I just recently realized how influential the Roman Empire was to Europe and beyond, and how it is really the biggest influence on Western civilization to date.

Empires rise and fall even in the West as we know it today, but how many can claim that they set the epoch date, year zero, for all of it? Or how they named most of Europe? Or how their language was lingua franca for Europe for thousands of years, and if some idiot politician wants to sound educated even today, they will still (try to) quote people from that empire in their thousands of years old language? And that despite the British Empire made their language the current lingua franca, Latin still survives? Language learning apps made by Americans in 2023 have Latin as an option because some people two and a half millennia ago managed to beat up more people than everyone else.

Even the whole "Putin wants to be Tsar" thing, the Tsars always wanted to be and claimed to be a Roman Emperor? Along with Holy Roman (German) Emperors, and I think the French (at least).

It's incredibly impressive.