Thursday, July 24, 2014


That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

 What Rome was to the ancient world...America is to be to the world of tomorrow

 Walter Lippmann, 1945

Prologue


Of all the empires of antiquity, it is the Roman Empire, which ruled the then-known world from about 100 B.C. to the 400s A.D., that has fascinated mankind over the past two millennia, and for good reason: the Roman Empire was an exceptional empire and it never really disappeared in the true sense of the word; it lives on even to the present time in Western culture.

The Roman Empire is probably the closest that the world has come to a world government and economy until the United Nations was established in 1945, with the three continents of the old world – Africa, Asia, and Europe – under the control, if not politically then economically, of this giant colossus that rose from humble beginnings on the Italian Peninsula. Under the so-called “Pax Romana” (Roman Peace), the Romans provided for the first time a world in which travel, trade, and the exchange of ideas could occur on a global scale, with no significant barriers due to war. It truly was mankind’s first and only real successful and lasting attempt at globalization.

In the last two hundred years, the topic of the Roman Empire, its characteristics, and especially its decline and fall, have been of particular interest to scholars, for a variety of reasons. For one, archaeologists have uncovered a large amount of information about this empire of antiquity, giving us a better look than ever before about how people at that time lived. Also, the rise of similar global directions in modern times has fueled interest in the last time that the world was united, and thus we look back at Rome. Finally, there has been a significant level of investigation regarding the perceived similarities between the Roman Empire and the dominant world power of the present time, the United States of America.

While clearly different in some respects, it is nonetheless a fact that the United States of today is the closest political entity to the Roman Empire of two thousand years ago that the world has seen since the days of the Pax Romana. American culture permeates the world in the same way as Roman culture did then, while at the same time embracing a melting pot of ideologies, ethnicities, and cultures, just like the Romans did. The American military machine rules the world the same way as the Roman legions ruled theirs, while the world economy and political systems increasingly resemble those of the Roman times. Even the buildings from which America and much of the world is governed today are architecturally similar to the halls of government of the Romans. Then we have the similarity of a common global language, English in our day and Latin in the ancient predecessor, with only a few important global second languages, Spanish or Chinese today perhaps taking the place of Greek and Hebrew of the Roman world.

     In this report, I will attempt to explain the similarities between the America of today and the Roman Empire of two thousand years ago and look at why this similarity is so important and how it will affect the future of our civilization today and in the future. Using a variety of reputable sources, I will examine striking parallels that few people today notice between the two great empires.

Before discussing the similarities, however, it is only fair to mention the differences, which are few, yet significant. First, the Roman Empire never had the technological abilities that we have in today’s world. That does not mean that the Romans were a backwards people by any means; archaeologists have discovered that the Romans successfully pioneered indoor plumbing and large construction machinery, for instance, and the level of their sophistication may not be known completely to modern observers, yet it is safe to say that the Romans did not have computerization or the ability to explore outer space the way we do today. Secondly, the threat of nuclear war that hangs over international relations today was unknown to the Romans; indeed even firearms do not appear to have existed at that time, though warfare of course was still quite lethal with the use of conventional arms like swords and battering rams. But after those two differences, there really are more similarities than contrasts between our civilizations today, especially in America, and the Roman culture of the past.

When anyone studies the similarities between Rome and America, there is often the question of whether these similarities would not be drawn with any other empire in history. Indeed, all empires have certain similarities (a centralized power, expanded trade, a large military, etc.), and we could just as easily draw a comparison with Ancient Persia or the British Empire as with Rome. But there are certain unique characteristics of the Roman Empire that set it apart from all others, at least until modern times. For one, Rome was a melting pot. All other empires were much more of a one-way channel of cultural exchange (the British Empire was mainly a conduit of British culture to other countries and not vice versa, for example); only Rome and modern America were true melting pot societies. Secondly, Rome had a global reach that was lasting and thoroughly impacted the lives and cultures of those it impacted. Many empires have come and gone quickly and have left little evidence of their previous occupation except in their nation of origin; the Romans, by contrast, had a long-lasting rule over the nations they conquered, allowing a strong Roman influence to exist in the world up to the present time. Finally, the Roman Empire never really fell, as other empires did. True, there is no longer a literal Roman Empire controlling the world today, but no one can really say that on such and such a date, the Roman Empire ceased to exist, as one can easily do with the Babylonian, Persian, or Greek empires. Instead, Rome broke up between east and west, the western part eventually becoming the countries of modern Europe, while the eastern part remained intact until the 1400’s. Yet the culture of the empire was kept alive, through the Roman Catholic Church and western culture, which invaders actually adopted rather than replaced. This is why the whole concept of the Roman Empire reviving has been a possibility for countless centuries.

Similarities Between Roman and American Origins


Though perhaps surprising at first, the fact remains that the origin of the United States has a lot of parallels with the origin of the Roman Empire.

When the Roman Republic, the forerunner of the Roman Empire, was founded in central Italy in the sixth century B.C., it was located far to the west of the centers of known civilization at the time (i.e., Egypt, Babylon, Persia), and was thus an insignificant outpost on the very edges of civilization. The same could be said about the early United States, founded in North America in an age in which Western civilization was centered 3,000 miles to the east in Europe. Interestingly, the three nations that actually colonized what would become the United States were Britain (in the east), France (in the north and central), and Spain (in the southwest), all three of which were part of the Roman Empire of old!

Originally, Rome was a republic (which is actually the type of government that the U.S. Constitution lays out, not a democracy as is commonly believed), and its aim was to provide a stable system of government for a small geographical area and a people that was relatively uniform religiously and ethnically, not to rule a great empire. Its first overseas military endeavor was in Carthage in North Africa, incidentally where America fought its first overseas conflict, against the Barbary Pirates during the administration of Thomas Jefferson[i]. Later, as Rome acquired more territory, its constitutional system of government was no longer practical, and many of its protections were abandoned, though the Romans always insisted that they still had a republican government, even when ruled by dictatorial emperors, similar to the American tendency to proclaim itself as a democracy, even when many undemocratic features are quite evident.

 In order to become a republic, the Romans, like the Americans, cast off a monarchy to establish a system of government that in both cases was almost unheard of in the world at that time. While in both cases political participation was limited to property-owning males initially, this privilege was gradually expanded, as it was in America, to include the lower-class and women. Interestingly, in Rome as in America, women began to receive equal rights as men about the time that the republic was becoming an empire[ii].

While the Roman Empire’s peak of power would come centuries after the republican era, many Roman writers and historians would look back at the earlier era with nostalgia and fondness for a simpler and less decadent, brutal time and as an ideal of good government, much as Americans often look back positively to the period of the Founding Fathers for a source of inspiration. Yet both Rome and America were destined to become world empires, and in an amazingly short period of time in both cases. The origins of the conquest were the same in both cases: first, they conquered their own homeland (the Romans subdued the Italian Peninsula, the Americans the North American Continent), and then they never stopped, spreading their culture, ideology, and way of life throughout the world.

Architectural Similarities


When one looks at the major American government buildings (the Supreme Court, Congress, the White House, etc.), they are really looking at nearly exact replicas of Ancient Roman government buildings and temples, which is one of the chief reasons why observers have considered the possibility of a “revived Roman Empire” in America ever since the nation’s founding.

