What is the Roman Empire trend on TikTok?

A trend of people asking the men in their lives how often they think about the Roman Empire has gone viral on TikTok. People are also starting to refer to things as their “Roman Empire” – but what does it mean?

A viral premise making the rounds on social media is alerting many wives, girlfriends, and partners to a shocking fact about the men in their lives: they regularly think about the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire refers to a territory 2,000 years ago comprising regions of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia that were ruled by emperors. Its innovations in culture, law, religion, and technology have had lasting impacts today.

With over 2.8 billion views in the Roman Empire tag on TikTok, people are clearly interested in the historic time period, but why are women now asking the guys in their lives how many times they think about it?

What is the Roman Empire trend on TikTok?

Back in August, Gaius Flavius, a Roman reenactor based in Sweden, shared an Instagram video to his 100,000 followers with an on-screen caption that read: “Ladies, many of you do not realize how often men think about the Roman Empire.”

This trend soon evolved to people referring to different topics as “their Roman Empire”, meaning that it’s a topic they think about daily.

The trend eventually made its way to TikTok. In a viral clip with 5.6 million views, the creator Sam Slupski recounted seeing the meme and querying their husband.

“He said every single day,” Slupski said, “and then we had a 45-minute conversation about the Roman Empire.”

In another video, TikTok Kira Kosarin asked her partner off-camera, who responded, “Three times a day.” The video received a whopping 7.5 million views.

Content creator Laine Bullinger also filmed her boyfriend responding to the question in a video with 6.2 million views, in which he deadpanned “not a lot – twice a week.” When she incredulously asked why, he responded, “They were the second most powerful empire.”

But is this really the reason men think about the Roman Empire so often?

Why do men think about the Roman Empire so much?

As the trend continues going more and more viral, women are perplexed as to why men think about the Roman Empire so much.

While some men have taken to comment sections to try to explain their fascination for the historic era, one TikToker even went as far as making an entire explanation video for why men think about the Roman Empire so often.

A man under the username themasculineedge on the platform made a TikTok with a caption that read: “Roman Empire trend explained from a man’s perspective.

“Men inherently have the need to conquer,” he said. “We always have and we always will. We want to conquer. We want to conquer everything. We’re adventurous. We need and seek that, and if we don’t have it then we imagine it.”

He continued: “There’s a quote: ‘The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation.’ If your man is thinking about their own empire and then conquering it’s because he’s not conquering enough in his life himself.”

However, not everyone in the comments believed in his theory. “It’s not just about Roman conquest, it’s about civilization, glory, honor, culture, longevity etc etc,” one comment read.

Another person had a different theory, writing, “It’s just interesting to see how big it got with its impact and to look at all the things the inventions and how they fell.”