Mars, by Diego Velazquez

God of War

He rampaged bloodily through the

pantheon of Roman antiquity,

Mars bellicose and triumphant,

leading the never irenic battalions of

Rome's fearsome military might,

their phalanxes, their helmeted,

breast-plated, shielded centurions

and their raging chariots and swords

to lay waste to all those nations

defiant unto death against the might

of Rome. How could they possibly

know of a distant planet that 

served the Universe by experiment

through incomprehensible orders

of magnitude far surpassing in time

the era of our own ancient mould -

Mars unleashed a nuclear storm 

of absolute annihilation, destroying

all life in its dread demonstration

of the very nature of intelligence

coursing through an advanced

civilization ...  An eternal memory?