When the French nation GRADUALLY came into existence among the ruins of the Roman CIVILIZATION in Gaul, a new language was at the same TIME slowly evolved.

As we all know from the Roman EMPIRE, big EMPIRES GO down if the BORDERS are not well-protected.

I know that I come from mid-20th century AMERICA, urban, specifically downtown New York, specifically an Italian-American area, Roman CATHOLIC - that's who I am. And a part of what I know is there's a decency to people who tried to make a living in the KIND of world that was AROUND us and also the Skid Row area of the Bowery; it impressed me.

My DAY job is WORKING on ROMAN HISTORY and ANCIENT Roman history.

It seems to me we are now, SINCE 1789, GOING through the same sort of PROCESS of regeneration the Roman world went through between 300 and 500. It is only to be hoped all civilization will not again be DESTROYED by the anarchists.

I remember when I TOOK Quentin Tarantino with me to a very private screening of the documentary 'Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,' which SHOWS some of the LEGAL irregularities of his case. I was involved by the film, and it was an amazing EXPERIENCE to SEE people weep at the end of it.

In the ROMAN world, and in the worlds around it that Romans sought to subdue and control, the gods were merciless, frivolous, prone to set traps for humans, and largely indifferent to the unprivileged bulk of HUMANKIND, who in any CASE did not expect their fate in the afterworld to be any better than it had been on EARTH.

I still BELIEVE the lessons I learned when I was raised in a ROMAN Catholic HOUSEHOLD. Like, it's harder for a rich man to GET into Heaven than for a camel to GO through the eye of a needle.

The most SUPERFICIAL student of Roman HISTORY must be struck by the EXTRAORDINARY DEGREE in which the fortunes of the republic were affected by the presence of foreigners, under different names, on her soil.

There is an OBVIOUS connection, on the declining Roman EMPIRE's BREAD and circuses MODEL, between political enthusiasm for public spectacles and the periods when we are least able to pay for them.