This thematic issue is not simply about political appropriations of Rome and its empire in later times (e. g. Byzantium as a New Rome, the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, the US as the final goal of the translatio imperii from the East to the West, etc.). Instead, it is dedicated to the role specific paradigmatic patterns related to the Roman Empire played in political imaginaries and literature. The initiative for this collection of papers originated in the research project “Empire and Transformation of Genre in Roman Literature”, funded by the Slovenian Research Agency (J6-2585). A live conference on the topic was planned for 2021 but had to be called off for obvious reasons. In spite of this, the virtual exchange of ideas between the contributors amounted to forming an ad hoc research group that is supposed to come together again, in person, at a forthcoming international event.