Paris, a New Rome

However shared the Roman inheritance may be, it hardly unifies. Which Rome is the model, the Republic or the Empire? The Rome of imperial conquest or of civil war? By whom is it ruled? By the glorious conqueror who extended universal peace, the rule of law, and infrastructure roads and aqueducts or by the detested tyrant who imposed domination? Or worse, the corruptor of republican liberty and source of putrefying decadence? Rome always returns, but which Rome? France presents itself as a privileged locus for Romes return since the beginnings of its history. The perennial recourse to ancient Rome as model or anti-model binds together a cohesive tradition. The logic of this gesture asserts a unity beyond modern identity politics, which depend on defining a them against us, to resist nativist assumptions about national character, French, German, Italian, American, etc. All share the same polysemous inheritance, for good or ill. All are Roman and all resist Rome without needing to agree on what exactly is shared. The unity underlying the discourse, however, no longer depends on defining Rome as an origin. Instead, Romes figuration persists discursively, as a translation: to be translated time and time again.