Ancient Rome and the Constitution—Part III: Moral Lessons the Founders Learned From the Romans

The American Founders drew inspiration from the heroism depicted by Livy, accepted instruction from Plutarch, and shuddered in revulsion at the depravity descri

The glory days of Rome are still visible to us in the magnificent ruins left behind. “Roman Capriccio: The Colosseum and Other Monuments,” 1735, by Giovanni Paolo Panini. Public Domain

Commentary

This is the third installment in the “Ancient Rome and the Constitution” series. The first installment examined the place of Roman history and literature in Founding-era education. It also described the interest in Rome among the general population. The second installment thumbnailed the course of Roman history and listed six authors particularly influential to the founding generation’s political thinking: Polybius, Cicero, Virgil, Livy, Tacitus, and Plutarch. Polybius and Plutarch were Greeks, but they were Roman citizens and wrote extensively on Roman subjects.

The Constitution’s Adoption

In 1786, the delegates at a convention of states meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, recommended to their home states that they call a wider convention for the following May in Philadelphia to“take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union ...”