(20) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA??

Pax Americana. Washington DC – the Fourth Rome!

Friends, Romans, countrymen – we’re at the bottom of the Roman Empire iceberg here!

I’m joking. The United States has never claimed succession from the Roman Empire, nor has even the most tenuous basis for doing so – although “Americans have been comparing their country to Rome since its foundation” and “in shaping the new country, the Founding Fathers consciously hoped to copy the strengths of the Roman Republic and avoid its eventual downfall”.

Unless you accept such metaphysical fantasy claims as in the Percy Jackson series or in John Crowley’s “Little, Big” that the realm of Olympus or the Holy Roman Empire has transferred to it.

However, I’m joking and I’m serious. It is a claim that is so often made for it, not least by Americans themselves, that it has become something of a trope – often overlooking that the same trope was also used for the British Empire and its Pax Britannica. (Now people tend to deflect to the British or Europeans being the Greek predecessors to the American Romans).

In his preface to “The Fall of the West: The Death of the Roman Superpower”, Adrian Goldsworthy laments that “at certain sorts of parties” the discovery that he is an ancient historian “almost inevitably prompts someone to remark that ‘America is the new Rome'” – “more often than not this is followed by a smug, ‘Of course, they don’t see it.'”

As Goldsworthy opines, “any close look at the Roman Empire will soon reveal massive differences from any modern state, including the United States” – although of course there remains the point of comparison that the United States “is overwhelmingly the strongest country in the world and in this sense its position mirrors that of Rome”.

Bonus points for having as the most recognizable eagle standard in popular culture – and arguably that most closely resembling the Roman eagle in visual design (as opposed to species).

Also bonus points that it, like the latter-day Visigoths or Vandals that preceded and were driven out by it, the United States did technically meet my high-tier ranking criterion by occupying Rome from June 1944 in the Second World War.

And while on the subject of American connections to latter-day Italy, if nothing else the United States did give the world the Italian-American film Caligula in 1979 (produced by Bob Guccione and Penthouse) – which along with Suetonius (on which it is largely based) I take as gospel about the reign of Caligula and has influenced my perceptions of the Roman Empire in perpetuity ever since. No – this is not a subject in which I will entertain my debate. And yes – I strive where I can to reserve my final special mention for some kinky entry where the subject permits. I believe I’ve fulfilled that obligation.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(19) ITALY?

Well you had to see this one coming – although the Roman Empire may have shifted east, the city of Rome remained in Italy after all. I remember an internet meme to that effect, something about God punishing the Romans by turning them into Italians…

So naturally Rome became the focus of modern Italian nationalism, along with concepts of the revival of the Roman Empire or at least the revival of Rome with respect to a unified Italy – and beyond to a colonial empire and Mediterranean supremacy.

Italian nationalists such as Giuseppe Mazzini even promoted the notion of the Third Rome, although Mazzini substituted the papacy for Constantinople as the Second Rome – “After the Rome of the emperors, after the Rome of the Popes, there will come the Rome of the people.”

“After the Italian unification into the Kingdom of Italy, the state was referred to as the Third Rome by some Italian figures. After unification, Rome was chosen as capital despite its relative backwardness as it evoked the prestige of the former Empire. Mazzini spoke of the need of Italy as a Third Rome to have imperial aspirations, to be realized in the Italian Empire. Mazzini said that Italy should “invade and colonize Tunisian lands” as it was the “key to the Central Mediterranean”, and he viewed Italy as having the right to dominate the Mediterranean Sea as ancient Rome had done.”

And so the new Italy set about acquiring the crappiest of the eight modern major European colonial empires, partly because it was a latecomer from its unification in 1871 – and it was the only European power to be decisively defeated by one of its targets in Africa, Abyssinia or Ethiopia, at the Battle of Adwa in 1896.

Infamously, Mussolini also evoked the Roman Empire, referring to his regime as the Third Rome or New Roman Empire – perhaps most embarrassingly out of all my special mention revivals of the empire, not unlike an elderly relative trying to replicate some feat of their youth at a family gathering to look cool.

Or the sequel that no one wanted as per the meme of the original Roman empire as a TV series.

In fairness, he did manage to avenge the Italian defeat at the Battle of Adwa, (briefly) conquering Ethiopia, but if anything, this and other territory that he acquired such as Albania made his empire even crappier. The crown jewel of the Italian colonial empire, Libya, didn’t even have oil as they hadn’t discovered it then (and I recall reading even if they had it was beyond the contemporary drilling technology, although those two things probably overlap) – an irony that might have struck Rommel and his fuel-starved Afrika Korps had they known they were driving over some of the world’s largest oil reserves. That’s what happens when you try for a Mediterranean empire at least half a millennium or so after the world’s economic center of gravity had moved on from the Mediterranean.

Also in fairness, I should point out that Italy, even under Mussolini’s sequel no one wanted, did have Rome in it – my foremost criterion for high-tier ranking. So we might add another year for the fall of the Roman Empire – 1943, for the Italian surrender to the Allies in the Second World War. I have actually seen this proposed, although the person proposing it clearly had their tongue firmly in their cheek.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(18) GERMANY?

