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***
So sing, O Muse, of Delphi's fate, of smoke that stains the sky,
Of shattered shrines and silent stones where ancient voices die.
For Rome in iron legions came, with fire and ruthless hand,
And swept the halls of prophecy from out the sacred land.
***

The smoke from the temple ruins still stained the sky above Delphi. Three days had passed since the Roman soldiers swept through, their steel and efficiency rendering the ancient prophetic sanctuary to little more than charred stone and memory. I watched from the hillside, my mortal disguise—a simple woolen chiton and weathered cloak—offering little comfort against the chill of what we had lost.

I am Calliope, Muse of epic poetry, though few now remembered to call upon me by name. The prayers had grown sparse over the decades, the sacrifices more infrequent. When the Oracle fell silent, I felt it like a severed limb—another tether to the divine world, gone.

"They found Thalia," Clio whispered as she approached, her eyes red-rimmed and hollow. "The Romans took her."

My chest tightened. "Dead?"

"Not yet," Clio's voice cracked. "They believe her a sorceress. They'll parade her through Rome before they execute her. They want to prove their new god is stronger than ours."

Of the nine Muses born of Zeus and Mnemosyne, only four of us remained. Urania had faded decades ago when astronomers began to explain the stars through mathematics rather than myth. Melpomene and Terpsichore simply vanished one morning, their essence dissolving like dew. Erato's light extinguished during a massacre at a temple of Aphrodite. Now Thalia, our light of comedy and festivity, captured by Rome's inexorable march.

"We're dying, Calliope," Clio said plainly. "Not like mortals die, but fading nonetheless. When no one remembers, when no one creates in our name..."

"I know." I placed my hand on hers.

The world was changing. Rome's pragmatic gods, their concrete temples and orderly pantheon were supplanting the wild, prophetic forces of Greece. New religions from the East whispered of single, all-powerful deities. The mortals no longer needed nine goddesses to inspire their arts.

"Euterpe and Polyhymnia are waiting at the coast," Clio continued. "They've secured passage to Alexandria. The library there—perhaps we can preserve something of ourselves in the scrolls."

I stood, looking down at the smoking ruins once more. "And hide? Diminish slowly while scribes copy our stories with less and less understanding of their meaning?"

"What choice do we have?" Clio challenged. "The age of gods is ending. Zeus no longer answers. Olympus stands empty."

I closed my eyes, feeling the thinning thread of my divinity. Each day it grew more tenuous, but it remained. Within me still flowed the power to plant seeds of epic tales, to whisper verses into dreaming minds, to transform ordinary thoughts into immortal poetry.

"I'm going to Rome," I said finally.

Clio stared. "You'll be signing your death warrant."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps it will be my rebirth."

***
They build their roads, they raise their shrines, they conquer and decree,
Yet hunger still for beauty's breath—they cannot silence me.
***

The journey took weeks. I traveled as a widow, my possessions bundled in a simple pack, my divine nature tamped down to embers. Romans were everywhere—efficient, organized, skeptical. Their roads stretched across the landscape, their outposts standardized fortresses of stone.

I found lodging in Subura, Rome's teeming heart. The narrow streets stank of humanity, of ambition, of change. So different from the sacred groves and mist-shrouded mountains where we Muses once danced. Here, everything was commerce and conquest.

"They're executing the Greek witch tomorrow," my landlady mentioned as she collected my coins. "In the Forum. They say she can make men laugh until their hearts burst."

Thalia. My sister.

That night, I wandered the city, absorbing its rhythms. Romans celebrated differently than Greeks—more structured, their entertainment scheduled rather than spontaneous. Yet beneath it all, I sensed the same human hunger for story, for meaning, for transcendence beyond the mundane.

In a dimly lit tavern near the Circus Maximus, I found my first voice.

He was young, barely twenty, a soldier's son with a scroll of blank papyrus before him and frustration etched into his brow. I sat nearby, nursing watered wine, and sent the barest thread of inspiration his way. Not the overwhelming divine presence that would have marked me as other, but the subtlest touch.

