“Rome was founded and extended by the labours of those men of old; their descendants made Rome more hideous while it stood than when it fell. For in the ruin of the city it was stone and timber which fell to the ground; but in the lives of those Romans we saw the collapse not of material but of moral defences, not of material but of spiritual grandeur.  The lust that burned in their hearts was more deadly than the flame which consumed their dwellings” (City of God, Penguin edition, p.49).