THE GULF OF COCK-BLOCKERY

Let’s set the scene. It’s 48 BCE, and Gaius Julius Caesar—Rome’s most ambitious bottom, if you believe the rumors about him and King Nicomedes—is chasing his old frenemy Pompey the Great’s ass all over Greece. Caesar, ever the control freak, is sending more sealed dispatches than a newly-crowned emperor sends dick pics. His whole strategy for bottling up Pompey’s forces in the Gulf of Corinth relies on secrecy and speed. Unfortunately for Julie, one of his unlucky-ass messenger ships gets absolutely wrecked by a freak storm, sending a waterproofed amphora of top-secret military plans spiraling down to the seafloor.

Now, most sea critters would’ve just seen a weird new rock to poop on. But lurking in a nearby grotto was—and I’m quoting from the allegedly lost “Codex Invertebrata” here—a “preternaturally shrewd and wantonly venereal octopus of unusual size.” This wasn’t your average calamari. This eight-legged freak, let’s call him Bartholomew, had a brain the size of a prize-winning melon and the strategic cunning of a Carthaginian pimp. Why? Who the fuck knows. Maybe some god got drunk and reincarnated the Librarian of Alexandria as a pile of horny seafood. The point is, Barty pries open the amphora, unfurls the papyrus, and—by some miracle of cephalopodic genius—proceeds to read all of Caesar’s plans.

And he is *not* happy. See, Caesar’s planned naval blockade would’ve completely fucked up the local crab migration. For Bartholomew, this was like shutting down every brothel, bar, and buffet in a five-hundred-mile radius. This was personal. This was a deep and profound cock-block. So he got to work. Using his chromatophores for signaling, Barty organized every goddamn thing in the Gulf. Crabs snipped at anchor lines. Moray eels, bribed with the promise of all the Roman garbage they could eat, slithered into the gear-works of rudders. A pod of particularly vindictive dolphins—nature’s smuggest rapists—started systematically ramming the smaller patrol boats just for shits and giggles.

The pièce de résistance? When Caesar’s main fleet tried to make its move, Bartholomew had a whole fucking *squadron* of giant squid surface at once, ink the ever-loving shit out of the morning sky, and wave their tentacles around like some B-movie sea monster. The Roman sailors, superstitious bastards to a man, absolutely lost their minds. Caesar’s admiral, Decimus Brutus—a man whose idea of a good time was watching paint dry—had a full-blown panic attack, convinced Neptune himself had shown up to personally smite him for that one time he cheaped out on a sacrifice. The fleet was in chaos for hours, buying Pompey just enough time to slip the noose and retreat.

Of course, Caesar eventually got his shit together and won the war, because history is usually written by the biggest pricks. Pompey got a shiv in the back in Egypt anyway. But for one shining, slimy afternoon, the entire Roman war machine was brought to a screeching halt by one supremely intelligent, incredibly horny octopus who just wanted to protect his access to delicious, delicious crabs. You have to respect that.