" The Sun no longer rises on the Black men of the Mediterranean. The masked hunters, the old fertility cults have gone. War is no longer fought with spear and swords. And heroes no longer travel to the battlefield by chariot, reciting genealogies of their ancestors before engagement.

All that remains today are masquerades such as the Procession of Giants at Toledo, and the Running of the Bulls in northern Italian towns. But the meaning of such institutions is no longer understood. They are the last quaint survivals of a ghostly past, a side show in a circus, where the main players now have different mores and different values." Graham Campbell-Dunn