
Originally Posted by
pezhetairoi
The Tavern keeper makes a bet with all the people in the Tavern. '10000 mnai for the most impressive squeezing of juice! The one who can squeeze the most juice out when everyone thinks you can't, gets the money.'
So everyone starts producing lemons and oranges and olives and squeezing them frantically. Others attempt grabbing the delicate parts of gaesatae to squeeze. Finally one Sweboz herthaganautoz comes up.
'I have here a lemon. I shall squeeze it.'
And with one hand, he squeezes and fills a one-litre beaker with that small lemon. Everyone is awed.
A gaesatae comes up and says, 'that's nothing! watch me!' And he takes the herthaganautoz's exhausted lemon, squeezes it and manages to wring a few more drops from it.
Everyone cheers.
Up comes this wizened Roman, short, skinny and dark, and he regards the gaesatae and herthaganautoz for a while. Then he picks up a rock from the Tavern floor and squeezes. And drops of juice come out of the rock.
The tavern erupts into exclamations of awe, and unanimously everyone agrees that this Roman cannot be outdone. He gets the 10000 mnai.
As everyone is talking about it, the Roman is approached by the Sweboz and the Gaul. 'Hey man, just out of curiousity, what do you do for a living? Evocati, perhaps?'
The Roman smiles, shakes his head and says, 'I'm the tax collector in Judaea.'
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