One day the Olympians were sitting at breakfast, when Iris came in with a piece of papyrus.
"Your Majesty", she addressed Zeus, "The Italic gods have announced their visit. They will come next month and they're not taking no for an answer."
Zeus retained his genial smile, but the sky outside grew dark with storm clouds.
"Also", Iris added, "The sons of Mars have founded Roma – or rather, Romulus did¹. Looks like this new city is populated by fugitive criminals and other refugees. And they're already starting military campaigns to take over the rest of Italy."
The King of the Gods grit his teeth: "It's only been a few mortal centuries, since Aphrodite's son Aineías arrived in Italy and the gods and mortals there are already getting dangerously ambitious, aren't they?"
...
"Iupiter, Iuno and all the others! Welcome to Olympos!", Zeus welcomed the Italic-now-Roman gods.
"Gratias ago²", Iupiter replied tonelessly and let one of the servants help him out of his chlamys.
"It's a joy to see you all", Zeus lied, "I hope you had a nice journey. How are you doing?"
Before Iupiter or one of the others could answer, Mars (Ares' Roman colleague) scoffed: "Don't slip on your slime trail, Olympian!"
The Olympians all were offended and glowered at him.
Iupiter saw himself forced to rein his stepson³ in: "Mars, hold your tongue. We are guests here and you have to be respectful to your host. Besides …"
The leader of the Roman gods whispered something in the war god's ear and Mars smirked.
Iupiter turned back to Zeus: "Do forgive my son's behaviour. He has been so proud of his descendants lately, sometimes he forgets his manners."
"It's forgiven", the King of the Olympians lied.
Nothing was forgiven, but no one wanted to start an argument.
Athena fumed at the disrespect towards her father and couldn't help throwing death glares at Mars.
By Khaos, I wish Ares was back!
Over the next hours the atmosphere on Olympos was so tense, you could have cut it with a knife.
Athena was not willing to let go the treatment of Zeus by the Romans.
For her father's sake, she was polite to them, but inside her anger was rising and she was plotting how to kick Mars' sorry arse without breaking the laws of hospitality.
She also really disliked Minerva. Her Roman counterpart seemed to be copying Athena in her mannerisms, while at the same time being pettier and crueller than Athena actually was.
The other Romans were behaving politely, but there was something about them, that put the goddess of wisdom even more on edge than she already was.
Like they were plotting something.
They're getting ambitious, her father had said a month before. And he seemed tense – nervous, even. Zeus was precognitive – whatever they were plotting, he had to know.
What do they want?, Athena wondered.
...
After eating and drinking in moderation, their guests announced, that they wanted to discuss international politics.
The Italic-now-Roman gods were given the thrones the Olympians always kept for their foreign guests.
Zeus called not only the Olympians, but every single one of the important gods, even of the Theoi Khthonoi.
Once all gods were assembled, Hermes announced: "Present gods, goddesses and others, both Hellenic and foreign – the council meeting to discuss the future relations between Hellas and Roma is hereby opened! Everybody take their seats!"
Everyone sat, except for Hermes himself, who stood next to his father's throne as his herald.
After Zeus opened the council meeting with his mandatory speech, he asked the Roman gods to elaborate on what they wanted here.
It was Iupiter, who stood and spoke: "Our esteemed colleagues. We are here, because we couldn't help but notice, that there has been a change in your correspondence with us in the last centuries."
"The tone in your letters to us has changed", Mars clarified and glared at the Olympians. "You have grown rather condescending. Whoever is doing your correspondence now-"
"That's me", Athena spoke up.
Mars' eyes narrowed. "You do the correspondence? Where is Ares?"
What he really meant was obvious: a woman was performing the duties of Zeus' heir?
Minerva, who was standing next to Mars, must have heard the underlying statement too and elbowed him slightly.
Athena took a deep breath, before answering: "Ares is not here. As for the correspondence, would you be so kind as to enlighten me what you found so condescending about my responses? I thought I was being nothing but polite and respectful."
Now it was Roma (the goddess of the newfound city), who replied: "You can't expect a city, that has just been founded to already have a fully developed culture and set of traditions. Each and every one of your letters had that certain tone, which comes from someone who thinks their culture is superior in every way and that everyone else is a bunch of savages."
Athena started at her. "How dare you! Such an accusation! I would never-"
Mars interrupted her: "We are willing to overlook this, under the condition, that you apologise-"
"What is this?", Hera shouted suddenly and jumped up. "You just founded one new city (and one composed of criminals and fugitives at that!), the sons of Mars are distant descendants of one of us on their mother's side, you're already in political trouble and yet you act like you're better than anyone else and like everybody should do what you want? We Hellenes might be arrogant, but at least we mind our own business! Athens is inventing democracy, Sparta is a military power, we have great writers already and the Cretans invented ironmaking many centuries ago. While you people-" angrily she pointed at the Roman gods, "-are making your culture by stealing from others, robbed the daughters of other Latin tribes, because you had no female population and you're subduing the gods of the surrounding areas! You haven't even appointed a god of music yet! What do you have to show for your attitude?!"
"Hera, hold your tongue-", Zeus began, but it was too late.
Mars was already standing up. With a seemingly relaxed grin, he strode up to the Queen of the Olympians, until he stood right in front of her.
Everything about him screamed danger and Athena instinctively went for her sword.
