A Lesson From Rome: You Cannot Welcome Armed, Unassimilated Enemies and Expect to Survive

In the Louvre there’s a famous painting by the French Artist Jacques-Louis David depicting the Intervention of the Sabine Women. In it the Sabine men, whose daughters were stolen by and then married to Romans in the mid-8^th century BC, returned to avenge Roman treachery and retrieve their offspring.  The scene depicts a woman standing between the belligerents, imploring them to cease fighting:  "If you are weary of these ties of kindred, these marriage-bonds, then turn your anger upon us; it is we who are the cause of the war, it is we who have wounded and slain our husbands and fathers. Better for us to perish rather than live without one or the other of you, as widows or as orphans."

The men stopped fighting and eventually the Sabines became Roman citizens. This strategy of conquest and integration would characterize Rome for much of the next 1100 years. Other than perhaps Egypt, most conquered lands became essentially Roman. This is demonstrated by the extensive Roman ruins found in places like Britain, Portugal, Algeria, Turkey and more.  Although most would never become Roman citizens, their lives would have had similar characteristics throughout the Empire. What’s more, when armies would attack Rome, when they were defeated, which they almost always were, the Romans would sell the women and children (who sometimes traveled with armies) into slavery and the men, if not sold into slavery, would be conscripted into the Legions, but sent to regions far from their native lands.

The result of this was that for most of its history Rome faced relatively few consequential internal rebellions beyond civil wars between rival generals. With the 4^th century AD however, that would change. As the Huns moved east from the steppes they began attacking various tribes who would then plead with Rome for asylum. Sometimes willingly and sometimes not, the Romans allowed the Goths, Vandals and others to move into the Empire. But what was different now was that rather than breaking up these foreign powers and disbursing their members throughout the Empire, the Romans allowed them to settle intact on Roman lands. Armed groups living in their own communities, separate from the Romans and maintaining their cultures with no assimilation demanded.  This would be a recipe for disaster and Rome, which, having lasted for more than a millennium, was gone within a century. 

The leaders of the United States and the EU should have paid a little closer attention in history class because they’re mimicking the Roman Empire of the mid-4^th century…

In both places politicians have either tolerated or encouraged an open border for much of the last quarter century with the result being that the United States today houses upwards of 30 million illegal aliens while in Europe the number may be half that.

In both cases, most of the immigrants crossing the borders come from countries with far higher crime rates, far lower income levels and much different cultures.  In the United States illegal immigrants largely come from Mexico and Latin America while in Europe they come from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries in Asia and Africa. 

As immigrants have often done throughout history, when they move to a new place they seek out brethren from their home countries or people which whom they share customs or languages.  Indeed, that’s exactly what the Italians in New York did at the turn of the century. 

The difference here however is that when the Italians moved to New York or the Irish moved to Boston, their goal was to integrate and become Americans. Today’s immigrants to the United States don’t seem to have that same desire.  They may want to become citizens so they can stay permanently, but that doesn’t mean they want to be American.  Indeed, half of American Hispanics are from Mexico and a significant portion of them believe that America’s Southwest is stolen land that rightfully should be returned to Mexico.  At the same time, most of Europe’s newly arrived are from Islamic nations and their allegiance is to Islam, not their new homes.

That’s a problem because successful societies are built around core, fundamental values that are shared by the overwhelming majority of the population. Ideas such as free speech and freedom of religion, individual rights and private property – to various degrees, while they were not always core tenants of western civilization, are so today, or at least were until quite recently.  Without those shared fundamental notions it’s difficult for western nations to function properly. 

It's one thing for a nation to have competing powers within the existing framework, think Democrats and Republicans, but it’s another thing all together if the competing power wants to split off a quarter of the nation or wants to impose Sharia law. 

Recent events have demonstrated exactly how deep the problems are. Across Europe over the last two years there have been giant pro Hamas demonstrations, some of which devolved into violence.  Across the United States Donald Trump’s attempt to begin to ramp up deportations has been met with violence against ICE agents and in California, it devolved into riots with law enforcement members being pelted with rocks, bottles and various incendiaries while cars were set afire, stores looted and the LAPD headquarters attacked.

Of course, demonstrations and riots happen in any country, but when they are symbols of a bigger fissure that’s a problem. 

