You don't have to throw the stone far to find crazy things on the internet, and most of those crazy things die out without much notice, but sometimes they pick up steam. Take for example this video from Donna Dickens claiming that ancient Rome never existed, which is currently on route to 1 million views:

"‘Rome' produced zero unique material culture. Zero primary documents. Zero radiocarbon dates of famous ‘Roman' monuments. It's a fictional homogenizaton [sic] of European indigenous culture by the church," Dickens says.

What is she talking about?

There are lots of ancient documents extant from Roman times, including gobs of biblical manuscripts like a letter from Paul to the Romans.

But wait you say, what about Dickens's credentials? She studied entertainment journalism while double-majoring in anthropology. She may have dropped out in her junior year from those studies, but now she has a TKD (a TikTok degree).

While most responses to her video are in the "Girl, you crazy!" category, there are some that are taking the bait. Dickens authoritatively calls her detractors "Rome bros" and quotes Ben Shapiro.

This video popped up last year, and real historians debunked it quickly, so it fell off the radar. Yet here we are with a viral rehash of whether ancient Rome existed.

Maybe in ten years, we'll have Rome truthers arguing with Rome bros on whatever platform replaces Facebook? There's something to look forward to.

It all seems ridiculous, but who thought we'd be arguing with people about how many genders there were ten years ago, or that the official government stance would have changed to being that there are more than two?

And what will happen to toga parties if we lose Rome to the barbarians again?