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Thelegacy of the Roman Empire has been varied and significant. TheRoman Empire, built upon the legacy of other cultures, has had long-lasting influence with broad geographical reach on a great range of cultural aspects, including state institutions,law, values, religious beliefs, technological advances, engineering, and language.
This legacy survived the demise of the empire (5th century AD in the West, and15th century AD in theEast) and went on to shape other civilisations, a process which continues.Rome was thecivitas (reflected in the etymology of the word "civilisation") and connected with the actualwestern civilisation on which subsequent cultures built is the Latin language of ancient Rome, epitomized by theClassical Latin used inLatin literature, whichevolved during theMiddle Ages and remains in use in theRoman Catholic Church asEcclesiastical Latin.Vulgar Latin, the common tongue used for regular social interactions, evolved simultaneously intoRomance languages that still exist today, such asItalian,French,Spanish,Portuguese,Catalan, andRomanian. Although theWestern Roman Empire fell in the 5th century AD, theEastern Roman Empire continued until its conquest by theOttoman Empire in the 15th century AD and cemented theGreek language in many parts of theEastern Mediterranean even after theEarly Muslim conquests of the 7th century AD.Roman paganism was largelydisplaced by Roman Catholic Christianity after the 4th century AD andthe Christian conversion ofRoman emperorConstantine I (r. 306–337 AD). The Christian faith of the late Roman Empire continued to evolveduring the Middle Ages and remains a major facet ofthe religion and the psyche of the modernWestern world.[1][2]
Ancient Roman architecture, largely indebted toancient Greek architecture of theHellenistic period, has influenced thearchitecture of the Western world, particularly during theItalian Renaissance of the 15th century.Roman law andrepublican politics (from the age of theRoman Republic) have left an enduring legacy, influencing theItalian city-state republics of the Medieval period, as well as the United States and other moderndemocratic republics. TheJulian calendar of ancient Rome formed the basis of the standard modernGregorian calendar, whileRoman inventions and engineering, such as the construction ofconcretedomes, continued to influence various peoples after the fall of Rome. Roman models ofcolonialism and warfare became influential.
Latin became thelingua franca of the early Roman Empire and later of theWestern Roman Empire, while – particularly in theEastern Roman Empire – indigenous languages such asGreek and to a lesser degreeEgyptian andAramaic continued in use. Despite the decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Latin language continued to flourish in the very different social and economic environment of theMiddle Ages, not least because it became the official language of theRoman Catholic Church.Koine Greek, which served as a lingua franca in the Eastern Empire, remains in use today as asacred language in someEastern Orthodox churches.
InWestern andCentral Europe and in parts of northernAfrica, Latin retained its elevated status as the main vehicle of communication for the learned classes throughout the Middle Ages and subsequently; witness especially theRenaissance andBaroque periods. Books which had a revolutionary impact on science, such asNicolaus Copernicus'De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), were composed in Latin. This language was not supplanted for scientific purposes until the 18th century, and for formal descriptions inzoology as well asbotany it survived to the later 20th century.[3] The modern internationalbinomial nomenclature holds to this day: taxonomists assign a Latin or Latinizedscientific name to eachspecies.
In the 21st century, theRomance languages, which comprise all languages that descended fromLatin, are spoken by more than 920 million people as theirmother tongue, and by 300 million people as asecond language, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and Africa.[4] Romance languages are eitherofficial, co-official, or significantly used in 72 countries around the world.[5][failed verification][6][7][8][9][10] Of theUnited Nations' sixofficial languages, two (French and Spanish) descend from Latin.
Additionally, Latin has had a great influence on the lexicon ofWest Germanic languages. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20%, and 14% ofEnglish,German, andDutch vocabularies.[11][12][13] Those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch.[13] Of all the loanwords in Dutch, 32.2% come directly from some form of Latin (excluding loans from Romance languages).[14] Up to 60% ofAlbanian vocabulary consists of Latin roots, causing Albanian to once have been mistakenly identified as a Romance language.[15]
All three official scripts of the modernEuropean Union—Latin,Greek, andCyrillic—descend from writing systems used in the Roman Empire. Today, theLatin script, theLatin alphabet spread by the Roman Empire to most of Europe, and derived from the Phoenician alphabet through an ancient form of the Greek alphabet adopted and modified by Etruscan, is the most widespread and commonly used script in the world. Spread by various colonies, trade routes, and political powers, the script has continued to grow in influence. The Greek alphabet, which had spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean region during theHellenistic period, remained the primary script of theEastern Roman Empire through theByzantine Empire until its demise in the 15th century. Cyrillic scripts largely derive from the Greek.[16]
TheCarolingian Renaissance of the 8th century rescued many works in Latin from oblivion: manuscripts transcribed at that time are our only sources for some works that later fell into obscurity once more, only to be recovered during theRenaissance:Tacitus,Lucretius,Propertius, andCatullus furnish examples.[18]Other Latin writers never went out of circulation:Virgil, reinterpreted as a prophet of Christianity by the 4th century, gained the reputation of a sorcerer in the 12th century.
