the lodge in the Pleistocene Pyrenees;
an interval about the time of Christ;
the Academy in the Oligocene Period;
the Second Punic War -
- or in an alternative 1960.
Thus, there is no "contemporary" aspect to the story. However, yet again, comment is made on the approximate period when the story was written. Two Unattached agents, Everard and Van Sarawak, are at the lodge. Everard has shot a mammoth, skied, mountain-climbed and watched Cro-Magnons dance. Bored of the outdoor life, both men want bright lights and music in the company of women who do not know about time travel. Everard says that Augustan Rome is overrated. How would someone who had never been there-then cope? That part would be easy. They would be able to get hypnotic education in language and customs at the lodge. Would it really be that easy to holiday in another place and time? In any case, if they are not to go then, then what other options are there?
One possibility is:
"'...'way upstairs...'"
-Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, The Guardians Of Time (New York, 1981), pp. 187-243 AT 1, p. 189.
That means in the very far future. During his training at the Academy, Everard had been told:
"'Wait till you've been to the decadent stage of the Third Matriarchy! You don't know what fun is.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN The Guardians Of Time, pp. 9-63 AT 1, p. 23.
How many Matriarchies are there? There is a Terrestrial Matriarchy in James Blish's "This Earth of Hours" but that is in another timeline. The Time Patrol story, "Gibraltar Falls," tells us that the First Matriarchy is two thousand years in our future.
The other possibility is:
"'Unless we want to go 'way upstairs, the most glorious decadence available is right in my own milieu. New York, say....If you know the right phone numbers, and I do.'" (p. 189)
So there you are then: New York, 1960 - as long as you know the right phone numbers.
7 comments:
Sorry, that extremely interesting comment has been accidentally deleted by me, a blog administrator when trying to enter a comment of my own. This has happened once before.
SM Stirling commented that, if he remembered correctly, Everard said that letters of introduction would be necessary in Augustan Rome. The Roman upper class was class conscious and might be interested in someone as exotic as Herod who spoke both Latin and Greek. They were bilingual in these languages. Mr Stirling will be able to correct me if I have misquoted. There was a bit more to the comment than that.
In "Delenda Est," Everard says of Augustan Rome only that it is overrated.
Kaor, Paul!
And we see another Matriarchy on Earth in "Flight To Forever."
I've read Petronius Arbiter's SATYRICON, so I have some idea of how debauched Romans could be! Albeit, I think Petronius was also satirizing coarse, vulgar new rich types with no culture, refinement, or understanding of how to have a good time without feeling any need to be gross and indulging in crudely obscene orgies.
Genuinely cultured Romans were not like the guests at Trimalchio's gross out banquet!
Ad astra! Sean
Yup, I over-extrapolated from memory. You would, however, need letters of introduction as I said to access upper-class Roman social events -- and you'd be perilously likely to meet, and possibly influence, someone politically or culturally important.
Augustan Rome would also require you to not mind some very strange local customs, by the standards of modern Western Civilization. Eg., Romans had better plumbing than most cultures until Victorian England, but they had no sense of body privacy at all about defecation.
Trimalchio's Feast is outright satire -- it's not meant to be taken literally, and it is in itself an example of Roman social snobbery, because it's directed at a rich freedman, not a member of the Roman upper class.
At that, btw, Rome was much more generous with its citizenship than, say, Athens -- where you had to be of freeborn Athenian citizen parents on both sides to be an Athenian citizen. It took a vote of the citizen assembly as a whole to make exceptions. Most Greek city states (with some exceptions like newly-founded colonies) were like that.
In Rome, a freed slave previously owned by a citizen became a Roman citizen on emancipation, albeit with some restrictions -- but the freed slave's children were full-fledged citizens with all the rights of those born to that station, and could (and some were) be elevated to the Senate or become Consul.
This was regarded as alien and disgusting by Greeks.
There were a bunch of other ways to acquire Roman citizenship; being elected to magistracies in allied states, military service, etc. By the early 3rd century, it didn't create much fuss when an Emperor gave citizenship to all freeborn Roman subjects.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And it was not that long ago when people were not always particularly concerned about privacy in matters like defecation in Western societies. Esp. when large numbers of people met on social occasions. The toilet facilities for the palace of Versailles in the 18th century were not very private.
Thought so, what you said about Petronius' satire of Trimalchio's Banquet! Yes, the Romans were more generous about citizenship than the Greeks. And freedmen or their children could rise not only to the Senate but also to the throne itself. Diocletian was the son or grandson of a freedman. Which much have scandalized the more snobbish!
Ad astra! Sean
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