Male students on AACC’s Arnold campus said last month they think about the Roman Empire often.
In an informal Campus Current poll of 50 students, 29 said they spend time thinking about the former world power. Nine of them said they ponder it daily.
“It’s just kind of cool. I mean [the] Colosseum is cool,” Erik Binnix, a third-year engineering student, said. “The whole history of just, like, fighting, you know, it’s cool stuff. It’s fun to think about.”
A Sweden-based Roman gladiator reenactor encouraged women on Instagram in August to ask their male partners how often they think about the Roman Empire.
The post went viral and hopped over to TikTok, and women continue to pose the question.
“Men think a lot about the Roman Empire because there’s a lot of power struggles that are involved and, you know, men often think about power and how to keep it,” history professor Richard Hardesty said.
Rome is widely believed to have become an empire in 27 BC and fallen in 476 AD.
Some of the men in the poll said they think about the empire because of the contributions it made to today’s world.
“I think that we benefit daily from the advances that they made in engineering,” Jason Whitfill, a second-year physics student, said.
Others said they are reminded of the Roman Empire often when they play video games.
“I play a lot of video games and it just so happens I circle back to Rome a lot of times when I’m playing,” Lucas Flores, a second-year transfer studies student, said. “Every time I think of Rome, I think of the Roman Empire.”
Some students said the Roman Empire is a cool and fun period to think about.
Not all male students think about the Roman Empire as often.
“I’m in a bunch of history classes and I’m a history buff,” Kolton Tracey, a first-year education student, said. “I know it’s not a lot, but [there’s] a lot of history to go through.”