I’m Still Thinking About The Roman Empire. We All Should Be.

I was not alone, though I thought I was.

I am a man bereft of TikTok and only marginally online. How was I to know that I belonged to legions of men whose minds turn toward the Roman Empire on a daily basis?

Apparently, as evidenced by the social platform, men think about that great lost civilization on the reg. It took Rev. Kelsey Lewis Vincent, a pastor in North Carolina, to draw attention to an Instagram Reel by a Roman reenactor and then ask her husband that question, which, when posted, was sucked into the meme mindhive to alert each other to that fact.

Now asking men “How often do you think about the Roman Empire?” is a bonafide trend, with increasingly serious think pieces and explainers for lame-o’s like me. Who wants to learn about brotherhood through a USA Todayexplainer? Embarrassing. Nevertheless, here we are. So men do think of the Roman Empire but not all men think of the Roman Empire in the same way. Similarly, if you asked 100 men to think about America, I guarantee no two would have the exact thoughts about the country. In fact, it’s unlikely they would have very many overlapping thoughts at all.

So, unlike my fellow Rome-obsessed brethren, my thoughts of the Roman Empire do not dwell on its well-muscled warriors or ingenious architecture. Hell, I don’t even pine for the patriarchy.

Though I am, as stated, only marginally online, the better part of my hours spent there are on the New York Times homepage. On the day I’m writing this, the headlines, as a general illustrative example, included a story about how the Arctic will be ice free by 2030, how a New Jersey senator was indicted, how the Beyhive helped a man get a ticket to a Beyoncé show after an airline lost his wheelchair, how Trump might destroy democracy, a hotel struggling to cope with the influx of migrants in my home city of New York, and how Russia had kidnapped scores of Ukrainian children and are keeping them in Belarus. But if you scroll down just a few centimeters the Times trumpets its latest embarkation on journalistic excellence “We’ve spent 500-plus hours testing blankets. Here are our favorites.”

I don’t know how you can ingest that crazy quilt of information and not think of Edward E. Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Over the course of seven volumes — thankfully available in a one-volume abridged Penguin Classic — Gibbon, an 18th century English essayist and historian, makes the case that one of the main reasons the vast Roman empire lost its way was through a lack of social and civic cohesion. The poles between rich and poor, urban and rural, were too vast.

I often wonder, as I did last night, if the Romans with their dormice rolled in honey and roasted rabbits with wings sewed on and endless flagons of wine were aware they were sitting at the tail-end of their own empire.

Quite simply there was no longer one Roman Empire united in civic pride but many Roman Empires, which lacked the necessary connective tissue to cling together. What could be a better illustration of that than the New York Times on any given day?

But it obviously isn’t just a matter of reading the newspaper. I think of the Roman Empire at all hours. I thought of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire at dinner last night. I was at a very fancy Manhattan restaurant, enjoying smoked and aged duck breast served over a striped cranberry-miso puree, accompanied by smoked parsnip cream, sauced with a sweet potato “banana bread” and glazed with cranberry-hazelnut brown butter, when the quiet hush of the dining room was interrupted by a scuffle.

A homeless man had wandered into the restaurant, which is across the street from Bryant Park, and had sat down on the floor. Various employees in very nice suits were attempting to cajole and coerce the man to vacate the premises while we, the diners, looked on in apprehension and wonder. There was perhaps some shred of concern for the man but much more annoyance that he had intruded into the starry world of fine dining. And if I’m being completely honest, I could perceive some excitement too because at least something was happening.

Michele Lamont, a Harvard sociologist, recently came out with a book called Seeing Others: How Recognition Works and How it Can Help Heal a Divided World. Lamont argues that civic feeling is diminished each time we fail to recognize the humanity and worth of other groups and individuals. This failure, she posits, weakens the cohesion and strength of our society.

“Having a society where you have a whole lot of homeless people who are left to die on the street has a very negative impact on everyone's quality of life, so it's also tied to that,” she recently said.

One of the main reasons the vast Roman empire lost its way was through a lack of social and civic cohesion. The poles between rich and poor, urban and rural, were too vast.

Her words echoed through my mind as eventually the man agreed to leave the restaurant and we moved to the palette cleanser. How many times a day do I, as a subway rider, avert my eyes or just ignore men and women asking for change, or in clear distress, or children with children strapped on their back selling candy and gum? How corrosive. How harmful. How foreboding a sign it is for our own society.

One of Gibbon’s main premises — often repeated — is that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was, at least partially, the fault of an effete group of super wealthy Romans.

“This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire,” he writes. “The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated.”

I often wonder, as I did last night, if the Romans with their dormice rolled in honey and roasted rabbits with wings sewed on and endless flagons of wine were aware they were sitting at the tail-end of their own empire.

I’m sure maybe one or two did but alas they didn’t have anyone on TikTok to ask, “Hey babe, how often do you think of the Roman Empire?”