In both cases these illegals and their predecessors, many of whom have been legalized, seek to fundamentally change the nature of the countries they now call home. Of course invaders always want to change the nature of the place they invade, just as the Romans did as they were growing their empire.  The difference is when the Romans invaded a new land the people already there usually fought them to maintain their culture. They usually lost, but at least they had enough pride in their culture to fight for it. What we see across the west today is just the opposite.  From Sweden to the UK to Spain and the US, leaders have for years worshiped at the altar of guilt and sought to repent by welcoming millions from cultures far different than their own.  Most of these leaders have been under the delusion that if they welcome these invaders with open arms, give them shelter, food, phones and more that they’ll somehow respect the culture of their new homes and assimilate accordingly. 

Not only did they not do so, but rather many attacked the very people and culture that welcomed them. From skyrocketing rapes and bombings in Sweden to knife crime and rape rings in the UK to drug dealing and taking over apartment complexes in Denver, these illegals have made it perfectly clear that they see their new homes not as refuges from some dysfunctional dystopia, but rather as fertile ground to be exploited. They have no intention of assimilating, and in reality, who can blame them?  If a nation doesn’t care enough about its citizens and its culture to protect them, why should anyone else? 

Here in America we finally have a leader who understands the danger and is doing something about it.  If the leaders of Europe don’t follow Donald Trump’s lead soon they may find that it’s too late.    

 

Follow me on X at @ImperfectUSA

First published on June 11, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/06/learn_from_the_romans_you_cannot_welcome_armed_unassimilated_enemies.html

Commodus, Nero and the Punk Next Door, or at the Gas Station or in Walgreens...

From Madison reading Cato and Cicero when framing the Constitution to the outsized impact both Rome and America had on the world around them, the United States has long been associated with historical Rome.  There are great similarities, and there can be much to learn. 

When most of us think of the worst emperors Roman in history we think of names like Commodus, Nero, Caligula and Elagabalus.  To a man they were vain, self centered, bloodthirsty hedonists who took what they wanted and tortured and killed many thousands of Romans and provincials. 

All emperors, including the great ones like Augustus, Trajan and Aurelian had blood on their hands to one degree or another, but most tried to maintain or grow the empire.  Commodus et. al. didn’t.  Their goal was to satiate their lusts, whether literal lust, or gluttony or sadly, bloodlust.  While there were other bad emperors, these four are among the worst.    

What makes this relevant today is the fact that all four of these “men” were spoiled, pampered, entitled sadists who were given free reign when they were still essentially children.  Commodus was the oldest at 19, while Nero was 17 and Elagabalus and Caligula were both 16. 

They were overindulged brats who never faced consequences for their behavior.  They were given virtually anything they wanted, or just as often, allowed to take what they wanted with impunity. And it was at those ripe young ages they were literally given the keys to the kingdom and unleashed on the Empire and virtually everyone in it suffered as a result.

Every day in America we see modern day Commoduses or Caligulas wreaking havoc on our streets and in our stores, restaurants, schools and more.  Instead of a single entitled Emperor, America in 2022 is being ravaged by a generation of young men – many of whom have grown up fatherless – who have been told that they can do and say anything they want and that regardless of what they do, there will be no consequences for them. 

Just as Elagabalus et al brought nothing but blood, despair and dysfunction to the Empire, these 21^st century youth are bringing blood, despair and destruction to America. A generation of Americans has grown up being given “time outs”, “participation trophies” and grades that have nothing to do with actual academic success, while at the same time they’ve been told that all inequality is due to racism or sexism or homophobia or anything other than individual choices or actions.  The consequence of this indoctrination is that far too many young Americans think they can do anything with impunity.  If they want something they take it. If they’re mad about something they protest, disrupt the lives of everyone within shouting distance and frequently riot.   They assault, rape and sometimes even murder, increasingly with impunity. 

Pat Moynihan predicted much of this 60 years ago in his “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action."  In it he “…described through pages of disquieting charts and graphs, the emergence of a “tangle of pathology,” including delinquency, joblessness, school failure, crime, and fatherlessness that characterized ghetto—or what would come to be called underclass—behavior.” 

