Romans in America

Summary

American History Hit: "Romans in America" – A Comprehensive Summary

Release Date: January 20, 2025
Host: Don Wildman
Guest: Professor Carolyn Winter, William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies at Stanford University

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Introduction: The Enduring Legacy of Rome in America

In the episode titled "Romans in America," host Don Wildman delves into the profound influence of ancient Roman ideals on the foundation and development of the United States. Through an engaging conversation with Professor Carolyn Winter, a renowned expert in American history before 1900, the episode explores how Roman civic and cultural concepts were transplanted and transformed in the New World, shaping various facets of American society from architecture to governance.

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Neoclassical Architecture: Building the New Republic

Timestamp: [03:48]

The discussion begins with the pervasive presence of classically inspired architecture in America, particularly evident in the nation's capital. Professor Winter explains that post-American Revolution, there was a deliberate shift from British monarchical symbols to the republican imagery of ancient Rome. This architectural transition was intended to embody the ideals of the new American republic.

Notable Insight: "From the moment of the American Revolution, between 1776 and 1788, Americans began to shift their attention from the monarchy of King George III in England to the Republic of ancient Rome."
— Professor Carolyn Winter [04:18]

Thomas Jefferson played a pivotal role in this movement, advocating for neoclassical designs that symbolized the novelty and grandeur of the American republic. An example cited is the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, inspired by a Roman temple Jefferson admired in Nimes, France.

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Symbolism in Governance: Balance and Power

Timestamp: [08:44]

The conversation transitions to how Roman ideals influenced the American system of governance, particularly the concepts of checks and balances. Professor Winter highlights that while the United States adopted the idea of a balanced government, it innovated by ensuring that all governmental powers stemmed directly from the people, eliminating monarchical and aristocratic elements inherent in Roman and British systems.

Key Quote: "The novelty of the US government in 1788 is to say all the powers of government, whether it's judicial, executive, or legislative, is going to come from the people alone."
— Professor Carolyn Winter [08:44]

This foundational principle is visually and structurally represented in American public buildings, emphasizing solidity and balance as metaphors for governmental stability and fairness.

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Classical Education: Shaping Civic Virtue

Timestamp: [21:13]

Professor Winter delves into the era's educational paradigms, where classical education was paramount. From early schooling to college curricula, the study of Latin and Greek was integral in cultivating oratory skills, logical reasoning, and a civic-minded populace. Such education was not merely academic but served as a vehicle for instilling the virtues admired in ancient Rome.

Notable Insight: "Classical education was everywhere, especially if you were an elite boy. It was believed to make you a man with all of the qualities that young men needed at that time."
— Professor Carolyn Winter [21:52]

This educational focus extended to cultural practices, including naming conventions, fashion, and even hairstyles, all echoing classical antiquity and reinforcing societal values aligned with Roman virtues.

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Cincinnatus and Civic Leadership

Timestamp: [14:50]

The episode highlights the figure of Cincinnatus, an emblem of civic virtue and leadership. Cincinnatus, a Roman farmer who assumed military command in times of crisis and promptly returned to his agrarian life after, became a model for American leaders like George Washington. This narrative underscored the ideal of leadership rooted in service and humility rather than the pursuit of power.

Key Quote: "Cincinnatus embodies the values of ancient Roman civic virtue, which is the gentle virtues of the farmer."
— Professor Carolyn Winter [14:50]

Washington's resignation after the American Revolution mirrored Cincinnatus's return to farming, reinforcing the ethos that true patriotism lies in serving the nation selflessly.

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Slavery: Parallels and Contrasts Between Rome and America

Timestamp: [27:07]

A critical segment examines slavery as a defining aspect of both ancient Roman and American societies. Professor Winter categorizes both as "slave societies," where a significant portion of the population was enslaved, integral to the economy and social structure. However, she emphasizes important distinctions:

• Race-Based Slavery: Unlike Rome, American slavery was inherently race-based and generational, with laws in place to perpetuate the condition across generations.

• Origins of Slaves: Roman slavery largely resulted from conquest and raids, lacking the racial component intrinsic to American slavery.

Notable Difference: "As you say, white planters like to imagine all these parallels [between Rome and America]. But in fact, one of the wonderful things that modern classical scholars have done is to excavate the many differences that there are between ancient and modern slave systems."
— Professor Carolyn Winter [30:11]

These nuances are crucial in understanding the unique social and economic dynamics that shaped American history differently from its Roman counterpart.

