“Hey dude this isn’t a toga party!” shouts a man from across the crowded room. All the partygoers erupt into raucous laughter. Cornelius is embarrassed and lost.

Everyone is wearing strange, colourful clothes that look uncomfortably tight. And the lamps in this chamber appear to have no flames. He knows he’s had a pitcher of wine to drink; perhaps his friends added a strange herb to it and are humouring themselves.

It is late at night. Dark outside. “Excuse me, Madam, but where am I?” Cornelius doesn’t understand. He was outside, and seems to have woken up on a plush bench.

“Uh, Rome?” laughs the woman next to him, before seeing how upset he is. “It’s okay darling, we’ve all had those bad trips. It’s a little after midnight- officially 2020. Happy New Year!” she kisses him lightly on the cheek and saunters away, leaving Cornelius even more confused than before.

You see, Cornelius was in 2019: 2019 B.C.