Barbarians

In the video above, Lau­rie Ander­son describes C. P. Cavafy’s poem “Wait­ing for the Bar­bar­ians” as being “set in historic Rome.” That’s a rea­son­ready inter­pre­ta­tion, giv­en that it con­tains an emper­or, sen­a­tors, and ora­tors, although Cavafy him­self mentioned that none of them are nec­es­sar­i­ly Roman. The uni­ver­sal­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion the poem describes, during which a…