While most of the scenes of flash mobs, carjackings, Knock Out Game punches, subway shovings and daily shootings involve black male youth, this is not a race issue.  Yes, the problem is disproportionately black, but white and Hispanic America is increasingly experiencing the same challenges of unwed mothers, school failures and the lack of responsibility that underpins much of the dysfunction.  Whether a California college student getting 6 months for rape, a Texas boy getting no jail time for killing four people in a car crash or charges being dropped against a South Carolina boy for killing someone in a boat crash, unaccountable America spans across races, wealth, and indeed the country itself.  This is nowhere better demonstrated than by the legions of rioters who participated in the “peaceful protests” of 2020 who found their charges dropped or their bails funded by the glitterati.   

These unrestrained youth highlight the existential threats to America today:  The lack of accountability and individual responsibility.  To the degree that America’s leaders have spent more than a generation telling youth they’re nothing more than products of others’ malevolent thoughts and actions and are not responsible for their own actions, they shouldn’t be surprised at the carnage we see across the country.  To the degree that single mothers and schools and increasingly DAs across the country are not holding youth accountable for their transgressions, they should not be surprised by the blood on their streets, the boarded up shops in their neighborhoods and the flight of families seeking safety and security. 

Since its beginning America has been a nation governed by the Rule of Law as opposed to the Rule of Man. Imperfect and sometimes unequal in its application, America’s Constitution has successfully guided the behavior of government (mostly) for more than two centuries and in doing so guaranteed citizens freedom and the prosperity freedom cultivates.  But that framework only works when citizens feel confident that justice and the laws are applied equally, or mostly so. When citizens begin to recognize Orwell’s “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" in their daily lives and on their streets and on their television screens, the civilization’s days are numbered.  Which is exactly what Americans are seeing today…

Nero, Elagabalus and the rest of that youthful cohort showcase exactly what happens when young men learn that accountability doesn’t apply to them.  When people aren’t held responsible for their actions, many will act accordingly, without restraints, unleashing a torrent of violence, excess and depravity that tears at the fabric of a civilized society. 

Which is exactly where America is in 2022.  If the country remains on its current path, one of coddling youth and ever increasing cries of victimhood combined with the acceptance of rampant crime, ubiquitous homelessness and public drug abuse as the price of addressing “inequality”, it will lead to an acceleration of the breakdown of civilization.  As more citizens feel like they cannot rely on government to provide security and enforce societal norms, they will increasingly take matters into their own hands. They will look for vigilantes like a Charles Bronson character to step into the gap, or more likely, many will choose to arm themselves as they increasingly feel they need to become the next Bernhard Goetz. But 2022 America is not 1994 New York… indeed it’s worse.  Thugs are bolder, crimes are more widespread, and most of all, today everyone feels vulnerable because they see videos of horrific crimes every single day, often in the parking lots of stores they frequent, at the gas stations where they fill up or in the subways they ride every day.  That’s a powder keg filled with 100 million armed Americans who are tired and frustrated and feel let down by a government that no longer cares about them.   

Unlike the citizens of the Roman Empire, who were often stuck with whichever murderous psychopath emerged from the carnage to don the purple, Americans have an opportunity to guide their own society in ways that don’t involve assassination or subterfuge or armies marching against one another. We have the ballot box. We have recall petitions.  We have school board meetings and the right to peacefully protest – or at least we used to.  But… will the political and “elite” establishment listen, or will they continue to turn a blind eye to the calls for a return to a civilized society? Blood is already spilling.  The question is, will we get less of it or more?  The ideal is less.  But if the answer is more, the question becomes, whose will it be?  And who will do the spilling? 

Rome Long Survived Countless Incompetent, Narcissistic Emperors, Will America Survive Barack Obama and His Successor?

I'm writing this while sitting on a cruise ship that’s docked in Mallorca, Spain. I'm heading to France and have just spent 4 days in Italy. I've only had a cursory look at the news from home, and what I've caught has been depressing, like this entire election cycle.

