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[haileysallgreek]

My Favorite Crazy Person (Post #6)

Let’s get freaky up in here!

Varius Avitus Bassanius was born around 203 C.E. to Sextus Varius Marcellus - a Roman citizen, likely of Greek ancestry - and Julia Soaemias of the royal family of Emesa (today Homs, Syria). Being the of the Emesan royalty, the family held rights to the priesthood of Elagabal, an Arab sun god of sorts. Julia was also the cousin of the Roman emperor Caracalla, who ascended to the throne five years prior to Varius’s birth. A heavily connected family, if I do say so myself.

Caracalla was assassinated by a dude name Macrinus, who then took the throne. Julia Soaemias’s mother (Julia Maesa) quickly began plotting with Varius’s tutor. Julia Maesa convinced her daughter to tell everyone that Varius was actually the son of Caracalla (total BS) and Julia Maesa flashed her wealth around some legions, gaining their support. In short, Macrinus and his son were killed and Varius was made emperor in 218 C.E.

The emperor and his entourage spent the winter in Nicomedia, Bithynia. Varius’s religious beliefs ticked everyone off. Varius was, as his bloodline dictated, a high priest of Elagabal and he was zealous about it. The Third Legion and Fourth Legion rebelled for a hot second, but Julia Maesa cracked open a can of whoop-ass, stopping the rebellion in its tracks.

Due to Varius being a nobody back in Rome, Julia Maesa had a portrait of the boy sent back to Rome. The senators were horrified. Eye make up. Jewelry. Silk robes. On a dude. This effeminate oriental emperor was not going to do, oh no no no no.

Do he did, though. Varius came to Rome, replaced the Roman pantheon with Elagabal, married four women in rapid succession, and openly and unabashedly did the no-pants-dance with his blond Carian charioteer named Hierokles. He openly referred to Hierokles as his husband and attempted to make the man Caesar. Varius often wore cosmetics, plucked his body hair, and wore wigs. He offered crazy amounts of money - some stories even say he offered half the empire - to any doctor that could give him ladybits. Some ancient historian postulate that Varius prostituted himself both in the palace and in Rome’s many brothels.

That last bit is likely untrue, but the rumor proved a popular one. Other popular rumors include Varius circumcising himself in front of the Senate and offering the sacrifices of young boys to Elagabal, who was worshipped in the form of the biggest blackest rock.

The Romans were kinda-sorta peeved that Varius replaced the pantheon with a big black rock. They were even more incensed, however, at Varius’s openness in regard to his relationship with Hierokles. A Roman man was not to act as anyone’s wife, which Varius unironically referred to himself as. His grandma couldn’t tolerate his gay acts either and enlisted a legion to kill her grandson and replace him with her other grandson Alexander Severus, a cousin of Varius.

The common and likely truer story of Varius’s death goes that his mother was attempting to hide him from the legion when they were both killed and dragged through Rome. Another story goes that he was killed while taking a dump. I like that one better.

Varius was dead at eighteen, having ruled for four years. Alexander Severus became emperor at thirteen. Hierokles and Varius’s other friends were executed. The big block Elagabal rock was sent back to Emesa.

Well, there you go. A badly told story of my favorite crazy person.

[haileysallgreek]

He is a Good Man (Post #5)

Once, there lived a boy. There have lived many boys, of course, but don’t you play semantics with me. I’m talking about a special boy, a boy named Oedipus. Oedipus was the only son and only child of Polybus and Merope, king and queen of Thebes. Oedipus lived a happy-ass little life with his happy-ass little family until, as a young man, a sloppily drunk man told Oedipus that Polybus and Merope were not his parents.

Congratulations, Oedi. You’re adopted.

The young prince was upset and interrogated his parents on his parentage. Merope and Polybus assured him that they were truly his parents. Unconvinced, Oedipus left for the Oracle at Delphi. The oracle told the young man that he would go on to murder his father and marry his mother. Absolutely horrified at this revelation, Oedipus decided he could not return to Corinth. Rather, he would go to Thebes.

Davleia is a village in Boeotia, less than forty miles from the city of Thebes. There, at a three-way crossroads, Oedipus and an older man in a chariot had a physical altercation over who had the right of way. In one of the earliest cases of road rage, Oedipus murdered the man and the others attending him.

At the city of Thebes Oedipus came along a Sphinx, solved her riddle, and then killed her because the queen of Thebes’s brother was itching to marry off his recently widowed sister and get rid of the freakin’ Sphinx. Oedipus and Jocasta had four children, two boys and two girls.  

When the children were teenagers, a plague struck the city. Oedipus, even though he could be a massive douche, was a good king. He would remedy the plague, get the crown and save the town and Mister Craaaaabs...

Jocasta, the Theban queen, urged Oedipus to not hunt for answers. Let sleeping dogs lie. Oedipus didn’t listen to her because he was crusading for the truth and she was a woman and what Greek man would listen to a lady?

