In upstate New York, it is possible to drive in one day from Troy to Utica to Rome to Syracuse to Ithaca, while passing through Cicero, Hector, Ovid, Solon, Scipio Center, Cincinnatus, Camillus, Romulus, Marcellus, and even Sempronius, who didn’t exist—he was a fictional character in Addison’s Cato.9 Downstate, overlooking New York City’s great harbor, towers a statue of a Roman goddess, though few today might recognize Miss Liberty, or Libertas, as such. Her upheld torch soars 305 feet above the saltwater lapping her little island.
