 People think of Rome as white and cold and beautiful , powerful but distant . But based on the research , I don 't think it was like that at all . If you go to Pompeii , you 're struck by how <unk> it is , even now . The temples and sculptures were all brightly painted . Rome was like Pompeii , but much bigger . And Rome was so noisy it was impossible to sleep . It was like hell . <unk> of it as a combination of New York and Calcutta , with insane wealth and insane poverty . It was pretty extreme . 