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The Senate: From Ancient Rome to Modern America

Timestamp: [17:52]

The episode explores the evolution of the Senate, contrasting the ancient Roman Senate with the United States Senate. While both institutions share a name and advisory functions, their structures and purposes diverge significantly.

Key Insight: "The ancient Roman Senate sort of first emerges around 500 B.C. to advise the first kings of Rome... when the United States is figuring out how to create this new representative government, they steal this word Senate from ancient Rome, but they create a wholly new structure out of it that the Romans would not have really recognized."
— Professor Carolyn Winter [17:52]

The U.S. Senate embodies a federally representative body with distinct legislative powers, a departure from the more aristocratic and less democratically structured Roman Senate.

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Cultural Resonance: Classical Ideals in American Society

Timestamp: [20:55]

Professor Winter discusses how classical ideals have been woven into the American cultural fabric, often serving as a "civic religion." This reverence for classical antiquity has been instrumental in fostering a sense of national identity and continuity with the ideals of democracy and republicanism.

Notable Insight: "The reverence for classical models is a way to create a civic religion, if not a kind of monotheistic religion."
— Professor Carolyn Winter [20:55]

This cultural infusion persists in modern times through architecture, education, and political discourse, maintaining the classical legacy's relevance.

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The Fear of Decline: Rome as a Cautionary Tale

Timestamp: [31:45]

A profound discussion emerges around the fear of the United States experiencing a decline akin to Rome's fall. Professor Winter notes that the ambiguous reasons for Rome's collapse allow for endless debate, making it a powerful metaphor in American political discourse.

Key Quote: "The defining story of the United States is... the fear that Rome will fall. And that fear begins to be articulated as soon as the ink on the Constitution has dried."
— Professor Carolyn Winter [32:09]

Historical artworks, such as Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" series, encapsulate this anxiety, portraying the rise and potential fall of a republic, paralleling contemporary American concerns about sustainability and moral direction.

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Modern Reflections: Classical Ideals Today

Timestamp: [38:26]

Concluding the episode, Professor Winter asserts that classical ideals remain influential and adaptable, continually offering lessons and frameworks for contemporary society. Despite evolving societal norms and advancements, the foundational principles derived from Rome sustain their impact.

Notable Insight: "Rome will always attract us because it's so rich and full."
— Professor Carolyn Winter [38:26]

This enduring fascination ensures that the study and application of classical principles continue to shape American cultural and political landscapes.

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Conclusion: The Unfinished Dialogue Between Rome and America

In "Romans in America," Don Wildman and Professor Carolyn Winter illuminate the intricate tapestry of Roman influence on the United States. From architectural marvels and governance structures to education and cultural ethos, the echoes of Rome resonate profoundly in American identity. Yet, as history unfolds, the dialogue between ancient ideals and modern realities remains dynamic, offering both inspiration and caution for the nation's ongoing narrative.

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Further Resources:

• How the New World Became Old, the Deep Time Revolution in America by Carolyn Winter
• Culture of Classicism by Carolyn Winter
• The Mirror of Antiquity by Carolyn Winter
• Stanford University's Great Courses: America and Ancient Rome by Carolyn Winter

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This summary provides a structured and comprehensive overview of the "Romans in America" episode, capturing key discussions, insights, and conclusions to inform and engage those who have not listened to the podcast.

Transcript

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[Don Wildman]

ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com in the north Carolina State Capitol, light streams through the windows of the central dome, illuminating a marble figure reclining with quiet dignity on a nearly six foot tall plinth. The figure, carved in Roman military armor, displays toned legs, arms and an exposed navel, partially draped in a heavy robe cascading over his left arm. In his right hand he holds a marble pen poised above a tablet in his left. Inscribed upon the tablet are the words George Washington to the people of The United States, 1796 friends and citizens, it is the first president of the United States immortalized in stone as he drafts his 1796 farewell address. Yet his attire, a style two millennia outdated, was not of his choosing. This Romanized vision was the directive of Thomas Jefferson, who commissioned the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova for the original work. Jefferson, favoring classical ideals, dismissed contemporary fashion writing as to the style or costume, I am sure the artist and every person of taste in Europe would be for the Roman Our boots and regimentals have a very puny effect. Hey there, nice to have you with us. I'm Don Wildman and this is American History Hit the Roman Empire lasted for about 500 years, from 27 BC to 476 AD. It reached from northern Africa around the Mediterranean, including the Balkan, Italian and Iberian peninsulas, all the way to the British Isles. It was not the largest empire in human history, but for Western civilization it was certainly the most influential. What happened in Rome? Lessons of civic governance, among others, did not stay in Rome. It spread far and wide across time, eventually setting roots in the fertile soil of a brand new nation called the United States of America. This Roman diaspora of civic and cultural ideas, their journey across the centuries and an ocean, has been a major focus of Professor Carolyn Winter, the William Robertson Coe professor of History and American Studies at Stanford University. Chair of the department specializing in American history before 1900. She has authored numerous books and articles, among them most recently how the New World Became Old, the Deep Time Revolution in America, published just this year. Greetings, Professor Carolyn Winter. It's so nice to meet you.

