In my mid-twenties, I visited Ostia Antica, a massive archaeological site just outside of Rome. As different as the Romans were from the culture and the world I grew up in, the city itself felt remarkably familiar: a cemetery, a main street, a theater. Just around the corner from the churches and temples was a little sports bar with mosaics of favorite wrestlers on the floor. You can just imagine a rowdy crowd leaving weekend worship and heading to the local bar for wings and a cold one (or, in the Roman case, lamb with garum and an amphora of wine). It was a reminder that, as humans, more ties us together than keeps us apart.
