Why Are Tech Billionaires so Obsessed with the Roman Empire?
Why Read This
What Makes This Article Worth Your Time
Summary
What This Article Is About
Through deeply personal narrative interwoven with cultural criticism, the author examines how Roman Empire glorification perpetuates toxic masculinity from intimate family dynamics to global power structures. Beginning with their nine-year-old brother Andrés drawing abs on himself and sketching the Colosseum as “a place for fighters,” the essay traces how YouTube algorithms, the 2023 #RomanEmpire social media trend, and broader cultural messaging socialize boys into valorizing aggression, dominance, and hierarchical thinking—what the author terms becoming “RomeBros.”
The analysis escalates from individual psychology to institutional power, examining how tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk explicitly model themselves after Roman emperors like Augustus, wielding their platforms to influence elections and weaken democratic norms. The author argues that Roman symbolism serves fascist politics through its emphasis on hierarchy, warrior ethos, and mythic patriarchal pasts, while exploring how assimilation, demographic anxiety, and the radicalization of young men online threaten more equitable futures. Ultimately framing everyone as “children of empires,” the essay questions which values will define coming social formations.
Key Points
Main Takeaways
Masculinity Pipeline to Extremism
The essay traces how boys are socialized into hypermasculinity through YouTube algorithms, social media trends glorifying Rome’s warrior culture, and broader messaging that valorizes dominance and aggression.
Tech Billionaires as Modern Emperors
Zuckerberg models himself after Augustus with Roman haircuts, naming children after emperors, and wearing Latin shirts, while Musk declares “America is New Rome” and turns X into a battleground.
Roman Symbolism Fuels Fascism
The fasces symbol from Roman magistrates became Mussolini’s fascist emblem and appears in US government architecture, revealing how Roman imagery reinforces hierarchical authoritarian politics.
Whitewashed Historical Appropriation
Despite Rome’s heterogeneous empire spanning Europe, Asia, and Africa, media representations cast only white actors as Romans, fabricating a transhistorical “white” identity for ethnonationalist purposes.
Algorithmic Radicalization of Youth
Young men voted for “protein powder and deadlifting” as much as Trump, radicalized through YouTube shorts, podcast bros, and information ecosystems weaponizing online communities for far-right politics.
Breaking Intergenerational Cycles
Despite harsh socialization through spirals and emotional distance, the author’s family demonstrates change is possible—their brother Miguel easily hugs his children and expresses love his father couldn’t.
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Article Analysis
Breaking Down the Elements
Main Idea
Imperialism’s Cultural Afterlife
Roman Empire glorification operates as a continuous ideological system that connects intimate family dynamics, masculine socialization, digital radicalization, billionaire conquest mindsets, and fascist politics across generations and scales of power. The essay demonstrates how the same hierarchical values and warrior ethos that shaped ancient Rome continue reproducing themselves through modern institutions, from Catholic Church management strategies to YouTube algorithms to Silicon Valley imperialism, with tech billionaires explicitly positioning themselves as contemporary caesars whose control over information ecosystems threatens democratic governance globally.
Purpose
Warning and Witnessing
The author aims to expose how seemingly disparate phenomena—a child drawing muscles, social media trends, billionaire cosplay, political movements—form a coherent system of masculine domination while urgently warning that this system threatens equitable futures. By centering personal narrative alongside political analysis, the essay makes abstract concepts of empire, fascism, and algorithmic radicalization viscerally real through the author’s anxiety about their brother’s socialization. The purpose extends beyond critique to witness intergenerational trauma and possibility, asking readers to recognize their complicity in or resistance to these power structures.
Structure
Fractal Intimacy → Systemic Power → Open Question
The essay employs a spiraling structure that moves from intimate family scenes to macro-level political analysis and back, mirroring its own metaphor of spirals as both constraining repetition and potential transformation. Seven numbered sections create discrete meditations that accumulate meaning: opening with Andrés drawing abs, expanding to the #RomanEmpire trend and tech billionaire emulation, analyzing fascist symbolism and demographic anxiety, then returning to family dynamics before questioning future alignments. This structure enacts the essay’s argument about how personal and political scales interpenetrate, with each return to family narrative deepening understanding of systemic forces.
Tone
Anxious, Intimate & Intellectually Rigorous
The tone oscillates between vulnerable personal confession and sharp cultural critique, creating emotional urgency around abstract political theory. The author’s fear for their brother’s future grounds philosophical discussions of fascism in lived stakes, making theoretical concepts feel personally threatening. There’s simultaneously loving attention to family complexity and scathing analysis of power, scholarly precision alongside conversational asides, generating a tone that feels both academically informed and emotionally raw—worried but not hopeless, critical but seeking understanding of how people become complicit in or resistant to oppressive systems.
Key Terms
Vocabulary from the Article
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Tough Words
Challenging Vocabulary
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A political regime or alliance dominated by three powerful individuals who share authority, historically referring to Roman political arrangements before Augustus’s sole rule.
“After Julius Caesar was assassinated, the three established the Second Triumvirate (rule of three men) and punished those who had plotted against Caesar.”
Ancient Roman symbol of authority consisting of a bundle of rods with an axe, carried by magistrate attendants; later adopted by Mussolini as the emblem of Italian fascism.
