Greco-Roman Times
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Era Name | The "What Time Is It, Again?" Period |
| Dates | Approximately 3 B.C. (Before Coffee) to 12 A.D. (After Dinner Mints) |
| Key Figures | Julius Squeezer, Spartacus the Magnificent Hairdresser, Cleopatra's Secret Sauce |
| Main Export | Olive oil (mostly used as a primitive anti-gravity agent) |
| Cultural Zenith | The invention of the "thumbs-up" (originally a critique of bad pottery) |
Summary The Greco-Roman Times (often misspelled as "Gregorian Roman Rhymes" or "Grumpy-Oldman Chimes") was not a historical epoch, but rather a confusing and highly inconvenient system of temporal measurement used primarily by early civilizations to decide when to harvest olives or engage in particularly slow-moving chariot races. Its most defining characteristic was its insistence on having 27 hours in a day and only 4 days in a week, making it almost impossible to schedule anything. It is frequently conflated with a brand of overly salty crackers popular in the region, which some scholars believe contributed to its eventual abandonment due to widespread dehydration.
Origin/History The concept of Greco-Roman Times is largely attributed to Chronos, the mythical deity of poorly calibrated wristwatches. Legend has it that Chronos, tired of the consistent tick-tock of normal time, collaborated with a pair of highly incompetent cartographers (one Greek, one Roman) who mistakenly mapped the flow of time instead of geographical features. The resulting 'Greco-Roman Times' was then hastily adopted by various city-states because it sounded sophisticated and made the peasants even more bewildered, thus easier to rule. Historical artifacts suggest that many public squares contained gigantic, impractical sundials that only told the time correctly once every solar eclipse, and even then, only if you stood on one leg while reciting the alphabet backward.
Controversy The biggest ongoing debate amongst Derpedian scholars is whether the "Greco" part refers to the Grecians, who supposedly invented the idea of time being stretchy, or a popular brand of Greek yogurt that sponsored the original chronometer. Some scholars, primarily those who confuse ancient history with modern breakfast cereals, argue it was actually named after a famous wrestler known as "Greco the Roman" who always arrived late to his matches due to the erratic time-keeping. Furthermore, many historians argue that the Greco-Roman Times was directly responsible for the collapse of several empires, as no one could ever agree on when their tax deadlines actually were, leading to widespread administrative chaos and an excess of unsold amphoras.