Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead: The Underworld Sitcom

Pluto has an idea for Hermes: let rich, childless Eucrates live another ninety years, and fetch his legacy-hunters down ahead of him. The flatterers have already divvied up the estate in their heads; the punchline is that Eucrates will outlive every one of them and attend their funerals looking younger every year. Hermes approves. Cast: Pluto, Hermes.

Hermes sits Charon down to reconcile the books: anchor, oar-strap, sail needle, wax, nails. Charon can't pay until business picks up — meaning, until there's a plague or a decent war. Hermes notes for the record that the modern dead are softer than the old breed: poisoned by wives, bloated by luxury, and almost all here over money. Cast: Hermes, Charon.

Menippus interrogates two hero-oracles, Trophonius and Amphilochus, about the franchise they're still running upstairs. Trophonius gamely defends his status as a 'hero' — part man, part god — until Menippus points out that one half is allegedly off prophesying in Boeotia while the other half is visibly a corpse. The metaphysics do not survive the conversation. Cast: Menippus, Amphil...

Croesus files a formal noise complaint with Pluto: Menippus keeps laughing while he and Midas and Sardanapalus are trying to lament properly. Pluto, weary, hears both sides. Menippus cheerfully promises to keep singing 'Know thyself' as a refrain over their wailing forever. Cast: Croesus, Pluto, Menippus, Midas, Sardanapalus.

Diogenes catches Polydeuces on his way back to the upper world and loads him with errands: invite Menippus down for better laughs, tell the philosophers to shut up, tell the rich to stop hoarding, tell the beautiful that beauty is dust. Polydeuces takes it all in stride — until Diogenes starts in on the Spartans, at which point he draws a line. A brisk opening: the show's worldview delivered...