Arts: Caligula's Galleys

Near the little woodland lake of Nemi. 20 miles from a Rome as yet unborn. Rome's Father Aeneas, at the Sibyl's bidding, plucked a branch from a tree in the Sacred Grove before he essayed his perilous journey into the world of the dead. In time Nemi's Sacred Grove withered, ultimately to be immortalized in Sir James Frazer's memorable journey through the world of dead religions — The Golden Bough. Meanwhile Rome, too, was born, flowered and withered into decay. One early expression of Rome's decay whom today's dictators might particularly have...