What America's Founders Learned from Antiquity

Reliving the discovery of ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum, which brings the classical world vividly alive for 18th-century Europeans; Learning how founding-era Americans steeped in classical antiquity through their education and culture.

In the 1760s, ancient Rome becomes politically relevant to Colonial Americans; The colonists, predominantly farmers, draw upon Roman thinkers' notions of the farming class as the backbone of civic virtue, independence, and freedom.

From 1763, harsh taxation gradually erodes American colonists' contentment with British rule; tracing the colonists' response to British policy, they began to view the British as a tyrannical empire, drawing on both contemporary and ancient writings.

From the founding era until today, assessing America's associations with ancient Rome and how it becomes a part of the national fabric of America; Observing how these associations have shaped the nation's ideological dialogue and politics.

Investigating Americans' perceptions during the founding era of ancient Greece; Noting their selective admiration for Spartan military history, and their wariness of the perceived instability of Athenian democracy.

Beyond Rome and Greece, the founders take inspiration from ancient Carthage in North Africa, learning about their view of Carthage as a breakaway Phoenician colony with admirable government, whose major threats from Rome mirrored America's own.

Uncovering America's many associations with Ancient Egypt; Beginning with the Puritans' linking of their flight from religious persecution in England with the biblical Egypt of the Book of Exodus.

Of all the founders, Washington's life is the most publicly classical; Discovering how Washington used Greek and Roman sources to shape and give meaning to his own path; Observing his use of classical symbols at Mount Vernon and his public persona.

John Adams's political life is deeply rooted in Greek and Roman history; Tracing his route to the presidency, echoing his Roman hero Cicero as a lawyer and orator; Taking account of his writings denying the legitimacy of British policies.

Classicism infuses Thomas Jefferson's public and private life; Charting his classical education, "agrarian republicanism", and passionate advocacy for classical architecture; Witnessing his use of Roman political ideology in his revolutionary role.

Delving into the fertile mind of James Madison, and his rich contribution to the US Constitution; assessing his view of the classical world, and his faith; tracking the lessons Madison takes from ancient Greek political confederacies.

Learning how Benjamin Franklin's view of classicism differs from many other founders; Following his youthful career as a printer and in public service; highlighting his work to reform classical education and his advocation of Socrates' prescriptions.

America's founders draw inspiration from three prominent Roman historians: Livy, Sallust and Tacitus; exploring the ways in which the writings of these historians gave the revolutionaries a framework for understanding their own times.

Grasping how Enlightenment thinkers built on the Renaissance recovery of classicism; Learning about two historians who exemplify the Enlightenment approach to classical history, Montesquieu and Gibbon, and their influence on the American founders.

In fundamental ways, the education of the founders' era synthesizes the classical and Christian worlds. Figures such as educator Ezra Stiles and Thomas Jefferson both mixed Christianity and classicism in their thinking and teaching.

The US Constitution has deep roots in Greek and Roman political thought, noting the influence of Aristotle's Politics, Polybius's Histories, and the philosopher Montesquieu on the framers' conception of how to structure a government by the people.

The Aeneid inspires Americans with themes of progress and duty; its tale of empire-building both motivates and troubles the nation's founders and citizens.

Tracking the inspiration American women found in classicism, in challenging both British and male authority; Following women's adoption of classical personas, their efforts for broader equality and education, writing of histories of Greece and Rome.

The classical world affects even the enslaved in the Americas; Seeing how slaveholders view Greco- Roman slavery in relation to their own practice of enslavemens; Witnessing Black people's use of classicism before and after the Civil War.

Founding-era thinkers employ the lens of classical antiquity to comprehend the Native peoples of the Americas; Studying the colonists' use of classical texts, art, political theory, and language to classify and come to terms with unfamiliar people.

Americans reshape cities post-Revolution, showcasing republican ideals through classical designs in Boston and the newly created Washington, DC.

Neoclassicism thrives in American homes and gardens, showcasing simplicity, virtue, and patriotism in design and attire.

Explore early American portraits and landscapes, decoding classical symbols and themes from four pivotal painters of the era.

The legacy of American classicism thrives, influencing democracy, education, psychology and politics in contemporary society.