Virtually all of the federal buildings in Washington, and even many of the state and local government buildings across America, are built in the neoclassical architectural design, which is an attempt to recreate the Roman design of centuries before. Of course, this pattern is also visible in Europe, with strong similarities drawn between France’s Arc de Triomphe, for example, and Roman workmanship, but it is nowhere as widespread as in America.

Consider the U.S. Supreme Court building and its similarity to some of the ruins found in Rome dating from the empire period:


ABOVE: The U.S. Supreme Court of today (top) and Ancient Roman ruins (bottom)[iii]

Another similarity can be drawn between the Capitol rotunda in Washington and the Ancient Roman predecessor, as one can see with this artists’ rendition of the ancient rotunda as pictured in the 100’s A.D. Actually, even the term “Capitol Hill” is Roman in origin, since the Capitoline Hill from which Ancient Rome was ruled is translated “Capitol Hill” in English[iv]. The building from which the U.S. Capitol is modeled, the Pantheon of Rome (not to be confused with the similar-sounding Parthenon of Athens), was a temple built by Caesar Augustus dedicated to all of the various gods and goddesses of the empire, hence the term (pan meaning "all" and theon meaning god, the same root word as theo, as in theology). Thus, the Romans were the first to put an interfaith dimension into their government structure. Today, our modern replicas of the Pantheon (the U.S. Capitol and the many similar state and local capital buildings) sometimes serve the same purpose as their ancient predecessor, as American and Western government leaders frequently invoke the blessing of many religions in interfaith events, especially after disasters or during inaugurations.



ABOVE: The rotunda of the Pantheon in Rome, built under the Emperor Trajan.
Take a look at the memorial pillar of the Washington Monument, and how it closely parallels the memorial pillars that the Romans would build, to memorialize a great statesman or victory.



ABOVE: The Trajan column of Ancient Rome (top) and the Washington Monument (bottom).

That the Founding Fathers of America intended to copy Ancient Roman architecture is no secret; Benjamin Latrobe and Pierre Charles L’Enfant, in their designing of Washington, D.C., intended to copy the glory and splendor that was Ancient Rome’s.

Keep in mind that because the builders of many government buildings throughout the U.S. (and even in other countries) copied the design of Washington, the standard of government buildings with neoclassical architecture can be found across the U.S. and around the world, just as the Roman buildings were copied across the empire two millennia ago.

Roman vs. American Government Systems


 Most people believe that the American system of government is derived from Great Britain, which was the national origin of many of the Founding Fathers, and indeed much was borrowed from the mother country. However, since the Founders made a conscious effort to divorce themselves from the British monarchy and wished to establish a new system of government in their nation, they looked back to historical precedents, and often copied Ancient Rome.

 Consider these similarities: while Britain had a parliament, the U.S. established a Senate as the main legislative body, the first nation to have a Senate since Ancient Rome[v]. A complex judicial system with courts of appeal and a Supreme Court were established in America (now spread around the world), which was based on the legal framework of the Romans as recorded in the New Testament Book of Acts and writers on Roman history.
The idea of a constitution, now standard among the world’s nations, was a novel idea for the Founding Fathers, and they had to look back to Ancient Rome, which had the Roman Constitution[vi].

America’s national symbol of the eagle, while used by many kingdoms of the ancients, was also a powerful symbol of the Romans known as the Aquila that was a symbol of authority and conquest for the Roman legions[vii].



ABOVE: The Roman Aquila dating from the Second Century A.D., from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Ornament_with_Eagle%2C_100-200_AD%2C_Roman%2C_gold_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC08277.JPG.

Many of the features of the U.S. Senate were present in the Roman Senate. Consider the fact that the ability to veto legislation, cut off debate on a topic by filibustering, the electoral college, traditions of speaking by order of seniority, the office of congressional pages, and restrictions on campaign contributions and gifts all had their basis in the Ancient Roman Senate.

The systems of state and local government that America developed were probably nowhere else as clearly defined and meticulously followed as in Ancient Rome, where provinces and city-states were granted clear jurisdictions on certain matters but not others. Candidates for local government campaigned much like they do today; there have even been excavations of Roman homes in which there are signs on the front of houses that support particular candidates for office[viii]. What other society does that?

A lot of our idea of rights in modern America comes from Rome; citizens were granted certain rights, including rights to a speedy trial, bail, and other fixtures of modern justice. Even our right to bear arms is from Ancient Rome, a phrase coined by the Roman historian Livy[ix], who wrote, “formerly, the right to bear arms had belonged to the patricians (upper class). Now plebeians (lower class) were given a place in the army, which was to be reclassified according to every man’s property” and that all men “capable of bearing arms” had to provide their own weapons (emphasis mine). Does that language sound like our Second Amendment?

Similarities between the Roman government and American government become even more glaring as we look at America after World War II, when in a sense it took on the role of “empire” as the leader of the “free world”. Similar to when Rome started to become an empire and break away from its ancestral homeland, the government structure of the republic began to fall by the wayside, as the system of government designed for a single nation could not be imposed on a diverse world.

While clinging to the vestiges of republican government, the Romans adopted an emperor, who ruled as a dictator, yet was not a monarch in the sense that his power could not be passed down from father to son, as was the standard in ancient times, and succession was often fraught with problems, including frequent assassinations, military takeovers, and impeachments. While America does not currently have this level of breakdown in politics, it is notable that all American presidents since Bill Clinton and all two-term presidents since Richard Nixon have faced impeachment attempts (something nearly unheard of before) and certainly we see the type of instability of Rome when we look at other nations of the world, including U.S. allies, which have revolutions almost constantly due to the fact that they have thrown off the stable monarchies of old, and now must fight among themselves over who will have charge.

The corruption and open vice of Ancient Roman leaders was legendary. One can read The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius Tranquillus, now available for free online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6400/6400-h/6400-h.htm to appreciate this aspect of Roman government, or consider the story of the Herods, which ruled Ancient Palestine in Christ’s day, and how many professional and personal scandals they had. Domestic violence, substance abuse, political corruption, assassinations, and sexual abuse were almost staples of the Roman leaders during the empire period. Many of them were actually insane (most modern observers believe this was due to sexually transmitted diseases going unchecked). This degenerate level of politics can be seen today; consider the fact that most American parents, according to polls, now want their children to avoid a career in politics due to the bad reputation of the profession[x]. In the past few decades, personal and professional scandals of politicians (Mark Foley, Bill Clinton, Elliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Ted Stevens, and so many more) have become commonplace, reminding even a casual student of history of the Roman political machine. Indeed, CNN is claiming that the scandals of politicians are becoming irrelevant, as several scandalous characters have been reelected to high office despite full knowledge of their misdeeds[xi], just like in Roman times, when political scandal was taken for granted.

As Rome spread around the world, it absorbed millions of people, who initially were at a disadvantage due to their lack of citizenship in the Roman nation. Just as with the immigration issue today, citizenship was a big issue then, and many people wished to obtain Roman citizenship, so that they could enjoy the rights and privileges afforded to citizens under the Roman constitution. Eventually, one of the ways that non-citizens would be granted citizenship was through service in the military, despite the fact that the military was supposed to be for citizens only. This same development has occurred in America, with military service now becoming a common path to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants.

