USA 250: Building a new Rome

Summary

Podcast Summary: Instant Classics – “USA 250: Building a New Rome”
Host: Vespucci
Guests: Mary Beard, Charlotte Higgins
Date: June 25, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Instant Classics, classicist Mary Beard and culture writer Charlotte Higgins dive deep into the complex, contested, and often contradictory legacy of classical (primarily Roman) architecture in American history, with a spotlight on Washington, D.C. Timed to the USA’s 250th anniversary, they explore how the U.S.—from its founding ideals to the latest presidential building booms—uses (and sometimes misuses) these ancient styles to express power, identity, and ambition. Major attention is given to President Trump’s controversial proposals for a classical ballroom in the White House and a towering triumphal arch, examining what these projects reveal about the enduring (and volatile) appeal of “building a new Rome.”

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The “Roman-ness” of Washington, D.C.

• First Impressions of D.C.

  • Charlotte Higgins describes her first visit as awe-inspiring and almost overwhelming, evoking a sense of being “a small person at the centre of empire” compared to the “chaotic and small and pokey” feel of European cities, including Rome itself.

    “When you get to the Mall in D.C., with the Lincoln Memorial, with the Capitol at one end, with the Washington Monument, the obelisk in the middle, it’s an enormous space... It’s the sort of Roman-ness of D.C. is like film set Rome. It’s like fantasy Rome.” — Charlotte Higgins [03:10]

• Ceremonial Center vs. Actual City

  • Mary Beard clarifies the disconnect between the city’s ceremonial core (full of classical buildings) and lived reality, noting the architectural grandeur is part of self-branding as a seat of power.

    “We’re talking about the ceremonial center, the bits you visit if you’re a tourist… But it brands itself still as a Roman place with Roman style power and yet, and more.” — Mary Beard [04:04]

Jefferson’s Vision: Rome as an American Foundation

• Thomas Jefferson’s Obsession

  • Jefferson’s direct study of Roman architecture in France (especially the Maison Carrée at Nîmes) and influence by Palladio. He spearheaded importing Roman names, forms, and symbolism to U.S. state “capitols” and D.C.

    “So what Jefferson is... quite consciously doing is injecting Roman-ness and a Roman terminology and Roman architecture into the individual states of the Union.” — Mary Beard [07:16]

• Paradox of Planning

  • Early American monumental building preceded D.C.’s emergence as a real city — opposite to Rome’s organic, centuries-long growth.

    “They start to build these monumental buildings on what is effectively a marsh… Sort of the opposite to the real Rome…” — Charlotte Higgins [09:10]

Evolution, Expansion, and Embellishment

• 19th and 20th Century Overlays
  • The most iconic structures—such as the Capitol, Supreme Court, and mall museums—are not early Republican constructs but later, power-proclaiming expansions reflecting an ascendant global America.

    “The absolute kind of in your face, huge classicism does come with the increase in American power…” — Mary Beard [11:00]

Roman Imitation and National Self-Image

• The Navy Memorial as Modern Romanism
  • Inscribed ground map, D.C. at the center, surrounded by reliefs echo Roman “world at your feet” symbolism and Trajan’s Column.

    “On the ground there is an inscribed map of the world with Washington D.C. at the center… That’s so Roman. First Emperor Augustus… There was a golden milestone in the Roman forum which marked the distances of every big place in the Roman Empire from Rome.” — Mary Beard [13:01]

Trump’s Architectural Agenda

• Return to Classical “Rules”

  • Trump’s executive orders declaring new federal buildings must be classical—waving the flag for tradition, authority, and “democracy.”

    “He’s laying down rules for saying that public buildings in Washington D.C. must be in a classical style, because classical style is more authoritative and it’s more beautiful than anything else.” — Mary Beard [16:36]

• White House Ballroom and Triumphal Arch

  • Plans for a Corinthian-columned ballroom and an enormous triumphal arch (intended to outsize all rivals globally).

    “He’s been very, very keen that out of all the different orders of architecture he could choose, he has chosen to have Corinthian style columns because he said they’re the best. All architectural historians agree they’re the best. I don’t know about that, but it’s wearing its classicism on its sleeve.” — Mary Beard [18:36]

The Controversy over the Triumphal Arch

• History and Roman Origins

  • Triumphal arches are distinctively Roman, civic shows of power often divorced from specific military events in their later iterations.

    “The idea of a freestanding arch in a city center is something that the Roman architects developed… as brash, pretty brash celebrations of Roman power.” — Mary Beard [20:04]

• Contemporary Backlash

  • Veterans’ groups, urban designers, and public voices object due to scale, disruption of sacred sight-lines (esp. to Arlington Cemetery), and “vulgarity” (gold, grandiosity).

    “There’s a group of veterans from the Vietnam War who object to it strongly because, to their mind, it would ruin the connection between Arlington Cemetery… He did want to have some golden lions seated at the base… which have somehow been eradicated from the plan.” — Charlotte Higgins [33:06]

• Roman Splendor vs. Modern Taste

  • Trump’s “bling” is actually not un-Roman; original arches were painted and decorated, their ostentation often stripped by time (and taste).

