There has been a lot said concerning the similarities of America in the 20th Century and Rome during its decline. In the 1970s on the Tom Snyder hosted talk show, Tomorrow, Tom asked historian Will Durant if there were any events or trends that marked the decline of a civilization. Durant answered that there was only one thing that all great civilizations shared at the start of their decline. He was emphatic to preface his answer by saying he was not making a value judgment but that the one thing all great civilizations shared that marked their decline was the widespread practice and social acceptance of homosexuality. I also am not making a value judgment in mentioning this but it is an apt comparison of ancient Rome to Twenty-first Century America. In the animal kingdom homosexuality occurs naturally when populations get too large for their environment to support them so it may be a symptom of overpopulation which certainly would cause major problems for a society. Other similarities might include the relatively recent epidemic of the eating disorder Bulemia with the infamous Roman vomitoriums.
The obvious similarities such as a ruling body called a Senate, enjoying theater and sports, our democratic form of government, etc. are actually inherited from the Greeks by way of the Romans. We do have indoor plumbing thanks to them as well as our language but the one comparison that is most consistently made is our love of contact sports, specifically football and boxing, and the gladiatorial exhibitions held by the Romans in the original Colosseum. I personally don’t find this an appropriate comparison as the spectacles held in Rome were really not athletics but executions. Even the opening day event was a recreation of a naval battle not an Olympic competition.
Our modern version of the Roman Gladiator fights are many times more violent and graphic than anything any Roman could have imagined. They’re spread worldwide and are one of the things for which our society is best known; Hollywood movies. It is in watching motion pictures that the similarities between us and Romans become most apparent. The demand for physical perfection in our movie stars. Men like our former governor are the gladiators of our time. Arnold, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and even John Wayne have killed more men than any Gladiator could have imagined. And in full color, surround sound and with closeups that the Emperor himself could not have been afforded. Compared to us the Romans were pussies.
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