Frescoes By Bogdanoff

The modern Mother’s Day is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in May, though also in March, as a day to honor mothers and motherhood. In the UK and Ireland it follows the old traditions of Mothering Sunday.

Historians believe that this day emerged from a custom of mother worship in ancient Greece, which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of Greek gods. This festival was held around the Vernal Equinox around Asia Minor and eventually in Rome itself from the Ides of March (the 15th of March) to March 18th.

The ancient Romans also had another holiday, Matronalia, that was dedicated to Juno, though mothers were usually given gifts on this day. Juno was an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister (but also the wife) of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars, Minerva and Vulcan. Her Greek equivalent is Hera (see my reference to Hera, and my fresco of her, below).

Following is a look at mothers of ancient times, mythical and real alike.

Penelope and Telemachus

Penelope and Telemachus

A mythological figure, Penelope is known for being faithful to her husband, but she was also a courageous mother whose story is told in the Odyssey.

Penelope kept the suitors at bay until her son, Telemachus, was fully grown.

When Odysseus left for the Trojan War, his son was a baby. The war lasted a decade and Odysseus’ return lasted another decade. Meanwhile area men were trying to sin over Odysseus’ wife, Penelope. She didn’t want to marry any of them and when she was pressed to choose said she would do so after she had finished weaving the shroud of her father-in-law. Each day she wove and each night she undid her day’s work. In this way, she would have kept the suitors at bay (albeit eating her out of house and home), but one of her serving women told one of the suitors about Penelope’s ruse.

Medea and Her Children

Medea and her children

Medea, known best from the story of the Golden Fleece, represents the worst in mothers.

Medea may have killed her brother after she betrayed her father. It therefore should not be too surprising that Medea, as the woman scorned, did not exhibit what we think of as motherly instincts. When the Argonauts arrived at Medea’s homeland of Colchis, Medea helped Jason steal her father’s golden fleece. She then fled with Jason and may have killed her brother in her escape. She lived together with Jason like a married couple long enough to have two children, but when Jason wanted to officially marry a more suitable woman, Medea committed the unthinkable and murdered their children.

Queen Hera

"Return of Hephaistos" fresco by Steve Bogdanoff

Hephaistos was the god of fire and metalworking. His return to Olympus was a main topic with numerous red-figure vase painters. Here we see a besotted Hephaistos being helped up from a lounge by a small satyr. Also seated on the recliner is Dionysus, the god of wine. Dionysus coaxed Hephaistos back to Olympus by inebriating him. Hera, the sister and wife of Zeus, and the mother of Hephaistos, angrily sits on her thrown, holding a sceptre. Hera was the one responsible for banishing Hephaistos from Olympus when he was born. Behind her stands a siren with arms (unusual in Attic art) fanning her. A satyr with a torch and tongs marches from the lounge towards Hera, denoting the customary procession.

Cybele – Great Mother

Cybele

The picture shows Cybele in a lion-drawn chariot, a votive sacrifice, and the sun God. It is from Bactria, in the 2nd century B.C.

Also known as Kybele and Magna Mater and the Mother of the Gods, the worship of this goddess spread throughout the Roman Empire. Originally Phrygian, she was a goddess of caverns, of the Earth in its primitive state; worshipped on mountain tops. She ruled over wild beasts, and was also a bee goddess. Her festival came first on the Roman calender. Along with her consort, the vegetation god Attis, Cybele was worshipped in wild, emotional, bloody, orgiastic, cathartic ceremonies.

Cybele was the goddess of nature and fertility. Because Cybele presided over mountains and fortresses, her crown was in the form of a city wall. The cult of Cybele was directed by eunuch priests, who led the faithful in orgiastic rites accompanied by wild cries and the frenzied music of flutes, drums, and cymbals. Her annual spring festival celebrated the death and resurrection of her beloved Attis.

Veturia with Coriolanus

Veturia and Coriolanus

Veturia was an early Roman mother known for her patriotic act in pleading with her son Coriolanus not to attack the Romans.

When Gnaeus Marcius (Coriolanus) was about to lead the Volsci against Rome, his mother — risking her own freedom and safety as well as those of his wife (Volumnia) and children — led a successful delegation to beg him to spare Rome.

