Why Do Men Think About the Roman Empire?

If there was ever a trend I can get down with, it's this one.

Hey, lovely human 👋🏻

Well, I almost don’t know where to start with this one. It’s like all of my birthdays and Christmases have been rolled into one, gift wrapped and then hand-delivered by Henry Cavill who also wants to marry me. (Don’t judge my fantasies, plz).

You know what I’m talking about, right? 👇

@georgia.rose007Could have bet £100 this was gonna be his answer hahaha #romanempire #dad #fyp

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Firstly, if you happen to be one of these people who thinks about the Roman Empire daily/weekly/monthly for no reason, please continue to do you. I think about some seriously weird shit from the past, so there is zero judgement from me.

ICYWW, the answer is big, fat no. I don’t think about the Roman Empire. If I’m being honest, I NEVER think about it. Even when I’ve been paid to think about it, I try not to think about it. It’s totally not my bag and, again, that’s not a judgement about people who love it.

But, holy cow, am I surprised by how many men think about it.

Wow.

It doesn’t surprise me at all that men think about the past on a regular basis. Not surprised by that at all. History is one of the ways that people make sense of the world as it is, as well as create a sense of identity. Humans are always looking for connection and meaning. We’re wired to do so.

But the Roman Empire?!

I did not see that one coming.

After I saw the first few TikToks, I took to LI and asked people in my network about it. Okay, so it’s hardly a piece of peer-reviewed research but needs must, right? I also asked men that I know personally. I’d say around 90% of the men I asked admitted that yes, they do regularly think about the Roman Empire. And what is so interesting is that it seems to happen independently. Men aren’t getting together to discuss it. They’re syncing without realising it.

But the question, dear reader, is why?

(Because, you know, I can’t just accept this for what it is. I have to analyse the shit out of it and come up with an explanation. Shout out to my fellow overthinkers 🙌)

So, this is what I’ve come up with. (Feel free to pitch in/critique).

First of all, this has a lot to do with general ideas about “civilisation” in the West. There is this common idea that everything that is “advanced” comes from the Romans. You can see evidence of this in the specifics that men think about. When women dig in to why, men respond with things like aqueducts, straight roads, etc. There’s this persistent view that Rome happened, then everything goes to shit (hence the Middle Ages being lumped together as one massive period and nicknamed the “Dark Ages”). Then, the lights go on again (literally, the “Enlightenment”) and we have the “glory days” of the British Empire. So, Rome is depicted as being foundational. Without Rome, none of this stuff could have happened.

This idea (I think) comes from the way that history is taught. If you look at the curriculum, what you’ll find is an absence of non-Western empires/civilisations. Yes, Egypt tends to be there but arguably that’s only because of A) pyramids and B) it later became part of the Roman Empire.

But if we actually look beyond the West, the picture changes. The Indus Valley civilisation had air conditioning and drainage, a LONG time before the Romans turned up. The Akkadians were building roads and invented the first postal system, YEARS before the Romans. I’m not saying this to denigrate Roman history or to deny any of their contributions, by the way. It’s just to highlight the incredibly narrow view that Western education often leaves young people with.

HOWEVER

This doesn’t explain why men think about Rome and women (by and large) don’t. Because boys and girls are sitting in the same classrooms, right? They’re exposed to the same ideas.

So, there is also a second piece about gender socialisation. I saw a TikTok where a man claimed to explain why men think about the Roman Empire. He said it was because men have an “inherent need to conquer things.”

But they don’t.

They don’t have an inherent need to conquer things any more than women are naturally better at caring. This isn’t biology, this is socialisation.

Clearly, then, there’s a story here about masculinity. Or, at the very least, a dominant form of masculinity.

I could go on about this for days and may even follow this up with a Part Two (if you’ll indulge me).

For now, though, let me leave you with a question:

Do you think that during the Roman Empire, women asked men how often they thought about the Akkadian Empire. Then, they laughed and etched their findings into marble tablets that have yet to be unearthed by archaeologists??? 😂

Until next time,

Kaye x