The Ides of Kliban

Some deep archival research from elGeo. He noticed this one on GoComics for 15-Mar-2021 (that is, the Ides of March):

And he recognized that the above was adapted from this other one, which had been published in Whack Your Porcupine (1977) and ran on GoComics on 14-Oct-2015:

Let’s leave elGeo to editorialize a bit:

It’s hard to believe that B. Kliban himself had made the second version – the wit in the original is completely lost in the second.  I particularly liked that the Greek looked suspiciously like John Belushi after a toga party, although I’m pretty sure that Animal House was released after the cartoon was published. 

I enjoy seeing old familiar cartoons sometimes – after all, there’s plenty of room on the internet for legacy stuff – but this one bothered me.  Even though the estate owns the copyright, the reworked one just seemed like vandalism.

For a bit of IDU element, does anybody care to share some knowledge (or new reading) on the chronology and interaction of the Greeks and the Etruscans?