Those About to Die Is a Lurid Sports Soap for Men Who Can’t Stop Thinking About the Roman Empire

The Roman Empire haunts the minds of men, as the women of TikTok recently discovered and reported to the world. That preoccupation doesn’t seem so silly when you think about the American Empire in 2024; we’ve got demagogues, doddering elder statesmen, unpopular wars, economic polarization, the odd assassination attempt, the increasing substitution of bread and circus for substantive political discourse. But are most guys really fixated on the way our decline mirrors that of our forefathers? Or...