[Carolyn Winter]

It's wonderful to be here. Thank you.

[Don Wildman]

So we're about to discuss how high minded Roman ideals became essential to the founding of the U.S. but let's begin with something very familiar to everyone. The classically inspired architecture so prevalent across America. Certainly in the nation's capital, there is no more obvious demonstration of how committed our founders and their ancestors were to the Greeks and Romans. So many columns and porticos and pediments. How did this thing happen in America? Were we all intended to feel like Romans?

[Carolyn Winter]

We were all intended to feel like Romans. From the moment of the American Revolution, between 1776 and 1788, Americans began to shift their attention from the monarchy of King George III in England, who had now come to symbolize everything that was awful and autocratic, to the Republic of ancient Rome. And so after the revolution beginning in 1788, they be to erect columns and porticos and all kinds of gleaming white architecture across the cities of the new United States. As you said, most obviously it's visible in the city of Washington D.C. which arose as a brand new city from the swamps of Maryland and Northern Virginia in the 1790s. Now, if they had really known about ancient Roman architecture, they would have known that it was garishly colored, but they only had known Roman architecture from ruins. And so all the paint had been scraped off. And so all of the American neoclassicism is gleaming white.

[Don Wildman]

It comes all at the same time as the popularity of the Grand Tour in Europe had sort of risen up and we were suddenly discovering these ancient things like the pyramids and so forth. Thomas Jefferson, of course, has everything to do with this, bringing this neoclassical principle over here. Tell us how he was met with when he brought these ideas to the fore.

[Carolyn Winter]

Well, he was met with great enthusiasm. He spent five years in France as one of the American ministers during the 1780s. And in fact, in 1789, he came face to face with an actual ancient Roman temple in the south of France, a little temple in Nimes, in the city of Nimes in France, which used to be a Roman colony. And he loved it so much that he wrote to one of his female friends in Paris, an aristocratic lady, and he said, oh, I am gazing at this temple like a Lover at his mistress. So he loved this thing. He had a copy made and he shipped it to Virginia and said to his colleagues there, you need to make the new state capitol in Richmond look exactly like this. So the state capitol building in Richmond is the first neoclassical federal building in the United States. It's not technically federal because it's a state capital. But the architecture of the new federal state and local government begins to be in this style that is not classical revival. So it's not like 17th or 18th century classical architecture that was newly built in Europe at that time. It was actually ancient Roman. But unlike real ancient Roman architecture, it's not crumbling. Right. It's all brand new to symbolize the novelty and wonderfulness of the new American republic, they hope, right?

[Don Wildman]

I mean, we were taking this from the Renaissance, of course. I mean, Palladio and all that. And the British, of course, practiced this idea in London, you know, putting up these buildings. It was happening all over Europe. But the idea of so much of it and such a commitment to it was kind of outflanking the British at their game, wasn't it?

[Carolyn Winter]

They were outflanking the British at their game. And, you know, the Americans had the added challenge of having to try to rid themselves of the hated architecture of monarchy, which is what today we call colonial architecture, but it's also Georgian architecture. It's sort of classical looking, but it's mostly red brick. You see it on the East Coast a lot. Not here in California on the east coast. It's brick and it has sort of white classical columns. But now Americans looked at that and they said, oh no, no, no, we don't want that anymore. That's symbolizing monarchy. We want to, if not tear it down. We want to have people looking instead to new cities like Washington D.C. and relegating this other architecture to the colonial past.