Cornelia

Cornelia

After her husband died, the historical Cornelia (2nd century B.C.), known as the “mother of the Gracchi,” devoted her life to the upbringing of her children (Tiberius and Gaius) to serve Rome. Cornelia was counted an exemplary mother. Her sons, the Gracchi, were great reformers who started a period of turmoil in Republican Rome.

Agrippina the Younger – Mother of Nero

Agrippina and Nero

Agrippina the Younger, great-granddaughter of Emperor Augustus, married her uncle, Emperor Claudius in A.D. 49. She persuaded him to adopt her son Nero in 50. Agrippina was accused by early writers of murdering her husband. After Claudius’ death, Emperor Nero found his mother overbearing and plotted to kill her. Eventually, he succeeded.

St. Helena – Mother of Constantine

St. Helena

In the picture, the Virgin Mary wears a blue robe; St. Helena and Constantine are on the left.

St. Helena was the mother of the Emperor Constantine and may have influenced his conversion to Christianity.

Historians do not know if St. Helena was always a Christian, but if not, she did convert, and is credited with finding the cross on which Jesus was crucified, during her lengthy pilgrimage to Palestine in A.D. 327-8. During this trip Helena established Christian churches. Whether Helena encouraged Constantine to convert to Christianity or it was the other way round is not known for sure.

Galla Placidia – Mother of Emperor Valentinian III

Galla Placidia

Galla Placidia was an important figure in the Roman Empire in the first half of the 5th century. She was first taken hostage by the Goths, and then she married a Gothic king. Galla Placidia was made “augusta” or empress, and she served actively as regent for her young son when he was named emperor. Emperor Valentinian III (Placidus Valentinianus) was her son. Galla Placidia was the sister of Emperor Honorius and the aunt of Pulcheria and Emperor Theodosius II.

Pulcheria

Pulcheria

Empress Pulcheria was definitely not a mother, although she was a step-mother to her husband Emperor Marcian’s offspring by an earlier marriage. Pulcheria had sworn a vow of chastity probably to protect the interests of her brother, Emperor Theodosius II. Pulcheria married Marcian so he could be Theodosius II’s successor, but the marriage was in name only.

Historian Edward Gibbon says Pulcheria was the first woman accepted as ruler by the Eastern Roman Empire.

Julia Domna

Julia Domna

Julia Domna was the wife of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus and the mother of Roman emperors Geta and Caracalla.

Syrian-born Julia Domna was a daughter of Julius Bassianus, who was a high priest of the sun god Heliogabalus. Julia Domna was the younger sister of Julia Maesa. She was the wife of Roman emperor Septimius Severus and the mother of Roman emperors Elagabalus (Lucius Septimius Bassianus) and Geta (Publius Septimius Geta). She received the titles Augusta and Mater castrorum et senatus et patriae ‘mother of the camp, senate, and country’. After her son Caracalla was assassinated, Julia Domna committed suicide. She was later deified.

Julia Soaemias

Julia Soaemias and Juno

Julia Soaemias was the daughter of Julia Maesa and Julius Avitus, wife of Sextus Varius Marcellus, and mother of Roman Emperor Elagabalus.

Julia Soaemias (180 – March 11, 222) was the cousin of the Roman emperor Caracalla. After Caracalla was assassinated, Macrinus claimed the imperial purple, but Julia Soaemias and her mother contrived to make her son Elagabalus (born Varius Avitus Bassianus) emperor by claiming that Caracalla had actually been the father. Julia Soaemias was given the title Augusta, and coins were minted showing her portrait. Elagabalus had her take a place in the Senate, at least according to the Historia Augusta. The Praetorian Guard killed both Julia Soaemias and Elagabalus in 222. Later, Julia Soaemias’ public record was erased (damnatio memoriae).

Vivien Leigh in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

Glamorous Actress Stone

Not to be confused with The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, the film starring Vivien Leigh (and later played by that Damn Helen Mirren in a PBS TV production) as Karen Stone, an isolated woman considered beyond her prime − as she approaches 50(!), here I dare to compare March holidays on the ancient Roman calendar with select films featuring that zany Hollywood actress, Sharon Stone.

