Heritage Event: The Lessons of the Roman Empire for America Today
Recorded on September 26, 2005
Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium
The Founders of the United States understood the profound
lessons of Roman history for those who sought to fashion a new
republic in a new world. Those lessons are even more compelling
today. The Roman Empire of the Second Century AD and the United
States of the Twenty-first Century are the only two absolute
superpowers that have existed in history. From foreign policy in
the Middle East to cultural diversity at home, the Roman Empire
offers an enduring model of how to establish world peace and
prosperity by combining freedom and empire.
An award-winning teacher and speaker, J. Rufus Fears is the David
Ross Boyd Professor of Classics and G.T. and Libby Blankenship
Chair in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma. He
is the author of several books and innumerable articles on ancient
history (such as The Theology of Victory at Rome and
The Cult of Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology), the
history of liberty (including a three-volume edition of
Selected Writing of Lord Acton, the great British
historian of liberty) and the lessons of history for our own
day.