    "In some ways, Trump’s vision of this arch, which is to be kind of loaded with bling, is not entirely different from what some of these… arches would have carried in antiquity." — Mary Beard [34:51]

The Enduring Paradox: Republican Rome vs. Imperial Imagery

• Architectural Irony

  • There are few (if any) surviving public buildings from the Roman Republic—most famous Roman architecture is imperial, power-consolidating, not anti-monarchic.

    “The architecture that’s actually being aped, imitated and drawn upon is not republican architecture at all. It’s the dreaded architecture of authoritarian single person king like rule. That is imperial architecture. So this is a huge paradox…” — Charlotte Higgins [25:51]

• Historical “Mistake”

  • The U.S. draws legitimacy from republican Rome but displays itself as imperial Rome; critics see this as a foundational contradiction fueling persistent debate.

    “…The whole of Washington in one way is an amazing kind of historical mistake. Historical. It’s a kind of, you know—well, it’s a historical paradox… This visual Rome doesn’t quite fit the ideological Rome.” — Mary Beard [26:28]

When “Becoming Roman” Gets Ridiculous

• The George Washington as Cincinnatus-Jupiter Statue
  • A 12-ton, half-naked George Washington in a toga and 18th-century wig, meant to echo both citizen-savior (Cincinnatus) and Jupiter Olympius—universally considered embarrassing by the public since its creation.

    “It’s not just us… in the 21st century thinking, this is a bit silly. This statue has always been an embarrassment… it is finally hidden away in the Museum of American History.” — Mary Beard [32:07]
    “He’s naked from the waist up and, you know, with a sort of toga like robe arrangement, but with this 18th century wig, you know, with a... I don’t want to see George Washington’s chest on display… with the slightly embarrassing classical robes and bare chest that I find a little bit creepy.” — Charlotte Higgins [31:34]

Past and Present Proposals: Why D.C. Has No Permanent Arch (Yet)

• It’s Not a New Idea

  • Numerous 19th- and 20th-century plans for triumphal arches in D.C.; most never built (except for a temporary post-WWI arch made of plaster and cardboard).

    “…Trump is only the last of a whole series of proposals to have a triumphal art. But nobody before has managed to build them… except for one which was put up... to honor the victory in World War I. But it was made of plaster…” — Mary Beard [41:52]

• Stage Set America

  • The expendable, theatrical nature of America’s classicism—more “movie Rome” than true antiquity.

    “It reminds me of the kind of Rome that is built for, you know, for movies, for American movies that are set in Rome… It reminds one of the fantasy Rome that’s being built here.” — Charlotte Higgins [44:07]

The Shadow of Slavery, and Other Architectural Idioms

• Classical Styles and Their Complicity

  • Grayson Perry’s guest critique: classical architecture’s use as a mark of authority is entangled with histories of slavery, especially given Jefferson’s own Palladian (Roman-inspired) Monticello plantation.

    “It’s a cliche that has been unthinkingly been used to present an image of authority… when in fact this style of architecture is really indistinguishable from a History of enslaved people, slave economies.” — Charlotte Higgins [45:10]

• Alternatives Arise

  • African American Museum avoids classicism entirely (draws on Nigerian/Yoruban models); other D.C. buildings use neo-Gothic or brutalist styles to assert different visions of American power and inclusion.

    “You cannot possibly build a classical, you can’t build a Roman temple for [the Museum of African American History]... the columns and the pediment are far too much associated with all the things that are unnerving and bad and disturbing.” — Charlotte Higgins [46:53]
    “We shouldn’t forget there have always been alternatives in Washington, knocking at the door. We should be seeing both in it.” — Mary Beard [50:54]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Washington’s Ceremonial Grandeur:

“It’s the sort of Roman-ness of D.C. is like film set Rome. It’s like fantasy Rome.”
— Charlotte Higgins [03:10]

On Jefferson’s Roman Obsession:

“So what Jefferson is… quite consciously doing is injecting Roman-ness and a Roman terminology and Roman architecture into the individual states of the Union.”
— Mary Beard [07:16]

On Trump’s Architectural Orders:

“He’s laying down rules for saying that public buildings in Washington D.C. must be in a classical style, because classical style is more authoritative and it’s more beautiful than anything else.”
— Mary Beard [16:36]

On the Paradox at the Heart of U.S. Classicism:

“The architecture that’s actually being aped… is not republican architecture at all. It’s the dreaded architecture of authoritarian single person king like rule. That is imperial architecture. So this is a huge paradox…”
— Charlotte Higgins [25:51]

On George Washington’s Embarrassing Statue:

“He’s naked from the waist up and, you know, with a sort of toga like robe arrangement, but with this 18th century wig… It’s a really awkward mingling of things.”
— Charlotte Higgins [31:34]
“This statue has always been an embarrassment… it is finally hidden away in the Museum of American History.”
— Mary Beard [32:07]

On Roman Overreach—Pompey’s Tragicomedy:

“He had got his chariot… pulled by elephants… But the elephants are so big, they get stuck [in the triumphal arch]. So everything has to be unhitched… A big humiliation. …Romans made themselves look silly too.”
— Mary Beard [40:34]

On Architecture as Authority and Exclusion:

“You couldn’t possibly make a museum to African American history resemble a slave plantation owner’s house or indeed a Roman temple.”
— Charlotte Higgins [46:53]

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Timeline of Important Segments

• Washington’s Roman Fantasy — [03:10]–[05:56]
• Jefferson’s Influence — [05:56]–[10:11]
• 19th/20th Century Monumentalism — [11:00]–[12:54]
• Modern Roman Replicas: Navy Memorial — [12:54]–[16:03]
• Trump’s Executive Orders & Plans — [16:03]–[19:05]
• Roman Triumphal Arches, History & Trump’s Idea — [19:05]–[22:29]
• Controversy of Trump’s Arch — [33:06]–[34:51]
• Statue of George Washington (“Cincinnatus–Jupiter”) — [28:05]–[32:07]
• The “Stage Set” Nature of D.C.’s Classicism — [44:07]–[45:10]
• Classical Architecture, Slavery, and Alternatives — [45:10]–[50:57]

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Tone & Final Reflections

The conversation is witty, critical, and deeply informed, with a touch of affectionate exasperation for both the American instinct toward monumental grandiosity and the contradictions at its heart. Higgins and Beard balance admiration for the ambition of “building a new Rome” with skepticism about its symbolic clarity and ethical dimensions. Their historical gaze is sharp but always tethered to the present: architecture is shown here as a language of power, a site of cultural debate, and—sometimes—a stage-set for fantasy or farce.

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For further reading, book club info, and more Instant Classics, visit instantclassics.supportingcast.fm.

Transcript

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Charlotte Higgins]

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[Mary Beard]

Or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned.

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But we have each other. FX's the bear, the final season, all episodes now streaming on Disney.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Classical architecture has always been a big deal in the United States.

[Mary Beard]

The nation was born in togas and under the brand of Rome. So it's not surprising that Roman and occasionally Greek style carries a particular edge in America. Even now, though perhaps in different ways and for different reasons.

[Charlotte Higgins]

We're thinking of President Trump's classical ballroom now being added onto the White House.

[Mary Beard]

Or the huge triumphal arch that Roman symbol of power and success that the president plans for the ceremonial center of Washington, D.C. which is an overblown piece

[Charlotte Higgins]

of vulgarity to its detractors, far too big, far too much gold. But to its fans, it's a glorious celebration of the United States in the most appropriate architectural style and in the most appropriate place.

[Mary Beard]

In this episode of our mini series, USA 250, we're looking at classical architecture as a visual touchstone of America and sometimes a lightning rod for disagreement.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Because it's not just something that's always been taken for granted. It's often been contested and debated and

[Mary Beard]

fought over how far can classical idiom stand for the modern state? Is it all faintly ridiculous? This is Instant Classics, the podcast that uncovers the ancient stories still shaping the world today. I'm Mary Beard.

[Charlotte Higgins]

And I'm Charlotte Higgins. Each week we dive into the myths, the dramas and the characters of the classical world to discover what they still mean to us. Now this week, building a new Rome.

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[Mary Beard]

Charlotte, I'm going to take you back again. We've mentioned this before. I want to take you back again to your first visit to dc, which was not all that long ago. First visit to Washington.

[Charlotte Higgins]

It was only last year and

[Mary Beard]

I

[Charlotte Higgins]

don't know what I expected, but I really did have this feeling of being a small person at the centre of empire, you know, being A very tiny creature. And it made London and Paris and actual Rome feel a bit chaotic and small and sort of pokey. When you get to the Mall in dc, which is that long sort of public park, effectively with the Lincoln Memorial, with the Capitol at one end, with the Washington Monument, the obelisk in the middle, it's an enormous space. Right, Mary? And it's lined with classical building for museums. And the sort of scale of it and the sense of it being very deliberately designed, which, you know, we'll talk about later, or not. You know, it's an extraordinary feeling actually being there for the first time.

[Mary Beard]

No, it is. I mean, it's for me too. It's the kind of closest thing you get to feeling like you're in ancient Rome because it's the combination of the classical style architecture with the sense that this is a city that thinks of itself at least, and partly is the center of power, at least in the West. And so it still has a real Roman vibe to it. Classical vibe. Now, I think we've got to be absolutely clear here that there are plenty of bits of the city of Washington D.C. which are not full of columns. We're talking about the ceremonial center, the bits you visit if you're a tourist, the governmental center. We're not talking about where the disadvantaged live. But it brands itself still as a Roman place with Roman style power and yet, and more.

[Charlotte Higgins]

So that was the thing that really struck me, that actually if you go to Rome, I mean, obviously Rome is a palimpsest of many, many different periods and styles. So that you get the real Rome, you have Roman remains jumbling up against Renaissance buildings, medieval buildings, contemporary buildings, and it's actually fairly small scale by comparison to this dc so it's the sort of Roman ness of DC is like film set Rome. It's like fantasy Rome. It's so much more spacious and grandiose even than the Rome that we encounter today in all this kind of beautiful chaos. This is the sort of rational vision of a superpowered Rome.