Martius
Martius (March), the Roman month devoted to and named after the god of war, Mars, was filled with numerous celebrations

The Ides of March
The most known festival was the Ides of March (Latin: Idus Martiae), which is the name of March 15 in the Roman calendar. The term ides was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th day of the other months. This festival was a joyous day dedicated to the god Mars and a military parade was usually held. In modern times, the term Ides of March is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. Caesar was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and 60 other co-conspirators.

Julius Caesar

According to the Greek historian Plutarch, Caesar was warned by a seer to be on his guard against a great peril on the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey (where he would be assassinated), Caesar saw the seer and joked “Well, the Ides of March have come,” to which the seer replied “Ay, they have come, but they are not gone.” This meeting is famously dramatized in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned to “beware the Ides of March”.

Sophistication and Elegance

Basic Plumbing
Fast-forward 2,036 years and five days to March 20, 1992. It was on this date that Basic Instinct had its theatrical release in the United States. Like the dreaded day for Caesar,  Basic Instinct has lots of blood and gore, thanks to an ice pick and Catherine Tramell, the character played by Stone. Tramell is a successfull and very wealthy crime writer, and the main suspect in the brutal murder of Johnny Boz, a former rock star. Down-and-out detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) is on the case, and on Tramell’s tail. Like the citizens of ancient Rome, Tramell didn’t wear panties, as evidenced in the infamous interrogation scene where Stone’s character appears to be suffering from restless leg syndrome and can’t stop crossing and uncrossing her legs, resulting in the kootchipop seen around the world.

The similarities are uncanny! Catherine Tramell is the equivalent of the assassin of Caesar, who’s modern equivalent could be Johnny Boz. Freaky!

Feriae Martis
Mars’ birthday fell on the Kalends. The salii, his priests, were divided into two groups (sodales) of 12 men each who, following the etymology of their name from the Latin salire, would leap or dance in procession at festivals to Mars. The salii were of ancient, pre-Republican origin, patrician, and chosen for life from families with living parents (like the Vestal Virgins). Headquartered in the Curia Saliorum on the Palatine Hill, they were charged with caring for the shields (ancilia) of Mars, and singing and dancing through Rome beating swords on the shields, at the beginning and end of the war season, in March and October. The salii’s celebration in honor of Mars (Feriae Martis) lasted 24 days.

Pretty Perm

A Slice of Life
Like the 24 days it took to honor Mars, so is the amount of days it takes to wrap your mind around the plot of Sliver. Stone plays Carly Norris, a New York City book editor who manages to move into the spacious Sliver Heights building in Manhattan — on a book editor’s salary. How does she do this?

Ann Marie

Well, if That Girl’s Ann Marie, a struggling actress who lives in a spacious Manhattan apartment can do it, then why not? Maybe Ann’s boyfriend, magazine reporter Donald Hollinger (Ted Bessell) was really her pimp. In the original unaired pilot episode, Bessell’s character was named Donald Blue Sky, and he played Ann’s ‘agent’ instead of a reporter. Hmm. Anyway, so after Carly moves into this expensive high-rise, a bunch of people start to die, and there is a serial killer on the loose. What follows are a couple of the usual suspects, along with voyeurism and bad dialog.

Anna Perenna
The Festival of Anna Perenna occurs on the Ides of March. Much like the identity of who was killing off tenants in a highrise Manhattan apartment building, the identity of Anna Perenna (or Porenna) is a mystery, but she may be a personification of the year. The prolific Roman poet Ovid tells two stories about her, but they may be his inventions. In one, Anna was an old woman who gave cakes to the plebeians when they seceded (494 B.C.). In the other, she is Dido’s (Queen of Carthage) sister who was driven from Carthage to Latium after Dido’s suicide. In Latium, she incurred the wrath of Aeneas’ wife, fled, and was carried off by Numicus, god of a stream. When Aeneas’ servants went out searching for her, they followed her tracks to the river bank where they discovered she had been turned into a water nymph.

Swallows With Lilies No. 5 Fresco (by yours truly) inspired by a wall mural in an ancient harvest room, signifying spring.

In her article on Ovid’s treatment of the Ides of March in his Fasti, Professor Carole Newlands says Anna Perenna’s festival included the drunkenness and sexual and verbal freedoms typical of carnivalesque holidays like Lupercalia and Saturnalia. At Anna Perenna’s festival, reversal of typical Roman dignitas includes inversion of gender roles as when a drunken old woman drags along a drunken old man.

