Rome - United States - July 4 - Empires - Imperialism - Politics - New York Times

Rome - United States - July 4 - Empires - Imperialism - Politics - New York Times: "In the early 19th century, one Maryland politician, lamenting his countrymen’s increasing love of “public shows and spectacles,” warned: “History records that the declining days of the Roman republic, upon which the throne of the Caesars was erected, was attended by banquets and revels, and marked by the exhibition of rhetoricians and gladiators.” The occasion of debauchery and depravity that inspired this outburst was, naturally, the 1817 inauguration of President James Monroe."