Mary Anne wrote the following:

>The growth of the United States has
>very much resembled the unification of
>Italy under the Roman aegis, involving
>the conquest of neighboring tribes, the
>absorption of other territories by
>treaty or economic means (purchase or
>overwhelming dominance in trade), and
>finally a consolidation of identity
>through foreign wars that established
>citizenship rights for individuals
>outside the kinship circles of the
>original founders.

I disagree. Rome under the republic expanded into the territories of the Etruscans and Magna Graecia, e.g. southern Italy and Sicily. Both the Greek and Etruscan societies were of a higher civilization and economic power than the Romans. The Romans were victorious because they were better organized and had a superior military structure. Also the silly Greeks always fought amongst themselves, making them easy targets. The United States during its westward expansion, conquered or purchased largely unoccupied territory. The Indians of the continental United States whose population had been decimated by European disease had a primitive culture similar to the European neolithic (this obviously does not include the very advanced Aztec, Mayan and Incan societies). The Romans fought hard for their land but the Americans really just walked into theirs, fighting brief wars against European/Mexican colonial powers and pacifying the odd band of hostile indians.

> After that, with the new power and
>wealth the wars brought to the
>victorious Republic, an expansionist
>policy was begun which ultimately led
>to the fall of the Republic and the
>rise of the Empire. Rome continued, and
>still resonates in history, but the
>Republic was dead.

Rome expanded as far as it could until limited by economics and technology. The Roman empire died from its own political contradictions and simple old age. People like to compare the American political system to the political system described by the historian Polybius. Polybius was one of mankind's greatest historians but his account of the Roman Republic's political organization was really just a caricature. He described Rome the way the Romans liked to be perceived by outsiders. However Polybius' description was really of the theoritical model and not the genuine article.

The historical analogue that I worry about in terms of the U.S. and the world is Athens and the Athenian empire. Read Thucydides' account the Pelopenesian War (Thucydides was the ancient world's greatest historian). Athens started out with good intentions and a very high culture, i.e. they were going to spread democracy through out the Greek world. However the territory under their influence devolved from an alliance of independent states into an economic hegemony of client states and ultimately into a brutal failed empire. Athens so irritated its neighbors that they rallied around Corinth and Sparta as Athens' enemies. Then Athens bleed itself white with disasterous foreign military expeditions (the worst was against Syracuse). Ultimately the Spartans crushed Athens and ended the Greek Classical age. This was a real tragedy (definitely of the Greek sort). If Athens had played it smarter, the Greek Classic might have lasted another century or two.

There's a warning here for us. We can destroy ourselves by spreading democracy through military means to states that are not ready for it.

Gary