Ancient Roman Art

We'll conclude our Latin series with two pieces of visual art drawn by aesthetically precocious middle schoolers. The medium of both works is pencil on copy paper.

The first, by Nimish, is a drawing of Hercules carrying out the Labor of the Cretan Bull. Instead of the great hero wrestling the bull to the ground, though, he is depicted as a cigar-chomping, fatigues-sporting Rambo toting a fully automatic weapon, which he uses to direct a stream of bullets at the (now fire-breathing) bovine. The bull responds with a tender "ouch", as the jets of flame emanating from his nostrils fail to reach Hercules but succeed in searing a few shrimp on a nearby barbie.

The second is a collaborative effort by the fertile minds of Adam and Travis, who laid out an elaborate strip comic in order to make a cross-linguistic pun about "spanking the monkey". The monkey, in this case, played by Diddy Kong. Full credits are given for the work, including, for unknown reasons, inspiration by Coolio. Translations of the captions follow below. This image is copyrighted; all rights are reserved, and the work may not be used for commercial purposes or reproduced in any way without the express written consent of Mackhouse Productions, Inc.

1: While Marcus sleeps in the house, his chariot is in the road.
2: A monkey approaches the chariot.
3: The monkey climbs into the chariot.
4: The monkey drives the chariot on the road.
5: Marcus hears a great noise and gets up.
6: Marcus sees the monkey and runs to the chariot.
7: Marcus spanks the monkey and scolds it.