Staff Blog
JUST DO IT: “Ancient Rome & America” tonight at the National Constitution Center
posted by Carolyn Huckabay
The National Constitution Center’s multimillion-dollar “Ancient Rome & America” exhibit has been on display for months, so why are we nagging you to go see it on a random Thursday evening? The reasons are twofold:
- The exhibit closes on August 1, which means your history-buff heart has but three days to catch the NCC’s collection of 300 Italian and American artifacts; and
- It’s “$5 after 5 p.m.” night — if you head Independence Mall way after work today, you’ll save $15 on admission, which is a pretty sweet deal.
If you’re still not sold on the idea, read what Shaun Brady had to say about “AR&A” in a February edition of the City Paper and prepare yourself to get seriously schooled:
Having just overthrown a king, America’s founding fathers were understandably averse to monarchies, shunning the trappings of royalty while laying the groundwork for the new nation. Empire, on the other hand. … It seems the cultural and political innovations of the ancient Romans had long since eclipsed its more tyrannical tendencies in the thinking of those colonial revolutionaries. Accusations of American imperialism get raised like alarm bells at the outset of every modern war, but the idea — and its uneasy relation to the country’s self-professed values — is as old as the Constitution itself. The National Constitution Center’s exhibition explores the links between the two societies, with artifacts including toga-clad busts of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin that echo classical examples and clash awkwardly with those leaders’ populist mythologies.
“Ancient Rome & America,” through Aug. 1, $5-$20, National Constitution Center, 525 Arch St., 215-409-6700, constitutioncenter.org.
