BREAD&CIRCUSES: Mediaeus Receives a Mission (Chapter 3)

The eunuch Mediaeus visits the Emperor Obamacus at his pleasure palace in Capri bearing 2 small gifts & concerning news about the coming Roman elections. The emperor then dispatches him on a mission!

Note: Our normal weekly Bread & Circuses weekly humor roundup will publish in a few minutes…

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"Hail Obamacus!" Mediaeus placed a tiny urn on the marble floor, threw himself on the ground, and slowly kissed the feet of Emperor Obamacus Magnanimitas Africanus.

"You may rise Mediaeus. While it’s always a pleasure to see Rome's greatest chronicler, I trust you came all the way down here to disturb me on my summer vacation because you have some important news to tell me?"

"Yes, yes, I do your Imperial Majesty! I have an important matter to discuss with you. But first, it would be my greatest honor if you were to accept two small gifts demonstrating my absolute loyalty to you!" He reached down on the floor, picked up the tiny urn, and attempted to hand it to Obamacus...

"Mediaeus..." Obamacus said with a hint of annoyance. "As I have told you time and time again, you don't need to give me your testicles to prove your loyalty and devotion! Now what did you come down here to me?"

A sad expression appeared on Mediaeus' face.

"It’s about you retiring as emperor and the coming elections to choose a new one..."

"Ahh yes, my retirement as emperor and the coming elections. Before you update me on what is happening with those elections, I want you to listen to something..."

Obamacus picked up a fiddle and began playing while singing the first several lines from the epic poem, "Sack of Troy..." 

When he was finished playing, Mediaeus began clapping ecstatically.

"I must say your Imperial Majesty, listening to you play the fiddle and sing is like listening to call of the Sirens in Homer's Odyssey! I will ensure you will go down in history as an even more accomplished fiddle player and crooner than Emperor Nero himself!"

"That's exactly what Michaela keeps telling me – that I must play the fiddle and sing even better than Emperor Nero himself! You see, I started playing the fiddle at the very beginning of my reign and I have been practicing with it for hours on end nearly every single day after my bath and before Michaela's nightly dinner parties. In fact, I look forward to a long retirement at my palace here on the island of Capri where I'll spend my remaining days fiddling while watching the sunset over the empire..."

"Yes! Yes, your Imperial Majesty! And that's why I came all this way down from Rome - you giving up the imperial throne and retiring here to Capri to let a new emperor take over. I know how Emperor Diocletian established a precedent for Roman emperors to build a new pleasure palace and a new temple or church dedicated to themselves before stepping down. And of course, you must be thoroughly exhausted from all the hard work you have done in the service of Rome by becoming our most glorious, just, and gracious emperor. It's just that the candidates who could be chosen by the Imperial Senate or worse, by the plebeian mobs of the circus, to become our next emperor are less than worthy of succeeding you on the imperial throne!"

"Thank you Mediaeus for your ever so kind words! But the goldsmiths are just putting the finishing touches on my bathhouse's gold leaf ceiling at my new pleasure palace here in Capri as well as on the ceiling of the new temple in Rome where everyone will have the opportunity to continue to pay homage to me long after I retire as your emperor." He paused to think...

"Chosen by the plebeian mobs of the circus?" Obamacus asked with a confused look on his face. "What do you mean by chosen by the plebeian mobs of the circus? Assuming there is no civil war, it’s up to the patricians of the Imperial Senate to agree on who will reign as divine emperor and walk in my footsteps to sit on the imperial throne while wearing the imperial purple. Are you trying to tell me there are emperor candidates actively campaigning amongst the plebeian mobs of the circus rather than behind the closed doors of the Imperial Senate or at the dinner parties of its patrician members where they are supposed to be campaigning?"

"Yes! Yes, your Imperial Majesty! Oh, it’s just terrible, terrible what I am hearing at all the patrician dinner parties and around the Imperial Senate baths about what is happening in Rome right now! It sounds like the election will become a real circus and no one is certain who will be chosen!"

"Ohh?" Obamacus replied with a raised eyebrow. “Tell me more…”