Ramsay MacMullen, professor emeritus of history at Yale, has coined the best term for these intoxicated get-togethers: a “chill-out.” He paints a vivid re-creation of the “traditional beliefs and rites” that “prevailed among Christians” in Rome: Such loving times in the recall of the dead went on for as long as the celebrants’ mood and their wine might last, even as an “all-nighter,” a vigilia. The dead themselves participated. They needed such remembrances for their tranquil existence in the Beyond. They were to be offered whatever food was at hand and, most especially, a toast in wine to be
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