Matt Donovan

We need to feature the incredible piece "Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii" by Matt Donovan from the ThreepennyReview, 2012. If you love Borges or Pound, be sure to try it--and of course if you're interested in Dionysus, Bacchic cults, ancient religion and Pompeii's art, read it too. It's got quite the poetic edge to it, really, and a bit of a memoir feel, but it's also interesting in the purely historical way; it's just got something for everyone.

It's both eerie and fascinating, here's an excerpt:
[...]
Over a century of guesses have been flung at the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii. This here, many have written, look just here, this.

That woman being whipped, the pinecone-tipped staff, bodies mid-spin, heads mid-turn, cymbals, and that peculiar peaked shape about to be unveiled from beneath a velvet-like tasseled cover (most in-the-know folks insist “phallus”). Among the twenty-one almost life-size figures occupying the room, there are women delivering loaves and laurel, pouring water and brushing hair.
[...]
So what kind of red was it?

One with a luster the ancients were desperate to preserve. Never allow, Vitruvius advised, either the moon’s splendor or the sun’s harsh rays to steal or lap up its brightness. [...]

Beneath Mount Bermois, in a garden where branches sagged with blossoms, Midas laced a stream with wine, knowing that the chubby follower of Bacchus couldn’t resist. [...]