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Setting the captives free
Rome is a dead end in more ways than one, and this primarily because its core passions are not supported by natural evolution. Nature does not support an evolution from natural, non-centralized empire (prokaryote) to political empire (eukaryote) to an even bigger and more rigid empire, with a bigger and more rigid nucleus and ever expanding constitutional code. Nature is rigged to produce diversity and to level out concentrations of energy by means of the second law of thermodynamics. That's why, sooner or later, every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain be made low, the crooked straight, and the rough places plain (Isaiah 40:4). Rome must end for the same reason why your coffee gets cold, and the Hebrews knew this.
The fate of Rome (or any large federation or fortune) is to fall apart into non-centralized clusters of much smaller states that are all founded on the same principles. These principles have to be natural or else they will produce a society as unstable as that of Rome. And the joined identities of these nations will form a collective identity that none of the separate states could have designed but in which all states feel perfectly received and expressed. We're talking about, of course, the social equivalent of a multi-cellular organism.
Pax Romana was the pinnacle of nations being in uproar and the devisement of a vain thing against the Creator and his anointed (Psalm 2:1-2). But his prophets saw that the real desire of the nations would come (Haggai 2:7). It's not a matter of human intent or even sapience but a natural effect that has been ordained since the beginning of the world, which the universe is designed to produce. John the Revelator saw the river of life and the tree of life whose leaves were for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2). Abraham's blessing was to be for all the nations (Genesis 22:18), and Jesus instructed his people to turn entire nations into his disciples (Matthew 28:19, also see 25:32).
The Hebrews seem to have concluded that humanity is designed to function as nations (which are essentially large family groups), which in turn are based on natural law, which in turn make the members feel as if there is no law at all. The effect of being able to follow natural law is freedom, and it's for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1).
Mary is the society that understands that every person is equally valuable, and no single human person is able to foretell what the whole of us is capable of (Isaiah 64:4, 1 Corinthians 2:9). In a Marian society, people are occupied with the compass of their own talents, and the search to bind themselves onto others into human molecules, to form production companies, art houses and schools of scientific inquiry, which are the "nations" the Bible speaks of. These "nations" form naturally when human atoms are free.
Rome is xenophobic and will narrow the range of the acceptable until only one person remains. Mary is xenophilic and will incorporate all persons into a new world that no single person can comprehend. Rome promotes competition that leads to one winner and countless losers. Mary promotes cooperation that leads to maximum entropy. In Rome we do as we're told. In Mary we do what we want..."