep. like, wasn't the crassus family fortune derived from slumlording and associated dodgy real estate deals?

so i have revised my position: the ancient world was so vastly different from the modern one that direct comparison between political figures is a bad idea that inevitably flattens out the distinct particularities on both sides to an extent that makes all comparisons useless unless we're talking about shitty self-regarding slumlords because those evil motherfuckers have been with us forever.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:27 AM on September 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

I mean, I expect that women probably think about ancient Rome less than men, because the popular discourse about ancient Rome is very often about masculinity, individual male political leaders as unique figures, misogynist discourse around "decadence" and a lot, oh lord a lot, of stuff about field tactics and violence treated in a very "that's hardcore" way. Also, Rome was kind of...misogynist? And it's less fun to think about a society when you can't escape into mere fantasy about it.

Not that, like, zero women are interested in field tactics, but it's what you'd call a very gendered interest. I bet that the vast majority of people who can tell you in some depth about, eg, the history of fabric production are women, ditto the history of field nursing, or the history of food storage, etc. Most of the garum posters I can think of are women.

I would say that popular discourse about Rome is intrinsically bad but is always going to be powerful and contested, like discourse about the US civil war - it's the ground where Americans in particular talk about race, gender, class, power, "human nature" and violence, because both those subjects are so embedded in popular culture and mass education that everyone feels they have enough knowledge to participate. The discourse is intrinsically bad because it allows us to discount the actual world we live in and point at "underlying" truths about human nature, power or American history and because both Rome and Civil War discourses center war and conquest as the places where "truths" about society are found. You could imagine a Rome discourse that was useful, but that's not the one we have.

That's not to say that Rome isn't interesting - it's really almost science fictional in terms of estrangement and sense of wonder. So similar and yet so different, so long-lasting and yet so collapsed, such massive ruins and yet they are ruins, etc.

A lot of the guy/girl wojak time machine memes I see are pretty clearly valuing the women's choices about human connection and localized social change over the men's fantasies of killing Hitler. I mean, they're still pretty stupid, but they are not by any means always about how women are frivolous and men are intellectual.
posted by Frowner at 11:37 AM on September 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

I mean, I expect that women probably think about ancient Rome less than men

But no one's even asking women if this is the case... like the logic is:

TikTok: Men, how much do you think about Rome?
Men: A lot!
Woman, raising hand: I do, too. How come no one asks me?
TikTok: Well women just aren't interested in Rome. I bet that's because (long explanation about why that's the case.)
Woman: ........ But no one asked me.

It's confirmation bias when you only ask a question to one kind of person. Women who think about these topics don't get shared because no one asks them. Men who DON'T think about these topics don't get shared because that's too boring to go viral. The meme only solicits one kind of narrative and then we justify it in reverse.
posted by Emily's Fist at 11:57 AM on September 25, 2023 [9 favorites]

Once, years ago, a family friend was drinking next to me at a bar. Many beers in, he brought up the decline of the Roman Empire, since (as he said) he knew I studied classics, and asked why I thought it might have come about. I started to talk about how there were so many factors -- an overstretched empire, lead levels in childhood -- and he said, "Do you think it might have been because of homosexuality?"

I don't remember what I said next, aside from the general theme of "no." But he'd said it so gently and carefully that I realized even then that he was trying to tell me something. It appeared that he, like many other Southerners, assumed I was lesbian, and since he was religious, he was trying to reach me where I was at. It was like a youth pastor turning his chair around. As such, I was oddly touched by it.

(There is maybe a paper to be written -- already written somewhere, I'm sure -- about the sex-negativity of early Christianity as a reaction to living in a Roman world where sexual abuse was normalized for enslaved people, subalterns, and women of all classes, who were so many of the early Christians. But that's above my pay grade.)
posted by Countess Elena at 12:03 PM on September 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

Selection bias, I should say. Or maybe both. It's not that serious but as a woman who is interested in history and Rome yeah, the whole meme bums me out, and is the assumption that like... oh, women are probably thinking about the history of caregiving instead.
posted by Emily's Fist at 12:03 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

The guy/girl time travel discrepancy is (white, cis m) savior fantasy vs. (white, cis f) bittersweet daydream.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:47 PM on September 25, 2023

I mean, I know it's a lost cause at this point, but given that the stock "boy/girl w/ time machine" meme format literally uses characters called "trad girl" & "Nordic Chad", spawned on /pol/ for the purpose of spreading via this sort of remixable format...

