Rome awoke to the great, collective hangover
of the day after Saturnalia. All over
the city hundreds of thousands of bleary eyes opened, the merciless light of morning
pierced through them, and a vast groan ascended unto Olympus. Patrician and plebeian, slave and freedman,
citizen and foreigner, all were afflicted and were half certain that Pluto had
them by the ankle and was dragging them toward the yawning abyss; and, on the
whole, they viewed the oblivion of the trans-Stygian world as not such a bad
prospect at all. Even Stoic philosophers
were retching into the chamberpot that morning.
(from Saturnalia,
by John Maddox Roberts)
8*/10. The full review is here.
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