ao3tagoftheday:

ao3tagoftheday:

[Image Description: Tag reading “I wrote this out of pure spite”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Someone please take this opportunity to ask me about the Pumpkinification of the God Claudius

Ok, it is my great delight to introduce you all to one of the most absurd pieces of political satire ever written. It is a work of pure spite, entirely scurrilous and utterly delightful. It also has the distinction of having the best name ever: Apocolocyntosis Divi Claudii, which is translated various ways, but which I’ve always thought is best rendered as The Pumpkinification of the God Claudius.

Now, Claudius was a Roman emperor in the first century and a pretty good one, all things considered. He was careful and thoughtful and did things like reform the judicial system and balance the budget and other boring, necessary stuff like that. He was also, and I say this factually and without prejudice, fat, ugly, physically disabled, and possessed of a severe speech impediment. For reasons unknown (but possibly related to the fact that he was all of those things and humanity basically sucks sometimes), people hated him. Hated. Which meant that when he died and his stepson took over, people were really excited. One of those people, Seneca, celebrated by writing the Apocolocyntosis.

A note about the fundamental joke of the Apocolocyntosis: when a Roman emperor died, it was customary for the Senate to meet and vote to make the dead emperor a god. After Claudius died, the Senate duly deified him, and, though we don’t have the exact decree, would likely have issued a proclamation along the lines of “The Deification of the God Claudius.” See where this is going? Yeah.

Here’s an incomplete list of shit that happens in the Apocolocyntosis:

• Claudius orders Hercules to be executed
• This doesn’t work out so well, because, you know, it’s Hercules
• The line “The last words he was heard to speak in this world were….“Oh dear, oh dear! I think I have made a mess of myself.” Whether he did or no, I cannot say, but certain it is he always did make a mess of everything.“
• The gods apparently have a Senate too, where they meet to vote about whether Claudius should become a god. In this meeting, Claudius’s grandfather stands up and makes fun of him in front of the entire God Senate
• (The God Senate runs on the Roman version of Robert’s Rules of Order)
• Hercules physically threatens some god senators, because he’s, you know, Hercules
• There’s a clown parade
• Claudius ends up getting sent to the underworld, where literally everybody yells at him
• No seriously. They hold an entire legal trial so that all the dead people can yell at him
• Claudius ends up having to do the “tantalus reach out for the food or water and it runs away punishment thing” except with gambling for some reason
• Another dead emperor shows up and announces that Claudius is one of his slaves and then just walks off with him
• I feel like I should back up and mention again that there’s a clown parade
• I’m serious. It’s a fucking clown parade. I have no fucking clue why

One thing the Pumpkinification does not involve? Pumpkins. There are no pumpkins in this pumpkinification book.

(Important side note: Claudius’s stepson who took over? Nero. Yeah, that Nero.)