If she were a card, she'd be the Joker

Only in Vegas
Drunkenness? Sexual and verbal freedoms? Sounds like modern day Las Vegas. Which leads me to Ms. Stone’s role as Ginger McKenna in Casino. Like the ancient prostitutes of Rome, Ginger is a hooker who roams. She goes from casino to casino looking for unsuspecting rich dudes to roll. She hooks up with Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro) and ends up marrying him. She’s still hooked on her old sleazy pimp boyfriend Lester Diamond (James Woods). Ginger is a truly tormented dame. She ends up having a baby with Sam, can’t give up Lester, has an affair with sleaze ball small-time mobster Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) and falls into a downward spiral of booze and drugs. Ginger flees Las Vegas with money and jewels and hooks up with some lowlifes in a fleabag motel in Hollywood. She quickly becomes destitute and dies of a cocaine overdose. It’s your typical girl gets boy, girl still wants old pimp boy, girl finds new mob boy, girl leaves first boy, and girl ends up dead from a drug overdose in a fleabag Hollywood motel. It’s been done hundreds of times in cinematic history. What seems to be most confusing about Stone’s role is that her character’s name is Ginger, but she’s a blonde. Go figure.

Fast and the Day of Blood
March 16th marked the end of the carnival celebration which had started with the Terminalia celebration on the 23d of February. Like Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), it was the end of a feast period and beginning of a fast, only with the Romans, the celebration was in honor of Dionysus, Jupiter, and Mars.

A nine-day fast preceded the Dies sanguinis ‘Day of the Blood’. On the 22 of March, a procession of palms or a pine tree was brought to the shrine of Cybele so that the pine could be worshiped as a god. Two days later, at the Day of the Blood, the priests of Cybele slashed themselves and spun around to sprinkle her statue with blood. Afterwards, the priests washed the statue in the Almo River, a Tiber tributary.

Stone as Edith Ann

Basic Nonsence
What could be more natural to follow up this holiday, which features lots of blood and slashing, than Basic Instinct 2? Here, 14 years after the release of the film with the same name minus the 2, Stone reprises her role as Catherine Tramell. This time Tramell is living across the pond. The opening scene has Tramell driving a car at high speeds with her soccer playing boyfriend as her passenger, looking totally out of it. Tramell is using his hand to see if she still foregoes panties, while she is wild behind the wheel. Her scene is reminiscent of the car scene in Mahogany, where a rail-thin fashion model named Tracy (played by character Diana Ross) is a passenger in a car driven by out-of-control Sean, a high-fashion photographer (played by character Anthony Perkins), who is obsessed with Tracy and determined to have her all to himself — or else. Getting back to Cate Tramell, Stone plays her like Ross in that Mahogany scene, with some Courtney Love thrown in for good measure.

Tramell’s car ends up plunging into the Thames and her boyfriend drowns…or was he already dead? Tramell becomes the subject of yet another police investigation, and what follows is what could only be an advertisement for Stone’s plastic surgeon and nothing else. Stone is wacky in this part, and like ancient Rome, her career appeared to be in ruins after the film’s release.

Epilogue
Where Stone may have had mishaps at the box office, her life as an advocate shines.

AIDS Research Support
In April 2004, she was awarded the National Center for Lesbian Rights Spirit Award in San Francisco for her support and involvement with organizations that serve the lesbian, gay and HIV/AIDS community and performed Can’t Get You Out of My Head with Kylie Minogue in Cannes for AIDS research. She was presented the award by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Chinese Earthquake Controversy
Stone sparked criticism for her comments made in an exchange on the red carpet with Hong Kong’s Cable Entertainment News during the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 25, 2008. When asked about the 2008 Sichuan earthquake she remarked:

“Well you know it was very interesting because at first, you know, I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And so I have been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don’t like that. And I had been this, you know, concerned about, oh how should we deal with the Olympics because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine. And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that Karma? When you’re not nice then the bad things happen to you?”

