This year in Athens, at the Cavafy Archive, I am troubled by the thought that the Alexandrian poet is more than ever our contemporary when I recall these lines:

—Why is there such great idleness inside Senate house?
Why are the Senators sitting there, not passing any laws?
Because the barbarians will arrive today.
Why should the Senators still be making laws?
The barbarians, when they come, will legislate.

(From Constantine Cavafy’s ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’)