4 ms·

Some say it fell in the 1400s when Constantinople fell, if you ask the Russian orthodox church, russia is the old rome or something. Then there's that whole cat

• baxtr 6y ago
  The first time I visited Washington D.C. I thought this is looks like “New Rome”. So maybe it’s hasn’t fallen after all.
  • netcan 6y ago
    That's on purpose. In fact, even Rome built its public buildings and spaces to make it seem like the "new Rome," except that Rome to them was Athens or Mycenae. There's a very direct line of descent from the White House to bronze age greek public architecture. That template for a building has meant "power" forever, and that's the symbolism everyone always goes for.
    • lioeters 6y ago
      I'd like to draw that line further back to ancient Egypt, a wellspring of inspiration for Greek and Roman civilizations. In my mind, the line goes forward, reflects and refracts through Europe, the Catholic church, the Renaissance; the Freemasons, whose first lodges in America were in Philadelphia; the "Sons of Liberty" gathering at the Green Dragon tavern - among them Paul Revere; Ben Franklin, who commissioned the design of the Great Seal of the United States, with the pyramid symbolism; and reaches George Washington, the first U.S. President and Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge in Virginia. And who were masons but builders and architects? The morsels trace an admittedly sinuous and questionable lineage, lost and found across time and place, revived through myth and homage, and, I believe, still feeding some mad dreams of an empire.