Cicero, in a limited number of his works, remained a model of good style, mined for quotations. Medieval Christians readOvidallegorically, or re-imaginedSeneca as the correspondent ofSaint Paul.Lucan,Persius,Juvenal,Horace,Terence, andStatius survived in the continuingcanon and the historiansValerius Maximus andLivy continued to be read for the moral lessons history was expected to impart.
Through the Roman Empire, Greek literature also continued to make an impact in Europe long after the Empire's fall, especially after the recovery of Greek texts from the East during the high Middle Ages and the resurgence of Greek literacy during the Renaissance. Many educated Westerners from the Renaissance up to the 20th century, for instance, readPlutarch'sLives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, originally written in Greek. Shakespeare's playJulius Caesar takes most of its material from Plutarch's biographies ofCaesar,Cato, andBrutus, whose exploits were frequently discussed and debated by the literati of Shakespeare's time.
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Martianus Capella developed the system of the seven liberal arts that structured medieval education. Although the liberal arts were already known inAncient Greece, it was only after Martianus that the seven liberal arts took on canonical form.His single encyclopedic work,De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii "On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury", laid the standard formula of academic learning from the Christianized Roman Empire of the 5th century until theRenaissance of the 12th century.
The seven liberal arts were formed by thetrivium, which included the skills of grammar, logic, andrhetoric, while arithmetic, geometry, music, andastronomy played part as thequadrivium.
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The modernWestern calendar is a refinement of theJulian calendar, which was introduced byJulius Caesar. The calendar of the Roman Empire began with the monthsIanuarius (January),Februarius (February), andMartius (March). The common tradition to begin the year on 1 January was a convention established in ancient Rome. Throughout the medieval period, the year began on 25 March, the Catholic Solemnity of the Annunciation.
The 5th-century Roman monkDionysius Exiguus devised the modern dating system of theAnno Domini (AD) era, which is based on the reckoned year of the birth ofJesus, with AD counting years from the start of this epoch, and BC denoting years before the start of the era.
The modern seven-day week follows the Greco-Roman system ofplanetary hours, in which one of the seven heavenly bodies of theSolar System that were known in ancient times—Saturn,Jupiter,Mars,the Sun,Venus,Mercury, andthe Moon—is given "rulership" over each day. The Romance languages (with the exception of Portuguese, that assigns an ordinal number to five days of the week, from Monday to Friday, beginning withsegunda-feira, and ending withsexta-feira) preserve the original Latin names of each day of the week, except for Sunday, which came to be calleddies dominicus (Lord's Day) under Christianity.
The 12-hour clock is a time convention popularized by the Romans in which the 24 hours of the day are divided into two periods. The Romans divided the day into 12 equal hours, A.M. (ante-meridiem, meaning before midday) and P.M. (post-meridiem, meaning past midday). The Romans also started the practice used worldwide today of a new day beginning atmidnight.
Roman numerals continued as the primary way of writing numbers in Europe until the 14th century, when they were largely replaced in common usage byHindu–Arabic numerals. The Roman numeral system continues to be widely used, however, in certain formal and minor contexts, such as on clock faces, coins, in the year of construction oncornerstone inscriptions, and in generational suffixes (such asLouis XIV orWilliam Howard Taft IV). Romance languages (and also other languages such as Russian, Polish, and Basque) write centuries in Roman numbers; in Spanish, for example, "21st century" is writtensiglo XXI.
The Romans solidified the modern concept of thehour as one-24th part of a day and night. TheEnglish measurement system also retains features of theAncient Roman foot (11.65 modern inches), which was used in England prior to theAnglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. Theinch itself derives from the Romanuncia, meaning one-twelfth part.