“Fasces were a bundling of rods with an axe carried by attendants of a Roman magistrate during processions to attest to and enforce his full might and power.”
Systems of governance where power rests with a small elite group of wealthy, influential individuals rather than being broadly distributed among the population.
“The reality is that Rome was a deeply hierarchical society; no matter who was in power, it was run to serve the interests of oligarchies.”
A gap, missing portion, or blank space in a manuscript, text, or line of reasoning; an absence that creates conceptual or informational incompleteness.
“Although whiteness is not a meaningful concept to apply to antiquity, that conceptual lacuna has not stopped the Alt-Right from using ancient Greece and Rome to fabricate a cohesive transhistorical ‘white’ identity.”
Composed of diverse, varied, or dissimilar elements or constituents; characterized by difference rather than uniformity in composition or character.
“Romans are almost always played by white actors in spite of the fact that the Empire was heterogeneous, covering parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa.”
The process of adopting or absorbing the cultural traits, values, and behaviors of another culture, often through prolonged contact or immersion.
“While women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ communities are working endlessly to change the status quo, there’s a growing army of men and tradwives leveraging the tools of social media… and invoking a white-washed, hypermasculine past to prevent a more equitable future through digital culture that can be packaged in ways that accelerate acculturation into toxic ideas.”
Reading Comprehension
Test Your Understanding
5 questions covering different RC question types
1According to the essay, Augustus established the Roman Republic after defeating Mark Antony and Lepidus in the Second Triumvirate.
2What does the author mean by identifying tech billionaires as having a “conqueror’s mindset”?
3Select the sentence that best explains how Roman symbolism connects to fascist ideology according to philosopher Jason Stanley.
4Evaluate these statements about the essay’s treatment of cultural assimilation and demographic change.
The author’s colleague compared projected US demographic shifts by the 2040s to Rome’s experience of managing a heterogeneous, multi-ethnic empire.
Tressie McMillan Cottom argues that Trump’s success with minority and young voters came from tapping into digital information ecosystems rather than appealing to their identity.
The essay presents assimilation as a one-way process where newcomers adopt host culture values without the host culture changing.
Select True or False for all three statements, then click “Check Answers”
5What can be inferred about the author’s use of the spiral metaphor throughout the essay?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
The author distinguishes between people who casually think about Roman engineering or history and “RomeBros” who actively task themselves with continuing Rome’s legacy of conquest and dominance. While the #RomanEmpire social media trend revealed many men think about Rome frequently, the essay focuses on “highly resourced RomeBros” like Zuckerberg and Musk who have actual power to impact governance. These billionaires don’t just admire Rome—they model their lives after emperors, name children after them, wear Latin phrases about conquest, and leverage their control over digital platforms to influence elections and weaken democratic norms, making their obsession a genuine political threat.
The essay demonstrates how the same hierarchical values and warrior ethos operate fractally across different scales—from intimate family socialization to global imperial power. The author’s father teaching through harsh spiral drills and emotional distance reflects the same hierarchical thinking and stratification that young Andrés exhibits when imagining himself as “Head Elf,” which connects to broader cultural messaging through YouTube algorithms, which links to tech billionaires modeling themselves as emperors. This structure shows how imperial logics aren’t abstract political concepts but lived experiences that reproduce themselves through everyday interactions, making personal transformation (like Miguel breaking cycles of emotional distance) politically significant.
When the author’s father reveals he thinks about Rome monthly “because of Catholicism,” the essay connects religious institutional power to imperial management strategies. Edward Gibbon’s observation that organized religion became an effective way to manage heterogeneous populations—teaching subjects “to suffer and to obey”—suggests Christianity operated as empire’s continuation rather than its replacement. The author questions whether their father’s fear-based life and capacity to endure pain stems from Catholic conditioning, recognizing that “the afterlives of empires are not separable” from other systems like masculinity, Mexican culture, and US culture. This complicates simple narratives of religious comfort by examining how faith institutions can serve imperial control.
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This article is classified as Advanced level. It employs sophisticated literary techniques including extended personal narrative interwoven with cultural criticism, requires familiarity with classical history and contemporary political theory, uses complex vocabulary (triumvirate, lacuna, heterogeneous, ethnonationalist), and demands readers track arguments across multiple scales and time periods simultaneously. The essay assumes knowledge of figures like Augustus, Mark Antony, and Mussolini while also requiring ability to synthesize connections between YouTube algorithms, demographic anxiety, fascist symbolism, and intergenerational trauma. The fractal structure and theoretical density make this appropriate for advanced readers comfortable with literary nonfiction that moves fluidly between personal and political registers.
This self-aware moment acknowledges the essay’s paradox: while critiquing Roman Empire obsession, the author has necessarily immersed themselves in Roman history to write the piece. The term “RomeHo” plays on “RomeBro” but distinguishes the author’s critical engagement—learning about figures like Elagabalus who “cross-dressed, was called empress, and favored his male lovers,” or Cleopatra’s political maneuverings, or historian Tacitus’s anti-imperial critique. Unlike RomeBros who glorify imperial conquest, the author engages Rome to understand how hierarchical systems operate and identifies with marginalized figures and critics within Roman history. This reflects the essay’s larger point about shared cultural texts: engagement isn’t inherently problematic, but the values one extracts and perpetuates matter enormously.
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