Rome and The United States of America share titles of world powers, while being divided by thousands of years. Looking at each of these great nations, a myriad of similarities evolve, almost as if the United States is an altered Blueprint of Ancient Rome. The basis of both civilizations possessed an overwhelming military strength that may be attributed to the success of each nation. No other country has been dominant culturally, economically, technologically, and militarily in the history of the world since the Roman Empire."(Krauthammer, 2004) The United States of America has the makings of a vast empire, being a leader in all of the aforementioned areas. If you were to take a citizen of the current day United States and put him/her in Ancient Rome, I feel that aside from the obvious cultural differences, that person would notice that day to day life would not be that much different from that of life today. One characteristic that is quite prevalent in both time periods was the role of the wealthy with in a society. While neither Rome nor North America has a caste system, one's life may be determined by the wealth of his/her parents. "Both empires are directed by a ruling class that wants it all, a ruling class that gives less and less to the people, making them pay all the taxes, while those at the top pocket all the wealth; a ruling class that prefers maximizing its wealth rather than protecting or serving the needs of the common people. We see that in the United States today, where there is a basic antagonism between democracy and multinational corporate, and finance capital."(Parenti 2004) When I stop to think of the topic of this paper I can not help but notice a number of the topic are things that are still thriving today. Practices such as a democratic government and an uncontested military strength are what allow the United States to remain dominant in the world, but it is the smaller things that ...