[Mary Beard]

And yet it started, this kind of classical idiom started long before the US was a superpower. And we saw in an earlier episode the kind of Roman ideology around the American Revolution. But there's also some real esthetic, cultural, political drivers and individuals who are responsible for this. I mean, and the real key figure, I guess, is third President Thomas Jefferson, who spent some time in France, who actually saw French Roman buildings. He was particularly keen on that wonderful temple in Nimes, so called the Maison Carre or Nimes. And he was very much driving an architectural style not just for Washington, D.C. but also for his home state of Virginia. So he is seeing that form of architecture as something which is going to mark out the state Capitol in Virginia. And, you know, what's interesting is you now go around American states and the capital spelled with an A. The capital cities of these American states, they have state capitals just like the capitol in Washington, D.C. but that was partly a Jeffersonian renaming. They'd been called things like state houses before. And so what Jefferson is. Is quite consciously doing is injecting Roman ness and a. Roman terminology and Roman architecture into the individual states of the Union.

[Charlotte Higgins]

I hadn't realized this history at all until we were researching this episode of how hard and how thoughtfully Thomas Jefferson pursued research about classical architecture in France. And, you know, there's a story about him sitting, sitting for hours admiring the Maison Carre. This is one of the best preserved Roman temples in the former Roman Empire. He knew about the Maison Carre from studying the Italian architect of the 16th century, Palladio. And so a lot of his classicism comes sort of through Palladio as well. But he sat for hours studying the Maison Carre and he wrote about it. And all of this goes hand in hand with revolutionary ideas. Being in France is key as well, because France is going on a sort of parallel track through its revolution of classicizing its architecture. So all of this is happening. And his trip to France is absolutely key. He admires the Triumphal Arch in Orange, which he thinks was thought to. Which he thinks was built on Amerius, who. Who was a Republican figure. In fact, it was much later than that. It was built in the Augustan age. But this is all absolutely crucial to the future. The future DC but they're building these monumental. They start to build these monumental buildings, Mary, don't they, before. DC Is really a proper city, so that they've got the vision to build these monumental buildings on what is effectively a marsh. And it's. I mean, it's. You know, the whole thing, you know, It's a swamp. D.C. is a swamp. So they're building before there's a proper city to surround the monumental buildings with that they start building the monumental buildings. So it's sort of the opposite to the real Rome. Cause the real Rome was also built on a swamp or a marsh that grew up in a much more iterative and much slower way. You know, didn't get those monumental buildings till deep into its history. But D.C. starts with the monumental buildings.

[Mary Beard]

When we were just conjuring up Washington D.C. we were conjuring up a place of power. You know, if you go back to its origins, it's not clear that it's going to be a place of power. It's using some of its kind of public presentations of itself to try to get power, to try to write itself into the world. And so it is absolutely the reverse of Rome, which only gets its monumental buildings. When it is a world power, Washington D.C. gets them first, though I think it's worth saying that that is the Jeffersonian ambition. And you can do a lot with what, how Jefferson was instrumental in kind of in pushing again that, that classical idea. But when, you know, when we've been talking about wandering through the monumental center of D.C. and most of the really big buildings that you see and that you remember now are actually later than that, they replaced those early buildings or they hugely embellished them. So what we see of the capital now is mid 19th century. And so the absolute kind of in your face, huge classicism does come with the increase in American power. All those museums that you see on the Mall with their columned exteriors, 19th century, even early 20th century creation. So the Jeffersonian dream is then taken a stage further in the kind of size and absolute, the sort of pride, the, the pride and the power of those, those buildings, the Supreme Court, they're not, you know, these don't go directly back to Jefferson, but they're taking the, the Jeffersonian seed and working developing it even further. And sometimes I think in quite strange or unexpected ways. I mean, I have one favorite ancient, fake ancient monument in Washington D.C. which

[Charlotte Higgins]

is

[Mary Beard]

the Navy Memorial. And it's not far from the Mall. It's on the Pennsylvania Avenue, which leads from the Capitol eventually to the White House. And it hasn't got any columns at all, actually. But it's done classicism, funnily, in an even more extreme way, because it's a monument, the American Navy. And it has, on the ground it's a sort of. It's a circular piazza, really. But on the ground there is an inscribed map of the world with Washington D.C. at the center of it. It's a kind of projection, projection of the world that puts Washington D.C. at the center. Now you think, oh, well, but that is so Roman first Emperor Augustus and his sidekick Agrippa, what did they do in Rome? They put up a map which showed or a diagram of the world perhaps, not so much a map which put Rome at the center. There was a golden milestone in the Roman forum which marked the distances of every big place in The Roman Empire from Rome. And so this floor map in the Navy Memorial is absolutely Roman. And it is surrounded by bronze plaques which show. Which depict naval warfare, which are as close as anything I've seen to the sculptures on Trajan's Column. Now, they weren't showing naval warfare, they were showing a lot of land warfare and soldiers building things and the emperor talking to his troops, etc. But that style of, of replicating scenes of military encounters, that too is unbelievably Roman. I think people walk past this monument because it hasn't got columns, they don't think, oh, God, there's another Roman thing. But it was built in the 1960s. Right. This is, this is actually really recent.

