An Extremely Modest Proposal

640px-Hercule_et_Cacus_Bandinelli_Florence_Signoria

Don’t Have a Cow, Herc!
(Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus, CC0)

So imagine you’re a fire-breathing giant, son of the Roman god of fire Vulcan. You live in a cave on a hill that eventually becomes part of Rome. You hang out, eat human flesh, and nail human heads to the doors of your hillside abode (caves have doors?). Then you see some nice fat cattle grazing below and decide to drag eight of them into your subterranean crib. They were right there for the taking after all and the people you like to snack on have somehow figured out it’s in their better interest to vacate the neighborhood. So no big deal, right? Wrong.

The cows you stole just happened to belong to Hercules. Never mind that he had stolen the cattle himself from the monster Geryon as the tenth of his twelve labors as punishment for killing his wife and kids in a fit of madness. (Always the drama with these Greeks and Romans!) Anyway, Hercules took umbrage at your theft of his stolen goods and came after you. Despite your best efforts of spewing smoke and fire at him, you end up being strangled by the hero. Your dying moments probably involved a mental smack to the forehead while thinking “I could have had a V8!”

So goes the tale of Hercules and Cacus. I came upon this because one of my students used the Bandinelli sculpture of the same name as an example in her ART101 final project. The statue was commissioned by Florence’s ruling family the Medicis as a slap in the face and rebuttal to Michelangelo and his supporters. With his earlier David, Big Mike had poked fun at the aristocrats by implying that the little guys (the city’s republicans, who are definitely not to be confused with the current version) would defeat the big guys (the mucky mucks in charge). The Hercules and Cacus statue sent a message back. Cacus (the foul-breathed republicans) would be dominated by the heroic Herc (the Medicis of course) and forever be at his mercy. The statue catches Herc pausing after overcoming the giant. In the next second he can either spare Cacus’s life (be lenient if he submits) or send him to Hades (if he resists).

I think we should institute this practice in today’s politics. Instead of constantly emitting their various verbal concoctions of fire and smoke, Democrats and Republicans would have to take up hammer and chisel and conduct their battle via marble. Some Republicans, for instance, might fashion a humongous version of Ted Cruz about to lower a giant infuser filled with illegal aliens into a similarly sized teapot. The Democrats might counter this by creating a sculpture of gleeful liberals merrily chipping away at a large wall by smashing cups and saucers against it. Think of how quiet things would become. Think of the many contributions to public art we would gain. Think of the funding the National Endowment for the Arts might get to keep this battle going. Imagine a world where the arts budget exceeds the money going to the Department of Defense. I like this vision. I think I will sit back and enjoy it until the bubble bursts. Shouldn’t be more than a millisecond or two.

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