Meaning: The fall of the Eternal City to the Visigoths under Alaric

Rome burned not from weakness—but from forgetting.
The Eternal City opened not her gates, but her memory.
What fell in fire was more than stone.
It was the soul unguarded.

Mark this day with silence.
Speak no boast. Make no oath.
The flame that consumes begins in negligence.

Write down what in you must not be forgotten.
The virtue, the vow, the vision.
Do not share it. Do not burn it.
Guard it like the seed of a future city.

Tonight, look east—not west.
Say: “I remember what they lost.”
And vow not to forget again.
This is how empires begin anew.