A history TikToker's viral claim that Ancient Rome 'didn't exist' is getting backlash from academics

The TikToker, whose handle is @momllennial_ has racked up 94,000 followers and 1.8 million likes since joining the platform in July 2020. Her bio states that she has a bachelor's degree in anthropology and history, and she has posted numerous videos about history, including Ancient Rome.

In one such TikTok posted on November 16, she said that Ancient Rome didn't exist and was "a figment of the Spanish inquisition's imagination." She also falsely claimed there isn't a single extant "Roman document" or "primary document," despite the reported existence of Roman documents and tablets with Latin written on them.

On November 23, she posted a follow-up video titled "Three Minute Video: Rome Thesis,". In the clip, she said her claim that Rome wasn't real was a metaphor, but that "there are massive gaps in the archeological record" and argued Greece was the "power player" of the time period between 4th and 2nd century BC, not Rome.

She acknowledged that Rome was "an empire," but compared the civilization's cultural and economic power to Disney or "the circus" in today's society.

She also claimed in a TikTok posted November 22 that Hadrian's Wall, a Roman defensive military wall, "cannot be proven to be of Roman construction" and that it's not a wall, but a road.

Maxwell T. Paule, a professor at Earlham College in Indiana with over 145,000 TikTok followers, spoke out against one of her claims that an old Roman document was actually Greek. In his video, he called her a "conspiracy theorist" and said the document is clearly written in Latin.

It's not the first time @momllennial_ has made provocative videos. In one video posted in late October, she appeared to suggest that the name "Jesus Christ" could be translated to "clitoris healer." In June, she posted a TikTok where she appeared to speculate that Alexander the Great was actually a woman.