At the start of Mary Beard’s comprehensive but pedestrian history of ancient Rome she gives some examples of the ‘legacy’ of Rome as reasons why people should know more about ancient Rome and read her book. I critiqued her reasons for being arbitrary, superficial and not really justifying her case. Nonetheless it does broach an interesting subject: just what should be included in the Legacy of Ancient Rome to the present day? Over the week it took to read her book, I began to make a list of aspects of the legacy of Rome which live on in the modern world. Can you add any more to my list?
Roman Catholicism, the religion of power
Surely the biggest legacy is the Roman Catholic church, founded and spread across the eastern Mediterranean but given its definitive organisational and liturgical form after it was decriminalised by the Emperor Constantine in 313 and…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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