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Message:: [QUOTE="Valentinian, post: 3112317, member: 44316"]Here is a poem by the famous English poet Thomas Hardy, who lived in Dorchester, written on a visit to Italy after visiting a Roman theater at Fiesole, outside Florence, in 1887. In The Old Theatre Fiesoleby Thomas Hardy I traced the Circus whose gray stones inclineWhere Rome and dim Etruria interjoin,Till came a child who showed an ancient coinThat bore the image of a Constantine. She lightly passed; nor did she once opineHow, better than all books, she had raised for meIn swift perspective Europe's historyThrough the vast years of Caesar's sceptred line. For in my distant plot of English loam'Twas but to delve, and straightway there to findCoins of like impress.As with one half blindWhom common simples cure, her act flashed homeIn that mute moment to my opened mindThe power, the pride, the reach of perished Rome. -------------------------------- Some academics who study ancient history think collecting is wrong because (they say) it promotes the looting and destruction of ancient sites. But I think Hardy was right. It is a great way to connect to antiquity. "Better than all books" is something we collectors know and academics should acknowledge.[/QUOTE]