No, an Interest in Ancient Rome isn’t “Problematic”
Late last year, and not long before I left Twitter, a young American woman posted that any man with an interest in Ancient Rome was inherently problematic to her. I don’t remember the details of her exact post, but she heavily implied or outright stated that it’s a gateway to becoming far right, that she wouldn’t date a man with more than a cursory knowledge of the period.
I don’t know whether or not this directly or indirectly influenced the “[this thing] is my Roman Empire” that happened shortly afterwards. But as an archaeology graduate in a modern country with a rich and varied Roman history, and one with a deeply fascinating and mysterious post-Roman archaeological period, it left me scratching my head.
While this was the first time I saw this bizarre attitude, it wasn’t the last. I’ve seen the claim on Threads and BlueSky — the same narrative that “having an interest in the Roman Empire is problematic”. Most recently from someone who didn’t know the difference between the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire.
And for some reason, it has always come from Americans.
Much like the absurd claim that Anne Frank benefitted from “white privilege”, this was just another indicator that the American education system is hugely lacking in some vital elements of world…
