Rome is crumbling...just as it has been for centuries. But what does it say about us adopted Romans that we choose to live in a city's whose glory days are all in the past?

Why do so many of us, who can't even use the excuse that this is our native land, choose to live here, often at considerable financial and professional inconvenience, despite how little it has to offer us? Why do we leave in frustration only to return again and again, as if it were "more familiar, more intimately our home, than even the spot where we were born"?

The inspiration for today's episode comes from one line (albeit a very long line) from Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Marble Faun. (The quote in its entirety can be found here.)

It leads us to made a rather stark comparison: is living in Rome a bit like being in an abusive relationship?

Bonus: turns out ancient Romans complained about the city's traffic problems too! And apparently, Juvenal coined the term "traffic jam" back in the 1st century AD. We discuss one of his quotes, which can be found here.

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