The Roman genius, and perhaps the Roman flaw was an obsession with order. One sees it in their architecture, their literature, their laws-this fierce denial of darkness, unreason, chaos. Easy to see why the Romans, usually so tolerant of foreign religions, persecuted the Christians mercilessly-how absurd to think a common criminal had risen from the dead, how appalling that his followers celebrated him by drinking his blood. The illogic of it frightened them and they did everything they could to crush it. In fact, I think the reason they took such drastic steps was because they were not only frightened but also terribly attracted to it. Pragmatists are often strangely superstitious. For all their logic, who lived in more abject terror of the supernatural than the Romans? The Greeks were different. They had a passion for order and symmetry, much like the Romans, but they knew how foolish it was to deny the unseen world, the old gods. Emotion, darkness, barbarism.
( Donna Tartt )
[ The Secret History ]
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