At that time, the diocese used to send the top student in the class to study theology, the second to study classical philology, while the third could do mathematics. Alas! I was the second!

I attended his first class: he astonished us by the simplicity of his presentation, marked, however, by a clever critical sense, his slender, somewhat quaint voice, his tiny writing, and his stiff, timid gestures; but he also charmed us with the originality of his comparisons, his authentic belief in the complexity of the interpretations, of which he managed the complexity by seeking the most natural explanation. He conscientiously prepared his classes daily, by renewing their subject every year and questioning it indefatigably. He devoted his evenings there until midnight, and then took care of his personal work late at night, because in the afternoon he spent a long time seeing the students, of whom he directed the dissertations of their license or doctorate. He devoted himself to his numerous pupils without counting the cost, whatever direction they chose, because he respected the wishes of each one. He did much literary work, but his predilection obviously went to those who were interested in the history of science and many such theses were undertaken on his advice. He trained several disciples in this field and one of them, Father Joseph Mogenet, succeeded him brilliantly and managed to make official a course and a seminary of the History of the Sciences of Antiquity.

... resumed his teaching and studies under Canon Rome, obtaining his doctorate in classical philology in 1947 with an unpublished work on Theodosius of Tripoli. In 1950 he wrote as his thesis for admission to a senior teaching post a masterly work on Autolycus of Pitane. In it he presented not only a critical edition of the oldest known Greek mathematics treatise, but also a new method of classifying manuscripts, since applied successfully in several theses.

I was mobilised at that moment, but as soon as I returned home, after the forced surrender of our army, I learned of the disaster. On my first visit to Canon Rome, I did not know how to express my sorrow for what had happened to him. I found him at his desk, where a small bundle of cards was already piling up. "You have learned," he said to me, interrupting me with a gesture, and, showing the cards, he added simply, "See, I am doing it again," and then inquired with good-humour about myself. I will never forget the impression this stoic energy gave me, without a complaint, refusing even commiseration. On that day, I, who did not know how to hide my tears, understood what greatness of soul was.

In addition to the Nazi destruction of Rome's work on the 'Commentary on the Almagest', his journal 'L'Antique Classique' began to fall under Nazi scrutiny. Rome, aware of a potentially destructive outcome, carefully made efforts to preserve the journal on a material level. While under the Nazi's surveillance, he covertly converted the journal's reserves to paper stock (that was hidden). By doing this, the stocks avoided specific requirements that the Nazi regime had enforced. The journal survived and was still in tangible form. At the height of World War II in 1943, the jornal was suspended. However, the war did not stop Rome and his team who were able to take all of the copies that eluded alteration, which was still in the previously hidden stock, and ship them out of the country without any government censorship.

On 3 May 1948, our Class of Letters and Moral and Political Sciences had elected him a corresponding member of the Royal Belgium Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts, of which he became a full member on 11 December 1950. On 19 December 1956, he was proclaimed Dean of Honour of Labour, for scientific work and promoted, in 1959, to Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold.

These high distinctions did not alter the simplicity of his behaviour, although he was justifiably proud of them. The asceticism and the stripping of his life were not changed. His minimal furniture kept disappearing under stacks of books and bundles of cards wrapped in brown paper, from which he undid the strings as he began his classes. Empty sugar boxes served as chair rails and the heating was practically nil. The frugality of his meals, his refusal of alcoholic drink and tobacco supplemented this radical abstinence. But his charity distributed more than the value of all these extras to his students, his works or other necessities.

He continued for a long time to live alone, in spite of everything. It was necessary for an ambulance to pick him up in the street to consent to be treated in the admirable retirement home "Emmaus" at Korbeek-Lo. I saw him sitting in an armchair, surrounded by books and index cards, but with his full lucidity, when he could hardly move, and we talked about the Academy.