Similarly to Austria, Germany picked up the Holy Roman Empire ball and ran with it when unified under the Prussian monarchy as the German Empire in 1871, styled as the Second Reich after the Holy Roman Empire’s First Reich and with the same imperial title of kaiser derived from Caesar.

Hence the title of Third Reich, also touted to last a thousand years like the First Reich (spoiler – it lasted only twelve) – although apparently that was downplayed later as the Holy Roman association was a little too cosmopolitan and not quite, well, German enough.

In fairness, that last Reich did technically meet my high-tier ranking criterion by occupying Rome, if only for less than a year. It also had one of the most recognizable eagle standards, adapted from the Reichsadler of its imperial predecessors.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(17) GREECE?

Probably not too surprising that modern Greece would claim the mantle of the eastern Roman Empire as its former heartland.

Indeed, after Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire, it developed the “Megali Idea” or Great Idea “of recreating the Byzantine Empire, understood as an ethnic-Greek polity with capital in Constantinople”, or the “Greece of Two Continents and Five Seas” (Europe and Asia, the Ionian, Aegean, Marmara, Black and Libyan seas, respectively)”.

Apparently, the idea popped up in political debates in 1844, although of course it had older roots. And Greece took a swing at it in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 when the opportunity seemed to present itself with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. That didn’t work out too well for them, as while the Ottoman Empire was gone, the new republic of Turkey was not as down and out as everyone had first thought.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(16) AUSTRIA?

Yeah, Austria picked up the Roman succession ball through the Holy Roman Empire, which had essentially become a title held by the Austrian Habsburg monarchy while everyone else played along with it.

That is, until Napoleon Bonaparte came along and told them to drop it in 1806 – but the Austrians still ran with it for their own empire, borrowing from the imagery and symbolism of the Holy Roman Empire, not least with the imperial eagle as symbol, even after Austria became a republic.

That’s it, though – but arguably still not the wildest or most tenuous of my wild-tier special mentions.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(15) FRANCE?

Well, the French monarchy did snap up the title of Emperor of Constantinople from Andreas Palaiologos in his imperial title garage sale to Charles VIII in 1494 prior to him bequeathing it to Spain, for what either was worth.

Spoiler alert – it was worth nothing, although surprisingly the French monarchy apparently used the title until Charles IX could no longer keep a straight face about it in 1566.

And there it lay, until Napoleon Bonaparte, never one to lack for audacity, claimed the mantle of the Roman Empire at his imperial coronation as Emperor of the French in 1804 – albeit through the heritage of the Frankish and Carolingian Empires, as the founders of the Holy Roman Empire.

He imitated Charlemagne’s coronation as Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope, down to having Pope Pius VII at the ceremony. Although unlike that pansy Charlemagne, Napoleon crowned himself rather than having the pope crown him (embellished in historical legend as Napoleon snatching the crown from the Pope).

In fairness, Napoleon did at least achieve what is otherwise my high-tier ranking criterion of occupying Rome itself, which places his claim somewhat above other wild tier claims.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(14) SPAIN?

Hola, Caesar! Or is that ole Caesar!

Here we are, starting my wild tier successors to Rome, those states that tenuously staked their claims more to the myth or metaphor of Rome in nationalist terms rather than any continuity with the Empire. We’re at the bottom of the Roman succession iceberg here, people.

Of these wild and tenuous claims, I was surprised to find Spain has the most depth to theirs, arguably making it the least wild and tenuous of these wild tier claims (or higher up the iceberg). Don’t worry – we’ll get increasingly wild and tenuous as we go.

If nothing else, at least Spain gave us the term Latin as a substantial label for ethnicity – as well as for geography with Latin America, claiming one continent and a large part of another.

Firstly, there was its loose dynastic claim of succession, starting with Spain’s succession from the Visigothic monarchy as heirs or successors to the Roman Empire in Spain. Subsequent Spanish monarchs apparently used the title Imperator totius Hispaniae to assert equality with the eastern and Holy Roman Empires.

Those claims of succession became a little more concrete firstly when “the last titular holder heir to the rank of Eastern Roman emperor, Andreas Palaiologos” purported to bequeath what he saw as his imperial title and domains in Greece, themselves pretty tenuous claims on his part (particularly as he’d already purported to sell them to another special mention entry), to the ‘Catholic Monarchs’ of the now unified Spain, Ferdinand II and Isabella I, by his will written in 1502.

It gets a lot messier than that – with dynastic claims to the Crusader vassal states to the Latin Empire in Greece and the Spanish crown’s territories in Italy thrown in to the mix. Preempting something of a recurring meme in history, Andreas apparently had grandiose dreams of a Spanish crown crusade from its territories in Italy to reconquer the imperial claims in Greece and ultimately to Constantinople itself. Sadly however, the Spanish monarchy ignored “its Byzantine imperial titles”, although it did gain the title of “King of Jerusalem” from the pope and square off in war with that other claimant of Roman succession, the Ottoman Empire.

With Charles I, the Spanish monarchy also succeeded to the title of Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 – “the first time, since the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, in which the Romano-Germanic and Byzantine crowns coincided in the same person”, albeit that seems to me more like historical sleight of hand for both Charles and Charlemagne.

