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By thamike.com
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Evidence Mounting: Rome Was Built In A Day!

MILAN, ITALY - Researchers at the University of Milan may be very close to debunking the widely held common "truth" that Rome was not built in a day. Vincenze Firenze, Director of the interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Rome and Roman Culture at the University of Milan, said that recently discovered scientific evidence all but points to the conclusion that Rome was indeed built in a day. "In fact," Dr. Firenze stated, "we are beginning to believe that not only was Rome built within a day, but it may even have been built in as little as eighteen and a half hours, which as you know, falls considerably below the universally accepted standard of the twenty-four hour day."

Firenze shied away from a final pronouncement on the outcome of the team's twenty-four year government and

Rome
Romans Do It Better. Rome Built In 18.5 Hours

U.N. funded research project, saying that the results would be presented at the third annual international symposium on Roman Construction in March. He seemed confident, however, that his team was on the right track.

After twenty-four years of digging around the old city of Rome with little to show except for seven 3-ton bags of designer quality Italian dirt, a breakthrough discovery was made last week by Firenze's cat, Aristotle. As luck would have it, explains Firenze, Aristotle wandered away from the 1 square meter area the professors and their doctoral studentassistants had designated as the digging site for twenty-four years.

When the research team, which numbers between seventeen and twenty-five depending on the day, saw that Aristotle had scampered a good distance away, it sparked their collective imaginations. "At first I was annoyed with Aristotle for interrupting my supervisory duties at the dig with his free roaming behavior," says Firenze. "But then, as if lighteningstruck me, I realized that if Aristotle could venture beyond the parameters of our officially established site, so could we."

When asked if he was the one who realized this first, Firenze paused and explained somewhat coyly that to his "best recollection" several members of the research team seemed to glance at one another knowingly at in the same moment. "I think it was really that old notion of the collective unconscious, of which I am sure you are familiar, you see I think this idea of moving further afield to a different area came to several of us at once.

But I do believe that I was the one who verbalized the possibility that was surging through the circle at that precise moment," he claims. Firenze added that he thought the doctoral students and other more junior members of the research team would hesitate before suggesting such a radical departure from existing protocol. He, on the other hand, as the Director, was in a uniquely secure position from which to explore this fresh trajectory.

Dr. Peter Hammerschlaggmunde, of the prestigious German research institute Romaduhrdungennstein, and Dr. Eirikur Dammerskjorfjord, of the Iceland-Rome Symposium Association, along with a number of other prominent local, regional and international authorities, are questioning Firenze's research methods. "What is this about a cat?" Hammerschlaggmund bellows. "These Italians ..." he begins, and then pauses before continuing a little more calmly, "Might I suggest that it would be best if everyone in the international scholarly Constructing and De-Constructing Rome community adopted and adhered to the same universally accepted set of standards?"

Hammerschlaggmunde is referring to the 1995 Lake Lucerne Accords on Uniformity in Syncretic Aggregation of Scientific Erudition Concerning the Metamorphic Co-Arising of Rome, which was signed by each member of Firenze's core group in May of 1995. (A copy of the Accords was not available for inspection at the time of publication.

When questioned about his research methods and the doubt surrounding his team's adherence to the 1995 Accords, Firenze waves his hand in the air, gesticulating as if to dismiss the concern. "Sour wine grapes," he retorts. "Let us focus on the outcome of the research, and not get bogged down in minutiae which is ultimately trivial. Twenty years from now, when the world has begun to reap the benefits of this scientific watershed, no one will care that a cat was at the research site," he asserts. "In fact, perhaps feline-assisted research will become de-rigeur," he continues, "but of course I have no attachment to that becoming standard practice ... it is enough of a legacy to disprove once and for all this old wives' tail about Rome."

When asked where he might begin to focus his academic pursuits once this project comes to completion, Firenze said that he has had a long standing interest in investigating the actual, verifiable results of putting the cart before the horse, and also a longstanding interest in who is buried in Grant's Tomb. If Firenze's Roman discovery survives the scrutiny of the scientific community, he will certainly have all the funding he needs for his pet projects. "I'm confident," he beamed, "history will bear me out."

Written & Submitted by
Carah Fremont


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