Although the present archaeological system of the three main ages—stone, bronze, and iron—originates with the Danish archaeologistChristian Jürgensen Thomsen, the concept of dividing pre-historical ages into systems based on metals extends to Ancient Rome, originated by the RomanLucretius in the first century BC.[citation needed]
While classicalRoman andHellenistic religion were ultimately superseded by Christianity, many key theological ideas and questions that are characteristic ofWestern religions originated with pre-Christian theology. Thefirst cause argument for theexistence of God, for instance, originates with Plato.Design arguments, which were introduced by Socrates and Aristotle and remain widely discussed to this day, formed an influential component ofStoic theology well into the late Roman period. Theproblem of evil was widely discussed among ancient philosophers, including the Roman writers such asCicero andSeneca, and many of the answers they provided were later absorbed into Christiantheodicy. In Christian moral theology, moreover, the field ofnatural law ethics draws heavily on the tradition established by Aristotle, the Stoics, and especially by Cicero's popular Latin work,De Legibus. Cicero's conception of natural law "found its way to later centuries notably through the writings ofSaint Isidore of Seville and theDecretum of Gratian"[20] and influenced the discussion of the topic up through the era of the American Revolution.
Christianity itself also spread through the Roman Empire; since emperorTheodosius I (AD 379–395), the officialstate church of the Roman Empire wasChristianity. Subsequently, former Roman territories became Christian states which exported their religion to other parts of the world, through colonization and missionaries.
Christianity also served as a conduit for preserving and transmitting Greco-Roman literary culture. Classical educational tradition in theliberal arts was preserved after the fall of the empire by themedieval Christian university. Education in the Middle Ages relied heavily on Greco-Roman books such as Euclid'sElements and the influentialquadrivium textbooks written in Latin by the Roman statesmanBoethius (AD 480–524).
Major works of Greek and Latin literature, moreover, were both read and written by Christians during the imperial era. Many of the most influential works of the early Christian tradition were written by Roman andHellenized theologians who engaged heavily with the literary culture of the empire (seeChurch Fathers).St. Augustine's (AD 354–430)City of God, for instance, draws extensively onVirgil,Cicero,Varro,Homer,Plato, and elements of Roman values and identity to criticize paganism and advocate for Christianity amid a crumbling empire. The engagement of early Christians as both readers and writers of important Roman and Greek literature helped to ensure that the literary culture of Rome would persist after the fall of the empire. For thousands of years to follow, religious scholars in the Latin West fromBede toThomas Aquinas and later renaissance figures such asDante,Montaigne, andShakespeare would continue to read, reference, and imitate both Christian and pagan literature from the Roman Empire. In the east, the empire's prolific tradition of Greek literature continued uninterrupted after the fall of the west, in part due to the works of theGreek fathers, who were widely read by Christians in medieval Byzantium and continue to influence religious thought to this day (seeByzantine literature).
There have been revivals of theancient Roman polytheistic religion in modern times, mostly in Italy.[21][22][23][24] While interest in reviving the ancient Roman paganism dates back to the Renaissance,[25] this phenomenon intensified in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today it has a presence mostly in theWestern world, withNova Roma being the most notable international revivalist organization.[26]
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While much of the most influentialGreek science andphilosophy was developed before the rise of the Empire, major innovations occurred under Roman rule that have had a lasting impact on the intellectual world. The traditions of Greek, Egyptian, and Babylonian scholarship continued to flourish at great centers of learning such asAthens,Alexandria, andPergamon.
Epicurean philosophy reached a literary apex in the long poem byLucretius, who advocated an atomic theory of matter and revered the older teachings of the GreekDemocritus. The works of the philosophersSeneca the Younger,Epictetus, and the Roman emperorMarcus Aurelius were widely read during the revival ofStoic thought in theRenaissance, which synthesized Stoicism and Christianity. Fighter pilotJames Stockdale famously credited the philosophy ofEpictetus as being a major source of strength when he was shot down and held as prisoner during theVietnam War. Plato's philosophy continued to be widely studied under the Empire, growing into the sophisticatedneoplatonic system through the influence ofPlotinus. Platonic philosophy was largely reconciled with Christianity by the Roman theologianAugustine of Hippo, who, while a staunch opponent of Roman paganism, viewed the Platonists as having more in common with Christians than the other pagan schools.[28] To this day, Plato'sRepublic is considered the foundational work of Western philosophy, and is read by students around the globe.