Anyway, Spanish claims to the succession of the Roman empire go on from these dynastic claims to include more broadly geopolitical and cultural claims – dare I say it, themes and memes of Roman empire – including the Spanish empire in the Americas.

“With all of this history in the Spanish Monarchy, Spanish nationalism claims that there is a legitimate ideological-dynastic (titles of Emperor of Constantinople and King of Jerusalem in the Spanish Crown, also in the past have been Holy Roman Emperor), geostrategic (kingdom of Naples and Sicily together, the conquests of North African plazas in Barbary, like Melilla, Ceuta, Mazalquivir, Oran, Bugia and Peñón of Algiers) and cultural basis (being a Latin country) to claim the inheritance of the Roman Empire.”

“This claim is also reinforced by the history of Spanish colonization of the Americas, which a lot of Hispanists claim is the definitive proof that Spain is the most accurate heir of Rome’s imperial legacy, as Spain was important for the culture of a continent, America (the New World), like Rome was to Europe (the Old World), some even claim that Spain surpassed Rome, since it also knew how to unify diverse peoples for centuries and maintaining cultural unity despite the imperial collapse. Even today there are opinions in which Philip VI of Spain is considered the nearest heir of Rome.”

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(13) SERBIAN EMPIRE (1346-1371 AD)

Okay, this empire and its claim to the Roman Empire came down to the man who made both, the Serbian emperor (Stefan) Dusan the Mighty. He was succeeded by his son Usok the Weak, but you can guess how well it all went after that by comparing their two epithets.

Dusan proclaimed himself Emperor – once again Tsar from Caesar – not only of the Serbs but of the Greeks or Romans as well, a title signifying a claim to the succession of the Byzantine Empire, then in the last century or so of its existence.

In fairness, he did put his money where his mouth was, having “expanded his state to cover half of the Balkans, more territory than either the Byzantine Empire or the Second Bulgarian Empire in that time” – including substantial territory conquered from the former in Greece.

Like the Bulgarian Empire or the Sultanate of Rum, it did not achieve my foremost high-tier ranking criterion of occupying Constantinople, but came close enough in the conquests for its claim to rank in high tier. And also like them, at least it staked its claim while the empire was still alive, albeit in its last century or so of life – ranking it above my wild-tier special mention entries who staked their claim to the empire’s corpse in the West…

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(12) SULTANATE OF RUM (1077-1308 AD)

Sadly that’s not a sultanate of the liquor in the style of Wallace Stevens’ poem The Emperor of Ice Cream – the Rum in this case is the Turkish word synonymous with the eastern Roman Empire and its peoples.

Its claim for the eastern Roman Empire was, like the Ottomans after them, one of conquest, albeit stopping well short of Constantinople itself or the complete defeat of the empire – but close enough for high-tier ranking, the second of two such special mention entries after the Bulgarian Empire. Their conquest was of the empire in most of the Anatolian peninsula, after the empire’s (in)famous defeat by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.

The Sultanate was a breakaway state that seceded from the Great Seljuk Empire in 1077, ironically only six years after Manzikert. They succeeded in secession – reaching the height of their power in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, but weakened by the Crusades succumbed to the Mongols in 1243 and finally leaving behind many smaller states, one of which emerged as the Ottoman dynasty, which truly fulfilled the Sultanate’s dream of claiming itself to be the successor to the Romans.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(11) BULGARIAN EMPIRE (913-927 AD)

The Bulgarian Empire – one of my two high-tier special mention entries that stopped well short of occupying Constantinople but came close enough to earn high tier ranking, wiping the Byzantines out of most of their Balkan territory.

That’s the First Bulgarian Empire and those dates are not the dates of that empire itself, which endured for about three and a half centuries, but the dates of its imperial claim (and height of its power) under its ruler Simeon the Great, when he took a swing at crowning himself emperor, conquering Constantinople and creating a joint Bulgarian-Roman state.

Well, one out of three ain’t bad, as Simeon was crowned “Emperor and Autocrat of all Bulgarians and Romans” by the Patriarch of Constantinople and the imperial regent – particularly when it set the trend for rulers styling themselves with the title of a Roman emperor, down to the usage of the Bulgarian word tsar standing in for Caesar.

As for the other two, what Simeon got was the bitter Byzantine-Bulgarian War from 913 to 927, with Simeon’s imperial claim ending with his death in 927, although the Byzantines had managed to backpedal it to basileus, effectively a sub-emperor position as “Emperor of the Bulgarians” – which continued to Simeon’s successor and was bolstered by dynastic marriage.

So how did that work out for you, First Bulgarian Empire? Not too well – once Emperor Basil II, henceforth known as the Bulgar Slayer, switched it around completely to conquer the Bulgarian Empire, creating that joint Bulgarian-Roman state after all.

The Bulgars didn’t go anywhere but ultimately struck back (after regaining independence) with the Second Bulgarian Empire from 1185 to 1396 – which strutted around calling its capital as the successor to both Rome and Constantinople, pre-empting Russia’s Third Rome.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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