Romans and What We Can Learn From Them

The Founding of Rome

Most of history that isn't Tudors or Dark Ages is made up of Romans. The first people to decide it was about time for some Romans were Romulus and Remus. At first they were just humble wolf sucklers but then they had the idea of Rome. "If we build it, they will come," said Romulus. "Too right," said Remus.

Remus wanted to put Rome on Aventine Hill, where he found his thrill, but Romulus wanted to build it on top of some old Roman ruins, which can still be seen to this very day, on Palatine Hill. They had a fight and Remus soon died of being killed. Then Romulus built Rome. We don’t know much about how he did it or what he made it out of, but one thing we do know is that it wasn’t built in a day. Historians have calculated, or simply made up since they don’t approve of sums, that it must have taken him weeks. When Romulus had finished he sat in his deckchair on the veranda, sipping a glass of wine, and waited for the Romans to arrive.

At first all the people who turned up were men, and not even Roman ones at that, but Romulus had to make do with what he could get. The men wanted to have girlfriends and do kissing so Romulus decided to go and steal some women from the Sabines, who lived next door. Romulus and his mates rolled up in a stretch chariot with lots of fizzy wine and the Sabine girls all got in. At first the Sabine mums and dads were a bit fed up about it and fought a war. Then they decided to become Romans too and share the women and do a bit of kissing themselves.

Romulus invented Legions, which were soldiers and had been invented before, but since nobody had patented the idea Romulus claimed it for himself. He also invented the Senate, a name derived from Semtex, his favourite plastic explosive. The Senate was a bunch of old men. You could only join if you had once been to the right school, regardless of whether you had learned anything there. The Senators decided what young men should be doing and how they could make the most profit from it for themselves. Then Romulus disappeared and everybody said he must have become a god called Quirinus. People would believe any old rubbish in those days. Luckily they knew they were ancients and that nobody would expect them to be brainy.

One thing the Romans are famous for is inventing Latin. At first they tried Archaic Latin, which was only any good for talking in. Then, in 75BC, they all changed over to Classical Latin, which had the advantage that it could also be used for culture. Just as nobody but Shakespeare has ever written plays in fluent literature, so nobody but the Romans has ever spoken culture. Imagine that: talking pure culture even when you're ordering a pizza! They must have been so proud.

Romans are famous for many other things too. These include straight roads, killing Jesus, heating their homes with holocausts, centurions, fiddling while things burned, conquering Asterix and the Gauls, throwing Christians to the lions, Antony and Cleopatra, veni vidi vici, and much more. They have appeared in such classics as Spartacus, Life of Brian, 1066 and All That, Carry On Cleo and Godfather III, where they played the numerals.

Things we can learn from the Romans include Latin, Roman numerals and mad Emperors. Things we ought to forget include feeding people to the lions, which is not considered PC these days, and invading other people’s countries, which is best left to the Americans.