A Defaced Beauty

Rome seems a defaced beauty with its past specters roaming aimlessly, not finding the home where they once lived sumptuously; ruins upon ruins: marble, cement, grass, weeds, and streets with cobblestones. One thing hasn't changed: the splendor and the glory that Rome once was, never faded from their thoughts... greeting Julius Caesar returning from another conquest! Plautus, Livy, Horace, Virgil, and many others were the testimony of its greatness never seen before, alas, its sorrowful downfall came at a dear cost: death, lawlessness, and looting became rampant! Barbarians came down from the North burning, destroying everything in their path; alas, civilization crumbled and surrendered to the horror of hooves pounding hard! Ah, who witnessed the toppling of Vesta's Holy Fire? Ah, who heard the terrifying cry of the Vestal Virgins? Mothers grabbing their newborns escaping on chariots... while their husbands gathered pamphlets fearing their loss would be a great loss of all knowledge and civility that every citizen and foreigner admired for their vitality! Did writers and poets jot down the last images feeling the unbearable dire? Did they run off on Berbers taking them to a town known for its tranquility? Had I lived in ancient Rome, I would have been another poet describing her stunning beauty now defaced, stripped of all its might; what was saved through centuries gives us a glimpse of a vast empire that lasted long enough to set its sublime glory in stone! Will we persevere in its ideals and preserve them more than a shining light? Could we encounter another dark age and start our journey alone?