Julius Caesar began to suspect he had been left off of a very important group text.
Episode 64: In which the Support Group for the Newly Deified discusses the new Largo Argentina archaeological park, and also kittens.
This episode of Real Housewives of Mt. Olympus brought to you by the latest archaeological news on APNews.com – and by CLAS-C 387 Roman History.
[SETTING: Support Group for the Newly Deified]
ROMULUS, FOUNDER OF ROME AND COMPLETE SOCIOPATH:…and that’s why I murdered him.
DIVINE ANTONINUS PIUS, FORMER AND REMARKABLY FORGETTABLE ROMAN EMPEROR: Thank you, Romulus, for sharing your thoughts on Samnite diplomatic negotiations. Although, once again, the discussion topic was “accepting your godhood,” so in future please try to stay on topic. Now I’d like to shift to where we share any mortal news about one of our members. Julius Caesar, you were recently featured!
DIVINE JULIUS CAESAR, FORMER ALMOST-ROMAN-EMPEROR AND ANOTHER COMPLETE SOCIOPATH: What, are the mortals finally returning to studying my military genius? Clearly they need to. Have you seen the Black Sea region lately?
ANTONINUS PIUS: Well, no. Actually, the mortals just opened a new archaeological park in Rome, adjacent to the site where you were murdered.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT (sort of), BRIEFLY FORMER GREEK EMPEROR (sort of) AND CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD (sort of): (laughing uproariously) Dude, they’re opening a museum to you getting shanked by your bros and dying like a wimp! That’s awesome.
ANTONINUS PIUS: No, that’s not what…
JULIUS CAESAR: Come over here, punk, and I’ll give you a lesson on shanking.
ALEXANDER: I don’t know what you mean by that, but I’m here for it.
Marc Antony’s “sawing Caesar in half” trick goes terribly wrong.
DIVINE AURELIAN, FORMER ROMAN EMPEROR AND PERENNIAL REBELLION SQUASHER: I thought Julius Caesar was murdered at the Senate House in the Roman Forum. That’s been open as a museum site for years.
DIVINE HADRIAN, FORMER ROMAN EMPEROR AND PRETENTIOUS WINDBAG: Maybe if you weren’t an ignorant son of a tenant farmer, you’d know that Julius Caesar was murdered in the senate house in the theater complex of his erstwhile enemy Pompey the Great. The previous Forum senate house had burned down several years before in a riot.
ROMULUS: Back up, who in Mars’ name is this guy?
ANTONINUS PIUS: This is Divus Aurelian. He’s one of the military emperors from the third century.
AURELIAN: Romulus, I’m just such a fan! In fact, my major accomplishment was building the most famous walls around Rome!
ROMULUS: How many people did you slaughter for jumping over your wall?
AURELIAN: Um, none. That was the point, to make the walls so big no one could get across them.
ROMULUS: I think you don’t understand what Roman circuit walls are for. They’re slaughter-bait. You build them, people cross them, you slaughter those people.
If people can drive through your walls, you’re not encircling your city correctly.
HADRIAN: You are such an idiot. How you managed to found such an extraordinary city is beyond me.
ANTONINUS PIUS: Father, please, positive comments only.
HADRIAN: I am positively not your real father. Is that better?
ALEXANDER: I want to get back to the murder museum.
ANTONINUS PIUS: It is not a murder museum. It’s not even the site of the murder. It’s only near the site of the murder. The actual murder site is under nearby buildings.
ALEXANDER: Why would you open an excavation for a museum to a murder, but not put it on the murder site?
ANTONINUS PIUS: It’s not a museum to a murder! And they haven’t opened any new archaeological excavations. It’s the site of a collection of Republican temples that were excavated decades ago. You just haven’t been able to go down and see them before unless you were feeding the cats.
Confused as to what cats were doing in their litter boxes, governments attempted to replace archaeologists with cheap animal labor.
AURELIAN: I’m sorry, did you say “feeding the cats”? Like feeding Christians to lions in the arena?
ANTONINUS PIUS: No. Somehow over the past decades the exposed temples became a stray cat colony. Volunteers could go into the sanctuary and take care of them.
ALEXANDER: (laughing uproariously again) Your murder museum was a kitten colony? Caesar, I gotta say, that’s the least badass thing I’ve heard in a long time.
JULIUS CAESAR: I know someone who’s going to need a new murder museum…,
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To learn more about how much Romans loved stabbing each other (take that any way you want), enroll in CLAS-C 387 Roman History, coming up Fall 2023, with no pre-reqs! Or to learn about how ancient Rome and modern Rome overlap and interact (with cats!), look for CLAS-C 414 Art and Archaeology of the Roman World, coming Spring 2024, also with no pre-reqs. While you’re waiting, make sure to check back for more sessions of the Support Group of the Newly Deified. Can’t get enough of Ancient Greece and Rome? Earn a Classics Minor in just 15 credits!