One hallmark of Roman government, especially toward the end of the empire, was the inability to distinguish between what is public, or government, and what is private[xii]. Many traditional government obligations were outsourced to private companies, making the federal bureaucracy actually much larger than it would appear on the surface, while the Roman government was involved in many traditionally private enterprises. One can easily draw a parallel to modern America, as many public works like utilities are being privatized, while traditionally private endeavors, such as religious institutions or small businesses, are sometimes backed with taxpayer money, blurring any distinction between the public and private realms.

Also consider the massive bureaucracy in Washington and the naming of all of these new department heads over the past few years, which are informally named “czars”, such as “cybersecurity czar, transportation czar, education czar, etc.” The growing size of government is in and of itself a Roman similarity, but even more so consider what the term “Czar” means: it’s the Russian word for “Caesar”[xiii]. “Kaiser” is another term for “Caesar”, this time in German, and we know that as the name of one of America’s largest medical practitioners, Kaiser Permanente (literally “permanent Caesar”)! Look at what Martin Luther’s 1545 German translation of the Bible says in Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:17, and Luke 20:25, when Jesus tells us to pay our taxes to Caesar:

So gebet dem Kaiser, was des Kaisers ist, und Gott, was Gottes ist![xiv]

The Roman Legions and the U.S. Military


In order to rule such a vast empire, the Romans had to develop a powerful military, which until the rise of the U.S. military during the Cold War, was the world’s most extensive military apparatus ever recorded.

True, the Romans did not have the military technology that we have today, but they did have huge numbers of people employed in the military services, as many as 3.7 million according to the historian Edward Gibbon[xv]. This occurred despite the fact that the world was at least nominally peaceful due to the enforced peace of the Romans (the Pax Romana) that ensured that no major armed conflicts could break out in the empire. For much of its existence, the Roman state existed almost solely to support this huge standing army, which included numerous reservists and civilian contractors as well as career soldiers.

For Rome, like America, the military did not start as a huge standing army; it was originally made up of the men of the republic who would take up arms against an enemy in an emergency. But as Rome burst its national boundaries and became an empire, it needed a huge military to acquire and then administrate its realm. Legions of soldiers were stationed throughout the then-known world in bases, which were surrounded by base communities that were outposts of Roman culture wherever they were, similar to military bases today. While originally made up of Romans themselves, the military eventually became a diverse force made up of people of different nationalities and backgrounds, due to the fact that there was often little employment for men in the Roman Empire than to join the military (or to join the civilian arms of the government, which developed into a huge bureaucracy to administrate tax collection and other duties).

Rome’s military legions patrolled the borders, keeping out the enemy Parthians (modern day Iran) and the northern “barbarians” (modern-day Russia) that never embraced Roman culture, but they also patrolled the cities and public places, keeping watch over the civilian scene. Roman soldiers were a constant in any marketplace or public building, much as security guards are ever-present in today’s world.

Economic Systems Compared


We today truly live in a global economy, one that has no precedent until going back to the time of the Roman Empire. Then, as now, the world was unified, with open trade and travel and the transport of manufactured products and agriculture across the then-known world. Actually, the Roman Empire may have been more globalized then the present world in some respects, considering that the entire world was under a single currency, something we still don’t have today, at least not yet. The Romans may not have had knowledge of the Americas, but it appears that every other part of the world, including even the peoples of the Arctic[xvi], were known to the Romans and were part of this world economy to varying degrees.

Throughout most of recorded history, each region has had to produce its own food and its own manufactured goods. True, there has always been trade between nations, but the general tendency has been for the majority of goods and crops to be produced and consumed locally. There were two major exceptions to this rule: the Roman Empire and modern times. Due to the interconnectedness of a world in which war was absent and a similar legal code was enforced globally, there was a unique ability in both of these times for certain regions to be the agriculture producers or manufacturers of the world, while other regions were the consumers. It is for this reason that there could be a “famine throughout all the world” (Acts 11:28), which occurred during the time of Claudius Caesar, and is recorded in secular history.

Even areas outside of the Roman Empire were connected in a global economy; many fine goods and even clothing were manufactured in China or India and transported to the Roman Empire, a striking similarity to the tendency for so many goods to be made in East Asia today. This trade between East and West continued to varying degrees throughout the Middle Ages and modern times, but only recently has reached the level that existed at the time of Rome.

But similar to today, the level of wealth varied greatly across regions of the Roman Empire. According to studies conducted by modern-day economists, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the empire, divided by area, was as follows:



ABOVE: Graph of Roman Empire GDP from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_economy.

Italy was always the central part of this economy (as well as of the government) and had the highest GDP due to the receipt of many of the tax revenues from the business conducted in other parts of the empire, reminiscent of the favorable economic position of many capital cities today.

The Roman economy was symbolized by the common currency, which always bore the inscription of Caesar or other high officials. Interestingly, this currency was initially made of pure metals, but was later debased to lower qualities of alloys in order to inject more money into the economy, just as the Federal Reserve regularly prints more money to stimulate the economy today. This practice debased the value of currency and caused inflation, much as many conservative thinkers fear will happen due to deficit spending in Washington today[xvii].



ABOVE: A collection of Roman coins from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Common_Roman_Coins.jpg.

The Romans were fond of minting special coins to commemorate special occasions, such as a military victory, or to memorialize a particular person or region. One cannot help but draw parallels to the recent practice in the United States of designing commemorative currency (such as the state series of quarters) or the constant minting of new faces to common denominations of currency.

In order to have such an advanced economy, the Romans, like America today, had to develop an advanced transportation system. For the Romans, this was done by building the largest and most widespread road system known to mankind prior to the U.S. interstate system. These Roman roads crisscrossed North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, giving a means of safe and reliable transportation throughout a huge portion of the globe. In fact, many of these roads are still in existence to this day, and observers believe that the entire length of our interstate system may be about the length of the Roman road system[xviii], about 53,000 miles. Roads were usually funded by the Caesar himself (federal funding today), but the maintenance was left to municipalities, just like today.

Researchers at Stanford University have created a website known as ORBIS, which models the road system of the Ancient Romans. Allowing users to construct road trips along these roads similar to the way we can today with Mapquest, ORBIS has given us a visual of just how advanced the Roman transportation system was for its time, and it reminds us very much of our times.






ABOVE: The road system of Ancient Rome on the ORBIS site, http://orbis.stanford.edu.

Sea travel was equally at a high level. Archaeologists know from the shipwrecks of this period that the level of trade in the Mediterranean world was at a level that would not be matched until at least the year 1750 (which incidentally is about the time that America became a nation)[xix].

Communication was another achievement that the Romans excelled at. They may not have had the Internet, telephone, television, and radio like we have today, but they were the first civilization to have daily newspapers, with the Acta Diurna (“Daily Acts”) being the major publication[xx], and huge repositories of information at libraries such as the one in Alexandria, Egypt, that provide us with reams of information about the Roman times.

