The Palladium (Gurgle 5)

This week’s fun-size offering tackles the mysterious, quasi-historical object known as the Palladium. Readers of myth might remember this as the talisman held in the Trojan citadel which protected the city until it was stolen away by Odysseus and Diomedes. But the story doesn’t end there. Rumor says it went to Athens or Sparta, and then maybe Rome. Is the Palladium something that makes the jump from mythic symbol to historical artifact? Was it something like the ξόανον the Athenians kept in the Erechtheion? Did Elagabalus move the Palladium into his Rumpus Room? Did Constantine bury it under his column? Could it still be there?