It can't be true. You're one of us.
Maybe it just doesn't work as well for people who aren't as inbred as some of us.
My husband studied the classics in university. He had a great liking for Marcus Aurelius, kept a copy of his Meditations around, which was fine, but he also really liked Cato the Censor. I couldn't stand him. He thought Cato had strength of character and determination; I thought Cato was a bit mad, and a bore as well, and a perfect example of someone who could never forgive or forget. Talk about obsessions: whenever he was in the Senate, which was probably always, and no matter the topic of the discussion, whether it was the aqueduct or the sewers, or how much to pay for bread, he ended each lecture with: "Carthago Delenda Est" or Carthage Must Be Destroyed, and it was; he helped push Rome into the final war, and Carthage was destroyed and its people all sold into slavery. Total War first millennium B.C. style. Not their most admirable moment imo, but there you go, I guess that's how you build empires. The other total war was against the Jews, another bull-headed people. It didn't work out for them either.
Then, like all empires, it fell. Climate, disease and other things finally brought them low. How the mighty are fallen, right?
I'm reading a good book about it: The Fate of Rome; Climate, Disease and the End of Empire. I recommend it.