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Episode 2: In which Apollo and Hermes debate the virtues of making music with tortoise corpses, and get in a fight over cows. Again. This episode of Real Housewives of Mt. Olympus brought to you by the latest archaeological news on SmithsonianMagazine.com – and by CLAS-C 205 Classical Mythology. Blast from the Past: Here in Classical …

In 79 CE, Mt. Vesuvius erupted on a massive scale, burying a large swath of the prosperous Bay of Naples area under meters of rock, ash, and mud. Cities such as Pompeii and Herculaneum were snuffed out, preserved for millennia until they were rediscovered in the modern era. Almost overnight, Pompeii became one of the …