One of the funniest works of Roman literature to survive—and the only one that has ever made me laugh out loud—is a skit, written by the philosopher Seneca, about the Emperor Claudius’ adventures on his way to Mt. Olympus after his death. Titled “Apocolocyntosis Divi Claudii” (“The ‘Pumpkinification’ of the Deified Claudius”), it recounts how the Roman Senate declared that the dead Emperor was now a god, complete with his own temple, priests, and official rites of worship. The deification of emperors was fairly standard practice at the time, and the spoof claimed to lift the lid on what really happened during the process.
It was an inside joke. Seneca was the tutor of Nero, who was Claudius’ successor and his stepson. The idea is that the befuddled old Emperor—who was rumored to have been finished off with some poisoned mushrooms by his wife, Agrippina—is not really fit to be divine. As Claudius climbs up Mt. Olympus, word comes to the “real” gods that a stranger has arrived, and that he is muttering incomprehensibly. But, when Hercules is sent to investigate, the two of them swap a few lines of Homer’s poetry. (“Thank goodness there are some scholars in Heaven,” Claudius enthuses.) The gods meet in private to decide whether to allow Claudius to join their ranks. “Opinions were mixed, but were coming down generally in Claudius’ favor,” Seneca writes, until the Emperor Augustus, who was deified forty years earlier, swings the vote decisively against him. Claudius, one of his successors, has been such a monster, Augustus points out, that he shouldn’t be allowed to become a god. “He may look as if he couldn’t startle a fly, but he used to kill people as easily as a dog has a shit,” Augustus says.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 03, 2023 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 03, 2023 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
The Football Bro - Pat McAfee brings a casual new style to ESPN.
If, on a cool weekend morning in autumn, you happen to be watching “College GameDay,” on ESPN, don’t worry about figuring out which of the broadcasters behind the improbably long desk is Pat McAfee. He’s the one with the roast-pork tan, his hair cut high and tight, likely tieless among his more businesslike colleagues. The rest of the onair crew—Lee Corso, Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, and, newly, the former University of Alabama coach Nick Saban—tend to look and dress and talk like participants in an old-school Republican-primary debate. McAfee, though, favors windowpane checks on his jackets and a slip of chest poking out from behind his two or three open buttons. If the others are politicians, he’s the cool-coded megachurch pastor who sometimes acts as their spiritual adviser.
The Dark Time. - On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging. The point of contact between NATO and Russia's nuclear stronghold is the small town of Kirkenes. For years, Russia has treated the area as a laboratory, testing intelligence and influence operations before replicating them across Europe.
MIRROR IMAGES
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OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
Proximity to wealth proves perilous in Rumaan Alam’ novel Entitlement.”
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How Monet shared a private world.
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The very rich hours of Pamela Harriman.
HUGO HAMILTON AUTOBAHN
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TRY IT ON
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SORRY I'M NOT YOUR CLOWN TODAY
Bowen Yang's trip to Oz, by way of conversion therapy and S..N.L.”
SNIFF TEST
A maverick perfumer tries to make his mark on a storied fashion house.