“Happy he who has passed his whole life mid his own fields, he of whose birth and old age the same house is witness…For him the recurring seasons, not the consuls, mark the year; he knows autumn by his fruits and spring by her flowers.”
–Claudian, Carmina Minora (XX)

“It was not a nuthouse!”
–Neely O’Hara

Claudian, the Greek-speaking Roman poet who made Rome his home before 395 AD, speaks of fruits in the above poem. Neely O’Hara, the Valley of the Dolls alcoholic and drug addict who was drummed right out of Hollywood and came crawlin’ back to Broadway, and who failed at her attempt at a comeback, is referring to her stint at a sanitarium when she mentions the ‘nuthouse.’

Both Claudian and Neely reference fruits and nuts in their statements. Attributed to Romulus, the first ruler of Rome, the Roman calendar (c. 700 BC) originally was determined by the seasons of the cycles of the moon and the seasons of the agricultural year. Fruits, nuts, vegetables and herbs played a tremendous role in the lives of the Romans, thus their calendar was modeled around planting and harvesting.

Beginning in March, in the spring, and ending in December with the autumn planting, the year then was 10 months long (304 days) and had six months with 30 days and four with 31. (Ten successive lunar months actually would have been about 295 days and, because each began and ended with the new moon, that day would have belonged both to the new month and the old— and must have been counted twice.)

Just like Neely needed her grain alcohol to sustain her addiction, the Romans depended on grains to sustain their existence. Grains, like the other agricultural products, needed to be planned out through the Roman calendar year in order to survive the seasons. This explains why the winter months, when there was no work in the field, were not counted.

Broadway, however, offered plenty of work in the field of the theatre. Visitors to the Big Apple (note reference to fruit) enjoy seeing shows during this pretty time of year, with 42nd Street and the surrounding avenues blanketed with snow.

Helen Lawson, a famous Broadway star who has a vicious temperament, is seen here singing “I’ll Plant My Own Tree.” Planting for the Romans began in March (Martus). During the month, calendar festivals included the day honoring New Year’s Day according to the pre-Julian calendar, the Women’s festival of Matronalia, and the gods of one’s household (the 1st); Day sacred to Hercules (the 11th); and, the Festival of Bacchus (the 16th).

Bacchus was the Roman god of wine and debauchery. The Festival of Bacchus ended on the 17th, so there were two days of drinking.

As with all wine festivals, it’s important to pace yourself so you don’t get alcohol bloat.

Detail from my fresco entitled "Bacchus and Flora"

Festivals in April (Aprilis) included the Festival of Fortuna Virilis (the 1st), Birthday of Cybele (the 10th) and the Festival of Jupiter and Juno. May (Maius) brought the Women’s Festival of Bona Dia (the 1st), Festival of Mars Invictus (the 14th), Festival for Dea Dia (the 17th), and the Feast of Mars (the 29th). In June (Junonius) the Roman celebrations included the Day sacred to Tempestas (the 1st), Women’s festival of Vestalia (the 15th), Festival for Anna (the 18th), and Festival for Minerva. From January 1st through the end of June, the total number of festivals and celebrations on the Roman calendar were 152.

By July (Julius), you would think that the Romans would be all partied out. But, like Neely, there’s never enough to fuel the flames of a continuous buzz. From the beginning of July through the end of December, the Romans were able to fit in another 125 festivals and celebrations, which brought the annual total to 277.

With all that partying going on, fights were bound to break out.

The Early Roman army, which was formed c. 300 BC, kept order through c. 641 AD The Roman army is a generic term for the armed forces deployed by the kingdom of Rome (to c. 500 BC), the Roman Republic (500-31 BC), the Roman Empire (31 BC – 476 AD) and its successor, the Byzantine empire (476-1453 AD). It is thus a term that spans approximately 2,000 years, during which the Roman armed forces underwent numerous permutations in composition, organization, equipment and tactics, while conserving a core of lasting traditions.

You may have noticed that I’ve referenced a 12-month calendar of events, though I mentioned in the beginning of this post that the winter months were left out of the calendar. The two months that were originally omitted are January and February. It was Numa Pompilius, the second king or Rome (715-673 BC), who divided the year into 12 lunar months. However, the lunar months were not reliable because the moon’s lunation, a period of approximagely 29.5 days, is not the same length of time as the earth’s annual orbit around the sun, a period of approximately 365.25 days. Twelve lunar months are shorter by about 11 days than the solar year (365-354).It wasn’t until 46 BC that a reformed calendar, based on the solar year, was introduced by Caesar, who first heard about it while consorting with Cleopatra.

