The Economist (US), December 18th, 1999
Fed up with Christmas and all its excesses? Such woes have an ancient provenance. The following manuscript was recently unearthed during building work in Rome. Written in colloquial, even chatty, Latin (our translation can only be an approximation), the text is a first-century guide to etiquette during Saturnalia, the pagan festival which Christmas replaced. Such guides were popular among imperial Rome's workaholic middle class SATURNALIA is the most wonderful time of the year, and also the worst. You want to enjoy yourself, but every December you end up exhausted, hungover and broke. All tha...
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