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Comment by henrikschroder | Hacker News Reader

> but isn't it fascinating how truly interested in the roman republic and emopire we are?

If you're in the US, how can you not be? It's everywhere! The fledgling US was desperately in need of authority and gravitas, so they essentially cosplayed as the inheritors of the ideals of Rome, and put that shit everywhere.

Why does Washington DC look the way it does? Why are there pillars and obelisks and domes and white marble everywhere? Why is there Latin on the money? Why does every US courthouse look like a Roman temple, and why is there a Roman goddess on it?

The trend is popular because it's laughing at men for being "nerdy", but I think it's sad how ignorant a lot of people in the US are for not knowing about or recognizing the absolutely enormous amounts of references to Rome that exists in modern US.

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It is not a US thing.

Europeans also have Latin on our money too. Our alphabet is the Latin alphabet.

They were still teaching primarily IN Latin at universities around the war of independence. Yes, you read that right, you spoke and read Latin as your primary learning language. The American universities copied the practice from their home countries.

Until the 1960s in the UK you had to know Latin to learn Medicine or Law. It was still taught in many schools, and I think has been having a resurgence.

I was taught Latin at school.

The Americans didn't cunningly adopt it to lend themselves legitimacy. It's as simple as the European settlers brought it with them. It was the culture of European intellectuals.

> Why does Washington DC look the way it does? Why are there pillars and obelisks and domes and white marble everywhere? Why is there Latin on the money? Why does every US courthouse look like a Roman temple, and why is there a Roman goddess on it?

This is all true for much or most of Europe, the West, and Western-affiliated countries. (Also, the marble in Rome, and Greece from whom the Romans took much of these styles) was generally painted, so not quite the austere white of DC.)

What is sort of curious to think about is that all these monuments really shouldn’t be white. They should be painted many colors especially the friezes. There were never temples with big empty rooms with a white marble statue either. Done in proper roman tradition the Lincoln memorial would be this imposing giant, fully painted, with a pile of gold and other offerings right there in the room along with regular insence burning fronted by local patrons.

Of course by the time europeans got into the rennaisance all these temples had been pilfered and regular repainting had ceased for centuries. So because of this huge misunderstanding, neoclassical architecture is always boring and beige despite us knowing better today.

But everyone tries to wear the clothes of Rome. The Russians, the Ottomans, unified Germany all played Roman dress up.

Edit: also Catholicism.

For Catholicism it wasn't a "dress up" - it was the official religion of Rome in the last couple centuries, and the Catholic Church was the only main institution of (Western) Roman Empire surviving its fall.

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