Society Then and Now


Separated by two millennia, observers will note a striking similarity in the society of the Roman Empire and that of America and indeed the Western world in general of today.

Of course, many aspects of society have remained unchanged throughout human history, while others have been revolutionized by modern communication in recent times without any historical precedent, but there remains nonetheless an eerily similar lifestyle that existed in the Roman Empire and exists again today.

Throughout most of human history, the average person has been a farmer or a manufacturer of goods that were used by the people of his or her own area, a type of economy known as subsistence. This only ceased to be the standard during the Industrial Revolution of the 1800’s, though Rome went through a similar revolution during its time, in which much of the population would be employed in services or for the government itself, with agricultural and manufacturing employment limited to certain regions of the empire. Today, like in Rome, there are thriving metropolises, which all have many similar features, yet have unique statuses as world centers of different aspects of cultural life. Urban centers likely only reached the high populations and level of planning of Roman times during the Nineteenth Century.

Since there was no war and many of the people were somewhat idle, there arose in the Roman Empire a great interest in the philosophies and higher learning. Much of this emphasis was originally from the Greek civilization, which the Romans absorbed during the acquisition of their empire. Certain cities, most notably Athens, were the seats of higher learning in Roman times, and a liberal education became the standard for most Roman citizens, a first in world history perhaps only equaled in recent times[xxi]. Rome may very well have been the only society prior to modern times to fully adopt an educational system that would replace the traditional conduit of knowledge being passed from parent to child to one of a formal standardized educational system, which borrowed heavily from Greek thought. It would be in this system that modern philosophies, political science, rhetoric, and knowledge would achieve its first widespread acceptance. Many of these philosophies are still with us to this day, for example, the belief in the “universal brotherhood of man” was a key part of Stoic philosophies[xxii], a doctrine that is still a part of American educational worldview.

The rise of leisure and the Greek influence brought an intense emphasis on athletics and sports that has only recently been equaled. The Romans enjoyed the Olympic Games, which died out in 394 A.D. and would not be revived again until the year 1896[xxiii]. Throughout the empire, one of the most common building projects were sports arenas and the design and financing of these projects were the same as in modern America. Look at the parallels between the Roman coliseums and modern sports arenas:



ABOVE: Ancient Roman stadiums (top) and a modern stadium (bottom). Pictures from http://www.mytripolog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/wonders-of-the-world-colosseum-photos.jpg and http://www.classzone.com/cz/ot/webquest/images/conclusion_ACu06.jpg.

This entertainment became increasingly vulgar and degrading, culminating in violent gladiator shows, carnal debaucheries, and drunken orgies. We see a similarity in sports and entertainment today, with the rise of vulgar forms of wrestling and boxing, sports scandals, and the base forms of entertainment at casinos or in violent video games.

A similarity between our times and that of the Romans that any astute observer will note is the fact that our physical appearance is so much like theirs. In fact, Westerners today probably look more like their Roman ancestors than they look like their predecessors in the time of Abraham Lincoln, just 150 years ago! Consider the following images found in the ruins of this ancient civilization, and ponder whether they look like our contemporaries:

ABOVE: Portrait of a couple found in the ruins of Pompeii, http://www.oxpal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/pompeiicouple_orig_big.jpg


ABOVE: Bust of Julius Caesar from http://www.romanemperors.com/images/julius-caesar/2-roman-general-bust.jpg
While we do not wear the same clothing as the Ancient Romans did, there is a similarity in men’s short haircuts and the lack of facial hair that makes us look uniquely like the Romans more than our predecessors from any other time period. In fact, we can often identify men of religious minorities (such as the Jews) in Roman art by their facial hair, similar to how facial hair is becoming a symbol of Sikhism, Islam, or Orthodox Judaism today. And then there are the multi ethnic features of many of the Romans, which we see increasingly in people today due to intermarriage of a diverse range of ethnicities.

Women in Ancient Rome bear many similarities to women of today; they often wore elaborate hairstyles[xxiv] that were ever changing due to the whims of fashion. The cosmetic industry was perhaps at its most advanced then until its peak in modern times[xxv]. But perhaps the most notable similarity was the appearance of a “liberated” womanhood. We read in I Corinthians 7:13, in an epistle addressed to the people of this time period, “And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him”. This is unique in ancient history, when oftentimes only husbands would have the ability to divorce their wives. But in Roman times, women had received a high degree of freedom, so much so that some of them “declared themselves the equal of men"[xxvi]. The parallels to today’s women are obvious.

ABOVE: A sign from a home in Pompeii. The sign reads in Latin, “Beware of the dog”. Picture from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/canes/canes.html. Romans had many breeds of dogs including fashionable small dogs, guard dogs, and even the Neapolitan Mastiff, bred around 100 B.C. specifically for dog fighting, much like the modern-day pit bull[xxvii].

Roman housing also reminds us of today. In the cities, many Romans lived in apartments, rather than owning their own homes, and often did not prepare their own food, but went out for fast food! Cities were all built in a similar fashion, which PBS detailed in their 1994 production Roman City, [xxviii] similar to today’s planned communities, which almost universally follow a similar pattern.

Cuisine was at a high level of sophistication in Roman times, and since cooking was not universally known, there was need of cookbooks, one of which, the Apicius De Re Coquinaria, has now been translated and is available online[xxix].

ABOVE: Reconstruction of an apartment home from Ancient Rome from http://www.laits.utexas.edu/moore/rome/image/ostia-reconstruction-model-large-apartment-house.

The lifestyles of the upper class of Romans are reminiscent of today. While in many ancient civilizations only kings and a few noblemen attained levels of comparable wealth, in Roman times, there were apparently a large number of people that lived in luxury, the homes of which have been uncovered in places like Pompeii, Italy. Many of these homes were designed in the villa form with a courtyard in the middle and they often had indoor plumbing, with flush toilets!

Of course, many people did not attain this level of prosperity, and poverty was common. This was exacerbated by the fact that many people moved from rural areas to the cities, and thus became the urban poor, which included many homeless. A similar condition exists today around the world, as many people have relocated from rural regions to the cities in hopes of a better life, and often end up living in shantytowns like those in Rio de Janeiro or homeless like in many of the major cities of America. In order to cope with the large number of poor people, the Romans developed a complex welfare system, and often paid for food and cheap entertainment for the masses. Welfare became known as the “dole”, a term we use today.

Another interesting parallel between Rome and contemporary society is the way in which homosexuality was accepted and expressed in Ancient Rome. Though many societies have accepted same-sex unions to some degree, the Romans sometimes considered these official marriages, and several public officials appear to have been part of these unions themselves[xxx]. These marriages were never again officially recognized anywhere in the world until the 1970’s, when the Netherlands recognized civil unions for same-sex couples. Additionally, the Romans had a ban on gays in the military, though this was eventually lifted. The parallels with modern American homosexuality in the military and solemnized as marriages are striking.

