Bread and circuses

[sienamystic]

It's very disconcerting to be totally immersed in a novel dealing with Rome during the time of Pompey and Caesar, and at a part where the text is discussing the grain dole for citizens, to discover that a man stumping for election as a delegate is handing you a brown paper bag with "home-baked" muffins in it. (They actually appear to be homemade, and not the Hostess mini-muffin type.)

All those talking heads who talk about America as a new Rome may be on to something after all. But it was nice to have the muffins.

*Colleen McCullough's Fortune's Favorites, one of the First Men of Rome series, which I've been rereading recently.

Comments

[max-und-moritz.livejournal.com]

Oooh, lovely cycle. Caesar´s Women was my fave, along Let The Dice Roll :) America as the New Rome? Oh, nice, but *looks around for Roman-level catacombs, aqueducts, ports, law system, mythology, poetry* um, not *quite* there yet... I mean, if GWB had the villainous grandeur of, say, a Nero or Caligula - but Tigellinus is more his mark, the poor dear.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Caesar's Women is probably my fave too, although I have a real attatchment to Gaius Marius.

Somehow, I don't think the Woodrow Wilson drawbridge that they're rebuilding near me is the spiritual descendant of the aqueduct at Segovia. And I had to look up Tigellinus...hee hee!

[max-und-moritz.livejournal.com]

Ooooh if you looked him up, run not walk to your nearest library and check out Henryk Sienkiewicz´s "Quo Vadis". If you can overlook the heavily sentimental primitive Christian thing, it´s a powerful, moving, unforgettable recreation of Nero´s reign of terror. The circus scenes are simply awesome. Tigellinus features prominently, as do most of the times´ usual infamous suspects.

And if you don´t fall in love with Gaius Petronius and cry at a certain banquet, I´ll eat my fangs *g*