There are very few people who know more about the history of ancient Rome than Mike Duncan. The creator and host of the tremendously popular History of Rome podcast, which first aired between 2007 and 2012, Duncan has essentially devoted his career to studying the inner workings of the Roman empire, also writing a book, The Storm Before the Storm, which appeared on The New York Times Best Seller List, on the topic.

So when a trend started circulating on TikTok of women asking their husbands and boyfriends how often they think about the Roman empire, only for them to immediately respond that they think about it on a daily basis, Duncan seemed like the perfect person to weigh in. As he told Rolling Stone on Friday, “the trend is so potent it pulled me back onto Twitter for the first time in months. I’m getting tagged by everyone about everything.”

Rolling Stone spoke with Duncan by phone to discuss ancient Rome, why men love it so much, and which celebrities think about it on a daily basis. (Mark Zuckerberg? Yes. Beyonce? Not so much.)

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

How did you first hear about this TikTok trend?
While I am not much on Twitter anymore, I started getting all kinds of tags and notifications about this one TikTok that was a woman saying that she asked her husband if he thought about the Roman Empire every day and without missing a beat, he said, “Yes, absolutely.” Which flabbergasted her and then has just sort of spread now throughout TikTok. [The] other thing is, in response to all of these, I’m being both tongue-in-cheek blamed for a lot of this, because a lot of people saying, “I think about the Roman Empire every day,” do so because they listened to the History of Rome, or are presently listening to The History of Rome. And so among a certain generation of podcast listeners, I’m quite a gateway drug to thinking about the Roman empire once per day.

You mentioned that the woman in the TikTok was flabbergasted that her husband thought about the history of ancient Rome that much. Were you flabbergasted by how quickly he responded to that question?
No, I laughed, of course, because it’s great stuff. The fact that you know, just without even missing a beat. The only thing that is surprising about it is that usually when guys think about something like the Roman Empire once per day, they often feel compelled to share the fact that they’re thinking about the Roman Empire. So it is a little funny to me that the women and their wives didn’t know that they were thinking about the Roman Empire.

That’s what’s so funny to me about it. It’s not even so much the answer as it is the fact that none of these men are surprised by the question at all. It’s like they’ve been waiting their entire lives to be asked this.
Oh, yeah. I mean, I’ve joked with friends of mine that the words that every man wants to hear is “what does SPQR mean?”

What does it mean?
“The Senate and the people of Rome.” And it’s the kind of thing that would be emblazoned on armor and helmets that the Romans are carrying around. You still see it every place in Italy.

What was your general reaction to the trend?
A couple of things. One is I think that people can conflate the the idea that somebody would think about the Roman empire once per day with the idea that the men in their lives are only thinking about the Roman Empire every day, that we’re sort of obsessively thinking about it nonstop. I think the Roman Empire is a historical topic, a hobby or an interest, that we all think about like the various other little hobbies and interests that we have in our lives at least once per day. I certainly have non-Roman things that I think about at least once per day. I’m a baseball fan, so I’m usually thinking about baseball at least once a day, I’m sure you have little things that are of interest to you to you think about once per day that aren’t all-consuming obsessions, but are just things that you’re interested in. It’s totally valid to be interested in the Roman Empire, and to study it and think about it. You have to be a real sicko like me to think about it constantly, every day, which is what happened to me when I started making the podcast and then write books about it.

The other thing is that I have a lot of women in my life and female fans, who themselves really love the Roman Empire and think about the Roman Empire. And so to have a lot of this be so thoroughly genderized — we all understand that if you were going to do a sample of who’s really into Roman history, it’s going to skew male. But you guys should a