Ancient Romans had problems surprisingly similar to some that Americans face: a comparison often made, but is it completely accurate?  In some ways, a more valid comparison with American society might reside with earlier Biblical times, considering the child sacrifice in progress, the tribal confrontations.  Romans came later, centered in a historical arc from the Biblical era to the present. So we have to at least recognize a comradery with our Roman forerunners.  It might even be shrewd to put some of their experience to our own use. Because of our fraternal similarities, we might look at our time as neo-Roman and do as the Romans did.

Some societal problems have already been taken care of as the Romans did with their bread and circuses. Since the inception of the female vote, social services have increased like a juggernaut until those expenses occupy a major portion of the national budget. So everyone is now eligible for bread, even for those not born in the jurisdiction of US borders. So far as circuses are concerned, take your pick. Gladiators galore, from high school to the professional field. A doodle box in every hand for any distraction. Concerts from the latest pop-up pop queen selling in the millions.

Americans used to suffer a similar border problem as the Romans did. Since their occupied territory extended into northern places like modern Germany, the Romans had to stretch their defenses.

How so?

With a wall.

Voices as disparate as Robert Frost and Pink Floyd are each on record for not liking walls.  Frost writes: “Something there is that doesn’t like a wall,” and everyone nods.  Pink Floyd sang out loud to tear down the wall, just as Ronald Reagan declared in Berlin. But then a wall is desirable at certain junctures. It addresses the neo-Roman problem of workable separation with a bordering country, and so it does well to do as the Romans did.

A wall served Roman purpose of occupying the north. They fortified their wall, the Line (Lime), which ran the length of the occupied territory. Troops were garrisoned nearby, while guards were posted at intervals along the barrier close enough to see and signal each other with flags.

What were they on the lookout for? Germanic tribesmen. The “Bear Men.” That’s what the natives called themselves, berserkers, warriors who emulated ferocious bears in battle. Dressed in fur hides from actual bear kills, they rushed the Roman wall defenders while brandishing battle axes and spears and swords and pikes, and screaming like demons.

So what was the method applied when berserkers were sighted? Sentries signaled with flags up and down the line. The alarm was relayed by other sentries at a speed rivaling the telegraph. The nearest patrol marching up and down the line got the message and headed off double time to the point of invasion. With this tactic, a relatively small number of Roman centurions could keep at bay a greater number of huge Teutonic warriors with red hair all over their faces and waving axes and screaming bloody murder.

This method of border protection kept the line intact until the berserkers were finally vanquished. In their turn the Germans at the latter part of the 3rd century became centurions themselves. Despite the fact that they were forbidden to marry a Roman citizen, they became the best centurions Rome ever had and were put to guarding emperors.

In our own neo-Rome, things are different. Eschewing the aid of super surveillance equipment now available— drones, radar, etc— the border had remained as unprotected as a whorehouse on a Saturday night. In light of such failure, even the centurion sentries with flags would have been more efficient.

A typical article such as one from the Lululand Times as far back as 2003 pointed up the lack of commitment to border defense. The headline told it all: “Police Checks of Cars Halted: Maywood temporarily suspends checkpoints after complaints that they ensnared mostly illegal immigrants without driver’s licenses.” (Los Angeles Times, 22 Aug 2003) The city with the bucolic name of Maywood agreed to a moratorium on police checks due to avoid being “criticized by some” for ensnaring illegal immigrants driving illegally on the streets.

The motto that “deviance is where you patrol for it” verified the humorous fact that you can find deviance anywhere if you look hard enough.  Neo-Romans had created the opposite absurdity: “Don’t patrol where you expect to find deviance.” In other words, the policeman in his home turf in Maywood couldn’t demonstrate the efficacy of a centurion protecting his claimed turf. Even democrats could have taken a lesson from Roman troops far from home in barbaric Germania. A company or two patrolling the perimeter, alerted by stationed sentries— human or electronic— could do the same job that centurions did two thousand years ago with signal flags and short swords. But fortunately, the American border problem has been solved by Roman persuasion. There are now personnel and devices patrolling the American lime.