[Don Wildman]

All of it, of course, was symbolic. Still is the idea that this public architecture was this expression of the ideals of the classical ancients. Most of all, the notion of a balance of power, checks and balances. You know, you look at a building, you can. It is balanced, it is very solid. It has a big foundation, obviously a symbol. This is the beginning of all of that being utilized in the creation of our government, isn't it?

[Carolyn Winter]

That's exactly right. They took away from the Romans to some extent the idea of long lived governments having a balance among different constituencies in society. The monarchical element, the aristocratic element, which would have been embodied in the Roman Senate and then the people's assemblies. Now the novelty that Americans craft in 17 in the new US Constitution is to actually get rid of the monarchical and aristocratic elements and to say, no, no, no, we're not just going to have a kind of balanced government. We're only going to have the people in charge, and we are going to separate those powers into the three branches of government. So it's a little bit confusing, right, because we have balance government on the one hand and a balance of powers on the other hand. So I spend a lot of time with my students Clarif. But the novelty of the US government in 1788 is to say all the powers of government, whether it's judicial, executive or legislative, is going to come from the people alone. And it merely will be channeled in different ways in the various branches of government. But the United States does not have a monarchy, unlike the government of Rome, unlike the government of Great Britain, nor does it have an aristocracy. In fact, the Constitution disallows the US Government from giving out titles of nobility.

[Don Wildman]

Where this comes from is what's fascinating to me and how it's communicated to the common people. I mean, that's why I chose to start this conversation with architecture, so that I think it was really the powers that be placing something so obviously in the middle of town that says, you know, we're going back to this place, folks, we're taking it back to Rome. But it was also in the popular entertainment, you know, Julius Caesar had been performed in 1599. So all of these Shakespearean plays and so forth were talking about this stuff. But how was it really communicated? I mean, was this actually written up in editorials, in the broadsides, or as.

[Carolyn Winter]

Weird as it might seem to us today, it absolutely was. I actually refer to this time period, up until about the Civil War, as the culture of classicism. It's just saturating American culture. So education from kindergarten forward, although there's no kindergartens until after the Civil War, but very early education, you learn Latin, you might even learn Greek, which is a very difficult language because it has a different Alphabet. People take on classical names. So you don might call yourself Brutus, which is certainly. Or Donaldus, also Donaldus, and I will be Carolina. But Abigail Adams signs some of her letters to John Adams as Portia, as I always say, not the car, but the wife of Brutus, the guy who stabbed Julius Caesar, who was a threat to the Republic. People would dress in what are called Grecian robes, what our listeners might know as Jane Austen dresses, those white columnar dresses that you see in Jane Austen movies. Those are explicitly modeled on the outfits that ancient Roman women would wear. Men started styling their hair in a style that was called the Brutus. You can try this at home. You like, comb your hair forward. So you see a lot of portraits from around 1790 to 1820 with men wearing their hair that way, furniture and a famous kind of way of posing in a portrait, which again, our listeners might have seen in museums where men put their hand in their coat. It's called a hand in coat, but it's actually supposed to be modeled on an ancient Roman putting his hand in his toga. So all of these are ways of signaling, both overtly and subtly that, boy, you know, the ancient Romans. And you're communicating this.

[Don Wildman]

I'm so glad we're having this conversation because I think about this all the time. I mean, it's for all the reasons we discussed. You know, you see it in the buildings and so forth, but it really is this sort of settled feeling of like, I get it, I understand where this nation kind of builds itself from. The found is really solid. And as much as we can joke about it, and it's worthy of joking, it really does serve the purpose of giving this country this really solid platform to build onto. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. As you set your resolutions for 2025, you might be considering how learning a new language can enrich your life, whether through travel, career advancement or cultural appreciation. Rosetta Stone is one of the world's leading experts and has been teaching people new languages for 30 years. Languages like Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean and Japanese. Learning on Rosetta Stone immerses you in many ways. There are no English translations, so you really learn to speak, listen and think in that language. It's an intuitive process. Pick up a language naturally, first with words, then phrases and sentences. And it's designed for long term retention. Plus it's flexible. Learn anytime, anywhere with a mobile app or at your desktop on your own schedule. Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach today. American history Hit listeners can take advantage of Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership. For 50% off, visit www.rosettastone.com historyhit. That's 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% off at www.rosettastone.com historyhit. Happy New Year. There's a famous classical figure named Cincinnatus who figures prominently in the certainly the military aspect of this, too. Can you talk a bit about his.