"What we have to show?", Mars sneered. "The future, Queen. A glorious future. One day, everything from Palmyra to Britannia will belong to us – and us alone. The Mediterranean Sea will be our sea and all nations around it (yours too) will be our provinces. As for our want of a music god, we can easily fix that. For that I will gladly wait a few hundred years. What are a handful centuries to someone, who lives forever, am I right?"
"Don't be so cocky, Mars!", A new voice spoke up, "Wait a few centuries more than that and your empire will break apart again. That's what empires do – they rise and fall."
Everyone looked around to see who had spoken.
Athena was the first to spy him and she would rather have cut her tongue off, before admitting that her heart maybe leaped just a little: there, on a column beside the entrance leaned her long-absent half-brother, obviously enjoying how everyone was suddenly staring at him.
Ares smirked: "Ya guys just can't live without me for long, can ya?"
...
Aphrodite cried out in delight and immediately glomped her long-absent boyfriend.
Ares chuckled fondly, but wound himself out of her embrace. "I missed ya too, gorgeous, but we gotta postpone it for now. Sorry."
The goddess of love pouted, but let go.
Zeus stood up to greet his son. "My son! Welcome back! It's so good to have you back again. And your timing is perfect too."
"I can tell!", the war god laughed. "I heard about this conference and decided to come back a little earlier. But it's good to be back – even with those guys around", he added with slightly less warmth and his smile vanished.
Then he walked up to the Roman gods.
"So you call yourselves Roman now. Loki told me, when I was in Asgard. Salve⁴, Iupiter", he greeted their leader with reserve, before walking down the row. "Salve, Iuno. Minerva and Diana. Venus and Ceres. Mercurius, Neptunus and Vulcanus. Vesta's stayed home, I see. And you must be Roma – it's a pleasure to finally meet you face to face, I've heard of you."
Roma replied: "The pleasure is mine. Father told me about you as well."
"Ah yes. Your father."
Ares' red eyes grew cold, when he faced his colleague. "So we meet again, Mars. What gives my family and now me the dubious honour?"
"You didn't hear that part, then?", Mars replied coolly.
"Nope. Just arrived."
"It was Athena's lack of tact in her correspondence with us."
"Again", Athena piped up, "I don't understand what was so tactless about it."
Ares intervened: "There is a solution to that problem. Come on, everyone …"
He strode across the hall and sat on his throne, which had been vacant for almost 400 mortal years. "Now it's time for politics."
...
Ares was actually positively surprised, when he was told what the matter was.
As it turned out, it had just been a cultural misunderstanding.
"You must understand", he told the Roman gods. "Athena doesn't mean any harm or offence. She's not naturally tactless or arrogant, but you see … she's a homebody, our goddess of wisdom. She's never left Hellas before, except for the International High Council, during which she never really interacted with foreign gods, except for the Egyptians and the ones of the Middle East. This was the first time she was actually tasked with international affairs and she couldn't know about all the cultural differences. Maybe she assumed, that yours is like ours, because so many of your mortal kind descended from Trojans or Hellenes."
"I did", Athena admitted shamefully.
Ares went on: "These things just happen, when you interact with a strange culture for the first time. Remember how I acted during our first meeting? I admit, my own memory is a bit rusty on that one, but didn't I say something about Minerva being a petty little pipsqueak and Mars being a tight-ass, after Mars called me an 'illiterate psychopath'?"
Some of the Roman gods chuckled at the memory.
The war god finished his speech: "But I learned my lesson after interacting with you more and I know Athena will learn hers too. This won't happen again. For this once, cut her some slack and don't begrudge her social awkwardness. She just needs to get out a little more. These cultural miscommunications happen all the time – speaking from experience. After all, I did just come back from a world journey, on which I encountered people I never actually met before. Lots of awkward moments, I can tell you!"
More laughter on the Roman side.
Knowing that the waters were now soothed, Zeus entertained the Roman gods for just a bit longer, before they decided, that all matters were resolved and left Olympos.
After them, the non-Olympian gods also went home.
As soon as the Olympian gates closed behind all of them, Ares sighed in relief.
That was kinda close!
He just about got to finish the thought, before Aphrodite was all over him again and covering his face in kisses. Within seconds the other Olympians were also there and hugging their newly-returned member (except for Athena, Ares noticed – but she did look, like she wanted to).
Dionysos grinned up to his oldest half-brother: "Can we finally celebrate, that you're back? I already have the biggest party in millennia planned out!"
"I can't wait for it!", Ares laughed. "I missed your parties and your wine, you have no idea!"
Then there was some more chatter and laughter, before Zeus backed off and cleared his throat.
"My dear family", he began, "After almost four hundred mortal years of absence, my son has finally come home again. So it's only right, that we should celebrate it with all splendour and honour. Ares …"
Alright, maybe the war god got a little misty-eyed, when his father gave him that special warm smile, which he got so rarely to see.
"Welcome home, my dear son."
And maybe Ares grinned like an idiot, when he gave his father a big hug.
"Thanks, father", he whispered to the other.
"Blegh! I'm going to puke!"
Shut up, man, I'm having a moment!
The voice in his head shut up and now Ares could finally concentrate on the moment completely.
1) Rome was traditionally founded in 753 BCE, this chapter is set around 700 BCE.
2) Latin for "Thanks".
3) Iuno conceived Mars by touching (or eating, depending on the version) a magical flower, upon the advice of the goddess Flora, when she complained about Iupiter conceiving Minerva without a mother. Thus he's not Iupiter's biological son.
4) Latin for "Hello". "Salve" is used, when talking to one person, the plural is "Salvete". Another, usually more formal greeting formula is "Ave" ("Greetings").