The widespreadLorem ipsum text, which is widely used as a meaningless placeholder in modern typography and graphic design, is derived from the Latin text of Cicero's philosophical treatiseDe finibus.
Pagan philosophy was gradually supplanted by Christianity in the later years of the Empire, culminating in the closure of theAcademy of Athens byJustinian I. Many Greek-speaking philosophers moved to the east, outside the borders of the Empire. Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism gained a stronghold in Persia, where they were a heavy influence on earlyIslamic philosophy. Thinkers of theIslamic Golden Age such asIbn Sina (Avicenna) andIbn Rushd (Averroës) engaged deeply with Greek philosophy, and played a major role in saving works of Aristotle that had been lost to the Latin West. The influence of Greek philosophy on Islam was dramatically reduced In the 11th century when the views of Avicenna and Averroes were strongly criticized byAl-Ghazali. HisIncoherence of the Philosophers is among the most influential books in Islamic history. In Western Europe, meanwhile, the recovery of Greek texts during theScholastic period had a profound influence on Latin science and theology from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance.
In science, the theories of the Greco-Roman physicianGalen dominated Western medical thought and practice for more than 1,300 years.Ptolemy produced the most thorough and sophisticated astronomical theory of antiquity, documented in theAlmagest. ThePtolemaic model of the solar system would remain the dominant approach to astronomy across Europe and the Middle East for more than a thousand years. Forty-eight of the 88constellations theIAU recognizes today are recorded in the seventh and eighth books of Claudius Ptolemy'sAlmagest.
At Alexandria, the engineer and experimenterHero of Alexandria founded the study ofmechanics andpneumatics. In modern geometry,Heron's formula bears his name. Roman Alexandria also saw the seeds of modern algebra arise in the works ofDiophantus. Greek algebra continued to be studied in the east well after the fall of the Western Empire, where it matured into modern algebra in the hands ofal-Khwārizmī (see thehistory of algebra). The study ofDiophantine equations andDiophantine approximations are still important areas of mathematical research today.
All of the planets in theSolar System, excludingEarth andUranus, are named afterRoman deities in the English language.
Although the law of the Roman Empire is not used today, modern law in many jurisdictions is based on principles of law used and developed during the Roman Empire. Some of the same Latinterminology is still used today. The general structure of jurisprudence used today, in many jurisdictions, is the same (trial with a judge, plaintiff, and defendant) as that established during the Roman Empire.
The modern concept ofrepublican government is directly modeled on theRoman Republic. The republican institutions of Rome survived in many of theItalian city-states of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The form, function, and symbols of theUnited States Congress draw heavily on theRoman Senate andlegislative assemblies, while the president holds a position similar to that of aRoman consul. Many European political thinkers of theEnlightenment were avid consumers of Latin literature.Montesquieu,Edmund Burke, andJohn Adams were all strongly influenced byCicero, for instance. Adams recommended Cicero as a model for politicians to imitate, and once remarked that "the sweetness and grandeur of his sounds, and the harmony of his numbers give pleasure enough to reward the reading if one understood none of his meaning."[29]
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Many Roman inventions were improved versions of other people's inventions and ranged from military organization, weapon improvements,armour,siege technology, naval innovation, architecture, medical instruments, irrigation, civil planning, construction,agriculture, and many more areas of civic, governmental, military, andengineering development.
That said, the Romans also developed a huge array of new technologies and innovations. Many came from common themes but were vastly superior to what had come before, while others were totally new inventions developed by and for the needs of Empire and the Roman way of life.
Some of the more famous examples are theRoman aqueducts (some of which are still in use today),Roman roads, water-powered milling machines, thermal heating systems (as employed inRoman baths, and also used in palaces and wealthy homes), sewage and pipe systems, and the invention and widespread use ofconcrete.
Metallurgy and glass work (including the first widespread use of glass windows) and a wealth of architectural innovations including highrise buildings, dome construction, bridges, and floor construction (seen in the functionality of theColosseum's arena and the underlying rooms and areas beneath it) are other examples of Roman innovations.
Military inventiveness was widespread and included tactical and strategic innovations, new methodologies in training, discipline, and field medicine as well as inventions in all aspects of weaponry, from armor and shielding to siege engines and missile technology.
This combination of new methodologies, technical innovation, and creative invention in the military gave Rome the edge against its adversaries for half a millennium, and with it, the ability to create an empire that even today, more than 2000 years later, continues to leave its legacy in many areas of modern life.
