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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8490790" data-attributes="member: 18">Sure we do, and it's not like we're spitting on it or whatever, but I think British people, especially under a certain age, are a bit less keen on the Romans, because we have at least some evidence of successful traditions wiped out by them (agriculture being one, not being massive misogynists being another - rumours of Celtic matriarchy are likely false but powerful women had far more of a place in Celtic society than Roman), and whilst neo-paganism never caught on, there's an innate sympathy for the Druids and so on, who Caesar was so proud of wiping out.Also we can see, I think, how Rome informed the British Empire, and was used as an excuse/model by the British Empire, and most people under 40 think the British Empire was a Very Bad Thing Indeed (as you get older, that changes dramatically - esp. with over-60s).There's enough of a split that Boomers felt the need to make pro-Roman propaganda pieces in the last couple of decades, to try and make younger people think like them via the BBC particularly. All of them are at least partly genuinely educational, but they're often extremely disingenuous, ignoring destruction and focusing solely on stuff the Romans imported to the UK (most of which Rome didn't invent, merely popularized, but that's often overlooked), and exaggerating a lot of stuff (one show basically gave the impression the Romans put paved roads all up and down Britain, which archaeology shows is absolutely not true - only about 20% of their major roads were paved, and most of their roads followed existing roads).Yup. You side with the winning side, not with the people who are getting crushed militarily and having their land taken away for being insufficiently Roman, and so on.The Romans also started the whole thing that the USA later mastered, where they'd sign contracts about land/ownership, everyone would be happy and so on, then the Romans would just go "Nah we decided to ignore that and are just taking your land".I mean, I don't think you can reject that logic so easily, given the huge amount of scholarship around it, but if you're saying as a mod we shouldn't discuss the Romans, I guess that's that.</blockquote>

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