[Carolyn Winter]

Importance Cincinnatus is a somewhat legendary figure. We don't know a ton about him, but he's a sort of farmer type who lives in the 3rd century in ancient Rome. And at a certain critical point when Rome is under attack, he puts down his plow and takes up the sword and helps to defend Rome from attack. And of course, Rome began to expand enormously at this time, so it was constantly at war. But the critical move that Cincinnatus makes is that when he is done fighting, he doesn't keep his sword and continue to fight. He puts down his sword and takes up the plow again. So in other words, he knows that he's not going to be a warlord and threaten Rome by creating a kind of dictatorial martial republic. Instead, he embodies the values of ancient Roman civic virtue, which is the gentle virtues of the farmer. And 90% of Romans were farmers, and significantly, 90% of Americans are farmers until after the Civil War. So there's this. This deep identification with what we would think of today as the values of the Midwest. Right. The solid farming values. That's why George Washington models himself on Cincinnatus, that after he resigns his commission to the Continental army, which he had commanded during the American Revolution, this is in 1783, he returns to Mount Vernon saying, I don't want power. I resign. Power like Cincinnatus.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, exactly. Which also plays into the ideal that used to be the case in the states that we didn't have really a standing army, a national army. It was more of state militias, state and local militias that were then gathered even up into the Civil War. It's not really until the 20th century that that idea even becomes a part of it, because it was such a threat. It was such an idea of tyranny.

[Carolyn Winter]

That's exactly right. And they looked, in fact, at the European monarchies that did have standing armies and said, oh, well, you know, we don't want to be like that. We don't want to be like Napoleon. We don't want to be like the big AR of Frederick the Great of Prussia. Our soldiers are ultimately farmers. And the highest act of civic virtue is to think first of the United States, as they imagined Roman farmers did, to think first of Rome. And when duty calls, you take up the sword, but then you always return to the farm so that you can feed the people of Rome. And this is seen as nurturing and as the ultimate act of patriotism.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, I want to go back to the Senate for a moment. We sort of blew past that and I want to know, you mentioned aristocracy as being the land owning nobles who were meant to sort of balance out the government and certainly any kind of monarchical influence by being this strong body that would hold a lot of power. When does it change? I guess it's with the vote, right? When they, when the Senate becomes popularly voted for, that all really changes, right?

[Carolyn Winter]

The ancient Roman Senate rather confusingly is not a sort of voting body in the same way that the United States States Senate is. And it certainly isn't representative in the same way that the U.S. senate is. The ancient Roman Senate, which you know, even today is idolized by the people of Rome. If you go to the city of Rome, you'll see that the manhole covers say spqr, the Senate and people of Rome, Senatus populusque Romanum. And this is believed to embody the particular virtues that made ancient Rome last so long. So the ancient Roman Senate sort of first emerges around 500 B.C. to advise the first kings of Rome. And during the long republican period of about 500 years, it emerges as the part of the Roman governmental powers that is advisory, that is believed to be wise. That's why it's called the Senate, because it's made of old people, which is where senile Senate comes from. That and that's why the US Senate has this 30 year old age requirement. And they also deliberate importantly on when Rome should go to war. And for the Romans the answer to that question is always, well, now we should go to war. So they're a very important counterweight to what are believed to be the more sort of upstart popular elements of society that they don't trust very much. Oh, and I should say that when Rome becomes an empire in the very late first century B.C. and all the way to its fall in 476 A.D. there's still a Senate, but it is increasingly merely kind of embellishment to the growing powers of the Emperor. And in fact there's a Roman Senate until like after the Renaissance and then finally it sort of dies away. But when the United States is sort of figuring out how are we going to create this new representative government that rests on the power of the people, they steal this word Senate from ancient Rome, but they create a wholly new structure out of it that the Romans would not have really recognized. This idea of representative government representing states in a federated way. This is all very kind of jerry rigged, you know, don't tell James Madison I said that. But it's a wholly new way of imagining government. Even though their love of ancient Rome is captured in this word, the Senate.

[Don Wildman]

It's almost like a religion of sorts. I mean, it's almost a spiritual quality to it that this new nation, any nation, needs as a background. Whereas in Europe you had so much Catholicism in the old days and all of that spiritualism gave structure. This is a way of sort of. Of utilizing ideas and a sort of spirit, as I say. But it's not religion because we don't do that.

[Carolyn Winter]

That's exactly right. The us, you know, very early on commits to this wall of separation between church and state. But you're absolutely right that the reverence for classical models is a way to create a civic religion, if not a kind of monotheistic religion.

