Russians, Turks, Germans, Italians, Poles and Brits have all claimed to be successors. Why?

Even many English words we use daily can be traced back to Rome.

That's only really because the 1066 Norman invasion introduced lots of Norman words to English. Norman was a dialect of French, a Romance language. Romance Languages are defined as derived from Latin.

Why won't it go away? Because Rome did a lot of things really well, and it did them consistently for centuries across a very large area. And we kept doing them because it was the only system available.

Roman law, Corpus Juris Civilis, is the backbone of western law TO THIS DAY.

Christianity, which became the state religion in the 4th century, was the largest part of the Roman empire to survive the collapse. It inherited Europe because it was the only standing administration. The territories that Biships were appointed to by the Pope? Old roman provinces.

Which is why Latin stuck around for so very long. The church was the only source for education for a very long time. the educated learned latin from... roman classical texts.

Which is why Latin is the root language of science. To this day.

Major European cities like Paris, London, Vienna, Cologne? All began as Roman military settlements to control the locals.

How we organize cities is how the Romans organized cities.

For centuries after the collapse of the Empire in Rome, Europeans kept trying to re-claim it. Up to the modern era.

The legacy of the Roman Empire will never die as long as Europe and it's colonies still exist.

Fetishisation of it by Western Neo-Nazis, racists, or other kinds of reactionary and nationalist forces. It's a great thing that can be looked back on as a 'golden age' of the white race or something like that, and a 'tragedy' that it fell to 'barbarian invaders'. It plays nicely into the hands of modern racists who demonise immigrants and Muslims.