Mark Zuckerberg / Instagram
Facebook co-founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg‘s ‘Roman Empire’ is, in fact, the Roman Empire. Like many of us, the Roman Empire is something he thinks about everyday. He was even wearing a custom Roman Empire t-shirt on his 40th birthday.
Mark Zuckerberg has taken his appreciation of the Roman Empire one step further and revived the ancient tradition of building honorific statues of powerful women and wives, a tradition that is often dated back to the emperor Octavian (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, 27 BC – 14 AD) who built statues of his sister Octavia and his wife Livia, kicking off a centuries-long grand tradition of showing women the respect and honor they deserve.
Zuckerberg unveiled the new statue with a post on Instagram. The incredible piece was commissioned by New York sculptor Daniel Arsham. Slide to the right on the gallery below to see a video of the statue in addition to the photo:
If I had the means, I would 100% build a statue of my wife as a tribute. My wife hates attention and might attempt to murder me if I built a statue of her but she’s the bedrock that keeps our household together and deserves all of the praise in the world. The same can be said for Dr. Priscilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg’s wife and mother of their three children, who he has been with since his days at Harvard when he co-founded Facebook.
In November of last year, he actually shared the full story of how he met his wife while he was thinking he was getting kicked out of Harvard at the time. On Instagram, he wrote “20 years since our first date. We met at a going away party my friends threw for me in college when they thought I was about to get kicked out of school. I asked her out but told her we’d need to go out soon since I might only have a few days left. Later on I started Facebook, we got married, and now have three wonderful girls. What a wild ride.”
Mark Zuckerberg turned 40-years-old back in May. His wife is coming up on that milestone early next year and I find it even greater that Mark didn’t wait to debut this statue for hir birthday and instead gave it to her on a Tuesday in August. Let this serve as a reminder that we don’t need a special occasion or milestone to lift up, honor, and pay tribute to the women in our lives.