Paduanity and Colmes

[maine_raptor]

I'm currently reading Robert Graves' I, Claudius and came across this section where Claudius is in discussion with Asinius Pollio about the Roman historian Livy:

"A decent fellow, Livy is, but there's one thing wrong with him. It's a disease called Paduanity.........

It's where he was born, you know. Somewhere in the Northern Provinces. There's a famous hot spring there, of extraordinary properties. You can always tell a Paduan. By bathing in the water of the spring or drinking it - and I'm told that they do both things simultaneously - Paduans are able to believe whatever they like and believe it so strongly that they can make anyone else believe it. That's how the city has got such a wonderful commercial reputation. The blankets and rugs they make there are really no better than any other sort, in fact rather inferior, because the local sheep are yellow and coarse-fleeced, but to the Paduans they are soft and white as goose-feathers. And they have persuaded the rest of the world that it's so."

Had television existed back then, would Faux's show "Hannity and Colmes" have been named "Paduanity and Colmes"? It's an interesting thought.