The Romans may have had a “Pax Romana”, meaning an absence of war, but there certainly was not peace in the true sense of the world, since Rome was indeed a very violent society. The entertainment was violent, the law was executed in a violent manner, insurrections often arose and were ruthlessly suppressed, and crime in public places appeared to have occurred regularly. We have record, for instance, that the sports stadium in Pompeii was closed by the Emperor Nero because of reports of stabbings that occurred after the games[xxxi]. Does that not sound like our culture today in America? We may feel that our modern culture would not stoop to the level of brutality that the Romans had, but consider the fact that America has the highest murder rate of an industrialized nation, some 20 times higher than other nations[xxxii], and it has the most prisoners by far of any other nation, which is in many ways the modern equivalent of slave labor, since prisoners are often put to work on our public works projects[xxxiii]. We may not be as civilized of a society as we think.

The Environment Then and Now


In recent decades, there has been increased interest in the environment and the effect that humans are having on it. This has led historians to investigate the environmental impacts of past civilizations and how we might learn lessons from their mistakes or successes.

Interestingly, we have discovered several parallels between the environmental problems that the Romans encountered and those of our own generation.

It is now widely believed that the Roman Empire was largely responsible for the deforestation of the Mediterranean region, which occurred due to overgrazing of farm animals, cutting down trees for building projects without planting replacements, and clearing projects for military purposes. This is believed to have caused a number of environmental problems, including soil erosion that contributed to flooding problems and caused the expansion of river deltas, which caused the harbors to move away from cities such as Ephesus. The Roman government did attempt to rectify this by placing forests under government control, though this was not largely successful[xxxiv]. This problem is similar to the concern today over the loss of rain forests and other natural habitats, lost due to construction projects and industrialization. Like the Romans, the American response to protecting forests has been largely to set the areas aside for government protection as in national forests, though we have met with mixed success, as the Romans did.

Scientific analysis of the climate of Roman times, available through study of tree rings, oceanic deposits, water levels, and of course written records, confirms that Earth’s climate was relatively warm during the period from 250 B.C. to A.D. 400, when the empire was at its peak, in what has become known as the Roman Warm Period[xxxv]. Temperatures appear to have been very similar to present-day conditions, and glaciers in the Alps and Arctic were in retreat, much as they are today. There is, of course, a possibility that the deforestation that the Romans caused could have been a factor in the warming of the climate, due to the fact that trees tend to lower temperatures, perhaps being the first true case of humans affecting earth’s climate, as many scientists believe is occurring today[xxxvi].

A constant environmental problem of civilizations throughout history has been providing water for personal consumption and crop irrigation, and the Romans rose to this challenge in a way that no civilization has been able to match until America irrigated the Southwest in the past century. A few Roman aqueducts are actually still in use, transporting water over great distances for use by cities and agriculture using the best engineering designs to ensure steady delivery[xxxvii]. Water projects are an important part of American civilization as well, particularly in the dry climates of the Southwest, and the designs for these projects borrow heavily from the Ancient Romans.

Historians have also unearthed evidence that the Romans were victims of lead poisoning, due to their habit of drinking out of pots that were made with lead, as well as using the substance in their piping systems. Lead has been suspected in the high rates of gout and mental retardation in Roman history[xxxviii]. This has its parallels with modern times, as we discover that various pesticides, chemicals, and additives to our foods are causing diseases such as autism, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Ironically, it was the Roman physician Celsus who first coined the term “cancer” for the tumor diseases[xxxix]. Indeed, medical care was a big business in Roman times, just like today, with entire cities such as Pergamum dedicated to the healing arts, similar to communities like Loma Linda. Medicine then was a mixture of scientific healing arts and Eastern superstition, an amalgamation that we are witnessing again in our day.

Religion Then and Now


The Romans were famous for their elaborate system of mythology, much of it borrowed from the Greeks. It is here that many would believe our present-day culture would diverge significantly from that of the Romans.

Yet there are some striking parallels. While most people today do not believe in mythology the way the ancients did, one can draw some similarities between the way people today idolize political heroes, celebrities, and sports stars and the way that the Romans would create mythical heroes from their past. Also consider the fact that in the American space program of the 1960’s, the missions were all named after Roman gods and goddesses (Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo), and there are numerous references to these and other Greco-Roman deities on our money, government symbols, and in the sculptures and artwork on American government buildings. We also see a similarity between the easy acceptance of foreign deities in Roman culture and the trend at present of accepting various foreign religions into the American mainstream and creating a pan-religionist mixture.

It seemed that the only religious beliefs that were a problem in the Roman Empire were the monotheistic beliefs of the Christians and Jews, because belief in only one God would necessarily prevent veneration of Caesar, which most of the empire’s leaders after Augustus demanded. It was for this reason that the Jews and later the Christians were persecuted in waves of persecution by the Roman government, until the Emperor Constantine finally legalized Christianity in A.D. 313. Today, a similar tension exists involving monotheistic faiths. American leaders do not demand worship like the Caesars did, at least not at the present time, but there is increasingly an opinion that dogmatic monotheism, as expressed in fundamentalist Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, or conservative Islam, is perhaps a threat to a diverse society, much as some of the Romans saw monotheism back then.

Judaism, the only true monotheistic faith in the empire until Christianity appeared in the First Century, was in a similar position as Judeo-Christian thought is today. The faith was splintered between theological conservatives, the Pharisees, who believed in a meticulous interpretation of all Scripture, and the Sadducees, the theological liberals, who denied many key doctrines of Judaism, including the resurrection of the dead. We have a similar division today in both Judaism and Christianity, as entire denominations are split between doctrinal conservatives that uphold the historically held doctrines and liberals that apply modern understanding and often explain away large sections of the Scriptures.  Like today, religion took on a strongly nationalistic interpretation for some: many Jews were awaiting a human deliverer from God that would take the helm of the Roman Empire and institute reforms mirroring their interpretation of the law of Moses. Many times, the mission of Jesus Christ was misunderstood, even by His closest followers, who were often expecting this political deliverance. This same anticipation can be seen in many Christians in America today, who are preoccupied with the pursuit of "reclaiming" the nation for Christianity and placing evangelicals into political power to bring this about. Another similarity is the interest in apocalyptic themes among the Jews (and even some non-Jews) of the Roman times and the intense interest in the last days among Christians of the present hour[xl]. A good deal of the interest in this theme was sparked by natural disasters, such as the cataclysmic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Italy in 79 A.D., just as modern disasters have heightened similar interests today. 

The position that the nation of Israel was in during Roman times is a major similarity with today. Before being overthrown after rebelling against the Romans in 70 A.D., the Jews were in a unique situation in their 4,000 year history, in which they possessed at least part of their ancient homeland of Palestine (though sharing it with another people – the Samaritans), while also having large Jewish populations in major cities throughout the empire, including Rome, Ephesus, Alexandria, and Athens. Jews today are in much the same state; they have returned to their ancestral homeland of Israel, but they share it with another people group (not the Samaritans but the Palestinians), and yet there are still significant Jewish populations in all of the world’s major cities, the largest of which are in America. Like in Roman times, the Israeli nation today has a degree of independence, yet is still under the close oversight of the international community, in the First Century under Roman oversight and in the Twenty-First Century under the guardianship of the United States.  

Conclusion


As this report shows, the American and Western culture of the Twenty-first Century is perhaps most similar to the Roman culture of two thousand years ago. There are differences, to be sure, but the similarities are obvious and glaring, making even a casual observer take notice. But why is there this striking similarity between empires that have existed millennia apart? Is it just a coincidence?