One of the most interesting things about this trip thus far - other than the obvious visits to Pompeii, the Coliseum and St. Peter's - has been observing how things work - or don't - and talking with people who live in Italy. The first thing you discover in Naples is that the place is absolute chaos. Driving is life threatening, things are expensive and the trash situation is a disaster. And that is from a tourist perspective, and we get to see the city's good side! For Italians it's far worse, particularly businesses, and it's not just Naples. The Italian government takes half of your REVENUE, strangles you with regulations and can’t provide basic services for anyone. At our Rome hotel our host asked us to make sure we turned off the light in the room because electricity is so expensive it might be the difference between his breaking even or taking a loss on our stay. A friend living in Naples told us that Italians rarely turn on heat in winter because the price of gas is too high.

This all comes on the heels of my having listened earlier this year to the History of Rome podcast. The most interesting thing about that history was the fact that the Roman Empire lasted for over 500 years... Or 1,500 years if you count the Eastern Empire. They had some spectacular rulers such as Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius, and some of the worst in Caligula, Nero and Domitian. You would somehow think the Empire couldn't survive such incompetence and perniciousness, but somehow it would. So you ask yourself, cannot America survive whichever disastrous candidate emerges victorious from the 2016 election? If the Roman Empire could survive 500 years can't the US survive Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? The truth is, I'm not sure, and I lean towards no...

Rome may have been a sophisticated empire, may have built thousands of structures that have survived two millennia, but make no mistake, the Rome that built an Empire and ruled the known world was a brute power. They survived by waging war on their enemies and taking their resources. As long as Rome was at war and winning, it was (mostly) strong. What's more, the Roman Empire was a dictatorship. The position of Emperor was usually passed from Father to son - sometimes adopted for that specific purpose - but there were countless coups where the resulting emperor was the man who controlled the most powerful legions or the one who bribed the Praetorian Guard. In essence Rome was a dictatorship that survived by taking the resources of its neighbors and supplicants.

But America is not that. Although the United States did grow partially by winning wars against the British, Indians, and others, geographically it has been largely static for over a century. We even gave up wide swaths of land – or more accurately, didn’t take them – after having won wars across the planet. In addition, the United States has never been a dictatorship. It has always been a nation where the leader has been elected by citizens, if indirectly. More importantly however, it has been a nation where the Constitution reigned supreme. From John Adams to Abraham Lincoln to Richard Nixon, the Constitution ultimately ruled the day. The limited government based on that Constitution is what has made America the most powerful and important nation in human history. We’ve sat atop of the world's hierarchy of power and influence for over half a century not because we subjugated our neighbors but because we inspired the world with individual freedom and economic opportunity that were based on that limited government. At the same time the economic prosperity sown by our freedom was coupled with a military position that largely dissuaded enemies from attacking us and our allies and gave much of the world confidence to trade somewhat freely with one another.

In November of 2016 however we find ourselves at a point where everything that has made America great is in peril, and the wound is self inflicted. At least the Roman people had the "excuse" that they lived in a dictatorship. Americans don't have that excuse. Not only is the culture under assault from within and without, far more importantly, the primary notion that government is limited to only those things it is specifically empowered to do is lost. Today the government is involved in virtually every aspect of American's lives. That is a recipe for economic stagnation and political ruin. Take a look at the remains of the Roman Empire to see the future of America... Italy – and much of Europe – is an economic basket case and quickly becoming a cultural one as well.

Government is a borg that grows until it is stopped. Our Constitution used to do that. Today it no longer does. Unlike the Roman citizenry who often found themselves ruled at the end of a sword, Americans have willingly put themselves in this position. Not only by putting two reprehensible human beings, two power hungry narcissists in a position to rule the country, but by buying into the notion that the government is the first and best vehicle for solving virtually every problem. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and there is the core problem: Americans, or an increasingly large portion of them want the government to take care of them, from cradle to grave and everywhere in between. Whether it’s providing them with an income, protecting them from evil businesses or limiting the offensive speech of others, we have become a nation of citizens who can no longer take care of themselves or aren’t willing to do so. Either way, with Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in the White House individual freedom and economic liberty will continue to shrink. So too will prosperity and much of what remains of the American Dream. One wonders what will be the legacy of America in 2,000 years. No doubt, if someone is writing a history of America and chronicles her demise they will surely include Barack Obama and his successor as key players to her downfall, but the primary culprit will have been the American people, who voted to have the government replace individual liberty, individual responsibility and common sense.