[Don Wildman]

Exactly. And to get that to the people, which I've said before in this conversation, such an important part of it is through education. I mean, they really lean hard on classical education. You've already mentioned it, but even I took Latin in the 80s and I got an A, I might add, two courses. I can say this. Cum beneyaktati pu sorant ar le wigones. That's the only thing I remember. It says, with the good plough, I will make peas happen, or something like that.

[Carolyn Winter]

That's so Roman of you. Farming.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, exactly. It was all about agrarian stuff, but this classical element of education was everywhere. How was that meant to affect the population?

[Carolyn Winter]

So, yes, classical education was everywhere, especially if you were an elite boy. It was believed to make you a man with all of the qualities that young men needed at that time. You know, there's no radio, there's no television. So you need to be a great orator. You need to create your ideas logically. You know, so many people are lawyers, so you need to be able to debate things, et cetera. So many young people would have learned it in their primary education. Definitely Latin, if not Greek. Where it really came into play was in American college education, which was saturated with classicism during the whole four years. In fact, what we would today call the freshman and sophomore years, the first two years was entirely Greek and Latin, and you only were released from that in your final two years to do a little bit of calculus and then to be taught a philosophy class by the president, who was not yet a fundraiser. So you spend so much time in college mastering both these ancient languages, but also the whole ancient way that the Romans and the Greeks had looked at the world, that they constructed the world in certain ways but not in others. So, for example, science, which is so important to American education, was essentially non existent in American college education until after the Civil War, when it became a big, big new thing and the classics began to decline. But it was a whole worldview, really.

[Don Wildman]

Even on the residential side. I mean, you have. Antiquity is all throughout the homes. It's the wallpaper of the world is the phrase that's used. Artifacts in the home. I'm sorry, I'm making this all about myself. But my little 1600 square foot house, I even looked it up on Zillow, where I grew up in New Jersey. Very modest, small home in our front hall, had four Doric columns. It was crazy taking up so much space.

[Carolyn Winter]

Well, good for you. Good for your parents, you know, so, yeah, so we've been talking about the Romans, but the Doric style is ancient Greek. So I'm guessing your house might have been built in the 19th century because that's the moment when the Greeks really begin to capture the American imagination. At first it had been the Romans, and that was really important during the Revolution because the Romans had this aristocratic form of government and people like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, they wanted to build a republic, but they didn't want to surrender a lot of power to the common people. They didn't trust the common people. So Rome was their model. By the middle of the 19th century, the vote has expanded to include many, many more men than it had before. And they begin now to turn to ancient Greece as their model for a democracy. And instead of idolizing ancient Rome, which is always hovering in the background, they turn to ancient Athens as the seat of democracy. And that's when you start getting houses like yours that have these Doric columns which are supposed to symbolize the. The earliest days of ancient Greece. You know, the Doric style is that very simple, massive style. And they saw it as being very manly and masculine. None of this Frou Frou, Corinthian style stuff like you see in some Roman columns. This was bold, this was democratic. This spoke for the common man like Andrew Jackson. So if you drive around not just New Jersey, but also the antebellum south, for example, you'll see that a lot of former slave plantations are not just in the Roman style, but because they were built during the moment when the cotton south emerged between 1820 and 1860. This brings us to the Greek moment in American architecture. And a lot of the plantation houses are in actually Greek Revival architecture.

[Don Wildman]

That's fascinating. And that would go hand in hand with the populist movement of that time and the pressure that eventually leads to the 12th Amendment. Right. The vote for the Senate that's exactly right. That comes out of that Greek desire for democracy. Interesting.

[Carolyn Winter]

And it also actually brings us to this new invention of the Western Civ course, or even the whole idea that there is a thing called Western civilization, which some of our listeners may be saying. Well, of course there was a Western civilization, and, you know, there may or may not have been, but it is a new idea that grips Americans by the end of the Civil War period, that we have a beginning in political history, and it's the Greeks. And so the best kinds of college courses won't necessarily teach the Greek and Latin languages, because now you need to do science and engineering and all these things for a modern, technocratic society. We're in about the year 1900 now, but instead we're going to teach you, all men and women in college, the essentials of where their nation came from. Of course, first it came from 1776, but then it came from Rome, and before that, it came from Greece, the cradle of democracy. So that's where that idea comes from.

