The Glory and Legacy of the Ancient Roman Republic by Miguel A. Faria, MD

The ancient Romans expanded their power and influence by treaties, alliances, and wars, eventually controlling the Italian peninsula, assimilating the neighboring Etruscan culture to the northeast and the Greek culture in the southern part of the peninsula. From Italy, the Roman power extended over the littoral Mediterranean, gradually incorporating a large part of Europe, Asia Minor, and much of the North African coast–conquests in three continents, from the British isles to the Middle East. The Romans reached a pinnacle of civilization disseminating the Graeco-Roman culture stemming from the west and the Judeo-Christian legacy coming from the east–the two major pillars of Western civilization. In the words of The World Book Encyclopedia, “The Roman Empire was the highest achievement and the crowning glory of ancient civilization… Fifteen hundred years after the fall of Rome, Latin culture is still a vital force in the world… The Latin language still lives wherever Italian, French,  Spanish, and Portuguese is spoken.”

We should give specific credit to ancient Rome and Graeco-Roman civilization, not only disseminated to Romanized nations but also non-Latin nations of the West, such as Great Britain, and particularly the United States, where the system of laws and jurisprudence assimilated so much from ancient Rome in both form and substance. One may be surprised in visiting Washington DC–the American founders’ “new Rome on the Potomac.” One marvels at the architectural style of the government buildings in the city–the glorious classical Graeco-Roman architecture of the public buildings, such as the Capitol, the Supreme Court building, the various museums, Lincoln’s Memorial, the Union Station, etc.  It is as if there had been a wonderful rebirth of the new imposing buildings of ancient Rome and, with enough imagination, reconstruction of the Forum at the time of such Roman Emperors as Augustus,  Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, or even as far back as Caesar, reborn in the modern world.

Mortimer Sellers, Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore wrote a 1994 book in which he detailed how the ancient Romans contributed not only to modern languages, political science, government, and technology, but also art, literature, architecture, and engineering. The ancient Romans created a res publica (“in the public interest”) form of governance rather than a democracy (“majoritarian people’s rule”), which was an inspiration for modern republics, especially the United States of America. Roman civilization preserved and disseminated Greek culture and civilization, including the arts, aesthetics, literature, history, and philosophy. In religion, the ultimate contribution was immense–namely the assimilation and dissemination of Christianity, perhaps its biggest contribution.

Rome laid the foundation for the system of jurisprudence that later formed the basis of civil law in Latin nations, like France, Spain, Portugal, and countries of Central and South America. Even English-speaking countries, such as the United States, England, Australia and New Zealand, whose laws were based on evolving English common-law, were influenced by the Roman civil system. As world historians C. Brinton, J.B. Christopher, and R.L. Wolff noted, “…they [English-speaking countries] too, have shared in the enduring ideals of equity and natural law bequeathed by Rome.” As these authors correctly pointed out, the tradition of deciding cases according to the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law” was a Roman concept. Influenced by the Stoics and the lawyer and statesman Cicero, the Romans believed in the concept of “natural law”–a higher law, above those created by the state, that was divinely inspired and applied to all men in all states by virtue of their humanity. As the Roman statesman Cicero (106-43 BC)  proclaimed:

 [W]hat is right and true is also eternal and does not begin or end with written statutes….From this point of view it can be readily understood that those who formulated wicked and unjust statutes for nations, thereby breaking their promises and agreements, put into effect anything but ‘laws.’ It may thus be clear that in the very definition of the term ‘law’ there inheres the idea and principle of choosing what is just and true….Therefore Law is the distinction between things just and unjust, made in agreement with that primal and most ancient of all things, Nature; and in conformity to nature’s standard are framed those human laws which inflict punishment upon the wicked but defend and protect the good.

It is therefore with good reason that objective historians have with zeal and ample documentation described the glory that was Rome, the city founded on the Palatine Hill, which set down the moral and ethical standards that not only influenced developing Western thought, but in later centuries, preserved, fortified, and disseminated the Judeo-Christian legacy that was evolving in Western civilization.

If we look more pointedly and specifically at America’s form of government, which is not as easily seen, we also find more remnants of the great Roman legacy. We find not only the idea of citizenship, separation of and balance of power and, specifically, the creation of the United States Senate in its original form enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, but, as written in my book Contrasting Ideals and Ends in the American and French Revolutions (2024), the idea of the veto, of course, was developed from the tribunician power of the people’s tribunes of the Roman Republic. The Constitutional power extended to the U.S. Senate, both in foreign and domestic affairs, was inspired by the august power and prestige of the Senate of the Roman Republic.

But that great legacy to Western civilization seems to have been forgotten or ignored. What is remembered are the tragedy of wars and the brutality of gladiatorial entertainment in the Colosseum as depicted in Hollywood and the popular culture, or the reprobation that is launched by the progressive academia for this blood and gore and because slavery was ubiquitous in the Roman world. The Romans are not judged by the standards of their times but by the prejudices of modern academia. The fact that slavery was a fact of life worldwide, practiced by all ancient peoples is not mentioned. The chronicles have been revised by shallow learning, deliberate omission, political biases, and academic neglect, but all the facts, the good, the bad, and the ugly, that have been uncovered should be added to the historical mixture, as to reach the highest pinnacle of truth.

Article Written by Dr. Miguel A. Faria

Dr. Miguel A. Faria is Associate Editor in Chief world affairs of Surgical Neurology International (SNI) and the author of numerous books. This article is excerpted from his newly released book, The Roman Republic, History, Myths, Politics, and Novelistic Historiography (2025).

The First Book Review of The Roman Republic, History, Myths, Politics, and Novelistic Historiography by Dr. Russell L. Blaylock:

Dr. Miguel Faria has just written an incredible history review that is a history buff’s dream. The book is titled, The Roman Republic, History, Myths, Politics, and Novelistic Historiography. It is published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This is not a brief summary of events, but a book that explains, in detail, the events involved in the rise of the Roman Empire, the period of the Republic, and its evolution that eventually heavily influenced the American founding. We have all heard of things such as the Punic wars, the fall of Carthage, the rise of the Roman Republic, the Senate, and the eventual fall of the Roman Empire, but how many know the details of the wars fought, the internal dissension, the various names of the main characters and exactly who they were? This book is so well written it is a pleasure to read and difficult to put down. A significant portion of the book is a description and analysis of a series of historical novels on the Roman Empire written by Colleen McCullough called “The Masters of Rome”, a series of seven historical novels. Dr. Faria analyses her books in some detail, which is worth reading. In the last several chapters of his book, Dr. Faria goes into detail concerning what we inherited from the Romans in the formation of our nation, our science, our culture, and our architecture. One will not want to skip the appendix.

Russell L. Blaylock, M.D. is the president of Theoretical Neuroscience Research, LLC, Canton, Mississippi, a retired neurosurgeon, and the Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Neuro-Inflammation section of Surgical Neurology International (SNI). He has written numerous path-blazing scientific papers and books, including Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills (1994), Bioterrorism: How You Can Survive (2001), Health and Nutrition Secrets (2002), Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients (2003), and The Liver Cure (2022).

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