I'm particularly asking myself this question about slave owners in the US with their plantations, but it's my understanding they were, through things like depending on black people for labor, somewhat trying to emulate Spanish sugar cane plantations and things like that.
How accurate could it be said that they were full up of ideas and attitudes from stories of classical antiquity from their education? Didn't they still have to learn Latin and things like that? Did they simply think, like, "patricians" were necessary for society, because that's just how it worked in Rome and obviously Rome kicked ass, or... ? Like, it's my understanding some of the founding fathers thought only people who were educated enough to understand stories about politics from Rome should be able to vote. Were these more abstract arguments or did they very much talk about concrete specifics of how they'd literally bring that into effect?
Hopefully it's clear what I'm asking. To clarify, for example, I really like the The Matrix trilogy, but to me it's very much more abstract; I'm not trying to study, like, martial arts or firearms or whatever--it's just generally about the kinds of decisions the main character makes and why. Was Rome kind of in a "pretend" part of their brains or how much did they specifically think they had to bring it into reality?
Such a good question. The first thing to acknowledge is that there's a spectrum, as always. Not everyone in early America used Rome the same way. But overall, before the mid-19th century, ancient history as a whole, but especially Rome's, wasn't abstract. It was very, very real. If it were a Bible we would say that early Americans had a very "literal" understanding of these classical stories. And because they were literal, they were to be emulated. So people didn't just know about Cicero - they were supposed to be Cicero. They were supposed to be educated like him and to behave like him. So if it were the matrix, you were expected to buy the guns, the leather trench coat, dark sunglasses, and learn martial arts. That’s why in 1775 Joseph Warren supposedly wore a toga when he delivered the annual address commemorating the Boston Massacre. Or why a popular letter from a father to a son in 1776 was just a long discussion of the importance of knowing ancient history. “I have often told you how necessary it was to have a perfect knowledge of History,” the letter began. “In reading what has been done, he is apprised of what he has to do; and, the more he is informed what is past, the better he will know how to conduct himself for the future.” And of all the histories, the father told his son and the many Americans who read the reprinted letter, “the Roman is the most interesting and instructive.”
So coming back to the question itself: I think the answer is kind of wrapped up in the question. The elites were very driven by the thought and history of Rome because Rome was so successful, yes, which meant that almost everything they wrote about Rome was an argument for why Rome "kicked ass." And once they developed a rough consensus on the why, they were expected to do it in order to share in Rome's success. For example: Rome succeeded because Rome had the most virtuous citizens - ie, we need to have virtuous citizens to succeed, too. Rome had a powerful, patriot army, we need to have a powerful army to and borders that are defended against the "barbarian." Rome had slaves? Oh, that clearly didn't hurt them. So it's okay for us to have slaves, too (understand here that the whole "context is important" argument that pointed out that American slavery was a very different, race-based system than Roman slavery was still in development).
Yet, as with many things, this connection between Rome and slavery became deeply partisan by the 1830s, with northern and southern readers taking different lessons away from Roman history. And while many Southerners saw in ancient Greece and Rome permission to hold slaves, others, like the African American poet Phillis Wheatley, had a different understanding. One historian sees in Wheatley’s use of Roman history a change happening even toward the end of the 18th century where Roman slavery becomes one of the dark sides of Rome's history. In other words, slavery was one of the things that marked the transition in Rome from republic to empire (a transition that early American would call a "fall," so not a super great thing). In this understanding, slavery was a product of empire and so was bad. But again, Rome's history remains important as a driving factor even though the particular lesson is different: slavery came when Rome was corrupted so we shouldn't defend slavery if we don't want to be corrupted and fall like Rome did.