Nice try but they didn’t even speak English. It was more like “woof woof woof awooooo!”
“Hell of a start guys! Good effort all 'round! Let’s keep the energy going, okay?”
“We ordered a bunch of flatbreads topped with cheese, honey, and fruit for anyone who stays back late tonight.”
“Uh oh! Errr… chief! Bad news! How to say it… hmm… Now I get why someone was proposing to build the bakery first…”
Beneath a shady tree, the hero spread
His table on the turf, with cakes of bread;
And, with his chiefs, on forest fruits he fed.
They sate; and, (not without the god’s command,)
Their homely fare dispatch’d, the hungry band
Invade their trenchers next, and soon devour,
To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of flour.
Ascanius this observ’d, and smiling said:
“See, we devour the plates on which we fed.”“Wait 'til those fucking Persians see what we got planned!”
Also, guys - guys - we don’t have to do everything the greeks did, okay? Like, maybe we just drink the wine as is, and don’t bother watering it down?
“Look at this guy! What next, Mr. Innovator? How about we wear clothes when we exercise? Or maybe throw away our valuable urine?”
“Next thing you know, they’re gonna invite women to the orgies! Preposterous!”
“Hold on! I think Simplexus is on the something here…”
“Finally done.”
-Romans, the day before Rome began its gradual declineWell you know what they said “Babylon wasn’t built in a day” or sth.
Romulus and Remus after drawing a circle
Which came first: Rome or the romans?
The Romans.
There were a bunch of people living in the area, farming and worshipping the gods, who shared similar values and felt a certain unity. Those folks got together and started building a city.
But they weren’t romans tho, they only became romans when someone called the place “Rome” So in order for them to be called romans, they mustve vuilt the place and then named it. Before that they were called sth else.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
There were plenty of people living in the New England colonies before they started referring to themselves as ‘Americans.’
Maybe they called themselves Romans and were like hey what should we name our city? How about we name it after ourselves and call it “Rome”
“Ii’ve got a better idea” - Remus
“Not if I have something to say about it” - Romulus
People build cities, buildings do not, so I’m going to vote for people coming first.
The question is if they were considered and/or identified as Romans before there was a city called Rome
Ahh, but a better question is whether they were Roman before they had the name?
What does that mean to you? What is the essence of being Roman that preexisted the name?
Would a rose by any other name not smell just as sweet? And more importantly, would a rose still smell if there was no one around to sniff?
That doesn’t answer the question because all roses belong to the genus “Rosa”. So there is a common ancestor of all roses and every plant descendent of that ancestor is a rose by definition. I ask you for a definition of Roman that exists independent of the word and you have me an example that does have a definition that exists independent of people using the word. Romans, on the other hand are biologically indistinguishable from other humans. They look, smell and taste the same (allegedly).
The difference is that Roman is an identity marker and therefore a social construct. That doesn’t mean it’s not real. It’s like asking for a home no one ever lived in. Before construction, there is no house, just stone or wood or what ever. You could point to a cave and say “that could be a home” but it’s not a home unless someone lives there. A home doesn’t exist outside social reality. It might have different names but it needs humans it identity it as such.
For identity markers, the name is much more tied to the construct. The name can change tho. The first Christians didn’t identify as such. In fact, the word started as an insult and was later reclaimed. But you can trace back a social group that later grew to identity as Christians.
It’s not that a social group came to decide they need a city and than built Rome and live there happily ever after. I’m not sure but I guess it was a settlement that grew or sever settlements that merged or something but at no point was there a social group that meaningfully preexisted the city.
Same with modern nationalities. There is nothing biological that differentiates Germans from its neighbors. Just a nation state that invented German identity and everything distinctly German came later.