What is going through the male mind? Men, usually speaking, are the worst people at explaining this. Ask a guy what he’s thinking about when he stares blankly out the window, and you’ll receive a curt ‘nothing’ in response. Real insights are few and far between, which is why the TikTok question, ‘how often do you think about the Roman Empire?’ has felt so revelatory—the first major clue in a while to what exactly is going on in there—both for women, and for the men themselves.
@ambardriscoll Im taking this as a green flag
The Roman Empire, honestly, is hard for us to ignore. Look around at nearly anything in the modern world, ask yourself how it got there, and the answer is the Romans. Books, newspapers, dental filings, roads, apartments, plumbing, and calendars—all of that started with the Romans. But more importantly, the Roman Empire was a marvelously expansive, decadent, 1000-year project that ended in spectacular failure. In the end, their grip on the world was lost, the Germanic tribes to the north closed in, and all that remained was the ruins.
Via Unsplash
The bigger question is why we’re always thinking about this, and I have a theory. Men see themselves, deep down, as the custodians of order. Whether it’s in their own lives or in broader society, nearly every man is fighting a battle against things that are disturbing their peace, destroying the values and traditions they hold dear, or loosening their grip on control. And when we lose, we usually have ourselves and our own hubris to blame.
What we see as the threat, the great change that is going to cause it all to come crumbling down, depends on the guy. Some might see it as global warming, A.I., or the rise of new technology, others ‘wokeness’ and ‘cancel culture’. Sometimes it’s smaller and deeply personal, other times it’s unfathomably big. But no matter where you fall on the political or social spectrum, it’s easy for us to imagine ourselves as the spiritual or literal descendants of the Romans, the great leaders who lost it all for myriad reasons we’re still parsing today.
It helps, of course, that the Romans were a warring, male-dominated society. That on its own is a big reason why this is a part of the male imagination more than the female. We can all name a famous Roman off the top of our heads, whether it’s Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Mark Antony, Nero, or Caligula, but, for a dollar, name literally any woman. As important as women undoubtedly were, that history has been written again and again without mention. They were also astonishingly racist, which explains certain people’s predilection, though not everyone’s.
Via Unsplash
And another reason why the Romans: It’s always said that history is written by the victors, but more accurately it’s that history is written by those writing history at all.
When we think of what life was like back then, to the grainiest detail, the Romans are the ones who can actually still give us answers. It’s no wonder that their myths, both fantastical and material, persisted when they were the ones cataloging every move. Through their lens, everyone else becomes the other—whether it’s the Visigoths, the Huns, or those further east. As societies rose and fell all around them, for many, nearly all records of them were oral, and thus lost to the sands of time, giving the Romans their endless main character moment.
That’s the thing though. The world is filled with great stories, and every society on earth has a rich, interesting history. But no society ever failed as loudly as the Romans did. So when we men look around at the world that always feels like it’s crumbling around us, it’s easiest to imagine ourselves at the walls of Rome, doing anything we can to keep the things we’re scared of losing for just a little bit longer.