Goldwin Smith Quotes

In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.

Rome was great in arms, in government, in law.

Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.

We are fascinated with our own history, and we are fascinated with the Romans because they were millennia ago, and yet they still capture our imagination because they were actually so similar to us. They were very civilized. They had a very similar political system.

We were all Romans once, I guess.

I've been obsessed with Romans since I was a child.

I know not why any one but a school boy in his declamation would whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they were rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves and of one another.

The thing I love about Rome is that is has so many layers. In it, you can follow anything that interests you: town planning, architecture, churches or culture. It's a city rich in antiquity and early Christian treasures, and just endlessly fascinating. There's nowhere else like it.

It is evident that in the period designated as that of the kings, when Rome commenced her career of conquest, she was, for that time and country, a great and wealthy city.

Rome - the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.

The Romans, we are told, were by nature a peculiarly warlike race.

Eternal Rome

Let Rome’s art tell the empire’s story.

Methinks I will not die quite happy without having seen something of that Rome of which I have read so much.

Every one soon or late comes round by Rome.

About the time of the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome, the Etruscan power had reached its height.

Roman civilization had achieved, within the bounds of its technology, relatively as great a mastery of time and space as we have achieved today.

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

I love Rome and the way that you can wander around and find something interesting around every street corner. You can smell the history.

Pompeii is taught at schools in England, and, for a young boy, the combination of the Roman Empire and a volcano was irresistible.

Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil, and Augustus.

Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers, / Floats in the mist, a little cloud at tether.

Roman history was kind of unavoidable where I was growing up. It was everywhere - all the place names and ruins and forts. My dad's a history buff, and I spent a lot of time on Hadrian's Wall. I became fascinated by the idea of what was so terrifying up there that the Romans built a 60-mile long, 30ft high stone wall to keep it out?

The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.

Rome has grown since its humble beginnings that it is now overwhelmed by its own greatness.