[Charlotte Higgins]

I love that the thing of putting D.C. in the center of the world as a completely Roman habit, and you know that putting the thing that you think is the most important at the center of your map passes through the medieval age of putting Jerusalem in the middle of your map. So it's a. You can, you know, it starts as a Roman thing and then it. Yeah, I mean, it's wonderful that it has this strange completion in the centrality of D.C. and the Navy Memorial. The Navy Memorial's also got rather an abject looking bronze sculpture of a lonely seaman with his hands in his pockets, which I suppose is vaguely classical, but I don't think any Roman would be having his hands in his pockets had he any pockets to put his hands in slouching like that.

[Mary Beard]

Anyway, so when we talk, and when quite a lot of people sort of tut, tut a bit about Trump's commitment to classical style, there is a long history there. And Trump has put out in his two presidencies, he's put out two executive orders, one in the first presidency, one in the second, actually saying putting in writing how American architecture should be classical. I mean, he's laying down rules for saying that public buildings in Washington D.C. must be in a classical style, because classical style is more authoritative and it's more beautiful than anything else. He goes back in the latest executive order, which I've got here, he goes back to Jeff, to Washington and Jefferson, and he said they consciously modeled the most important buildings in Washington D.C. on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome. Well, not so much Athens, actually, but never mind. They sought to use classical architecture to visually connect our contemporary republic with the antecedents of democracy in classical antiquity, reminding citizens not only of their rights, but also their responsibilities in maintaining and perpetuating its institutions. So there is its beauty combined with authority for Trump, combined with what the American republic is all about and waving the flag. Some might say this is not entirely obvious, waving the flag for democracy. But that, that is, that is, that is where Trump is pinning his flag, that's for sure, onto classicism. And he is, he is building himself. I mean, controversially, always, it has to be said, he, he's got, he's bulldozed or had bulldozed the one wing, the east wing of the White House, and he is going to erect his classical style ballroom there. And he's been very, very keen that out of all the different orders of architecture he could choose, he has chosen to have Corinthian style columns because he said they're the best. All architectural historians agree they're the best. I don't know about that, but it's wearing its classicism on its sleeve.

[Charlotte Higgins]

And then, of course, there's the triumphal arch that he dearly wishes to build.

[Mary Beard]

We're used to seeing triumphal arches in capital cities, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the Wellington Arch in London. And, you know, it can be easy to forget that what they're doing is they're taking over a very, very specifically Roman form.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Right.

[Mary Beard]

There's so much part of the, of the landscape that we've kind of forgotten their history. But the idea of a freestanding arch in a city center is something that the Roman architects developed. Now, they partly developed it in the context of their ceremony of triumph, their victory parade, which great procession that they celebrated after all their most bloody massacres, they would have called huge, successful military campaigns. And it's possible that these arches sometimes going over the street, it's possible that those arches were part of the triumphal procession, that the army would have processed through the arch as part of its ceremonial kind of journey up to the Capitol Hill in Rome. It's quite how accurate that is. It's not clear because I think many of the triumphal arches that particularly emperors put up are kind of celebrations of generalized success, not necessarily of individual victories. I mean, it's something which does go back to second century B.C. this form of the triumphal architect, but we don't have any surviving until well into the Empire, but very much as brash, pretty brash celebrations of Roman power. I mean, the Arch of Constantine, which you see now near the Coliseum, is one of the biggest. There are two arches like that in the Roman forum. So Trump is going back to that particular form and saying, what's amazing about Washington, everybody listen to this. There is a triumphal arch in New York, but Washington, the center of world power, doesn't have what it ought to have, which is a triumphal arch. And so he's got, predictably, the one that he's designed is going to be bigger than any other person's triumphal arch anywhere in the world. But that's what it's looking back to. And it has, it seems that it has passed most of its official approval stages now. It's going to be very close to the mull, very close to the Lincoln Memorial and near the Arlington Cemetery, that end of the mull in Washington.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Mary, shall we talk about why this arch is actually pretty controversial? Right after the break?

[Mary Beard]

Yes.

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[Mary Beard]

Hello, lovely listeners. If you're not yet part of our Instant Classics Book Club, well, now is the perfect time to join because we are making our way through one of the most exciting works of literature ever. That's Homer's Odyssey.

[Charlotte Higgins]

We would love you to join our book club, which we absolutely adore. So please do join now to give you all the access to our previous episodes and loads of other perks like being able to join our online community and getting early booking access to our live events.

[Mary Beard]

All details are on our website. Instant Classics Podcast. I think it's important to realise that Trump's classical architecture, we'll come on to this very soon, is controversial. You only have to pick up an American newspaper to see them arguing about the ballroom and the planned triumphal art. But there has been a very long history of controversy about how Washington in particular presents itself in this classical way. I mean, we now, as you know, we've been saying, we go there and we think, wow. But almost all of these buildings have been the cause of dispute. And it always seems to me that there's a real fault line when you look beneath the surface of these images of power. When you look beneath the surface, you find this kind of there's a paradox, because what was the imagined model for the United States? Well, it was Republican Rome. It was Rome before the age of the Caesars. It was when Rome was a sort of democracy. I mean, it was never democratic in the way say the 5th century BC Athens Wars. But it was a power sharing culture that did not have kings. That was what was crucial. Now that's what is in the mind of the founders. The problem is that almost no, a tiny bit, but almost no architecture, no buildings of that period actually survive.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Right. So the architecture that's actually being aped, imitated and drawn upon is not republican architecture at all. It's the dreaded architecture of authoritarian single person king like rule. That is imperial architecture. So this is a huge paradox at the heart of, at the heart of, at the heart of DC's sort of imperial. I mean it is literally imperial. So it was. Imperial ambitions are not republican, they are imperial.