His quill began to move.

'Arms and the man I sing, who, forced by fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate...'

I smiled into my cup. Yes. This one would do nicely.

By morning, the young man—Virgil was his name—had filled three scrolls with the beginnings of something magnificent. Something Roman, yet infused with the Greek tradition. A bridge between worlds.

I did not go to witness Thalia's execution. Instead, I visited the home of a wealthy patrician where a gathering of poets was scheduled. There, I found Horace, his cynical eyes brightening as I whispered subtle suggestions about lyric forms. Later that week, I encountered Ovid, young and ambitious, receptive to dreams of metamorphosis and ancient myths retold.

I moved carefully, never revealing my true nature, never bestowing inspiration so dramatically that it would be seen as sorcery. I was no longer Calliope of Mount Parnassus, commanding divine reverence. I was a flicker, or perhaps a suggestion.

Months passed. I learned the Roman ways, adapted my gifts to their sensibilities. When word reached me that Clio had established herself among the scholars of Alexandria, I sent back my own news: Rome was fertile ground. Differently sacred, but sacred nonetheless.

One evening, as summer heat pressed against the city, I found myself invited to a reading at the home of Maecenas, patron of the arts and friend to Emperor Augustus himself. Virgil would be presenting portions of his developing epic. My epic, in a way, though he would never know how the Muse had seeded his imagination.

As I dressed for the occasion in the Roman stola I'd purchased with carefully saved coins, I caught my reflection in a polished bronze mirror. The immortal glow had dimmed, yes. I was more human than I had ever been. Yet something new had replaced what was lost—an understanding of mortality that made the art more precious, not less.

***
And so in time, the Muses' light, though faint, began anew,
No longer hailed in temple stone, but breathing where men knew.
For though the gods were fading fast, their voices drowned in sand,
The song remains, the tale abides, the words still shape the land.
***

The audience fell silent as Virgil began to read of Aeneas, the Trojan hero who would found the line that led to Rome. His words soared, carrying hints of Homer but speaking directly to Roman hearts. I felt the connection ripple through the people, felt my own power strengthen as they responded to the art.

Later, as guests mingled with wine and conversation, Maecenas himself approached me.

"You attend many of these gatherings," he observed. "Always watching, rarely speaking. Yet our poets seem to flourish when you are near."

I tensed. Had I been careless?

"I'm merely an appreciator of beauty," I replied carefully.

Maecenas studied me. "There's a position available, for a woman of education and discretion. To help organize my library, to assist in corresponding with artists throughout the empire. The pay is modest, but it would include quarters here in my household."

A position at the center of Rome's literary world. Access to every poet and playwright in the empire.

"I would be honored," I said.

As I followed Maecenas through his villa to discuss the details, I passed a small shrine. Among the household gods and ancestors stood a tiny figurine that made me pause—a woman holding a scroll and stylus. The inscription read simply:

CALLIOPE.

"An old Greek piece," Maecenas commented, noticing my attention. "Beautiful, isn't she? I've always felt drawn to those ancient stories."

That night, I wrote to my sisters. Euterpe in Alexandria. Polyhymnia who had traveled to Gaul. Clio among her historical scrolls. We were diminished, yes. Changed, certainly. But as long as humans created, as long as they yearned to make meaning through art, some essence of the Muses would endure.

The Oracle of Delphi had fallen. The age of gods was passing. But inspiration—that most divine of human experiences—would never die. It would simply transform, as all great stories do.

I had chosen not to hide, but not to loudly proclaim my divinity either. Instead, I had found a third path: adaptation. In this new world of Rome's straight roads and pragmatic gods, the Muses would survive not as figures of worship, but as the whisper in the artist's ear, the midnight vision, the unexplained surge of creativity that makes mortals reach beyond themselves.

It was enough. It would have to be enough.

And it was.

***
So sing, O Muse, of fading gods, of altars cast away,
Yet know that in the poet's heart, their voices still shall stay.
For gods may fall and temples break, their names may be forgot,
But where there burns the need for song, the Muses perish not.
***