Ancient Rome's many social and economic achievements gave the Founding Fathers the confidence to set out a plan for building their new country in the Declaration of Independence.

As set out in my book Pugnare: Economic Success and Failure, how the empire informed the start of America is easy to see. As many of the Founding Fathers received a classical education, in Latin and Cicero, they would be well versed in how the structure of the Roman economy and society allowed it to spread its borders and increase trade.