It's hard for something to be tainted when the taint is the whole point.
posted by CrystalDave at 1:20 PM on September 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

When I saw the meme on Twitter, it was entirely women laughing with other women about discovering that various men in their lives think about Rome way more than they realized. "Who knew?"
posted by straight at 2:08 PM on September 25, 2023

Yeah, that's the way it is from the links in this FPP, too. I agree with the "this shouldn't be gendered" and "this is confirmation bias" points in and of themselves, but some of the comments of this sort kind of give an implicit air of "C'mon guys, ask women/stop denigrating women" when all the examples (at least here) are of women asking the question, and of women snickering at the idea that someone might think of the Roman Empire ever at all.
posted by Flunkie at 4:26 PM on September 25, 2023

> (There is maybe a paper to be written -- already written somewhere, I'm sure -- about the sex-negativity of early Christianity as a reaction to living in a Roman world where sexual abuse was normalized for enslaved people, subalterns, and women of all classes, who were so many of the early Christians. But that's above my pay grade.)

i've been trying and failing to find a thing that i think was a comment here on mefi about how the way to go about this is to focus on biblical uses of the word "porneia" (i think i got the spelling right?) which is most frequently translated as "fornication" but in context means something more like "sexual abuse."
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:40 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Probably this one by blasdelb.
posted by zamboni at 4:51 PM on September 25, 2023 [6 favorites]

Trump might be a closer fit to M. Licinius Crassus

Crassus and Clodius Macer with a big dash of Piso.
posted by clavdivs at 5:11 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oddly enough, this enabled Mark Zuckerberg to be funnier on Threads than Elon Musk has ever managed to be on his app despite his desperate efforts. Zuckerberg said: “Not sure if I think about the Roman Empire too much. I wonder what my daughters Maxima, August and Aurelia think.”
posted by jimw at 10:26 PM on September 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

that fucker is a weird fucker.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:41 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Zuckerberg's sister Donna founded (I think) and edited Eidolon, an online journal devoted to "informal" essays about the Classics, so it must run in the family.
posted by jamjam at 11:21 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

i thought this was the dumbest meme, mostly because of what Emily's Fist said. and it's also a very westernized meme. most Asians like me don't care about the roman empire, and i personally think about Journey to the West a lot, especially how influential it is in modern stories. i need my social media algorithm to do better.
posted by numaner at 6:34 AM on September 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

Now that I think about it, I think my comments about the origins of the meme miss the point Emily's Fist was making.

A more truthful version of this meme would be, "If you don't think about Rome that much, you might be surprised to discover some people think about it way more than you do." But some people really love "discovering" examples of how Men think about Mars but Women think about Aphrodite. But those conversations frequently end up implying that these are universal differences between men and women rather than local, contingent differences in frequency curves that actually have more overlap than the discussion recognizes.

I didn't realize until this thread that Emily's Fist thinks about Rome way more than I do.
posted by straight at 7:57 AM on September 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

There's also a substantial difference between "women think about material culture and men think about war because of Ev Psych reasons; this is rooted in the nature of men and women, so a woman who thinks about war is implicitly deficient or weird in some way" and "because of patriarchy, we both privilege the study of war AND push women toward 'feminine' topics which we mark as less important and rigorous, thus there are fewer female scholars of topics coded as masculine and warlike, and those women are marked as outsiders and weirdos or else have to heartily support the boys' club".

"Women are less likely to study X" does not mean "no women study X" or "women are less likely to study X because they naturally prefer 'feminine' topics".

