Last month, in a ceremony at the Greek embassy in Washington, the US government officially returned 26 smuggled ancient artifacts to their home country of Greece. And a funny thing happened a week afterward. The news of the ceremony was broken first, not by a news outlet or even an official government account, but by an anonymous shitposter on X called @UpdatingOnRome.
@UpdatingOnRome, which posts under the display name “Daily Roman Updates,” alternates between posting memes about ancient civilizations and pro-Trump political commentary. The account is part of a community on X, often derisively referred to as “Roman statue guy accounts,” that has been elevated to, apparently, national importance since Trump’s second term began.
Daily Roman Updates interacted with the Department of Homeland Security’s official X account before its exclusive scoop last month. But now the account has formed a much more professional relationship with DHS, operating as an semi-official propaganda channel for the administration. Both DHS and @UpdatingOnRome did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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We’ve covered the Trump administration’s obsession with X for months now. But this is the first time we’ve seen one of the app’s anonymous shitposters literally operate as a mouthpiece for the government.
The Daily Roman Updates account, which says in its bio “The Empire is gone, our shitposting is not,” was registered in 2019. Initially, the account mostly syndicated posts from a Facebook meme page called “Daily updates on the Roman Empire.” The Facebook page was opened in 2018 and lists its location as “Rome, Italy,” which is likely a gag. The phone number listed on the page is also a joke. The page announced it was joining Twitter in March 2019, and the page’s owner has frequently posted identical material across Facebook and Twitter/X, as well as other platforms. So it’s safe to assume the Facebook page and the @UpdatingOnRome X account have some overlap in ownership.
Which is weird, because the Facebook page doesn’t look like it would attract much interest from the Trump administration. The group is a pretty standard niche meme page, posting both aggregated and original memes in the vein of larger groups like “Classical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens.” The page is still regularly updated with reposted images about ancient civilizations, without much overt commentary on modern politics.
The affiliated @UpdatingOnRome X account, meanwhile, has gradually moved to a more directly right-wing political tone. The account’s most popular posts are still reposted memes, but the page was posting pro-Trump memes as early as January 2020. Starting in 2023, it began posting original videos featuring cartoons of Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and others in Roman wear. After Trump was indicted for financial crimes the same year, the account’s merch page began selling T-shirts with a drawing of Julius Caesar in the same pose as Trump’s mugshot.
Around the time the X account started posting pro-Trump content, it started getting noticed by future members of Trump’s second administration. On March 15th, 2023, Elon Musk replied to a joke from @UpdatingOnRome about the anniversary of Julius Caesar’s assassination. And Musk has continued to interact with the account, replying to it over 60 times as of 2026. The account has regularly replied to posts by official Trump White House members and departments since his reelection. The only one to reply back that we’ve found has been the official DHS account, which replied to @UpdatingOnRome with an approving GIF last October. As far as official government accounts go, DHS has been the most aggressive about shitposting lately. And now, they’re just straight up officially coordinating with shitposting accounts.
Last week, simultaneously with the department’s official press release regarding the Greek artifacts, @UpdatingOnRome posted the same images in what it called “an honest-to-god Daily Roman Updates exclusive.” The DHS’ X account quoted the post with another approving GIF, this time from Disney’s Hercules.
While Daily Roman Updates might have the most official connection to Trump World now, it’s not the first ancient Rome-themed X account to attract attention like this from the American right wing. Last November, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis replied to the account @RomanHelmetGuy, an even more vocally pro-Trump voice on X, who’s previously made videos with Daily Roman Updates. One X user called it a “total anon victory.” But that just can’t measure up to a random shitposter being treated like a real news source.
Some Stray Links
P.S. here’s a really good video from Ryan’s home town.
***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***