The theme of ‘pleasure’ chosen for the 2013 Leeds International Medieval Congress celebrated not only concepts and perceptions of pleasure in the past, but also our fundamental intellectual enjoyment of the study of the past. Those whom medievalists study also engaged with the past at many levels and for many reasons, which included the sheer pleasure of it. In particular, the place of Rome in the historical imagination of the people of early medieval Europe is reflected in many sources, both textual and material. The particular use made of the resources of the past, and the cultural affiliations thereby proclaimed, together offer one composite expression of identity. That identity in its turn contributes to the essential sense of harmony and consequential pleasure in knowing one's place in time and space. I offer four examples by way of illustration of these creative uses of the resources of the past. I further propose that the perception of Rome is a significantly striking aspect of the engagement with the past in the early Middle Ages and had a crucial impact on the subsequent place of the Roman past in the cultural memory of Latin Europe as a whole. I consider the degree to which changes in the representation and understanding of the Roman past might have shaped or had an impact on the identity of those in Rome and responsible for writing history.