"Roman Holiday"

Fleming gives an interesting definition of "Roman Holiday": "To this day, the highest praise that can be given an elaborate public festival is to call it a Roman holiday"  (101).  I'm not totally sure whether that was meant ironically; here is the definition from Merriam-Webster: "1 : A time of debauchery or sadistic enjoyment;  2 :  A destructive or tumultuous disturbance: RIOT".   A lot of people have commented on how the Romans seemed to enjoy blood sports, and that is where the phrase comes from.  It is derived from Canto 4, stanza 141 of Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, describing a gladiatorial fight:

He heard it, but he heeded not—his eyes

Were with his heart, and that was far away; 

He recked not of the life he lost nor prize, 

But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 

THERE were his young barbarians all at play, 

THERE was their Dacian mother—he, their sire, 

Butchered to make a Roman holiday—

 All this rushed with his blood—Shall he expire, 

And unavenged?—Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

I don't really know where Fleming was coming from here, but that does not seem like high praise to me.