The Cambridge classics professor (and Twitter, TV, and book star) says that our desire to compare the U.S. to ancient Rome is normal – but not sensible. “Rome, in a way, doesn’t matter at all. It’s a very long time ago; no one’s going to get hurt by them. … Rome helps us stand outside ourselves. For me, Rome was a brutal and exploitative empire. But the idea of looking at a big, nasty imperial community who saw their origin in migration, in asylum, and that always traded on the incorporation of the foreign — it takes us out of some of our assumptions.” – The New York Times
