A coin commemorating the assassination of Julius Caesar, displayed in the Money Museum in Frankfurt, Germany in 2016.

The Roman Republic fell roughly 2,000 years ago, the culmination of a series of events including Julius Caesar’s assassination 2,069 years ago today. Yet the republic’s ruin still influences how we engage in politics today.

As a student who has spent the past five years studying Latin and Roman history, I was surprised by how often Rome comes up during political conversations, and how rarely people my age understand the references.

Today, more young people are paying attention to politics than ever, yet political literacy is still dangerously low. If students want to truly understand modern political debates, and eventually participate as voters, they need to understand more than just current events. They need to understand history, and there is no history more instructive about politics than Rome’s. 

America is not Rome, but the similarities are instructive. The fall of the Roman Republic came because politicians were more loyal to their political parties than they were to the people of Rome.

Rome’s constitutional office of dictator, a role intended to last only six months during a crisis, was used as a pathway to absolute and permanent power. The institution designed for the crisis became a tool of ambition.

The republic suffered the effects of repeated internal attacks. This includes Caesar’s famous act of crossing the Rubicon with his army. This shattered a centuries-old norm intended to protect civilian rule from the power of Rome’s standing military.

The Republic did not collapse that day, but it suffered a lasting blow. Before Caesar, such generals as Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla had marched on Rome before, turning political issues into military ones. Each time this happened, it solidified a precedent of abuse of power that made the unthinkable more and more real.

Republics falter when allegiance to political parties takes priority over allegiance to the citizens, when political conflicts become existential rather than procedural, when political violence becomes normalized.

Rome doesn’t just give us a warning for the future though. It also provides us with examples of civic virtue. Marcus Tulius Cicero and Cato the Younger saw public service as a duty rather than a play for power. Both were loyal to Rome over their own parties. But believed in a Republic run by law and order and fought to protect the systems in place.

Cicero was exiled from Rome because of his allegiance to justice and Rome’s laws, yet he later came back and continued to serve in government. Cato dedicated his career to the protection of Roman morals, fighting against the power of Caesar and the First Triumvirate.

But why Rome in particular? Because no other republic has a history so well documented or revealing. Rome is a unique example because of its detailed public record. We have enough information to know the major players and events across its history, along with the preservation of primary sources. This means we can see the arc of Rome and compare it to our own foundation, rise, fragmentation, and collapse.

Rome’s experience shows that Republics don’t fall overnight — they slowly erode and decline before ultimately collapsing under pressure. Although our structures of government are different, both Rome and the U.S. are republics grappling with inherent and systemic tensions. Many important figures in U.S. history have counterparts in Roman history.

One of the strongest advantages of understanding Roman history is understanding the impact on modern political language. We talk about republics, senators, demagogues, and strongmen, yet rarely understand the history behind these words. The history clarifies both their power and their danger. As young Americans prepare to vote, this gap matters. Political participation without the necessary historical context risks leaving choices to uninformed voters.

Not every student needs to or will benefit from reading ancient texts or learning to speak Latin. My goal is not to make everyone suffer as I have. It is to fulfill America’s great need for civic literacy. Even in its most basic form, it gives a wider view of the implications and outcomes of actions and decisions that they will be forced to make headlines and social media won’t help with. 

America is not Rome. Although history repeats itself, it rarely does so cleanly. Still, understanding Rome gives us a vocabulary for recognizing pressures on a republic before it erodes beyond repair. If we want future citizens who are not just politically passionate but also politically literate, then Roman history should not be a niche elective. It should be an essential and core subject of study.