It started with a book launch in 2021. I'd been living in London as a social media journalist when I asked my then-publication's culture editor to send me to one of these exclusive-sounding events, as 1) I'd never been and 2) I just really wanted to be a person who "has a book launch to go to." Thankfully, there was one that exact day-and he put my name on the list for the release of Mary Beard's Emperor of Rome. Huzzah.
They celebrated the start of January by giving offerings to the month's namesake, Janus - the two-faced god of beginnings and endings - and auspicious gifts (like twigs from sacred trees) to their loved ones. "It was a day to make promises and offerings," McCrossen says. "I think that's the origin of our New Year's resolution, because a resolution is a kind of promise."
Before the Roman world, Europe was not joined up. Now the Roman Empire joined up Europe and the Middle East and North Africa into a system that was linked. Big roads went across continents, linking one place with another in a way that was inconceivable before.
