Saturday, March 24, 2018

 

More Welcoming to Foreigners Than to Natives

Ruth Downie, Caveat Emptor: A Novel of the Roman Empire (New York: Bloomsbury, 2011), p. 117:
She had not expected a tribal gathering place to look like this. Londinium was a town of soldiers and merchants, created by Rome in its own imageā€”but she had expected Verulamium to look more like home. How could you roast an ox over a good fire in the middle of all those buildings? Where could you all sit in a circle around the embers with the soft grass beneath you and your backs to the dark and children falling asleep in their mothers' arms, listening to the stories of your people? The Catuvellauni had turned their meeting place into something that was more welcoming to strangers from across the sea than to the people of their own island.
Hat tip: Mrs. Laudator.



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