Rome burns: Tony D’Souza’s Thought for the week

‘They gave us a template for moral and political corruption.’

by Tony D’Souza 11th September 2026

What did the Romans ever do for us – apart from sanitation, medicine, education, public order, roads, and public health? Well, they gave us a template for moral and political corruption. The Julio-Claudian dynasty (from Augustus to Nero) was probably the most corrupt of all. The phrase ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ could have been written for them as a personal motto.