On another note, I wonder what you'd get if you started looking at fiction about Rome and gender, and who reads fiction about Rome. There's a lot of fiction set in ancient Rome by women who presumably have some scholarly interest in the topic.
posted by Frowner at 8:46 AM on September 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

NYT: What’s your Roman empire? We asked people who are not men
posted by Flunkie at 9:14 PM on September 26, 2023

(kind of weirdly made, I think, as it conflates "Women, what do you think about all the time" with the original "Men, how often do you think about the Roman Empire" (which, if the videos presented here in this FPP are to be trusted as representative, sometimes earns snickers even in cases like "I dunno, every couple weeks?" and "I was just thinking about it last month").
posted by Flunkie at 9:19 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Whoever thinks about the Black Death, watch this.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:47 PM on September 26, 2023

because the popular discourse about ancient Rome is very often about masculinity, individual male political leaders as unique figures, misogynist discourse around "decadence" and a lot, oh lord a lot, of stuff about field tactics and violence treated in a very "that's hardcore" way. Also, Rome was kind of...misogynist? And it's less fun to think about a society when you can't escape into mere fantasy about it.

Hmm, I know I'm a niche group because the only social media site I'm on is 2023 Tumblr (I know), but any time I've seen someone mention Rome in the past six months it was about architecture, science, or mythology. Very little discussion of the above topics, and also not escaping into fantasy. Like, not denying that communities that focus on what you describe exist but there are others that have a very different approach and are quite gender diverse.

Also, someone with a better memory than me should count the number of Rome-related memes circulating Tumblr. Off the top of my head there's Owen Wilson and the Ides of March--at minimum those are going to come around once a year, plus usually a stray mention here and there outside of their respective seasons. So that accounts for at least a few of the random musings on ancient Rome.
posted by brook horse at 8:08 PM on September 27, 2023

wait does the question include the republic
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:07 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

I cannot spend my life getting mad at Elon Musk, at least not for his bloviating divorced-dad shenanigans, but I was profoundly irritated at his idly reinventing the Aeneid. In a kid it would be clever, but in a grown man -- with more world power than many heads of state -- it is infuriating.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:20 AM on September 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

wait does the question include the republic

No, as the empire lost the recipe for cement.
posted by clavdivs at 7:58 PM on September 30, 2023

this just in:

Rory McIlroy takes inspiration from Roman emperor to lead Europe as top Ryder Cup scorer
posted by philip-random at 3:49 PM on October 1, 2023

Red Caesarism is gaining traction among Republicans:

For the last three years, parts of the American right have advocated a theory called Caesarism as an authoritarian solution to the claimed collapse of the US republic in conference rooms, podcasts and the house organs of the extreme right, especially those associated with the Claremont Institute thinktank.

Though on the surface this discussion might seem esoteric, experts who track extremism in the US say that due to their influence on the Republican party, the rightwing intellectuals who espouse these ideas about the attractions of autocracy present a profound threat to American democracy.

Their calls for a “red Caesar” are now only growing louder as Donald Trump, whose supporters attempted to violently halt the election of Joe Biden in 2020, has assumed dominant frontrunner status in the 2024 Republican nomination race. Trump, who also faces multiple criminal indictments, has spoken openly of attacking the free press in the US and having little regard for American constitutional norms should he win the White House again.

Were all these articles about men thinking about the Roman Empire preparing the ground for wider and deeper consideration of the issue of 'Red Caesarism', or is something even more profound at work here?
posted by jamjam at 6:03 PM on October 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

if the people calling for neocaesarism had an iota of honesty they'd admit that what they're really calling for, and what they've really found, is a new napoleon iii. a copy of a copy of a copy.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:56 PM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

If there are people on the right wing imaging a new "Caesarism", they have a big problem--they don't have a Caesar. An actual "Caesar" would have intelligence, ability to plan strategically, some hint of basic competence in the job. They don't have anyone like that right now.

(Note that those qualities also don't guarantee that the person in question would be "good".)
posted by gimonca at 5:15 AM on October 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

louis napoleon was an overtly ridiculous person who wasn’t particularly good at anything except for a very specific sort of all-publicity-is-good-publicity self-promotion, and he managed to hold onto power for 20-odd years
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:06 AM on October 3, 2023

Rewatching Doctor Who and The Fires of Pompeii came on and the opening bit is they were supposed to land in Rome instead and only realize when Donna comments there’s only one hill, and I was like goddamnit there goes my quota for thinking about Rome a normal amount. :(
posted by brook horse at 3:23 PM on October 10, 2023

Is The Roman Empire the new The Game?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:58 PM on October 10, 2023 [2 favorites]