Are We Rome?Comparing the Roman Empire to Our Nation

Today

Who am i?• Enormous multi-cultural society• Technological advancements• Economically draining and overstretched

armed forces• Sense of itself as unique and endowed with a

global mission• Its concern about foreigners penetrating its

borders• Its apparent determination to maintain

military superiority

Comparing nations• The Roman Empire became overextended

abroad and corrupt and dictatorial at home and then collapsed.

• What can we then infer about America?

Rome: A Republic• Republic: elected officials govern the state• Patricians: heads of a few aristocratic

families• Plebeians: common people• The plebeians refused to fight for Rome until

the patricians granted them more rights.• The plebeians elected tribunes to protect

them against unjust treatment. They could veto harmful laws made by the plebeians.

Republican government• Together the patricians

and plebeians created a practical and flexible unwritten constitution

• Later around 450BC, the Law of the Twelve Tables was compiled and became Rome’s first law code.• This is comparable to our

Bill of Rights.• The plebeians had

insisted that they be written down.