Many historians have believed that the similarity between modern society in general and the United States in particular to Ancient Rome serves as a role model, so that we might adopt many of the successes and steer away from the failings of the ancient empire. This is clearly a valid and important interpretation, but to the student of the Bible, there is an even more significant interpretation of this similarity. For one thing, the Roman Empire was the time in which Jesus Christ came to the earth, died, and was resurrected, and started the institution of the Church, which would revolutionize the world with the powerful teachings of Jesus Christ and His Apostles.

We often think of the world in which Jesus and the Apostles lived in as substantially different from our own, and part of this is because Jesus lived in Israel, which was a largely agriculture and religious community on the frontier of the empire, the reason for the agricultural and pastoral imagery that featured so highly in Christ’s teachings and illustrations. But the same is true in many areas of our own country today; consider the experience of someone in rural Kansas, whose daily life might be different from that of a New Yorker, yet occurred in the same time in history. When we begin to study the Book of Acts and other New Testament passages that refer to the broader Roman world outside of Israel, we encounter a culture much more similar to our own.

But there is another interpretation in the Bible that makes the topic of a revival of the old Roman Empire take on enormous significance for the world as a whole and for us as individuals. 

According to Daniel 2, God revealed to the ancient Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar a succession of future empires that would rule the world, and especially the Middle East region, during the future. This dream, which was interpreted by the Jewish prophet Daniel, foresees five major kingdoms that would rule the world, portrayed in a multi-metallic image, as shown below:

SOURCE: http://willeng2surv.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/dream.jpg
The interpretation shown above is accepted by virtually all conservative Bible teachers for several centuries; it is widely understood that the first four kingdoms (Babylon, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman) have come and gone as prophesied, but there remains a future empire that will come before the return of Jesus Christ, which is linked in some way to the Roman Empire. Most Bible teachers refer to this kingdom as the “Revived Roman Empire” and it is expected to produce the Antichrist, the last world leader before the visible and personal return of Christ to the earth, which will mark the end of human government over the world as we know it. This interpretation is further strengthened by the passages in Daniel 7 and Revelation 13, all of which point to a revival of the Roman Empire immediately preceding the return of Christ.

Most Bible teachers of the past two centuries have taught that the revival of this Roman Empire will occur in the literal continent of Europe, in which a coalition of nations will band together with the power and authority of the Ancient Romans to become the world’s dominant political entity. These teachers looked at the formation of the European Union, which was founded in 1957, as the fulfillment of this prophecy, and believed that this region of the world will slowly but surely become the seat of world power and influence in the future.

While this Euro-centric interpretation of the Revived Roman Empire cannot be dismissed, it is striking how similar the United States of America is to the Roman Empire of old, and how in many ways (politically, militarily, socially, and economically), someone with or without biblical insight could easily surmise that it is the revival of Roman Empire. Indeed, several thinkers of the past have thought as much, which is even more amazing considering that they spoke years before the United States could be described as a world superpower in its present form. Consider this quote by Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753), for whom the City of Berkeley, California, famous for its educational institution at UC Berkeley, is named. Keep in mind this was written before America existed as a nation; it was merely a collection of British colonies:

“The world’s scepter passed from Persia to Greece, from Greece to Italy, from Italy to Great Britain, and from Great Britain the scepter is today departing. It is passing to “Greater Britain”, to our mighty West, there to remain, for there is no further West”[xli]


ABOVE: Map showing the westward progression of civilization prophesied by Bishop Berkeley, map from http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/world_outline_map.htm.

In fact, the City of Berkeley was named after this man, who was also a scientific and mathematical genius, due to the fact that the city was almost the farthest west a person could travel on the American continent, and it seemed to be fulfilling the bishop’s prophecy that, “westward the course of empire takes its way”[xlii]. I wonder how many inhabitants of that city or students at UC Berkeley know this origin of their city’s name?

So is the United States truly the Revived Roman Empire predicted in the Bible? We may not know for sure, but the similarities are numerous, and this report only scratches the surface of all the similarities that an astute observer could draw. Even the few differences (modern technology and nuclear weapons) actually make us believe even more so that this could be the fulfillment of the Revived Roman Empire, since all of these differences were also predicted in the Bible thousands of years ago[xliii].

One must understand that an identification of the United States as the Revived Roman Empire does not in any way diminish the influence of evangelical Christianity on American life. Indeed, this also draws parallels with Rome, as many prominent citizens, including political leaders, in the First Century were converts to the Christian faith (Acts 17:12). The Roman military leader Cornelius was one such person (Acts 10). In fact, the Roman Empire probably produced the greatest number of evangelical Christians of any political entity until modern times, including the apostles themselves, as well as many early church fathers and common people. One can deduce the search for meaning and knowledge espoused by the Greek philosophers made people look for new truth and thus become open to the Gospel message, while the experience that many had of changing their citizenship to that of a Roman as part of the empire helped them understand the concept of changing their allegiance to Christ in a spiritual sense.Yet the Roman Empire would still play the role of persecutor of the infant faith, during ten separate and prophesied waves of persecution (Revelation 2:10). Similarly, the Revived Roman Empire will persecute believers in Jesus Christ (Daniel 7:21 and Revelation 20:4), though for a much shorter duration than the persecutions of the first Roman Empire. But just like the first time, the second Roman Empire's attempts at halting the evangelical message will be a failure. A parallel can be drawn about how the first Roman Empire and its revived form will meet the same end: they will be displaced by Christianity. In the first empire, it was the Christian church, which the Roman emperors tried so hard to eradicate, that eventually replaced the empire as the seat of power, in the form of the Catholic Church. The second empire will also be replaced by Christianity, though not by the earthly church but by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who will take the reins of power:

And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. (Daniel 7:27)

The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 11:15)

The Roman Empire was the only power in history to ever literally attempt to stop Jesus Christ. This they did when they crucified Jesus Christ and buried Him in a tomb that was sealed with the imperial seal of the empire and guarded by the Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:66). But all their efforts were futile, since the seal, the soldiers, or death itself had no power over Jesus, and on the third day, He arose from the dead and appeared to many people before being received back into Heaven forty days later. In the same way, all of the world's nations, led by the leadership of the Revived Roman Empire, will attempt to fight against Jesus Christ at His visible return to the earth (Psalm 2, Daniel 8:25, and Revelation 19:19-21). They will fail just as miserably as the first Roman Empire did in their attempt to kill Jesus.

In reflecting on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Peter told the people of his generation: "Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers" (Acts 3:17). Thus, the first Roman Empire was not completely responsible for the death of Christ, since those involved did not have the full knowledge of who Christ was and what His mission on earth would be: "which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (I Corinthians 2:8). The attempts of the second Roman Empire to stop Jesus Christ at His Second Coming will not be as excusable due to ignorance, however, since the world has had 2,000 years of Jesus Christ being proclaimed as Savior and Lord. Thus, the judgement of the Second Roman Empire for their rebellion against Christ will be worse.

