Roman Values Today

When researching and presenting for our Roman values presentation,  I began to notice that many of the values of the Roman people then are still valued now.  (I realize that this is somewhat late, but I meant to write about this last week but I fell asleep before I could.) Some values such as manliness are not as valued today obviously, but still many of the Ancient Roman values still stand today. As the basketball season begins, I am certainly reminded of the importance of some of these values, mainly pietas. It is somewhat hard to define pietas now, but some scholars have define it as duty, loyalty, or devotion. Kevin Durant one of the best basketball players in the world was playing for the Oklahoma City Thunder, but two seasons ago during the offseason he signed with the Golden State Warriors. The Golden State Warriors were already arguably the best team in the world, so the addition of another top 5 player made them the definitive best. The Golden State Warriors won the NBA Championship with Kevin Durant last year, and continue to dominate. Many NBA fans saw this move as distasteful and egregious, and Kevin Durant over night became the most hated player in the NBA. Fans saw this move as a cheap and easy way to win the championship and a general lack of loyalty to his former team. After leaving the team, Durant even began to insult the Oklahoma City Thunder players and coaches on twitter, furthering the hatred. Even though the Ancient Romans lived more than 2000 years ago, we can still see how similar they truly are to us.