re: Which ancient civilization is the most similar to America?

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How are we Rome? We have not conquered most of the civilized world, we don't base our success on the overtaking and acquisition of new territories. We certainly don't take the same approach as Rome in defeating our enemies, we don't wipe them out completely.

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1) Ask the Native Americans about that.

2) America has conquered tons of land. It's called Manifest Destiny. Look it up. America is satisfied with the amount of land it holds. It's from Sea to Shining Sea. We don't want more, or we would have conquered Canada and Mexico well over a century ago. What it isn't satisfied with is the lack of American ideology in the world, and we seek to conquer people in a different way. That's what we sought to do with countless countries, like Japan, China,Russia, and the most obvious example in Iraq. The average American doesn't understand why democracy doesn't appeal to everyone but power hungry maniacs. We now conquer through our ideology, not with soldiers.

3) It's no longer economically viable to conquer people like it was during the time of the Romans. If the Romans somehow survived to this day, their empire would be fractured much like it is today. Subjugating a people that are realistically a 3 month journey was a way of cutting costs back in the day, especially if you wanted to build roads. Plus some trade routes could take 5 or more years to complete. Now the world is much smaller than it was under the Romans, and the infrastructure is almost seemless that you can now make a physical trade with someone from China in less than 24 hours.

The reason we conquer far off people is for infrastructure and cost reasons. Once the infastructure was in place, then countries started getting out of the colony phase. It was no longer the smartest option. Everyone is now on the same page on how trade works, so it's now better to let different groups of people govern themselves instead of exporting soldiers to force these people to do it. If all technology went out and we went back to the Roman period of technology, you bet your arse we would begin conquering people again like the Romans did.

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I would say the British Empire was the most like Rome, and has followed a similar path of decline

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Britain is a lot like Rome, but you're ignoring the times when Britain was at its most powerful. It was at its most powerful when conquering nations and people was the economically viable way of doing things.

Aside from government structure, I don't see how we have that much in common with Athens.

So you just proved my point

First of all Native Americans were not nations that we conquered, they were people living in the land that we took.

Second of all the fact that we are satisfied with the amount of land we have makes us different than Rome.

Thirdly like I said in my last post, the majority of land we gained to accomplish Manifest Destiny was gained through purchases and not war

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First of all Native Americans were not nations that we conquered, they were people living in the land that we took.

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Great Britain (revolutionary war and war of 1812)
Axis powers (WW1and WW2)
Mexico (we may have paid them but kicked their butts back to mevico after the Alamo).

Which is more like Athens IMO. They were set on spreading their ideas and influence throughout the world, but weren't into officially "conquering" as much

The Egyptians, and Chickren is our God-King

Rome and its not even debatable.

The demise of the American Empire will be very similar to Rome as well and I hope I don't live long enough to see it.

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I still don't think Rome is the answer, Rome was never a part of another Empire like we were. Hell we are probably closer to Carthage than Rome

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That's just a downright ignorant statement.

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Carthage started out as a colony and grew into one of the premier powers of the world, dominating trade and markets around the world.
USA did the same...

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It's more than just that, it's about the mindset and structure. We have the same mindset, structure, and infrastructure as Rome did. Not as much with Carthage.