“ He's a non-descript man, with his pushcart. On it he sells nothing more exotic than jars of sun-dried tomatoes in oil and pickled vegetables. But he's always out there, in the courtyard of the great Guild of Wizards, in most weathers, and he'll have a kind word for you, and a jar.”
“ The religion believes in reincarnation, but that you will be reborn in the past. People of today are those re-born of tomorrow, with some discarded as trash. The most pure will be eventually reborn in the mythical paradise-like past, where people lived for hundreds, or maybe even thousands of years.
This goes nicely with beliefs into foresight (you know a little about the future because you have been there), but also to many complaints of how things are going always from bad to worse.”
“ In ancient Rome, social appearance and respectability were everything. The most hated men were punished with <i>damnatio memoriae</i>, damnation of memory. Every trace that a person had ever lived was removed. Busts were shattered, freizes were marred, records were struck. Any sign of the hated figure was destroyed.”
