Festive lights sparkle from ancient hills’ rich villas where imperial ambitions were born. Myriad beacons stave off the Eternal City’s dark midwinter murk. Saturnalia’s festivals are now complete. The servile toil to pour libations from splashing amphorae into the gem encrusted chalices of their togate masters.
Campaign season lies months hence, after spring’s thaw. War’s gleaming instruments are sheathed this night. Conquerors’ bejeweled fists instead lift goblets high to honored friends and beloved family. Antiquity’s noble plunderers revel in salutation of New Year’s shining hopes and crimson destinies.
In purple frescoed villas and marble halls of the Roman great, the glowing promise of a new day is deified on such a night as New Year’s Eve as Janus, the twin-faced God of Gates. He stands as the mystical personification of transition. Transition between what has been and what will be. Between past and future, memory and imagination, knowledge and hope. Between hearth’s comfort and the benighted gulfs of the endless void. Janus stands with us as we stand together — at the threshold of eternity.
With immortal Janus, we will greet the new year together and unafraid. We will toast with ceremony and decorum our memories of shared glories in years gone by. We will toast with roaring Bacchanalian excess the unparalleled prosperity we will carve from 2027 under the golden Eagles of Empire. And most importantly, we will honor those many cherished friendships that make our history so memorable and our future so bright.
Sounds like a Toga Party!