Another problem which many live with, and are doing surreptitiously as the Romans did concerning marriage. Americans have ever disturbed themselves over the issue of marriage and the damage of divorce. A collective solution might bring everyone up to Roman standards. Developments in that department exemplify how Romans cleverly dispatched the issue of mating, and neo-Romans seem to be doing unofficially what the Romans did.  Five different forms of marriage existed in ancient Rome, making for livelier variations.

Traditionally the one form of marriage in America seems to cause the marriage bed as little comfort as the bed of Procrustes. As told in mythology, anyone unfortunate enough to lie down upon Procrustes’ bed was altered to fit it: if too tall, the sleeper would be chopped; too short, he’d be stretched. Since the problem of fitting a  diverse citizenry into the same marriage bed grows larger, there is a solution to get American citizens out of their Procrustean fix.  So neo-Rome seems to be trying to do as the Romans did.

Romans practiced five forms of marriage, divided into two basic categories: cum manu and sine manu, which meant literally “with the hand” and “without the hand,” yielding the expression “hand in marriage.” Within the two basic categories, with or without hand were variations. A cum manu marriage involved handing the bride over to the authority of the husband, a  most familiar traditional arrangement. It involved eating a cake together in a religious ceremony and was largely confined to patricians. Other kinds were more informally suited to fulfilling basic needs of raising a family and making a living.

Unlike marriage cum manu as the most serious in exchange of title and family, etc, marriage without the hand— sine manu— was a marriage arranged according to the various needs of differing couples. But it was achieved after the couple cohabited or “lived in sin” for a year.  Relying more on trust than form, the participants more-or-less played it by hand and called their own shots. This all too brief explanation of the differing forms of marriage still shows some dynamic possibilities. It was possible, say, for a man to be engaged to a woman of a titled family, accept her dowry, keep the estate fortune intact, and still marry his boy friend.

Hey, did those Roman know how to live?  They were at it for hundreds of years. Not that we aren’t already doing in neo-Rome as the Romans did: scoffing traditional marriage, a national fetish for gladiatorial games, universal dependence on drugs (legitimate or otherwise), an economy largely based on foreign slave labor, obsession upon eastern cult religions, obsession on wealth, wine fetish accompanying a gargantuan food fixation.

On that last item, gargantuan consumption, another view of Roman life might help us in our own neo-Roman flowering of body fat. In times past, the human species had been largely limited to taking on nourishment for the purpose of sustenance by whatever food was at hand. That simple requirement of nourishment has undergone a complex evolutionary transformation from procuring local aliments, gathering and hunting, over to planting and trading, then international shipping, down to the present situation where food is as handy as the corner supermarket, restaurant, shopping mall, hot dog stand, food truck, or Seven-Eleven. Due to an ever-abundant supply, food has transcended the role of mere sustenance to become an item of fashion and fancy, resulting in a number of issues clashing over national obesity. Stuffing the national gut on such a grandiose scale calls out for a revival of what was in general use in the best houses of the Roman heyday: the vomitorium.

So far, the vomitorium solution to obesity only applies to skinny anorectic girls psychotically fixed on ghastly anemic images set by video stars. Vomitorii have yet to catch on to accommodate the acceptable obesity of the general neo-Roman public. Yet, all should soon recognize it as an all too simple solution for adhering to Roman standard. When the luxury of being able to stuff in extra helpings of chocolate mousse and crepe suzettes, after filling up to the gunnels with kung pao shrimp, steak and potatoes au gratin, lobster thermidor, cheese tarts, all of it and more— that it would simply require a quick exit to the guest bathroom where the proper receptacle had been graciously installed by a thoughtful hostess, then neo-Romans would surely have to concede to ancient wisdom.

The way the border problem solution was already within the intelligent grasp of available technology and forceful federal policy, the vomitorium fixture itself seems already pre-designed in the form of a bidet. Only modification of enlarged drain pipes would be required. With such a simple switch over, manufacturers such as Kohler would be able to keep consumers in step with the culture who gave us sewer systems in the first place, all of which should thereby increase an already enlarged admiration for our Roman forebears.

The only question is which Romans to admire— the ones who carved an empire, or the ones who puked it away?

JoCo, 2025