What We Say About The Romans

I’m recording this now

For students in my 400 class

Because I’ve decided

I’m retiring

So there’s no need

To watch what I say anymore

Listen up, punks--

The Romans were a bunch

Of jerks

You read a history book

It says--

The Romans did this

The Romans did that

You know what the Romans did?

The Romans looked at all the good things

The Greeks did and went--

Let’s steal that

Rename it

And say we invented it

The Romans did to western civilization

What white people did to rock ‘n roll

Oh, and if anybody said--

Excuse me

But I invented that thing

You know what they did to you?

Nailed you to a cross

And burned down your library

These are the people

We get all excited about
Because they gave us roads

ROADS

The Greeks gave us math

Philosophy, odometers

Olympics, alarm clocks

And souvlaki

But I have to spend

Two thirds of my class

Kiss Julius Caesar’s dead rear end

When the idiot

Got assassinated on the same day

His wife said--

Hey, I wouldn’t go to work today

If I were you

I think you might get assassinated

And you know what that moron does?

That history-changing genius?

HE GOES TO WORK

My wife tells me to stay home
Because she’s makin chili

And I say ‘Sure’

But Caesar just HAD to go in that day

Genghis Khan is currently related

To thirty-seven million people

Alive today

But Shakespeare didn’t write a play

About him, now did he?

You know why?

Because when Genghis’ wife

Told him--

Don’t raid any villages today

You might get assassinated

HE LISTENED!

Look, the reality is

History is written

By those who steal

And bring a label maker with them

When they steal

So they can label everything they stole

As theirs

But more than that

It’s written by the people

Who know enough

To stay home

When they’re told to

Tacitus said, He that fights and runs away,

May turn and fight another day; 

But he that is in battle slain, 

Will never rise to fight again

Tacitus was a Roman

But we won’t hold that against him

What he’s saying is--

You don’t need to get stabbed to death TODAY
You can get stabbed to death TOMORROW

Or NEXT WEEK

You see, students

Life is not about preventing getting stabbed to death

By people you thought were your friends

Life is about deciding when

You FEEL LIKE getting stabbed to death

By people you thought were your friends

Forgetting that all your friends are politicians

And not politicians

But ROMAN politicians

Which means you may as well be friends

With a bunch of garbage-chewing raccoons

Wearing togas

Now, for your final exam

I’d like you to draw me a photo

Of a raccoon chewing on a piece of trash
While he stabs Caesar to death

On the steps of the Senate

It won’t be historically accurate

But that’s okay

Sometimes history is about what happened

And sometimes it’s about making sure

It doesn’t happen

Again