The ideas that formed the Constitution: Plutarch
The historian Livy, whose influence with the founding generation was the topic of the previous installment, died in 17 C.E. In the two centuries following, the Roman Empire produced many other influential writers. The Roman Empire had a pair of official languages:...
The ideas that formed the Constitution: Livy
The two previous essays (here and here) observed that the final years of the Roman Republic and the first years of the Roman Empire produced some outstanding poets. This period produced some outstanding historians as well. The one with the most impact on the American...
The ideas that formed the Constitution: Virgil alone
The previous (ninth) essay in this series identified three Roman poets quoted by participants in the constitutional debates of 1787–1790—Ovid, Horace, and Virgil. The essay explained why Virgil was the most influential: “If the American Founding had a poet laureate,”...