"Would ya look at that?"

The good ol' Romans and U.S. have some striking parallels in many different ways. Here are a few that I have discovered. 


1. "Cities, they argued, as well as all other things, take their rise from the lowliest beginnings" (an excerpt from T.Livius) Rome much like the U.S. didn't start out being a super power. As Livy wrote about the founding of Rome, it came from multiple little steps and multiple generations in order for it to become the Rome we think about today. The U.S. in a very similar way has grown to become how it is today. It started out small and then after multiple generations and little steps we generated our freedom.


2. Going along with the founding, the Romans celebrated their founding day, April 21, yearly calling it Lupercalia (Roman Art slide*). We just celebrated the 4th of July! For the United States this is "Independence Day" and the day we say we founded our own nation apart from other influences. The Romans apparently deemed their founding as important as we do ours!




 3. S.P.Q.R* vs. J.E.L.
Well the Romans established a Republic and had a system of ruling where the people had a say in decisions and whatnot. Even though there was usually a head-honcho, for example Caesar Augustus, they did not call themselves kings. This reminds me a lot of our 3 branches of government today. The Judicial, Executive, and Legislative branches creates our type of republic were we have a say in matters too, and although J.E.L isn't found on many things literally, most things in our life have been influenced by those three branches. 

U.S. Road 

Roman Road

4. Well if you refer to the picture above, you can see that the Romans believed in safety as they obviously had sidewalks too! Well, that may or may not be true but the Romans did have quite the road system. Many of their ancient roads were the basis of many roads now in that area*.  They were designed much like ours for the purpose of getting from one place to the next the most conveniently. 


5. One thing I am grateful for is our sewage and plumbing systems in the U.S. Although it sounds like a strange thing to be grateful for, I have been to places where it was next to non-existent and well it made the living conditions not as comfortable. I feel as if the Romans also appreciated their sewage systems, because they put in a lot of effort in building aqueducts to provide running water in order to fulfill that purpose along with many others.*


*Source: Sister Insalaco's Roman Art slideshow