Rome left a legacy of founding many cities ascolonia. There were more than 500 Roman colonies spread through the Empire, most of them populated by veterans of the Roman legions. Some Roman colonies rose to become influential commercial and trade centers, transportation hubs, and capitals of international empires, likeConstantinople,London,Vienna, andBudapest.
All those colonies were connected by another important legacy of the Roman Empire: theRoman roads. Indeed, the empire comprised more than 400,000 kilometres (250,000 mi) of roads, of which over 80,500 kilometres (50,000 mi) were stone-paved.[30] The courses (and sometimes the surfaces) of many Roman roads survived for millennia and many are overlaid by modern roads, like theVia Emilia in northern Italy. The roads are closely linked to modern-day economies, with those that survived from the empire's territorial peak in 117 CE having more economic activity today. This is especially true in European areas, which kept wheeled vehicles in the latter half of the first millennium, whereas other regions preferred cheaper methods of transport such ascamel caravans.[31]
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The Renaissance-eraarchitectural style developed byAndrea Palladio, inspired by Greek and Roman architecture, became hugely influential throughout the Western world. In the mid-18th century, Roman architecture inspiredNeoclassical architecture, part of the wider international movement ofNeoclassicism. Though Neoclassical architecture employs the same classical vocabulary as lateBaroque architecture, it tends to emphasize its planar qualities, rather than sculptural volumes. Projections and recessions and their effects oflight and shade are flatter; sculptural bas-reliefs are flatter and tend to be framed in friezes, tablets, or panels. Its clearly articulated individual features are isolated rather than interpenetrating, autonomous and complete in themselves.
International Neoclassical architecture was exemplified inKarl Friedrich Schinkel's buildings, especially theOld Museum in Berlin; SirJohn Soane's Bank of England in London; and theWhite House andCapitol inWashington, DC in theUnited States. The Scots architectCharles Cameron created palatialItalianate interiors for the German-bornCatherine II the Great inSt. Petersburg.
Italy clung toRococo until theNapoleonic regimes brought the new archaeological classicism, which was embraced as a political statement by young, progressive, urban Italians with republican leanings.
From a legal point of view, the Roman Empire, founded byAugustus in 27 BC and divided after the death ofTheodosius I in 395 into two "parts" (or rather courts, as the empire continued to be considered as one), had survived only in the eastern part which, with the deposition of the last western emperor,Romulus Augustulus, in 476, had also obtained the imperial regalia of the western part, reuniting from a formal point of view the Roman Empire.
The Roman line continued uninterrupted to rule theEastern Roman Empire, whose main characteristics were Roman concept of state, medieval Greek culture and language, and Orthodox Christian faith. The Byzantines themselves never ceased to refer to themselves as "Romans" (Rhomaioi) and to their state as the "Roman Empire", the "Empire of the Romans" (in Greek Βασιλεία των Ῥωμαίων, Basileía ton Rhōmaíōn) or "Romania" (Ῥωμανία, Rhōmanía). Likewise, they were called "Rûm" (Rome) by their eastern enemies to the point that competing neighbours even acquired its name, such as theSultanate of Rûm.
The designation of the Empire as "Byzantine" is a retrospective idea: it began only in 1557, a century after thefall of Constantinople, whenGerman historianHieronymus Wolf published his workCorpus Historiæ Byzantinæ, a collection of Byzantine sources. The term did not come in general use in theWestern world before the 19th century,[citation needed] when modernGreece was born. The end of thecontinuous tradition of the Roman Empire is open to debate: the final point may be viewed as coming as early as thesack of Constantinople in 1204, or thecapture of Constantinople in 1453, or as late as theabolition of the Ottoman sultanate in 1922 given the Ottoman sultans'adoption of the title of Emperor of the Romans (Kayser-i Rum) for themselves.
After the fall of Constantinople,Thomas Palaiologos, brother of the lastEastern Roman Emperor,Constantine XI, was elected emperor and tried to organize the remaining forces. His rule came to an end after the fall of the last major Byzantine city,Corinth. He then moved to Italy and continued to be recognized as Eastern emperor by the Christian powers. Other Byzantinerump states, including theEmpire of Trebizond and thePrincipality of Theodoro, were soon conquered by the Ottomans as well.
His sonAndreas Palaiologos continued claims on the Byzantine throne until he sold the title toFerdinand II of Aragon andIsabella I of Castile before his death in 1502.[32] However, there is no evidence that any Spanish monarch used the Byzantine imperial titles.
