It seems there is a trend, fostered for God knows what reasons by Social Media such as TikTok, by which women ask men how often they think of the Roman Empire. Supposedly, the men have responded that they think of it quite often. Just what these men consider the Roman Empire to be, or what it is about the Roman Empire they think about (there was a lot involved in it, after all) isn't clear.
Nor is it clear whether this trend actually exists, or how it arose if it exists, or the extent to which it exists. These days, it seems possible that a woman may have asked a man about the Roman Empire one day and posted the response on Social Media, whereupon women all over the world having read of it began asking men about it or at least claimed they had done so. Such things are possible in these unfortunate times, where it seems anyone may be an "influencer" or can claim to be one. I can only say that I see the trend mentioned in posts and headlines.
The fact that there is a "trend" having been noted somewhere, sometime, somehow by someone, various and sundry pundits and pontificators have pondered why there is such a trend and, of course, what it means. What it means to some is that men are vulnerable and confused about themselves, and apparently long for the good old days of Rome, where it is said the patriarchy reigned free and undisturbed, and women kept in their place. Alternatively, men may just want to repress and dominate women and think fondly of an era and place where that took place with greater ease than it does now.
Our current fascination with sex and gender issues makes it unsurprising that speculations and conclusions of this nature abound. But explanation of the fascination with Rome and its empire is found easily enough because its memory is everywhere, and in some respects and forms it still exists. The Catholic Church is in many respects a ghost of the Empire. Portions of Latin are used in discourse, and in the law, medicine and science, and of course the Romance languages are derivations of it. Roman Ruins, still spectacular in many ways, lie throughout Europe, the U.K., North Africa, and large parts of Asia.
Its impact on law and government is immense in the West., and not merely in the continent of Europe. The government of the U.S. was inspired by it and mimicked it. Christianity was born and developed in the Empire, and its history and that of the Christian religion are intermixed.
Movies and books based on Roman history have been made and written for many years. Roman architecture can be seen in many public buildings. Nations are compared to it. Its authors are still read and studied. There's really no getting away from it, in the West.
This is not to mention the fact that, in the history of the West, there has been no other nation or form of government which ruled over so many diverse peoples and regions so successfully and for so long in all of history.
It seems unlikely, then, that the popularity of the Roman Empire is due to feelings of sexual inadequacy or insecurity or urge to dominate being experienced by modern men. It seems rather peculiar that there are those who come to this conclusion; it may say more about them than anything else.
Rome was a patriarchal society, no doubt. It was military and imperialistic, cruel and hierarchical. It can be maintained, though, that this is the case regarding its successors as well, and it's unclear it was any worse than other empires and nations that came after it, even relative to the rights of women, who could not vote until recently, could not freely divorce until recently, and whose legal rights were minimal until recently. Women were, in fact, less free and had less rights in many respects after the dissolution of the Empire than they had during the Empire.
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