[Mary Beard]

And I thought it was nice you kind of hinted at that when you talked about the, the, the Roman Arch in the south of France, which Jefferson thought was of a republican date. He thought it was put up to celebrate, you know, 1st century BC, early 1st century BC, Marius. In fact, it's a monument put up by the first proper emperor Augustus. So the whole of Washington in one way is an amazing kind of historical mistake. Historical. It's a kind of, you know. Well, it's a historical paradox, you know, it's that you're, you're in, it kind of cites you in precisely the kind of Rome that the founders were fighting against. Right, right. You know, it's Rome of, it's monarchical imperial Rome when they were trying to go back to the simple virtuous Rome of the Republic. And so it seems to me that, that, that just set out almost the inevitability that there's going to be controversy here because it doesn't quite, this visual Rome doesn't quite fit the ideological Rome

[Charlotte Higgins]

and also sometimes it doesn't quite work, does it? Mary, You've got a favorite example of something that slips over into. I think we can both agree slightly. Slight absurdity. Tell us about what you're thinking about its particular sculpture, isn't it?

[Mary Beard]

Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, you know, is it ridiculous to pretend to be Roman? Well, yes, it can be. And the thing, this is not a piece of architecture, but it's an amazing statue of George Washington, oh well over nine foot tall, which was put up to commemorate the centenary of his birth. Born in 1732. It's done in 1832 by famous sculptor Horatio Greenough and it shows Washington

[Charlotte Higgins]

in

[Mary Beard]

a kind of strange combination of sort of classical references. I mean he's got in his hand, he's sitting down on a chair, looks

[Charlotte Higgins]

like man spreading man Spreading like a proper manly sitting down pose, with his legs rather widely.

[Mary Beard]

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[Charlotte Higgins]

And broadly positioned, let's say.

[Mary Beard]

And in one of his hands he's got a sword which he's in the act of sort of handing over. We don't see to whom he's handing over, but there is no doubt that this was trying to echo that republican hero Cincinnatus who saved Rome. And then once he had led Roman troops to victory against the enemy, he doesn't then go on to be a dictator or to take power for himself. But he hands back his weapons and he goes back to his country plot and returns to an ordinary life as a farmer. And there is something here about Washington. He is not becoming a king. He is the Cincinnatus who is handing back the sword that he could have used for himself. It's not just that there's many ways of representing Cincinnatus. Greenhoff obviously has got something else in mind because there was a very, very famous statue of the God Zeus or Jupiter in the Temple of zeus in Olympia, 5th century BC, doesn't survive, but there are plenty of descriptions and reconstructions of it. And Jupiter is sitting on his throne. He is naked to the waist and he's superhuman inside. So you've got here a Washington that is both a Cincinnatus but also a God.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Right.

[Mary Beard]

Because he's in exactly the. The kind of the. The position that we know. This. This. It was a wonder of the world. This, this.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Yeah. So there are loads of depictions of it and he. It's also. It is on that scale. It was these statues, monumental statues meant to be in the temple were on a monumental scale. And this sculpture is a pretty large scale. It had to be moved, I think, from the Capitol because it was too heavy at some point. There's something really funny about it, Mary, which is that he's wearing his 18th century wig, but he's also. He's naked from the waist up and, you know, with a sort of toga like robe arrangement, but with this 18th century wig, you know, with a. You know, I don't want to see George Washington's chest on display or even. What, a sculpture? A sculpture. A sculptor decided his chest might have looked like 100 years later. It's a very. It's a really awkward mingling of things. But yeah, it's the 18th century wig and the slightly embarrassing classical robes and bare chest that I find a little bit creepy.

[Mary Beard]

But what's interesting is it's not just us, you know, in the 21st century thinking, this is a bit silly. This statue has always been an embarrassment, you know, that it was kind of going to the furthest point of classical imagery and beyond, so that everybody saw it was a bit ridiculous. And it started out in the Capitol, but then they didn't think the floor would survive because it's, you know, it's 12 tons or something, and then it's moved round and it's outside and then it's put inside and it is finally been given a place, actually, frankly hidden away in the Museum of American History. It's now been museumified, so we don't have to face on really public display this sense that, you know, that Roman imagery can backfire. That's what it's telling you. I think it's.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Talking of Whips Mary, back to the Triumphal Arch. Yes. I mean, the triumphal. I mean, it's easy to see why it's so incredibly controversial. Right. The scale alone. Right. It would be as planned. So the original suggestion for the arch was fairly modest by the standards of. Of triumphal arches. Ha ha. But Donald Trump wished for it to be larger. So the current. The current scale of the proposed arch is over half the size of the Washington Monument, the big obelisk. So this is. This is super big. There's a group of veterans from the Vietnam War who object to it strongly because, to their mind, it would ruin the connection between the Arlington Cemetery, which of course, is a place of great memory and sacredness for military veterans and the families of the fallen. They feel that it would disrupt the whole sort of area and the passage and the view. He did want to have some golden lions seated at the base of the Triumphal Arch, which have somehow have been eradicated from the. Have been eradicated from the plan. And it still might. It's gone through the Commission on Fine Art, it's gone through sort of first planning process, but actually it may yet fall, who knows, because it's currently. It would need to get special permission to skip the law on how tall things can be in dc. So it's not quite a done deal.