Here we see Jennifer North, the beautiful and talentless actress who later marries Tony Polar, a talentless singer, modeling a headdress, which was probably inspired by Cleopatra’s wardrobe.

When Caesar finally returned to Rome from Cleopatra and the Egyptian campaign in 46 BC, and was declared dictator, a three-month discrepancy existed between the seasons and their calendar date. The harvest was being celebrated long before the crops even had been taken in. Hence, Caesar’s motivation to reform the Roman calendar.

Of the 277 days of festivals and celebrations on the Roman calendar, approximately 135 days are devoted to women. Ancient Roman woman had little political freedom in society, but substantial freedom outside of politics, and some were outspoken and took an interest in the politics of their day. The status of a woman would vary from a fish monger with very little money to a woman of great wealth who was a daughter of and married to prominent politicians. Anne Wells would have been the latter.

With her good cheekbones and classy good looks, Anne would have fit right in with high society in ancient Roman times. She was beautiful and evoked goddess-like qualities. Goddesses were worshipped as evident by the number of festivals dedicated to them. Many female deities represented different aspects of the natural world. An example is Pomona, the Goddess of fruit trees, orchards and gardens.

Neely would have fallen in the former category of a fish monger.

The last event of the year falls on the 29th of December (same spelling). Compitalia, a rustic celebration at the end of the farming season, actually has no fixed date but falls between the end of Saturnalia (the 24th) and the Nones of January.

Anne had no fixed dates, either. When she first moved to New York City from her picturesque New England hometown of Lawrenceville, she lived at the Martha Washington Hotel for Women, where men were not allowed. Shortly thereafter, Anne has the misfortune to meet and fall in love with cad Lyon Burke.  So, in her book dating was out of the question. Lyon refused to commit to marriage, which was something Anne desperately craved. Lyon ended up having an affair with Neely. As a result, Anne followed suit and fell under the allure of booze and “dolls” to escape her doomed relationship.

Actually, no festival dates could actually be called fixed. This is because the early Roman calendar was based on a lunar cycle, not the solar cycle that we use today. The Romans marked time as being before the cycles of the moon (i.e., five days before the Kalends of October). As such, festival dates changed dates from year to year. The dates given in this post are general dates, and, depending on the calendar one is using, could be off by a few days.

But nothing could be as off as Helen Lawson’s wig. Neely made sure of that. When Neely crashes a press party for Helen’s new show, a scuffle ensues and Neely snatches Helen’s wig.

After trying to flush it down the toilet, Neely tosses the hairpiece over the stall door, where it lands on the floor with a splat. Neely hightails it out of there. Like the women of Roman high society, Helen stands regal. She removes a scarf from her neck and covers her matronly shock of white hair. “I’ll go out the way I came in,” she nobly declares, exiting through the front door.

Respectable Roman women were not supposed to be wandering around alone outside, so it’s a good thing that Helen wasn’t living in ancient Rome upon her exit.

Roman Fasti
Some 200 fragments of Roman calendars have been found so far, and they are collectively known as Fasti. Here are various examples of the calendar:

Some calendars were carved in marble or stone, but many were painted on walls for decoration.

During her stint as The Gillian Girl model, Anne Wells was thrown into a montage of funky ads. The image below depicts Anne spraying “product” at stone and marble archaeological artifacts.

To sum up what we’ve learned, the Roman calendar (c. 700 BC) and Valley of the Dolls (1967 AD) had many similarities:

1. The Roman calendar had many festivals which, one could say, were on the edge of cultish. Valley of the Dolls has a huge cult following.
2. The early Roman calendar was based on the lunar cycle. Neely had cycles of lunacy.
3. Neely defended the sanitarium where she dried out, bellowing that it was not a nuthouse. Romans depended on fruits and nuts. Fruits can be dried out.
4. The large egos of Roman Emperors would cause them to puff out their chests, fueled by their addiction to power. Neely’s addiction was fueled by alcohol and drugs, which made her puffy.