Rome still helps to define the way we understand our world and think about ourselves, from high theory to low comedy. After 2,000 years, it continues to underpin Western culture and politics, what we write and how we see the world, and our place in it.
-- Mary Beard (Prologue: "The History of Rome")

Importance: This quote demonstrates why it is important for us, many centuries later, to continue to engage with the history of Ancient Rome. It highlights the connections between the Roman world and ours by suggesting that our culture and political traditions have been in part inherited from Roman models. This quote encapsulates much of why it is important to study history: because we need to understand the past in order to understand how and why the present exists as it does in its particular incarnation. Beard's reference to both high theory and low comedy in this quote suggests that the influence of Rome on our society...