Mythic Rome
Posted onI am currently making my way through Edith Hamilton’s seminal collection of Greek, Roman and Norse myths titled simply Mythology. I started re-reading it last year on my honeymoon which coincided with the Athens Olympics (a perfect time to be reading Greek mythos) and am still at it after many stops and starts. In finishing the section on Virgil’s Aeneid I came across this quote about “the Roman race” by Virgil (whose Wikipedia entry calls him “Vergil”):
“They were destined to bring under their empire the peoples of earth, to impose the rule of submissive nonresistance, to spare the humbled and to crush the proud.”
Interesting to think about, especially as a citizen of the world’s only “empire” today.