O MORES! OLYMPIAD! by Steven Saylor* * * *Art by Jason C. Eckhardt* * * *The third in a series of stories about the young Gordianus the Finder that EQMM has been running, “O Tempora! O Mores! Olympiad!” will appear later this year as part of Steven Saylor's latest novel. Other recently published stories that will feature in the book are “Styx and Stones,” from the anthology Down These Strange Streets, edited by Charlaine Harris, and “Something to Do With Diana,” from The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction, edited by Mike Ashley.Have you ever seen anything like it?” said Antipater. “Have you ever imagined such a spectacle?"I had not. Romans love a festival; a play or two put on in a makeshift theater, an open-air feast, chariot races in the Circus Maximus—all these things I had seen many times in my eighteen years. But no celebration in Rome could compare with the free-spirited chaos, or the sheer magnitude, of the Olympiad.Greeks love an athletic competition. One could almost say they live for these events, where naked young men show off their manly prowess in fierce competitions.