These similarities between the Ancient Romans and modern America may very well be the most important and certain sign that we have that the return of Christ is near. When the Apostles witnessed the ascension of the risen Christ in Acts 1, they were told a prophecy by an angel that:

 This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.

Thus, we are told to look for a similarity between both the first and second comings of Christ.

In Daniel 2:44, we read of the Revived Roman Empire:

And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

The next verse tells us:

the interpretation is sure.

If we are interpreting the revival of this empire correctly, then we may be at the very end of human government and near the start of God’s kingdom on earth, when the Lord’s Prayer will be fulfilled:

Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)


For more on God's plan of salvation for the world as a whole and for you as an individual, visit http://peacewithgod.jesus.net/ 

[ii] Hollister, Warren C. Roots of the Western Tradition: A Short History of the Ancient World. McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 172.
[vi] “Roman Constitution” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_constitution
[vii] “Aquila (Roman)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquila_(Roman)  
[viii] Etienne, Robert. Pompeii: The Day a City Died. Discoveries, 1992, p. 59.
[ix] Adams, Les. The Second Amendment Primer. Palladium Press, 1996, p. 24.
[xi] “Has the Road to Political Redemption Gotten Shorter” http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/08/politics/political-redemption/index.html
[xii] Murphy, Cullen. Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007, p. 91-120.
[xv] “Military of Ancient Rome” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_military
[xvi] Frazee, Charles A. Two Thousand Years Ago: The World at the Time of Jesus. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002, p. 207
[xvii] Beck, Glenn. Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure. Threshold Editions, 2010.
[xviii] Murphy, Cullen. Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America, p. 1
[xix] “Roman Economy” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_economy
[xxi] “Education in Ancient Rome” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_ancient_rome
[xxii] Hollister, Warren C. Roots of the Western Tradition: A Short History of the Ancient World. McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 172.
[xxiii] “Ancient Olympic Games” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Olympics
[xxiv] “Roman Hairstyles” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_hairstyles
[xxv] “Cosmetics in Ancient Rome” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmetics_in_Ancient_Rome
[xxvi] Etienne, Robert. Pompeii: The Day a City Died. Discoveries, 1992, p. 77.
[xxvii] Alderton, David. Dogs. Dorling Kindersley, 1993, p. 276-277
[xxviii] “PBS Roman City with David Macaulay” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K7Yds8bWz4
[xxix] “World Cuisines – Ancient Rome” http://konopcompanies.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/world-cuisines-ancient-rome/  
[xxx] Williams. Roman Homosexuality.
[xxxi] Robert Pompeii: The Day a City Died, p. 109
[xxxii] Besant, Alexander. “Gun murder rate in U.S. 19.5 times higher than other developed countries” Global Post http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/121218/gun-murder-rate-us-195-times-higher-other-develo
[xxxiii] Liptak, Adam. “Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’” New York Times, 23 April 2008
[xxxiv] “Deforestation during the Roman Period” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman_period
[xxxv] “Roman Warm Period” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period
[xxxvi] “Roman Empire Increased Concentration of Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere” http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/05-10-2012/122360-roman_empire_pollution-0/
[xxxvii] “Roman Aqueduct” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_aqueduct
[xxxviii] Wilford, John Noble. “Roman Empire’s Fall is Linked with Gout and Lead Poisoning”. New York Times, 17 March 1983
[xxxix] “The History of Cancer”. American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/cid/documents/webcontent/002048-pdf.pdf
[xl] “A Portrait of Jesus’ World – Judaism’s First Century Diversity” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/judaism.html
[xli] Murphy, Cullen. Are We Rome? The Fall of An Empire and the Fate of America, p. 192.
[xlii] “Berkeley, California” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,_California
[xliii] Consider Daniel 12:4 that “knowledge will increase” or Matthew 24:22’s description of a war in which “unless those days were shortened, there would be no flesh saved”, which almost certainly refers to our modern abilities in warfare

Bibliography
For more on the fascinating subject of the similarities between the United States and Ancient Rome, consult these sources:

Murphy, Cullen. Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. 2007. (Featured on NPR back in
Madden, Thomas F. Empires of Trust: How Rome Built – And America is Building – A New World. 2008
Jones, Alonzo Trevier. The Two Republics, or Rome and the United States of America. 1891 (online at http://books.google.com/books?id=Zi9KAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=similarities+between+the+roman+empire+and+the+united+states&hl=en&sa=X&ei=sujaUcXQMYHoiwLE8IDQCw&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=similarities%20between%20the%20roman%20empire%20and%20the%20united%20states&f=false)
Burgan, Michael. Empire of Ancient Rome. 2009
Pearson, Monte. Perils of Empire: The Roman Republic and the American Republic. 2008
Aquilino, Joseph. The Roman Empire vs. America. 2013
Osborne, R.K. The Decline and Fall of the Second Roman Empire. 2009
Malamud, Margaret. Ancient Rome and Modern America. 2008
Ferrero, Guglielmo. Ancient Rome and Modern America: A Comparative Study of Morals and Manners. 2013
The eminent late Bible teacher Ray Stedman has several sermons available online in their entirety on the Revived Roman Empire, available at www.raystedman.org, particularly his sermons on Daniel 2 and 7 and Revelation 13 and 17-18.

Appendix
Below is a map of the Roman Empire, showing the progression of the empire from 510 B.C. to the AD 1400's. SOURCE: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Roman_Empire_map.gif 
Please cite the URL of this report http://revivedrome.blogspot.com when citing this report. Please note that all sources have been cited and all links are up-to-date at the time of this publication.

Q and A: America and the Roman Empire

Why did the Founding Fathers pattern America’s government so clearly after the Ancient Romans?

Ever since the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, the glory days of the Romans were always the symbol and epitome of political power and grandeur to Westerners, and many sought to recreate this magnificent empire of the past. Charlemagne in the ninth century, the Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance thinkers of the Sixteenth Century, and the dictator Napoleon all saw in the ancient Romans a workable political power structure and put the restoration of the empire as their goal.

For many of America’s Founding Fathers, who were often educated in classical writings from the Greco-Roman period as well as in the Bible, the Roman Empire represented the highest form of human government, especially since the Greeks and Romans were the only real precedents for the form of government that the Founders were attempting to recreate in America. The Roman role model was natural, too, since the Founders sought a clear break from the mother country of England, and thus did not want to be a mere copy of English governance.

