Current Events > people upset at historical accuracy now

(+) Yeah! (+)

AceMos posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6b3ae5ed.jpg

Don't tell him about that guy who painted the Mona Lisa. He'd probably recommend tearing down the Sistine Chapple if he did.

name_unknown posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8a74e407.jpg
you see what he was wearing into battle?

I remember watching this ages ago lol

Funnily enough historians in twitter were complaining about the costumes of the documentary since they're wearing this bizarre fantasy leather gear.

https://twitter.com/EvanSchultheis/status/1754573085707997314

This reminds me that in 300 when the Persian envoy came to meet with Leonidas (the "This is SPARTA!" scene) Leonidas actually commented

"I heard the Athenians turned you down. Now if those philosophers and boy lovers found that kind of nerve..."

Athens is the capitol of Greece.

Plus, isn't "greek" also slang for backdoor love in certain circumstances?

ROBANN_88 posted...

IIRC, there was also some misogyny there.
like i've heard the idea that some thought that women were good for procreation, but not much else so for deeper relations, they'd often prefer men

Women were expected to never leave the house, so men's social lives outside of the house revolved around other men.

mybbqrules posted...

This reminds me that in 300 when the Persian envoy came to meet with Leonidas (the "This is SPARTA!" scene) Leonidas actually commented

"I heard the Athenians turned you down. Now if those philosophers and boy lovers found that kind of nerve..."

Athens is the capitol of Greece.

Plus, isn't "greek" also slang for backdoor love in certain circumstances?

According to Xenophon pederastic relationships in Sparta were platonic in nature and not sexual. However I don't think most scholars take this claim at face value, it's likely he's trying to portray the Spartans as exemplars of moderation. Those types of relationships were pretty common among elite circles and are pretty well attested. While solosnake is right to point out that the surviving accounts of Alexander, Ploutarkhos and Arrian for example, were written centuries after his death and there's proof that these authors were more concerned with telling a story more so than reporting facts, such as the episode over proskynesis reflecting more on contemporary Roman concerns than those of the Macedonians of the 4th century BC, it's not unlikely that Alexander did have homosexual relationships given his background as Macedonian royalty.

A lot of alt-right and reactionary types are obsessed with the past and see the Romans and Greeks as people to be revered so it's expected OP type of reactions are expected. However real history is much more complex than reducing Alexander, or ancient societies in general, as "straight", "gay", even "furry" as someone mentioned here and other labels used here. 300 in particular conceptualizes the Spartans as these freedom loving people who saved Western civilization from the decadent Persians.

mybbqrules posted...

This reminds me that in 300 when the Persian envoy came to meet with Leonidas (the "This is SPARTA!" scene) Leonidas actually commented

"I heard the Athenians turned you down. Now if those philosophers and boy lovers found that kind of nerve..."

When I heard that line, I was like, "Wow. Pot kettle much?"

sfcalimari posted...

Women were expected to never leave the house, so men's social lives outside of the house revolved around other men.

With that level of sexism, I'm surprised there weren't many more Amazon's.

HannibalBarca3 posted...

pederastic relationships in Sparta were platonic in nature

I don't think the Spartans would like that comparison.

>.>

sfcalimari posted...

Women were expected to never leave the house, so men's social lives outside of the house revolved around other men.

Don't confuse Athens with all Greece.

Every city had its own system of governance (and usually its own brand of constitutional crisis), customs could differ a lot too.

Going past the whole sexuality thing, anyone know if the rest of the show is any good?

How's the costume design?
Are there any like studded leather bikers?

name_unknown posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8a74e407.jpg
you see what he was wearing into battle?

Reign the Conqueror! Never did get to finish it.

Mussurana posted...

Don't confuse Athens with all Greece.

Every city had its own system of governance (and usually its own brand of constitutional crisis), customs could differ a lot too.

True but the biggest issue is what sources survive. Athens is pretty much the best attested city-state of ancient greece due to surviving works and also because of the status it reached in the Hellenistic and Roman era.

From what we know Athens is actually the outlier when it comes to women's rights. Both in Sparta and Gortyn in Crete women had more rights than women in Athens. But again, the issue comes from what survived to this day and what was written down and most of that comes from Athens with archeology and surviving inscriptions as other sources.

Which, keeping this post on topic, why trying to say anything about the past becomes messy. In the context of homosexual relationships most of what we know stems from the practice of pederasty which was practiced by the elite. Since the literature that survives all comes from the rich it can distort the way we perceive the past since the vast majority of people were working to survive and didn't have the luxury to write down their thoughts, our view of the past is filtered through the lenses of the rich. In the case of "historical accuracy" it's difficult to really say how the vast majority of people felt, Robot2600 brings up good points but I would add that homosexual relationships outside of pederasty were rare, but not unknow as we see such relationships in Plato's symposium, and considered weird since, again, society expected men to marry women and have children. Pederasty was a mentor relationship with sexual elements with various authors voicing their own opinions on this, and apparently the sex aspect was against the law in some states. But as Robot26000 states, it appears there wasn't stigma against men having sex with each other but rather effeminate behavior.

Something that hasn't really been talked about in this thread is the fact that Alexander the Great came from Macedonia, and while the Macedonian Elites adopted parts of Greek (and Thracian and Persian) culture they had their own unique culture. Indeed there were aspects of Macedonian culture that were considered "barbarian" by the Greeks such as royal polygamy and the heavy drinking of unmixed wine which is probably why the reception to the Argead's, Alexander's family, claim to Greekness was met with mixed reactions. In terms of homosexual relationships within Macedonian royalty there's the fact that Philip II of Macedon's assassination was linked to the love affairs with his own bodyguards and the sons of leading aristocratic families spent their teenage years serving the Macedonian court to cultivate relationships with the royal family. So despite the fact that our sources come centuries after the death of Alexander, and the fact that they had a vested interest in constructing a moralizing story, it's possible there was a romantic relationship between Hephaestion and Alexander. As for Bagoas, the eunuch of the Persian king, it's also possible that he was used as a to construct the moralizing narrative of a great king taking the trappings of a "decadent" Persian monarch.

ROBANN_88 posted...

Going past the whole sexuality thing, anyone know if the rest of the show is any good?

How's the costume design?
Are there any like studded leather bikers?

It's trash. It's full of fantasy leather gear and dull colors, trying too hard to go for the "Game of Throne" look.

Wait a second, why is bikini armor okay when it's male armor?

FortuneCookie posted...

Wait a second, why is bikini armor okay when it's male armor?

Who said that?

Now? It's the same outrage on 2000's movie.