I am right with you there on the Romans. I can remember a college boyfriend of mine sniffing that I treated history like some sort of soap opera. But their humanity is so palpable to me that I can't help feeling directly involved with them. I confess, though, that part of it may be the haircuts. When you go to the Capitoline museum, or even just the Met in New York, and look at all those heads, they seem so contemporary and approachable. The style of the sculpture is immediate and naturalistic, but the women with the big piles of curls are harder for me to relate to than the men whose styling seems almost modern. I swear the head of Heliogabalus at the Campidoglio looks just like the artist formerly known as Prince, back when he was still known as Prince.