I'm a bit surprised that the "people from modern Rome" only got an honorable mention. After all, Rome still sees itself as the successor of the Roman Empire. When first visiting it, I was surprised to see the famous SPQR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPQR) acronym all over the place - on trash cans, manhole covers etc. etc.
Fun fact: The -gh endings of many English words share a proto–Indo European root with that enclitic¹ -que in Senatus Populusque Romani. I remember being skeptical of this when I first heard it assuming that the person was arguing for a shared Latin heritage until I dug in and discovered that it actually went back to PIE.²
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1. For the non-linguists here, an enclitic is a suffix added to a word that either functions as a separate word (here -que means “and”) or as a grammatical modifier like the possessive ’s in English.
2. Proto–Indo European for those of you who don’t do acronyms.
This piqued my interest with the -gh endings, so I did a little investigation. What I found wasn't "many", apparently the only really attested example in Modern English is "through" and pretty much every other instance has died out. With a side note that the -kWe ending, also became "hw-" prefixes in English question words and possibly also the ge- prefix on collective nouns (also long since lost in English, but still present in German) which no survives only in the "i" in "handiwork", originally "hand geworc".
Of course, I only did a cursory examination, so there might be other examples not mentioned in the articles I found, but that's what I learned in about half an hour. Still, very cool fun fact, thanks!
It seems this -que was already a relic at that time, or maybe sort of literary, because it coexisted with et (as in etc, et cetera, &c), which still exists e.g. in French. Or maybe one is from antic Latin and the other is from "vulgar"/late Latin ?
There were a number of different ways to write and in Latin. The Vulgate Bible, apparently unhappy with all the vav-connectives in its Hebrew sources uses them all.
when you see something histórical in Europe ask chatgpt if its something actually ancient that lasted until today or It was a xix century tourist marketing stunt made by the burgoisie
Or alterntively, that it's a relatively modern addition to add to it's mystique for tourism purposes. When did SPQR get added to the manhole covers and does anything else in Rome use similar signage?
As a Roman, this is a bit painful to read. I will play fair and assume you are not trying to say that the only thing there is to my city is tourist attractions.
The answer is no (and you can easily look this up). SPQR has been used continually since the Roman Empire, through the Middle Ages, by the Fascists and into the modern era by the current administration. You will find it everywhere, even far removed from tourist areas, and there is absolutely no mystique to it. It just means "this is public property of the city". You will also find it on the city's website and on pretty much all symbols of the city. Some of those manhole covers even predate the era of mass tourism... I had one in my yard on the outskirts of the city when I was a kid.
Interesting questions. For the "senate" part, I'm not sure but I would lean towards no. SPQR is mostly a symbol nowadays and doesn't necessarily refer to its original meaning. The modern political status of Rome is messy, with some degree of independence by virtue of being the capital, but not nearly enough when you compare it to other Western capitals. It's an ongoing debate.
In terms of the far past, well... there are reminders of it in every nook and cranny of the city. It's beautiful and you only realize this when you leave for a bit and then come back. Most people are just used to it. Personally, I feel a sense of continuity: you can read about some obscure anecdote in a history book and then walk over to the place where it happened. Or you walk by a building and find a plaque describing some event from 5 centuries ago. Many Roman roads and neighborhoods still exist today and have kept their original names. If you go to a big concert, chances are the venue will be the Circus Maximus. I think most residents don't realize how crazy that kind of continuity is. It's not just the Ancient Romans either: there's plenty of stuff from the Middle Ages, when Rome was essentially the capital of a theocratic state, very different in spirit from the Roman Empire.
The most interesting thing for me is looking back at the ancient Romans and realizing how much of a different mentality they (probably) had, compared to today. At least in the early and middle stages of the empire, they were efficient and ruthless, but also cosmopolitan and had a very clear notion of the public good. They had enormous resources and they would use them, for example, to build gigantic villas for the top guys, but also to build public housing for workers that they knew they needed. Today we don't have that kind of "laser focus", as we would call it. Modern Rome is messy and decadent, we can barely paint a few bike lanes and keep the wild boars off the streets. Times change :')
Thanks a lot for talking me through the experience of Roman living history you could say. I read a part of “Ad urbe condita” by Livy and amazing how direct the book is on its history.
I think the implication was a focus on the more strongly conserved folksy cultures and stuff. Whereas modern Romans are more... Italian. That having perhaps transformed to a great degree than others in the roughly two millennia.
