Nova Roma - Historical Contexts

Historical Contexts

Revival of things Roman and their co-option for symbolic importance have a long history. Nova Roma (in Latin, literally "New Rome") in its deliberate revival of grandiose remnants of the past thus parallels and echoes other New Romes such as:

  • the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire as a surviving embodiment of Roman ideals based on Constantinople (sometimes chartacterised as "New Rome" or the "Second Rome") after the decline of the Roman imperium in the West.
  • the doctrine of the Third Rome as justification for imperial Muscovite and Russian ambitions from the 15th century onwards
  • Mussolini's attempted construction of a Mediterranean-based New Roman Empire (compare Imperial Italy) in the early 20th century

Read more about this topic:  Nova Roma

Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or contexts:

    Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his high unprecedented way.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The “text” is merely one of the contexts of a piece of literature, its lexical or verbal one, no more or less important than the sociological, psychological, historical, anthropological or generic.
    Leslie Fiedler (b. 1917)