Modern people as Romans

Modern people as Romans is the analogy Richard Ellsworth Savage makes after witnessing Woodrow Wilson’s official visit to Rome: the United States, despite its language of humanity and peace, may be repeating the imperial habits symbolized by ancient Rome. The idea takes shape through a contrast between Wilson’s public words and Richard’s private response to the Roman Forum, and it turns a ceremonial visit into a test of whether political power can remain humane.

Definition and Historical Frame

The analogy arises during the three days of official functions surrounding Wilson’s visit. Richard attends receptions, listens to speeches in Italian, French, and English, salutes, and maintains the stiff posture expected of a military participant. The ceremonies place him close enough to hear an exchange in the Roman Forum, where an Italian guide connects the ruins with the great war. Wilson answers that the stones should be understood not merely as remains but as enduring symbols. The setting makes the past an active part of the present: the dignitaries stand among Roman ruins while discussing a war whose meaning and aftermath remain unsettled.

The exchange also establishes the competing claims that animate the concept. The Italian speaker suggests that Americans possess something greater than the ruins, something carried in their hearts. Wilson responds by presenting Americans’ love of humanity as their greatest source of pride. His statement offers a moral distinction between the United States and Rome: American greatness, in this account, rests on humane feeling rather than imperial stone. Richard’s subsequent interpretation challenges the assurance of that distinction.

The Forum and the Image of Power

Richard’s account of the visit centers not on the full program of receptions but on two images: the gold replica of the wolf nursing Romulus and Remus, and Wilson’s face at the Forum. He recalls the replica as part of the ceremony in which Wilson was made a Roman citizen, linking American state ritual directly to Rome’s founding myth. He remembers the President’s face as cold and stony, an impression that makes the modern leader seem continuous with the ancient setting rather than morally separate from it.

The physical arrangement of the Forum reinforces the analogy. Wilson’s silk hat rises among worn columns and courses of dressed stone; the dignitaries gather to hear his measured words, then move on when the exchange ends. Richard sees the President’s public image against the remains of an earlier power and finds the resemblance unsettling. His reading is not presented as a neutral description of Wilson: it is Richard’s response to the scene, sharpened by the contrast between the President’s humane rhetoric and the monumental setting in which it is delivered.

Richard’s Reversal of the Promise

That evening, at Ed Schuyler’s apartment, Richard recounts the official receptions to Anne Elizabeth. He turns the Forum impression into a larger claim: people of the twentieth century are becoming Romans, although he had always wanted to be Greek. The opposition is less a historical account than a moral distinction in his speech. Rome signifies power that hardens into domination; his wish to be Greek expresses his refusal to accept that as the inevitable form of modern life.

Richard’s alarm is directed at the difference between Wilson’s promise and the hopes attached to it. He thinks of people in peasants’ huts praying for the President and expecting him to bring peace and restore the familiar world before the war. Against that hope, he imagines them being ground underfoot and compares the situation to the sack of Corinth. The comparison makes the Roman past a warning rather than a source of national glory: a political figure welcomed as a bringer of peace may still belong to a system that subjects ordinary people to power. Richard does not claim that the promised peace has already failed; his speech conveys fear that the promise may not protect those who place their faith in it.

Humanism and the Intimate Ending

Anne Elizabeth, a great admirer of Wilson, is initially annoyed by Richard’s criticism. Their disagreement gives the analogy a personal stake: his suspicion of the President unsettles someone who regards him with admiration. As Richard continues, however, she listens and recognizes the artist’s moral unease. She has broken her pledge not to drink and shares hot rum with him in the chilly apartment; from the window, the Spanish Steps and the crowds continually passing through the streets frame their conversation without resolving its political argument.

Richard’s plea is ultimately that people should remain human rather than become stone-faced and unfeeling. Anne answers by calling him an artist and her poet, affirming her love for him; Richard embraces her. The scene does not show him withdrawing his criticism or Anne abandoning her admiration of Wilson. Instead, affection gives them a way to remain close across their difference. The concept’s force lies in that unresolved contrast: the official language of humanity sounds vulnerable to the very structures of power represented by Rome, while Richard’s artistic refusal to become a Roman is sustained, for the moment, by a private bond.