I want to thank the many students whom I have taught, especially on-site in Rome and Italy, for their curiosity. When teaching about the monuments and topography of the city of Rome, I asked them to consider the fate of these sites after their initial construction – not just the physical spaces, but the people who made the institutions that existed in these places and that changed over the longue durée. This question invariably led to other issues. Over the years, I realized that there was nothing easily available in English that satisfied my students about even such a fundamental Roman institution as the Senate, whose central building still stands in the Roman Forum. Student questions about the fate of the city of Rome provided the genesis of this book, which has led me to focus, more and more, on its leaders – its senatorial aristocracy, its emperors, and its bishops – who, in confronting crises, managed to restore and rebuild Rome, time and again. I have been deeply inspired by their resilience.