What. Is. Happening.
Episode 43: In which a remarkable find of rare Etruscan bronzes provides Hermes with yet another chance to troll his half-brother Apollo.
This episode of Real Housewives of Mt. Olympus brought to you by the latest archaeological news on SmithsonianMagazine.com – and by CLAS-C 210 Ancient Medicine and Modern Terminology.
HERMES, GOD OF LOWER LEARNING AND GENERAL PAIN IN THE….: Bro, guess what I just overheard.
APOLLO, GOD OF HIGHER LEARNING AND MUSIC: Take your stupid winged sandals and buzz off.
HERMES: You’re just irritated you never found a way to pair nudity and awesome accessories. Anyway, Hera was talking to Aunt Demeter about that hot springs shrine they share in Tuscany, and Hera said that the artifact farmers there just found this huge cache of bronze statues.
Harry Styles, eat your heart out.
APOLLO: Artifact farmers?
HERMES: (shrugs) It’s what our stepmom calls archaeologists now. I’ve started saying it too to irritate Demeter. For some reason it really annoys her that her sister doesn’t understand farming.
APOLLO: Shouldn’t you want to irritate Hera? She’s the one that tortured our mothers because we’re her husband’s bastard children.
HERMES: Meh, who has time to figure out things like “assigning blame to make sure you smite the person who has actually wronged you.”
APOLLO: We’re immortal beings. We have literally all the time in the world.
HERMES: Ugh, anyway, they found some bronze statues of you and your grand-daughter Hygeia buried in the mud. Apparently humans sunk them in the natural thermal baths there as some sort of offering to you.
When the ancient artifact is just as confused as you are as to what is going on.
APOLLO: Wow, that was actually great they did that, given the mortals’ tendencies to melt down any bronze objects they find and turn them into coins or cannons. Wait a second…why are you telling me this? You never bring good news.
HERMES: (bursting out laughing) Dude, don’t you see? The mortals wanted to be healed, so they threw precious statues of the gods of healing and hygiene into a pond, where they sunk into the mud. Instead of melting those things down and paying a doctor or buying medicine or better food, they tossed the statues into unhygienic dirt! They actively undermined their chances of being healed! In your name!
APOLLO: Yeah, well, you’re just jealous they didn’t find any statues of you.
HERMES: Bro, you know statues aren’t my style. I’m all about the wooden posts with weird heads, stump arms, and a big…
Sure, it’s the modern world that hyper-sexualizes everything. Kids these days.
APOLLO: (interrupting) Why do you insist that mortals put those up for you?
HERMES: Honestly, it started out as a gag like thousands of years ago, but it’s just so funny to see those things in museums, I’ve never let the mortals in on the joke.
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For more ancient medicinal practices, and how they shaped modern medicine regardless of whether they worked, enroll in CLAS-C 210 Ancient Medicine and Modern Terminology, coming up Spring 2025! Or to learn about how ancient Greeks and Romans decorated their crossroads and gardens with…well-endowed heads on sticks, check out CLAS-C 205 Classical Mythology, coming up Spring 2025, and earn GEC credits while you’re at it! Can’t get enough of Ancient Greece and Rome? Earn a Classics Minor in just 15 credits!
