Roman Type

I knew the term Italic was used for the slanty font variant like the one used to render the word Italic in this sentence. But I only recently learned that the normal straight font is called Roman. Now that kind of confuses me since I was pretty sure that Rome and Italy overlapped. How is it that a Roman font is one that's Italic?

I suppose it could be that typesetters preferred Aeneid to Romulus and Remus. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. The story of Romulus and Remus is five minutes worth of oral tradition, nothing to interest a printer. The Aeneid on the other hand has some bulk, printed copies. No wonder they identified Rome with the Trojan Aeneis instead of the Italian Romulus.

Come to think of it, why was Aeneis a Trojan anyway? When you're writing your epic centuries after the fact you could choose any nationality you want. Why choose the people who not only lost to the Greeks--which you have to admit, it takes a lot of skill to get a people who spend all of history fighting with each other to unite--but lost it for a stupid reason.

"Hey all those Greek armies who were going on about how they were oath-bound to destroy Troy are gone. And there's a giant horse about the same size as the Greek army sitting out front."

Just think of the many possible ways to respond to that. I think the most logical response would be something along the lines of:

"AAAH! A giant monster horse ate an entire Greek army! Quick round up all the athletic boys of questionable parentage who vaguely resemble one of the Gods! We need a Hero before that thing wakes up!"

Whereas the dumbest answer is:

"Wow, lets open up the gate and invite the giant horse in for our victory party."

For the love of Zeus. Didn't Odysseus's have some patronage relationship with Poseidon? The horse is a symbol of Poseidon. Wouldn't you think something was up? Maybe that's why Odysseus got stuck bouncing around the sea. What do you suppose would happen to a Christian Knight who used a cross for a battering ram?

Which is all a pointless deviation from the real topic. Isn't Italic just a stupid slur against Italians? So ONE architect builds on unstable ground and that gets publicity over the thousands of other towers and monuments that still stand after hundreds of years.