[Mary Beard]

No, it has annoyed people. And the kind of. The obvious vulgarity, the usual Trump stuff. Far too much gold and far too big. If you counted the statue on top of it, it would be the tallest triumphal arch anywhere in the world. To stick up for Trump a bit. It's not what I usually do, but it is more Roman, I think, than people think. I mean, when we look at the surviving Roman triumphal arches, they've lost their decor. They've been pared down, the sculptures have fallen off them, or many of them have, and the gilding doesn't any longer survive. What also doesn't survive is the decoration that would have been on the top of most of these arches, which is a bronze or often gilded bronze, I guess, great chariot or some other form of sculpture on the top. So I think that in some ways, Trump's vision of this arch, which is to be kind of loaded with bling, is not entirely different from what some of these, at least in Rome itself, what some of these arches would have carried in antiquity. And of course, the Wellington Arch in London, if you go and look at that, it's got a chariot, a bronze chariot on the top. I have never looked at this very closely, but I think what's happening in this bronze chariot is peace. It's a 19th century monument, peace is descending to kind of tell the war chariot that it now doesn't have to fight any wars. But again, that was a pretty controversial addition when this thing was being designed, and there were various different versions, but again, actually very Roman.

[Charlotte Higgins]

I think you could even make the argument, just to play devil's advocate here, that Trump's arch could be seen to be relatively pared back and modest compared to the look of Roman triumphal arches at the time that they were built. Because, remember, at least Trump's arch is not going to be garishly painted in all the colours of the rainbow, which those original arches probably would have been. Highly coloured. You know, we think of triumphal arches as being pale, unpainted stone. And that is what that's. There's no current proposal, but we watch this space to make a multicolored arch. I mean, the other thing, I suppose one might add to the list of controversies is often, but not always, Roman triumphal arches were erected to celebrate a huge military victory. And, you know, has Trump won any huge military victories to discuss? And I think we'll leave that to our listeners to assess the current military situation and decide whether any wars have been in fact, won. But I suppose to counter that, they're not always around military victories per se, are they, Mary? Sometimes they are celebrating greatness in some much more abstracted way than specific military victory.

[Mary Beard]

There's always a hint of military victory. I think it might not be commemorating that particular battle, but the success that it's commemorating is inevitably in Rome, partly military success, but also. It can be an embarrassment. They can be an embarrassment even for Romans. And there was a wonderful story of the General Pompey Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar's great adversary, but who was, before he lost out to Caesar, was the new Alexander the Great in Rome. And he had an unfortunate encounter with the triumphal art, which people thought was very, very significant at the time because he was, he was celebrating a triumphal procession for one of his victories. I think in the early 60s might be a bit before he was having, you know, this vast troop of his soldiers and his booty going through Rome. And he had got his chariot, the chariot in which he was riding. He had decided it would be pulled by elephants, not by horses. So there was Pompey. There was Pompey going through the streets of Rome with an elephant drawn chariot. Now he part of the route there was an arch going over the road and Pompey goes through, as you would, it's the route. He goes through this arch. But the elephants are so big, they get stuck.

[Charlotte Higgins]

So no, please, that's too funny.

[Mary Beard]

So everything has to be unhitched and the elephants have to be kind of eased out of the arch. A big humiliation. And, you know, in a sense, you know, I think there we are, there is a triumphal arch of some sort. We don't know which arch it is. I don't think fighting back against the pretensions of somebody who his is going too far, claiming too much honour and renown. So, you know, one of the images I always have of Pompey in my head is him getting stuck in the throughway of the triumphal arch because he decided he was going to have elephants, not horses, drawing his chariot. But, you know, Romans made themselves look silly too, I think, is the message there. But what I was really struck by when I decided to dig around in the history of triumphal arches in Washington D.C. i wanted to know whether was this the first proposal? Because as we said, there's one in New York and you kind of expected

[Charlotte Higgins]

get in the way. Trump's not wrong. Trump's not wrong that it is an obvious thing that's lacking in the ceremonial center of Washington to this extent. I definitely agree with him.

