"Because the Romans were weird" is the answer to a lot of questions about why our culture does this or that.

SOME SMALL CORRECTIONS:
1. Calling "Caesar" a "last name" is more questionable than I thought. It was a name that people inherited from their parents, but Roman naming was weird and not exactly analogous to the modern system.
2. I implied that modern Russia was significantly more ethnically diverse than the HRE. I'm not so sure about that anymore. Measuring diversity is hard though, especially for thousand-year-old countries.

I missed a couple of Patrons in the credits:
PokemonTom09/Ruminations (pretend this one's bold)
E3qualsz None (pretend this one's bold)
RTT12

To become a Patron:
  / xidnaf  

Intro-song:
"Flight of the Breezies" by Kadenza
   • Kadenza - Flight of the Breezies