Historically, the comparison between the Roman Empire and the United State stends to be attractive because not only are they represented as powerful nations to have ever existed in their time, but the U.S has also modelled several of its thinking and institutions after the Roman Empire (Richard). Besides, the current political strife facing the U.S appears to be worsening day after the other which has led scholars to question whether America is headed to a similar direction as its ancient predecessor which is a downfall. However, some scholars hold that the U.S challenges can’t be identical to the Roman Empire. Hence, this essay will seek to analyze Roman Empire and the U.S revealing some of their fascinating similarities and differences; for instance, they share selfless leadership and fear of centralized authority but they also vastly different when it comes to technology roles and democracy.
Historians such as Carl Richard in his book “How the Ancient Inspired the Founding Fathers” notes how early Roman Republicans influenced Americas founding father in sharing typical hopes and fear of the Romanian republic. Richard notes that “having learnt lessons of emperors and despots, both nations tried building checks and balances that would prevent abuse of government power.” This means that both nations feared centralized authority. Besides, the aspect of Roman Empire replacing kings with a system that would allow citizens to elect two consuls tends to be similar to that of America’s founding father, who formed the judicial branches, executive and the legislature that aim at diffusing power lowering chances of abuse (Richard).
Richard also notes that both societies were rooted in a commitment to family, agrarian society and mutual citizen independence. For instance, Cincinnatus was able to save the Romanian republic twice from the Aequi tribes when a conspiracy threatened the government. In both cases, he was described as a dictator and later resigned before embarking back to farming. Similarly, George Washington led America to fight for freedom against the British. He then left after serving his second term as president. Both men tend to be examples of selfless leaders who were able to put the needs of their nation before personal interests (Richard).
On the contrary, despite there being efforts by American founders to engage in a different course compared to Roman Empire, Cullen Murphy in his book “Are We Rome?” tends to show differences that exist in both societies. According to Murphy (Pg. 44) “despite Rome being a republic whose political power was solely placed on patricians hands, only a small population was powerful, educated and wealthy.” Hence, the difference between the two society emerges when Rome is described to be the least democratic compared to America.
Roman society was also limited to the Iron AGE, whereby weapons and tools were mainly made out of iron. More so, the political systems were nascent and straightforward while the society was entirely agrarian. Roman society also adopted technologies from subjected territories and depended mainly on imports (Murphy). By contrast, the U.S was considered as the leader during the industrial age as they extend their leadership in the information age as they are also regarded as leaders of the Biotechnology Age. Hence, this shows that the technology role in both societies tends to differ.
In conclusion, this essay effectively compares the Roman Empire and America by revealing similarities and differences in both societies. Some of the similarities that we have discussed include; centralized authority and selfless leadership, while the differences include; democracy and technology roles.