"To anyone who asks me what ancient Rome looked like and begs me to present it to them in concrete terms, I will say, so to speak, to photograph it, I should answer the question with another question: "When?". Cicero, Seneca, Martial have handed down to us a copious mass of information on what the material aspect of Rome was; but if we collect and combine those elements, a different Rome emerges for each author. Just saying Rome, and thinking that it could be enough, is already an error in itself; and it is one of the most common errors, because there is a widespread tendency not to consider how changeable the face of Rome was, and to suppose, in a certain way, that Cicero was walking in a city very similar to the one in which, as an adult, the his son, that Rome presented the same aspect in the eyes of Horace as in the eyes of Martial. (Ugo Enrico Paoli)"