[Don Wildman]

One institution that finds its roots in Rome also is enslavement, is slavery. And often people have used that to justify what happened in America. Two different kinds of systems entirely.

[Carolyn Winter]

Both the United States and ancient Roman Greece were what classical scholars called slave societies. This is a technical term, slave society. A slave society is one in which roughly 30 to 40% of the population is enslaved and in which the whole economy and political structure sort of depends on the existence of a large number of slaves. So you have slave codes, for example, that make it illegal to emancipate your slaves, slaves, et cetera, et cetera. So Greece qualifies for that, Rome qualifies for that, and the United States before the Civil War qualifies for that designation. During the era of the American Revolution, around 1780, there were about 700,000 slaves in the United States. By the eve of the Civil War in 1861, there are 4 million. In some states, like Mississippi, those slaves form a majority of the population. Mississippi has a slave population of about 55% on the eve of the Civil War. So it qualifies as a slave society. And for the white planters in the slave south who feared slave rebellion above all else, they were outnumbered, for sure. They liked to imagine that they, these white slaveholders were in fact, the benevolent citizens of ancient Rome, that patrician class that was freed for service to Rome in, for example, the Senate, precisely because they owned slaves. Otherwise they would be at home having to do a lot of drudgery. But it was the presence of slave labor. These white planters told themselves that freed them for sort of philosophical and wise governance of Rome. So that's why you see a lot of Roman and Greek revival architecture in the antebellum south, if you Dr. Through it today, especially places like Louisiana and Mississippi, where the concentration of slaves was the highest. So that's today, of course, a very shameful and dark chapter in American history. But at the time, many white Americans celebrated that parallel between ancient Greece and Rome and the modern United States.

[Don Wildman]

I'll be back with more American history after this short break. But the American system, or the southern system of slavery was very different from that which Rome practiced in terms of, you know, like the lifelong slavery, generational slavery, the commercial aspect of it. It was a much crueler system than what I understand to be in practice in Rome.

[Carolyn Winter]

Ancient Roman and Greek slavery was also very cruel. It's hard to find a slave society in which slavery is not a terrible condition to be in. But as you say, there are many, many differences. First of all, as you're pointing out, American slavery is race based and generational. You know, as early as 1660, there are laws on the books in Virginia saying that slavery follows the condition of the mother. So a white master would intentionally propagate his number of slaves by creating, you know, a slave population with his female slaves. In ancient Rome, by contrast, slave slavery is more of what we call raid and capture slavery. So as you know, Rome is expanding. Slave traders are following the armies, and they will go in and enslave all of the subdued societies and sell those people into slavery elsewhere in the empire. What that means is that we do not believe that slavery was race based in the ancient world. Now, it may have been that there were slaves of different ethnicities and linguistic groups, but it was not exclusively the provenance of largely one race as it was in the United States, especially on the eve of the Civil War. So, as you're saying, white planters like to imagine all these parallels. But in fact, one of the wonderful things that modern classical scholars have done is to excavate the many differences that there are between ancient and modern slave systems.

[Don Wildman]

The inevitable discussion that happens here is the building of the empire. If we're going to become an empire, first of all, but also that Rome builds one, but then it collapses. And everyone in this time in America is versed on the fact that this whole rise and fall is part of this story. How much did they fear the same here? And did they see that as inevitably happening on the North American continent?

[Carolyn Winter]

Well, this is the defining story of the United States. One of the many things that they love about ancient Rome in the founding era is that unlike so many, many other parts of the world, the histories of the world, it has a very clear trajectory. It rises and then it falls right over this neat thousand year period. And so by saying that the new United States is the Republic of Rome, they're setting themselves up for the fear that every American from that day forward, including us, carries with them, which is the fear that Rome will fall. And that fear begins to be articulated as soon as the ink on the Constitution has dried. Americans are looking over their shoulders saying, okay, well, this is really great. We're the new Rome, the Novus ordo seclorum. When are we going to fall? What are the signs? Is it already happening? Et cetera? So of course, in the wake of 9, 11, Americans began to publish a million books saying, are we Rome? That's just a very typical American move to be looking for the rise of the Republic, but then also the fall of the Republic or the fall of the empire. Probably the most famous series of paintings about this. They're marvelous. They're on display in Washington, D.C. is a series of five canvases by the Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole. It's called the Course of Empire series. Everybody can Google it on their laptops, but over five canvases, Thomas Cole in the 1830s, just, you know, when the United States has passed the half century mark, gives a trajectory of the rise of some republic, maybe the US Maybe Rome. He never tells us its rise and then its ignominious and violent fall. And he's asking us a question, what caused the fall? America had just reached the Pacific. Maybe it was imperialism, but he also shows Americans being luxury loving and essentially whatever the 1830s equivalent of a shopping mall is. He shows that. So maybe we're overly materialistic, but something has caused the decline and fall of this wonderful young empire. And I would say even today, you know, we just had an election, it's out there again, right? And it has never left us. Have we peaked? Are we falling? This is the discourse of Rome and it's baked into the United States.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah. And you wonder, I mean, which side of the political spectrum more embraces these classical ideas today? I suppose it's the right. I'm not sure though.

