Daily Rome Reflection
The ramblings of a man who's obsessed with the Roman Empire.
The toaster pops, and bam—there it is again. Bread. Bread, like the kind they used to give out in the damn Roman grain dole. Bread and circuses, right? Except now it’s fucking Wonder Bread and Netflix. Disgraceful. Back then, a man worked his ass off or got conquered. Simple. I spread the butter, thinking about Trajan’s column, the sheer audacity of carving your résumé into a stone skyscraper. Who does that? A goddamn emperor, that’s who. Trajan was the real deal.
I head to work. Traffic’s a mess. The roads are potholed to hell, but 2,000 years ago, Romans were paving roads so well some of them are still intact. What the fuck happened? What’s our excuse? Rome didn’t have Google Maps, and they still managed an empire. I hit a red light. Another minute wasted. Did Caesar waste time waiting at intersections? No, because he crossed the damn Rubicon and declared himself dictator. A bold move. A man’s move.
At lunch, I’m scrolling my phone—mostly memes and dumb shit—and someone posts about aqueducts. Ah, yes, the aqueducts. Stone arches carrying water for miles. I sip my Coke and wonder how the hell we went from engineering marvels to influencers selling protein shakes. Don’t even get me started on the Colosseum. Blood, sweat, and glory. Now we’ve got stadiums named after car insurance companies. Pathetic.
By the time dinner rolls around, I’m grilling chicken, flipping it with tongs. Gladiators probably didn’t have tongs. They just roasted shit on sticks, then fought lions. Imagine that. You finish eating and then fight a goddamn lion. That’s living. Meanwhile, I’m standing here with my Bluetooth speaker playing Spotify, like a soft little modern man. Marcus Aurelius would’ve slapped the existential dread out of me with his Meditations.
As I brush my teeth before bed, I think about the fall. The Goths, the Vandals, the incompetence. Rome, crumbling from the inside out. Can’t help but draw some comparisons. We’re fat, lazy, entitled. Maybe we deserve to collapse. But at least they’ll write about me in the ruins: "Here lies a man who thought of the Roman Empire every goddamn day."
“You didn’t take out the trash,” she says, arms crossed, standing in the kitchen doorway.
Shit. Trash. I forgot. Romans had trash, right? What the hell did they do with it? Did plebs just chuck it into the street? Probably. The Cloaca Maxima—the giant sewer system—was ahead of its time. If I were a Roman, I’d be a damn hero for taking care of the trash. Here, I’m just an idiot with an overflowing bin.
“I’ll do it in a sec,” I say, trying to sound casual.
“You said that yesterday.”
Yesterday. What was I even doing yesterday? Oh, right—watching that documentary on Roman siege warfare. Ballistae firing bolts through enemy walls. Gods, what a time to be alive. And now here I am, under siege by my wife. Where’s my pila?
“I mean it this time,” I add. “You know how busy I’ve been.”
“Busy?” She raises an eyebrow. “Busy doing what? Staring at your phone?”
She doesn’t know I was Googling Via Appia construction techniques. “Work,” I say. “Emails. Lots of emails.”
She snorts. “Right. Anyway, I need you to clean out the garage this weekend. It’s a disaster in there.”
A disaster. Like Rome after the sacking by Alaric in 410 AD. I picture the Goths storming in, tearing apart temples. Is my garage any worse than the Temple of Jupiter after that? No. But she won’t see it that way. “Sure,” I say. “The garage. Got it.”
“Also, don’t forget to RSVP for your mom’s birthday dinner,” she says, turning back to the sink.
Fuck. Birthdays. Did the Romans celebrate birthdays? I know they had public holidays for emperors and gods, but personal birthdays? Maybe for patricians. Or senators. I should look it up later.
“You’re really distracted lately,” she says over her shoulder. “What’s on your mind all the time?”
Oh, gods. Play it cool. Do not mention the Roman Empire. Do not mention the Roman Empire. “Nothing. Just… stuff.”
“Stuff?” She turns, arms crossed again. “You’re not cheating on me, are you?”
“What? No!” I laugh, too loud. “It’s just… work. Politics. You know. The usual.”
Politics. Perfect deflection. Rome’s politics were a fucking mess, and so are ours. Did she know that Sulla marched his army into Rome to seize power? Probably not. Most people don’t. But they should.
She eyes me suspiciously, then shrugs. “Well, whatever it is, just don’t forget the trash.”
As she walks away, I glance at the overflowing bin and sigh. If I lived in ancient Rome, I’d be dealing with actual life-or-death decisions—conquer or be conquered. But here? Here, it’s trash and birthday RSVPs.
I grab the bag and head outside, muttering under my breath, “Even Caesar had a goddamn wife to answer to.”