In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

41 Drought in August The empire starts to breathe. Octavian, who “found Rome brick and left it marble,” names this month a chariot: bone-white horse, bone-white plume to part the crowd. None but poor remain in the city, roads into the Forum badly shaded. White marble then, and pax Romana, with huge arms and iron. In centuries the executions turn quite bloody, and it’s so very hot, and it’s that ripe persimmons plump and rot to honey scented almost cinnamon, and it’s the good who still die young, if only dying makes them so, as blessed are the poor in spirit. August: sardonyx, its stone; the flower, poppy. Perchance, then, to dream. But how did they go on, not knowing then the earth by rote turns, the sun holds still? What if that great sphere of light simply rode away into the mass of smaller faces bearing their own darkness only wearing hats? Disappeared it seemed for good? Wouldn’t they sacrifice the living just to get it back? I don’t think we’d hesitate, as I don’t think the dead do not continue—but as colors. Wisdom isn’t in the eye of the beholder. We love them and they slip, are torn away. And we are drenched with this, as the cardinal is deeply red. And we are black at mouth and eyes, and all these sundry parts that must ingest this earth, this empire that’s heating now, eventually will cool. That moves on like the spectrum gathered in this light. Hardened. Marbled and prismatic, like Augustus great. ...

Share