The Mansions of the Gods is the seventeenth volume of the Asterix comic book series, by René Goscinny (stories) and Albert Uderzo (illustrations). It was originally serialized in the magazine Pilote, issues 591-612, in 1971, and translated into English in 1973. It was the first not to use Asterix's name in the title (Obelix and Co. later became the only other). With the intent to wipe out the Gaulish village rebelling against him, Julius Caesar plans to absorb the villagers into Roman culture by establishing a Roman patrician colony, called the 'Mansions of the Gods'. The project is led by the architect Squaronthehypotenus, who orders an army of slaves of various nationalities to pull down the trees in the Gauls' forest. With the help of Getafix's magic, Asterix and Obelix plant trees magically enhanced by one of the druid's potions to reach mature size quickly; whereupon an increasingly erratic Squaronthehypotenus threatens "to work the slaves to death". Taking this literally, Asteri. …