[Mary Beard]

No, it is. And what you discover is there have been all kinds of proposals before. Trump isn't the first guy to say, hey, we're going to have a triumphal arch. And there was. We talked a bit earlier about the Navy Memorial. The first plans for the Navy Memorial included a triumphal arch along Pennsylvania Avenue, the Main street. And that was hugely controversial. For all the kind of ways that Trump's arch is hugely controversial, it was blocking the view. It was disturbing. The cityscape. And so that was never built. And you go back to the 19th century and there are also. You go through the Washington, D.C. newspapers and periodicals, which you can easily get online now in the 19th century. And there's several proposals for Triumph Lot 1, for example, to honor Columbus, which never get off the ground. They bite the dust. So Trump is only the last of a whole series of proposals to have a triumphal art. But nobody before has managed to build them. They've got them on paper, but they haven't built them, except for one which was put up across, you know, this big thoroughfare, Pennsylvania Avenue. And it was to honor the victory in World War I. But it was made of plaster. It was cardboard. It was a temporary arch and there are pictures of soldiers marching through it, but it was then taken down. And that was also, I mean, in the Renaissance, quite a lot of European dynasts went into the temporary triumphal arch business because it was quite a lot cheaper than building a full scale marble version. But the only one that was ever put up, as far as I can see in D.C. was this, you know, cardboard and plaster one to celebrate a military victory.

[Charlotte Higgins]

I mean, I love the idea of the cardboard plaster one, partly because. Partly because DC the Mole does have a stage set vibe to it. And it does, it actually does remind me of the kind of Rome that is built for, you know, for movies, for American movies that are set in Rome, you know, for Cleopatra, for example, which we talked about in the previous episode. This is a sort of. It reminds one of the fantasy Rome that's being built here.

[Mary Beard]

And it always is. I mean, the point about Rome and what always kind of slightly undermines the Jeffersonian ambition is that it always is a bit of a fantasy. It's never, you know, it's not real, even when it's built in solid stone. It's always not just very, very imperial, but it's always a bit of a fantasy creation.

[Charlotte Higgins]

And it reminds me, Mary, in the previous episode, we had Grayson Perry as a guest on the show and he talked out his hatred of classical, of classical civilization. And one of his bits of evidence for his loathing or one of his arguments was that this kind of Palladian classical architecture, as the sort of temple, as the country, British country house or the museum building is, is a cliche. And it's a cliche that has been unthinkingly been used to present an image of authority and antiquity and credibility, when in fact this style of architecture is really indistinguishable from a History of enslaved people, slave economies. If you fast forward that line of thought through to Jefferson, he built his country house in a Palladian style Monticello. It was a plantation using the forced labor of enslaved people. You know, these connections become kind of difficult. I think, if you're really thinking hard about how to build new architecture in Washington D.C. and I think what we can see is that if you're building, for example, as was done 20 years ago, the process to build this was begun at least 20 years ago and it's been open for a few years now. But the Museum of African American History on the Mall, you cannot possibly build a classical, you can't build a Roman temple for that one. You know, the columns and the pediment are far too much associated with all the things that, that are unnerving and bad and disturbing. And you couldn't possibly make a museum to African American history resemble a slave plantation owner's house or indeed a Roman temple. And so, you know, here we see, I think something really interesting happening which is the disruption of this classical. So the Museum of African American History, which was designed by the British Ghanaian architect David Adjay, uses Nigerian models, it uses Yoruban architectural models, and it looks completely, completely unlike a classical building.

[Mary Beard]

Yeah. And I mean, I think that our lens, which is to, you know, to see this architecture as it in some ways as those who commissioned it wanted us to see it as Roman and to see D.C. as a classical Roman city. I mean, it in part makes us unaware, but it part encourages us not to see the, the other traditions that have always, I think, I mean the African American Museum recently is a very clear example of that. But there's always been alternative traditions kind of fighting with this Tuscaloon. I mean, there's the, the Air and Space Museum, you know, goes back I think to the 60s. You know, it's a very obvious reasons. It would be awkward and uncomfortable to say the least to have an African American museum in a kind of Roman looking temple.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Likewise, it would just seem really odd, wouldn't it? The Romans did not invent, they did many things. They did not invent air and space travel.

[Mary Beard]

That's right.

[Charlotte Higgins]

So you just can't, you can't do it.

[Mary Beard]

And, and there are, you know, there are, you know, the, the HQ of the Smithsonian Museum, which is also on the marl, slightly over towered by many of these classical buildings, that's neo Gothic. And I think that when Trump in his executive orders speak so very, or whoever wrote them speaks so very stridently, in favor of classical architecture. It is, as the executive order admit. It is in part because that kind of style of classicism has been under attack that he talks about brutalist architecture, which he can't stand compared with

[Charlotte Higgins]

the

[Mary Beard]

refinement and beauty of classical architecture. But you go to Washington D.C. and from the 60s, there were people saying in concrete, we need a new idiom. We need a different idiom for how power can be expressed. And you know, I lived for about a year of my life altogether opposite, directly opposite, with a view of the FBI building. And the FBI building is vast, brutalist, non classical, concrete. Now, you might say that's extremely appropriate. But this, I think we, we have to. We shouldn't forget because we're so overwhelmed by the classical. We shouldn't forget there have always been alternatives in Washington, knocking at the door. We should be seeing both in it.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Absolutely.

[Mary Beard]

Not just a classical city, but. But I tell you, if you want to, you want to experience Rome, that's where I'd go.

[Charlotte Higgins]

Fantasy Rome. Fantasy Rome. Ah, Rome's always the best of a fantasy anyway, isn't it? It, as ever, we want to know your thoughts and comments, ideas, questions. And so if you have them, please do send them to us at instant classics podmail.com or on our social media stclassicspod.

[Mary Beard]

Bye bye.

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