(20) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA??

 

Pax Americana. Washington DC – the Fourth Rome!

Friends, Romans, countrymen – we’re at the bottom of the Roman Empire iceberg here!

I’m joking. The United States has never claimed succession from the Roman Empire, nor has even the most tenuous basis for doing so – although “Americans have been comparing their country to Rome since its foundation” and “in shaping the new country, the Founding Fathers consciously hoped to copy the strengths of the Roman Republic and avoid its eventual downfall”.

Unless you accept such metaphysical fantasy claims as in the Percy Jackson series or in John Crowley’s “Little, Big” that the realm of Olympus or the Holy Roman Empire has transferred to it.

However, as usual I’m joking and I’m serious. It is a claim that is so often made for it, not least by Americans themselves, that it has become something of a trope – often overlooking that the same trope was also used for the British Empire and its Pax Britannica. (Now people tend to deflect to the British or Europeans being the Greek predecessors to the American Romans).

In his preface to “The Fall of the West: The Death of the Roman Superpower”, Adrian Goldsworthy laments that “at certain sorts of parties” the discovery that he is an ancient historian “almost inevitably prompts someone to remark that ‘America is the new Rome'” – “more often than not this is followed by a smug, ‘Of course, they don’t see it.'”

As Goldsworthy opines, “any close look at the Roman Empire will soon reveal massive differences from any modern state, including the United States” – although of course there remains the point of comparison that the United States “is overwhelmingly the strongest country in the world and in this sense its position mirrors that of Rome”.

Bonus points for having as the most recognizable eagle standard in popular culture – and arguably that most closely resembling the Roman eagle in visual design (as opposed to species).

Also bonus points that it, like the latter-day Visigoths or Vandals that preceded and were driven out by it, the United States did technically meet my high-tier ranking criterion by occupying Rome from June 1944 in the Second World War.

And while on the subject of American connections to latter-day Italy, if nothing else the United States did give the world the Italian-American film Caligula in 1979 (produced by Bob Guccione and Penthouse) – which along with Suetonius (on which it is largely based) I take as gospel about the reign of Caligula and has influenced my perceptions of the Roman Empire in perpetuity ever since. No – this is not a subject in which I will entertain my debate. And yes – I strive where I can to reserve my final special mention for some kinky entry where the subject permits. I believe I’ve fulfilled that obligation.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD TIER)