"I think, as a historian, the way you begin to understand an alien, a foreign culture, which is what these cultures are, is to look for those little moments of sympathy. But on the other hand, there’s ways in which ancient cultures are wildly different from us. You also look for those moments where you just think, “How the hell could these people have done that? I just don’t understand how they could have thought or acted in this way.” It’s lining up those moments of sympathy and kind of disconnection that I think is when you begin to start to understand a foreign culture or an ancient culture."

"We have curiosity. I think curiosity is a great thing that you want to learn something new. I think the human impulse to want to learn new stuff is one of our best characteristics. And at least up to this point, what makes us special is the ability to store up an accumulation of knowledge and to pass that knowledge on to the next generation. I mean, that’s really all we are. We’re the accumulation of the knowledge of infinite generations that’ve come before us. And everything we do is based on that. Otherwise, we’d all just be starting ground zero kind of just from the beginning. So our ability to store up knowledge and pass it on, I think is our special power as human beings. And I think our curiosity is what keeps us going forward."

"Rome itself has different aspects. But what I think is actually another big difference between the modern world and the ancient is our relationship with the past. One of the keys to understanding all of Roman history is to understand that this was a people who were obsessed with the past and for whom the past had power, not just as something inspirational, but it actually dictated what you would do in your daily life. Today, especially in the United States, we don’t have much of a relationship with the past. We see ourselves as free agents just floating along, not tethered to what came before."