A blind guy named Tiresias did some stuff, Jocasta realized Oedipus was her son, Oedipus kept looking for why Thebes was dying, and Jocasta hanged herself. Oedipus then located a shepherd who informed him that the baby he that was found on the mountain was Laius and Jocasta’s son. The prophecy had all gone accordingly. Oedipus had murdered his father and married his mother.

Returning to the palace after his discovery, Oedipus found his mother-wife’s body swinging from the Ancient Greek equivalent of rafters. He pulled a brooch from her dress and dug out his eyes before being exiled. Theseus of Athens put the former king up in Colonus, where he died.

The Ancient Greeks viewed this as a cautionary tale. Destiny is not something to be fought. Just accept your fate. Oedipus was a dipshit in their eyes because he fought destiny and then got super nosy when things went wrong.

These aren’t bad traits! The Ancient Greeks were wrong. Oedipus is one of the most noble men of fiction and mythology. Jocasta wasn’t the only one urging him to not search for the truth. Oedipus still did though. That is intensely admirable, to search for the truth. Another intensely admirable thing is Oedipus’s desire to avert his destiny. Look, his destiny was shit. He loved his mother and father (Merope and Polybus). He loved them enough to give a big-ass middle finger to the gods and run away to preserve their lives.

Oedipus shouldn’t be remembered as some dood who slept with his mom. Rather, remember him as the man who loved the two who raised him so much, that he left all he’d known to never return. Remember him as a crusader for truth. Remember him as a man willing to flip off the gods, all out of love.

[haileysallgreek]

The Monster King of Thebes (Post #4)

Remember that rant I launched into a few weeks ago, about how the real men of Greece are too often obfuscated by those who are mythological? Well, heh, guess what we’re talking about today.

Buckle up, boys and girls. We’re in for some bad touching today.

Laius, son of Labdcus, mythological king of Thebes, descendant of Cadmus, mythological founder of Thebes. Labdcus was killed when Laius was a young man, ripped to shreds by women in frenzied worship of the wine god Dionysus. While Laius was in his teenage years, two men usurped the Theban throne. Many of the Theban people wanted to keep the line of Cadmus going and smuggled Laius out of Thebes to Pisa, a city-state in the western Peloponnese (not the Italian Pisa with the big ol’ leaning tower).

Pelops, king of Pisa, welcomed the young prince with open arms. The two men soon grew close. Pelops and Laius grew close enough that the king trusted Laius enough to escort Chrysippus, son of Pelops and a sea nymph, from Pisa to Nemea for the Nemean Games.

The Nemean Games wconsisted of five footraces of varying length, pyx (boxing with leather straps), pankration (boxing-wrestling where the only rules were no eye-gouging and no biting), pale (wrestling with the objective of throwing the opponent down three times), the pentathlon (footrace, wrestling, javelin-throwing, discus-throwing, and long-jump), and three equestrian events. Chrysippus, like any respectable youth of noble blood, intended to participate in these games. Rather than that, Chrysippus was taken to Thebes, where he was raped.

Since the usurpers had died, Laius was crowned king of Thebes. Chrysippus, ashamed of his inability to prevent his rape, ran himself through with a sword.

Not too long after Chrysippus’s rape, Laius married Jocasta of the Theban Spartoi dynasty. Soon after the wedding Laius journeyed to Delphi for a reading by its eponymous oracle. The oracle told Laius he must never have children, for the child would murder his father and marry his mother. Frightened for his life, Laius took preventions in regard to baby-making.

One evening, Laius got rip-roaring drunk. Baby-making preventions were tossed out the window and a son was born of this drunken bedsheet frolic, who Laius had promptly exposed on Mount Cithaeron with his feet staked to the ground. A shepherd found the baby and lacking in the resources to properly care for him, handed him over to the infertile king and queen of Corinth, who gladly took the child in.

All of us have skeletons hidden deep in our closets. Eventually, those skeletons find there way from their hidey-holes back to us. Babies left staked to mountains are no different.

[haileysallgreek]

The Bodyguard (Post #3)

Hold onto your perizoma, ‘cause this one’s a doozy. A sad, sad doozy.

Not much is known about the early life of Pausanias of Orestis. Truth be told, next to nothing is known of his life other than the two horrific, deeply connected acts of violence he would find himself the center of.

Philip II of Macedon, as did many Hellenic men of the same period, took on younger, male lovers. Pausanias of Orestis, renowned for his beauty, happened to be one of the young men who found himself tangoing horizontally with the then-king of Macedon. Their mattress-dancing days came to an abrupt halt when Philip found himself a new boy-toy. This young man was also named Pausanias.

Miffed at being set aside for some young upstart, Pausanias of Orestis accused the younger Pausanias, in public, being a hermaphrodite and taking an adult nap with any man that asked. Revenge is a dish best served with equal parts publicity, slut-shaming, and questioning the masculinity of a young man in a hyper-macho society.

