American Empire

Twentieth Century Atlas - 21st Century Predictions - American Empire: "The Roman Empire was ruled by an Emperor. In the intervening 2000 years, we've taken to using anglicized/russified/germanized variation of Roman terms like Emperor, Czar and Kaiser to label absolute rulers of vast territories, wielding godlike powers that pass with dynastic regularity from father to son across the centuries, but this represents a kind of semantic drift. The original meaning of the Latin word imperator was probably closer to the modern generalissimo. If the classical Roman Empire were planted in the modern world, we probably wouldn't call it a monarchy. It was more of a military dictatorship, and we'd call the emperor a strongman, a person who pulled all the strings, but didn't necessarily hold any fixed constitutional office or have any kind of title beyond princeps - first citizen. There wasn't any kind of established rule as to who became emperor after the old one died. Generally, the role fell to a close associate or adult relative with combat experience and influential connections. Almost as often, the office was grabbed by coup d'etat. It wasn't until the accession of Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius, that Rome got its first emperor born to the purple, that is, born to a father who was already emperor. That was in 180 AD, or 211 years after Augustus. Since American constitutional history begins in 1789, that would be the equivalent of seeing a major dynastic first in the 2000 election, let's say the first presidential son to be appointed to the presidency by the Supreme Court -- not that I'm implying anything." bright blue is more than 1000 US Soldiers, medium is more than 100, darkest blue is "use of facilities."