[Carolyn Winter]

I think, you know, everybody's in on it. Right. Because it's useful. It's endlessly malleable. It's, you know, anthropologists would call this a floating signifier. You can. It's an Empty vessel. You can put in it whatever you want. But it does tend to be more the province of the political right, in part because classical education is believed to be kind of rigorous, foundational kind of education. And once that falls away and is replaced in the late 19th century by, you know, education for the masses, the public school movement, this is believed to be kind of eroding of the, the tough, masculine virtues of America. And so whenever you see frightening things happening on the American political horizon, there is a tendency on the right, but not exclusively on the right, to embrace classical values as somehow being more solid than any other kind of value. It's like a column, right? You can hang onto it in the storm and it will hold you fast while you weather these terrible.

[Don Wildman]

So to summarize, what lessons can we learn from the collapse of the Roman Empire to defend ourselves from the same here?

[Carolyn Winter]

Well, I wish we had a tidy answer. You know, there have been over 200 reasons given for the. The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 A.D. everything from, you know, as was popular in the 1960s, the theory that, you know, empires have a certain size, you know, like a mammal, like an elephant, beyond which they cannot grow. So, hello, Soviet Union. If you try to grow much further, you'll pop like the Roman Empire did. So there's that theory. There's the theory that put Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall on the banned books list in Europe in the 1780s, which is that in fact the rise of Christianity causes the decline and fall of Rome because all of the martial virtues of the manly Roman soldier are eroded and replaced with the soft effeminate virtues of Christianity, which tell you to turn the other cheek and to look at the afterlife, the world beyond rather than this world. So I wish I could tell you that there were one thing we could look out for to say, oh, oh, gosh, the US has started its decline. But I think going back to this idea of the floating signifier again, what makes Rome so powerful in American political discourse is precisely the. That we don't know why Rome fell. And many scholars would actually say that it didn't fall, it just transformed into the warring micro kingdoms of the Middle Ages. But once everybody agrees on something, it becomes boring. What makes things exciting and fun is that precisely we do debate about them and we do argue about them. So Rome is perfect because we all know a little bit about, you know, we know that it was sort of in the past and that it was really great and that it had these classical buildings and that we're supposed to admire it and then we go where we want with it. And so we're going to see that continuing to unfold.

[Don Wildman]

But I'm hearing from you today that its usefulness played itself out. Is it an obsolete idea that we are related to Rome or are we still in love with the idea? I mean, there's a lot of McMansions with those pillars. I can see it all over the place.

[Carolyn Winter]

Yes, there are a lot of McMansions with pillars and I think there will always be McMansions with pillars. I don't think the idea has played itself out. I think we can always learn new things from ancient Rome. You know, with just studying slave systems, studying trading systems, studying the ancient economy. Rome is ever renewing even as the sciences and engineering and AI, all of these things are important. But Rome will always attract us because it's so rich and full.

[Don Wildman]

Carolyn Winterer is the William Robertson co professor of History and American Studies at Stanford University. She specializes in American history before the 1900s, especially the history of ideas and the history of science. She's also chair of that department. We are lucky to have her. I recommend her new book entitled how the New World Became the Deep Time Revolution in America. Carolyn, where else can we find work of yours and follow your teachings?

[Carolyn Winter]

I just released a whole course on America and ancient Rome with the teaching company. So look for the great courses and you can find that I have a couple of books about Americans and the ancient world. So Culture of Classicism and the Mirror of Antiquity. It's all out there.

[Don Wildman]

Thank you very much.

[Carolyn Winter]

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be here.

[Don Wildman]

Hey, thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American history hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

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[Carolyn Winter]

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