As I previously mentioned and Sear so rightly observed, our "fairly well evolved language" is only that way because it has borrowed so much from Latin and Greek (among others). And in any event, as I have again already highlighted, I was supplying the term for the "erasure from history" that Padre was talking about. The Romans, due to their nature, made it into an official judgement, but the concept wasn't limited to them and is seen elsewhere in the ancient world. The Egyptians changed from using raised relief inscriptions to incised ones because of the tendency of subsequent Pharoahs to chisel-off names and appropriate or obliterate the records of the deeds of their predecessors. Words carved into the stone were harder to change or remove. In any case, in talking about a concept of ancient Rome, Latin is the native language, even if it is dead. And if it is of sufficient import to discuss then it ought also to be of sufficient import to learn about.

How times have changed. Not so very long ago it would be assumed that educated men would have a certain amount of Latin and Greek (and for anyone considering a scientific subject they are still always beneficial since so much technical terminology is rooted in them) as a given; nowadays it seems Latin is reserved for use as a military unit's motto and amusing mock-Latin proverbs that bounce round the internet.