“Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi.” (When in Rome, live as the Romans do; when elsewhere, live as they live elsewhere.) St Ambroses’s advice to St Augustine.

Why do I love Rome? Maybe I don’t. The beauty of the place is overwhelming, certainly: the art, the architecture and then the Romans themselves, so engagingly elegant. The sun shines for much of the year. The food is rarely poor - and can be utterly delicious. Over the best part of 3,000 years, Rome has accumulated so many layers that it is effectively endless. I have lived here three times in my life, yet I still find myself discovering lanes and alleyways, markets, even entire magnificent palazzos, I never knew existed. Barely a week goes past without someone telling me for the first time about some Roman quirk or tradition.

But this is also a city that was corrupt by the time of Caligula and has had another couple of millennia since then in which to grow even more venal and decadent. Other Italians tend to regard its inhabitants as cynical, indolent, conformist and obsessively hierarchical. And they are not always wrong. Rome is like a materialistic but stunningly beautiful and sophisticated woman. You can be entranced by her looks. You can be fascinated by her ways. But you know you’d be a fool to give her your heart. And yet you do.