I’m reading Mary Beard’s excellent SPQR about ancient Rome.  This passage about a Roman nobleman caught my eye.  He had a mausoleum built for his family with an epitaph etched on his headstone that celebrated his accomplishments and what he was like, and Beard notes that:

“…patrician though the Scipio family was, what counts here are the offices he held, the personal qualities he displayed and the battles he won.  No achievement was more demonstrable or more celebrated than victory in battle, and the desire for victory among the new elite was almost certainly an important factor in intensifying military activity and encouraging warfare.”  

If Beard lived in 4000 A.D., and was writing about our own time, I wonder what she would say mattered to us in 2016.  Likes?  Comments?  Retweets?  Viewers and video subscriptions?  Other indications of social proof?