InWestern Europe, the Roman concept of state was continued for almost a millennium by theHoly Roman Empire whose emperors, mostly ofGerman tongue, viewed themselves as the legitimate successors to the ancient imperial tradition (King of the Romans) and Rome as the capital of its Empire. The German title of "Kaiser" is derived from the Latin nameCaesar, which is pronounced[ˈkae̯sar] in Classical Latin.
The coronation ofCharlemagne as "Roman" emperor byPope Leo III in the year 800 happened at a time of unprecedented sole female imperial rule in Constantinople (byEmpress Irene) which was interpreted by adversaries as tantamount to a vacancy. The imperial title in the West generated what historians have called theproblem of two emperors. The emperors of the Holy Roman Empire sought in many ways to make themselves accepted by the Byzantines as their peers: with diplomatic relations, political marriages, or threats. Sometimes, however, they did not obtain the expected results, because from Constantinople they were always called "King of the Germans", never "Emperor". The Holy Roman Empire survived Byzantium, but was eventually dissolved in 1806 owing to pressure byNapoleon I.
InEastern Europe, firstly theBulgarian, then theSerbian, and ultimately the Russianczars (Czar derived fromCaesar) proclaimed being Emperors.Muscovite Russia adopted the idea of being aThird Rome (with Constantinople being the second). Sentiments[citation needed] of being the heir of the fallen Eastern Roman Empire began during the reign ofIvan III, Grand Duke of Moscow, who had marriedSophia Paleologina, the niece ofConstantine XI (it is important to note that she was not the heiress of the Byzantine throne; rather, her brotherAndreas was). Being the most powerfulOrthodox Christian state, the Tsars were thought of in Russia as succeeding theEastern Roman Empire as the rightful rulers of the Orthodox Christian world.[citation needed] TheHouse of Romanov, being the rulers of theRussian Empire, were finally ended in theRussian Revolution of 1917.[33] There were also competing Bulgarian and Wallachian[34][35] claims for succession of the Roman Empire.
In the early 20th century, theItalian fascists under their "Duce"Benito Mussolini dreamed of transforming Italy back into the Roman Empire again, encompassing theMediterranean basin.[36] Associated with Italian fascism,Nazi Germany andFrancoist Spain also connected their claims with Roman imperialism.[how?][citation needed]
When India was aBritish colony, thecolonial officials saw themselves as inheriting theGreco-Roman heritage, and compared their efforts incivilising India to those of theRomans in ancient Britain.[37]
Aside from the city ofRome itself, the Imperial Roman name has survived in a number of regions and was also adopted by some of the political regimes that ruled them. These include:
Inlinguistics andethnonymy:
The 1979 filmMonty Python's Life of Brian features a famous scene in which a revolutionary asks"what have the Romans ever done for us?", prompting the other members to incrementally add items to an increasingly lengthy series of achievements and contributions to public welfare.[47]
In September 2023, an internet trend emerged primarily on social media appTikTok, revolving around asking men "how often do you think of theRoman Empire?"[48] The trend originated in August 2023, stemming from anInstagram reel from a 32-year-old Swedish Romanreenactor Artur Hulu; known online as Gaius Flavius. In the reel, he declared that women are not aware of how often men think of the Roman Empire, asking the former to ask their "husband, boyfriend, father, or brother."[48] Hulu stated that he posed the demand after noticing agender disparity in interest in Roman Empire.[49]
These TikToks primarily featured women asking their boyfriends how often they thought of the Roman Empire.[50] Many of the men in these videos respond by stating that they think of it frequently, leading to shock from the women.[51][48] Not all reactions from the men were universal; in one viral TikTok, when asked by his wife, one husband responds "Like theNicki Minajalbum?" likely in reference toMinaj's alter ego and hereponymous 2011 song. Another user on the app stated that she thought about the Roman Empire all the time, before positioning herself in front of a playlist ofMinaj's music.[48] In the videos, many men frequently boasted of the accomplishments of the Roman Empire, such as the size of the empire, theirtechnological advancements such as theaqueducts, and its military prowess.[49]
The Latin loanwords [in Dutch] (from Roman times, from Church Latin and from medical and scientific Latin) amount to 32.2% of all loanwords [...].
[...] the Greek-based alphabet is the ancestor of the cyrillic alphabets used today in the Balkans and among the East Slavs.
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