The architectural styles of the Greeks and Romans were popular during the lifetime of the Founders and for almost a century later, known as Neoclassicalism[i]. Architects of this era saw the beautiful whitewashed, pillared buildings of the ancients as the perfect prototype for what at the time were modern edifices serving as seats of government, higher learning, or other noble uses.
It might be surprising to some that the Founding Fathers, as knowledgeable about the Bible as they were, would want to copy the Ancient Romans to such a high degree, considering that it was Rome that engaged in the most vicious persecution of Christians in history. But it must be remembered that the government structure explained in the Book of Acts and other passages that deal with Rome was not evil in and of itself and it could be rationalized that it was the Roman Empire structure that allowed the gospel to go forth around the world during the days of the Early Church. Additionally, it is likely that a great many of the Founding Fathers were not practicing Christians, and a few may even have been intrigued by the paganism of Ancient Rome and wished to recreate this, though this was obviously not the majority opinion in the largely Christian public of Eighteenth Century America.
When Rome ruled the world last time, how long was it until Jesus Christ came?
The Roman Republic existed for centuries before the birth of Christ, but it did not become a true empire until the Romans added Greece as one of their provinces in 146 B.C. Since the Greeks were previously the dominant world power, this meant that Rome was indeed the only superpower of the time. That occurred about 140 years before the birth and 180 years before the death and resurrection of Christ. The Pax Rommana, which created a one-world political, economic, and social system, began in 27 B.C., with the ascension of Caesar Augustus, and would continue throughout the New Testament era. That occurred a quarter century before Christ’s birth and sixty years before His death.
Jesus Christ Himself warned against setting dates for His Second Coming (Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32, Luke 12:39-40, and Acts 1:7), so it would be futile to arrive at an exact date of Christ’s Second Coming based on the pattern of His first coming. However, some obvious parallels can be drawn, and the New Testament writers clearly proclaim that it would be possible to know the generaltime that Jesus would return, just as the people of Christ’s day knew that their Messiah would be coming in their times based on the prophecies in Daniel 9.
If we cautiously interpose the dates of the Ancient Roman empire, we find that the Roman conquest of Greece would be roughly correspondent to the American victory in the Spanish-American war of 1898, which made America the dominant international power of the world. The establishment of the Pax Romana would correspond to the 1989-1991 period, when the fall of the Soviet Empire left America as the world’s only superpower and allowed for the creation of an international economy and society with no formidable barriers.
Assuming the birth of Jesus as correspondent with His return, this event would occur anywhere in the 2015-2040 A.D. timeframe. Using the death and resurrection of Christ as the basis, we would expect the return to be anywhere in the 2050-2080 A.D. time period. Please not that this is not giving us an exact date; it is merely telling us the general time, which we are told we can know if we look carefully!
Interestingly, this also agrees with the prophecy of Hosea 6:2: “after two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight”, which many prominent Bible scholars correlate with II Peter 3:8: “that one day is with the Lord asa thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”. Understood that way, we are told that the return of Christ would be sometime after 2,000 years elapsed, a period which began in 1996 A.D. (using Christ’s birth), or will occur in 2033 A.D. (using His death and resurrection).
How many Caesars were there and can this be compared to the number of Presidents of the United States?
During the entire duration of the Roman Empire, there were some sixty Caesars[ii]. Some of them, however, were ruling at the same time as co-regents, while others were in office for a very short time (such as the year Nero died, which saw three different Caesars).
Currently, America has had forty-four presidents. Whether there is any correlation with the number of leaders of America vs. the old Roman Empire remains to be seen.
How do we really know if all these facts about the Romans are true?
The Roman Empire was one of the well-recorded empires of world history. Besides the Bible, we have the writings of numerous contemporaries (Josephus, Pliny, Plutarch, Suetonius, Cato, Cicero, Julius Caesar, and Augustine), which give us a clear understanding of life in those times. Most of these materials have been meticulously translated into English and other languages and are available today online and as books. The most helpful volume would probably be The Roman Historians by Ronald Mellor, an authoritative text on the subject that is an anthology of the major Roman historians[iii].
We also know a great deal about the Ancient Romans from the ruins of Pompeii, which was uniquely preserved because many of its residents and most of the city was buried alive by the volcano Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Researchers from the 1800’s to the present have combed through these ruins and discovered perfectly preserved homes, marketplaces, government buildings, written records, and even the corpses of inhabitants, which give us a perfect view of how these people lived. Check out http://www.thecolefamily.com/italy/pompeii/ for more on this. Finally, there are the numerous ruins in the City of Rome, Italy, itself, and scattered throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, which testify to this empire’s grandeur.


How many people today have ancestors that lived in the Roman Empire?


Very few, if any, genealogical records go as far back as the Ancient Roman Empire. However, since the Roman Empire ruled such a large area of the world and included such a melting pot of peoples and cultures during its existence, we can have some idea of who today would be descendants of the people that lived at that time. We can assume that persons with ancestries in southern and western Europe, England, the Middle East, and northern Africa probably had descendants that lived in the Roman Empire. Northern Europeans and east Asians were not part of the empire, but had significant trade contacts. Therefore, we can assume that the only peoples that did not have any background relating to the Romans would be the indigenous peoples of the Americas or Australia, as well as some of the tribes of southern Africa.


Could the Romans have had more technology than we give them credit for?


The level of craftsmanship of the Ancient Romans makes many people wonder if they had more technology than we give them credit for, possibly forerunners or different forms of some of the technology that we have today. Due to the large number of written sources relating to the Romans, we do know that some of the inventions of the empire included a portable abacus for mathematical calculations (the forerunner of the calculator), the codex book that we have today as opposed to the ancient scroll, cast iron, cement concrete, crank handles used for mining and other purposes, force pumps for fire engines, greenhouses, advanced mills, odometers, artificial lakes, rudimentary street maps, the components of the steam engine (though apparently not a workable model), and an early form of stenography[iv].


It does not appear likely, however, that the Romans had computers, aircraft, automobiles, or telephones, at least not in widespread use, for the extensive written records left by the empire would have surely revealed their existence had they existed. But one cannot rule out that there may have been alternatives that do not exist today that were used on very limited scales.


Notably, it seems that the technology that the Romans developed was lost during the Middle Ages, much of it not being rediscovered for over a thousand years.
ABOVE: A crane used by the Ancient Romans in construction projects.

How many people lived in the Roman Empire?

There is some dispute of the actual number of people that lived in the Roman Empire, despite the periodic censuses, because of the vast expanse of the empire and the possibility that local populations were artificially inflated to gain more aid from the central government. Conservative estimates are that 65 million people lived in the empire at its height, which would be about a fifth of the world’s total of a little over 300 million at the time. Less conservative estimates are for a population of 130 million, which would include 40 percent of the world’s population[v]. I personally believe the higher numbers, considering the huge size of the Roman army. We do know that the population of the empire began to decline in the 160’s and 170’s A.D., as rebellions and several major disease pandemics took their toll on the empire.

The population of the Roman Empire was far lower than the world of today, but it still can be said that it was the most cosmopolitan society that the world has known until modern times. This is especially true considering the cities that had over a million inhabitants, levels not equaled until the last two centuries.

 Did the Romans know anything about the Americas?

 While the bulk of Roman trade and commerce occurred in Europe, Africa and Asia, there is some indication of Roman contact with the Americas. According to the New York Times, artifacts in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, may indicate that the Romans visited that region. The artifacts include jars with the same style and design found in the Roman world (read the article online here. 

 Roman coins were discovered during construction work in Louisville, Kentucky, USA in 1963 and there was an interesting discovery in Mexico in 1933 involving a likeness of a Roman man. Read about those finds here.

There is question, however, about whether these finds were from Roman times, or were brought to the Americas by the explorers of Spain, who had access to many Roman artifacts, being themselves from a part of the world that the Romans once ruled. 



[i] “Neoclassicalism and America 1750-1900” http://www.neoclassicism.us/Main/HomePage
[ii] “How many Caesars were there?” http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_caesars_were_there


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