Washington is a Roman town. From the Senate at its heart to the columns adorning every building and the giant commemorative obelisk and the city’s (sketchy) claim to be built on seven hills, the capital imitated Rome. So did Moscow, boasting of its status as the “third Rome.” So did London, a provincial backwater in Roman times. The EU’s motto, adopted in 2000, is in Latin, as are over half of U.S. state mottos—and the inscription on U.S. currency. Rome remains an image to be looked to, a symbol of a great past stamped on the West.
But Rome was also a nightmare, a slave state topped by a tiny class of the very rich and horrible. The genius of Emma Southon’s new book, A Fatal Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome, is that it simultaneously humanizes the Romans and alienates us from them, portraying a society that’s at once a familiar ancestor and a rabid monster.
