"My name is Mykalus Kane and I'm a nosy Cappadocian. One day I rode to Leukai to get some oak. I had a butchers at Old Smyrna on route, which is bloody old. I considered getting the Chuck Berry over to the isle of Chios but no, I need to get back to Mazaka for a ceremonial ox roast later. Chios spawned Theopompus and Theokritos, who were brainy bastards but didn't share the same political views. The Chians reckon Homer was from their island too, but they all say that.
Got to Smyrna by eleven, just in time for a bit of kidney at the Metroon near the closed harbour that today stinks of shit. Well, old Lysimachus did a lovely job of paving the streets with the finest fucking marble but he forgot to provide underground drainage, so when it rains the sewage runs on the surface. It's chucking it down today and there's fucking excrement all over the shop. I went in the Homereion museum and there was crap seeping through the cracks in the walls of the quadrilateral stoa and I looked at the statue of Homer, took my hat off and said 'beg your pardon old mate, but there's shit all over your plinth'. They say old Dolabella killed Tregonius here, who was one of the blokes responsible for the death of Caesar the God. Bloody Romans think he's a god but there you go. I was lucky today, as buried in the sodden dung I found a little gold coin with Homer's face on it and they're as rare as rocking horse shit! Today you would be forgiven for thinking there's a few rocking horses about! The Meles river is well up and the walls are just about keeping it contained because if that breaches there'll be a flood on their hands, but then again it might wash some of the tom tits out to sea. Had a quick beer in a pub called the Death of Caesar and I went on my Edna.
Trotted along to Leukai and gave the old Charing Cross a few apples. The rain had eased up into drizzle. The oracle was right, she said it would do that. I stocked up on oak at a wood merchants and hit the pub. I sat at the bar and the barman was the chatty sort. I said 'busy today shinker?' He wiped a stone cup clean with a rag and filled it with wheat beer and said 'Had a few cunts in. Not many.' I said 'why's this place called The Revolutionary?' He went on to tell me 'because one time, old Aristonikos drank here. After King Attalos III croaked it, old Aristonikos started a revolution. Bit of a Che Guevara was this bloke. He told everyone he was royalty and therefore had a claim on the territory. Proper delusions of grandeur. Anyway he grabbed a load of useless cunts called the Heliopolitans from up in the mountains and he promised them all great riches if they joined his cause. So a lot of them were taken in and they went to war and took Thyateira and Apollonis - two little pisspot villages! He used Napoleon style tactics by doing very unexpected things on the spur of the moment as they say. King Nikomedes of Bithynia and some Cappadocian kings weren't having any of it so they formed an alliance with the Romans under Crassus and Peperna. Eventually, after a fierce naval battle near Kyme, they took Aristonikos back to Rome and threw him in the slammer and he topped himself. Peperna and Crassus both died in the battle for Leukai so it's seen a lot of bother has this little old manor. Old Manius the Roman runs the show now. It's reasonably civilized apart from Dog the Heliopolitan drunk with a chip on his shoulder, who still regards Aristonikos as the king and won't be told what to do by a bunch of fucking Trojan rejects, which is what some people call the Romans. Achilles himself said the Trojans were arrogant bastards before he lanced Hector in the Gregory, so there you go. Have a good day.'
I thought shall I trot along to Magnesia? I realised the time was ticking on so I did the old Hi Ho Silver back across the interior via Sardis and was back in Mazaka by teatime. So that's enough from me today, now fuck off it's time for a cup of bloody tea!"
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