The true lover of antiquity

To truly convey a love of the past, one must free oneself of the present:

The cult of antiquity has always been a kind of madness at Babylon.  Credit for this must be given to Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king.  He spent his life digging up forgotten cities.  When Cyrus invaded Babylonia, Nabonidus was so busy trying to decipher the contents of the foundation stone of a thirty-two-century-old temple that he never noticed that he was no longer king until he returned to the city one evening and found Cyrus in residence at the new palace.  At least that's the story the black-haired people like to tell.  Actually, Nabonidus was captured, imprisoned, freed.  He then went back to his digging.

Between Nabonidus and his friend Amasis, the pharaoh of Egypt, the past was--and is--constantly being not only disinterred but imitated.  Nothing can ever be old enough or ugly enough for the true lover of antiquity. 

Gore Vidal, Creation, p. 314