Pausanias is recorded as taking all the other’s insults in total silence, before informing his friend, Attalus (who also happened to be Philip’s general, friend, and uncle-in-law), of how Pausanias would restore his honor.

This honor-restoration crusade came quickly, while the younger Pausanias was campaigning at Philip’s side against the Illyrians. It was simple enough, I suppose. He threw himself in front of the king during battle, protecting Philip and restoring that variety of only-tarnishable honor.

Back to Attalus. The extent of his relationship to Pausanias is unknown. Throughout ancient sources, Pausanias and Attalus are referred to as “friends”. Some speculate that the two were related. I, for one, hold the idea that Attalus and Philip were alternately holding pants-off-dance-offs with Pausanias because I need this to be more of a soap opera than it already is. Regardless of familial or amorous connection, Pausanias’s suicide-in-pursuit-of-honor-regainment sent Attalus down one hell of a dark path.

Attalus invited Pausanias of Orestis to dinner. Of course, this being Macedonia, heavy drinking was involved, with Attalus plying the surviving Pausanias with unmixed wine (the Greeks almost always diluted their wine with water) until he passed out. Then, Attalus and a group of his mule-drivers took turns violently sexually assaulting the young man.

Immediately following the gang-rape, Pausanias of Orestis went to Philip and told him of Attalus’s actions. Philip agreed that the events of that evening were absolutely barbaric. However, he did not wish to punish Attalus. He was a skilled general. The uncle of one of his wives. A good friend.

Instead, Philip gave many gifts to the young man and promoted him to the rank of somatophylax. Bodyguard, in English. This promotion-as-apology approach may have felt more like a punishment to Pausanias of Orestis because, in addition to serving as the king’s personal bodyguard, somatophylakes often held or worked with those in high-ranking military positions, such as general.

Attalus, as mentioned before, was a long-time general of Philip’s. This promotion put Pausanias of Orestis in constant contact with the unpunished, unrepentant architect of and active participant in his rape. If there has ever been an all-day, every-day slap to the face, this is it.

In October of 336 BCE, during wedding celebrations for his daughter and the king of Epirus, Philip was killed. Stabbed in the chest by none other than his bodyguard and ex-lover, who was run through with a spear in the moments following after tripping over a vine trying to escape.

So, the next time you think the world is taking a dump directly into your piehole, remember dear ol’ Pausanias of Orestis, who couldn’t catch a break if you placed it directly into his hands.

[haileysallgreek]

An Army of Lovers (Post #2)

When we think of Ancient Hellenic badassery, the first thing to come to mind for many are the Spartans. Why is it always those damn Spartans? Overrated to the max, that what they are.

Time for something a little different. Forget the Spartans. Today, we’re talking about the men who assisted greatly in the erosion of Spartan dominance over Ancient Greece, cementing their own city state’s influence. Everyone give it up for the Sacred Band of Thebes, a military order consisting of one-hundred-fifty pairs of male lovers who rose to be the most feared Greek military order of their time.

There is great debate over when this military order was formed. Some point to a section Plato’s Symposium as evidence of the Sacred Band existing as early as 385 BCE. This discussion of how an army composed of lovers “when fighting at each other’s side...would overcome the world.” This doesn’t explicitly mention the Sacred Band by name or Thebes in any capacity, so the argument of this being only hypothetical will be bantered about until time travel is invented and someone goes back to ask Plato.

The earliest surviving instance of the Sacred Band of Thebes being referred to as such dates to 324 BCE. Dinarchus name-drops these boys along with Pelopidas, the Band’s commander, and Epaminondas, commander of the Boeotian army.

Plutarch, a native of the village of Chaeronea where some highly unfortunate things happen to the Band, records that Gorgidas was the creator of the Sacred Band. Other Greek writers (Heironymus of Rhodes, Dio Chrysostom, and Athenaeus of Naucratis) say that Epaminondas created the Band.

Only Plutarch mentions the reason - or any reason, for that matter - for “Sacred” being included in the band’s name. The lovers in the Band took vows at the shrine of Iolaus, a lover of Herakles’s, according to Plutarch. Iolaus was a highly revered figure in Thebes. The Theban gymnasium (where athletes for public games trained) was named for Iolaus, along with the Iolaea, which was a Theban-hosted athletic festival.

Regardless of who assembled this order or reasons for its naming, it was great. Until it wasn’t great, of course, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s focus on when things were good.

The Battle of Leuktra stemmed from Epaminondas’s refusal to enter a peace agreement stemming from another battle at Tegyra four years prior. Epaminondas refused to accept this agreement because he wanted to fight the Spartans some more. They met at Leuktra after some Spartan stalling and the Boeotians yelling, “Come at me, bro!” repeatedly (it had to have happened like that, right?). Both the Boeotians and the Spartans sent out their respective cavalries. 

The Spartan cavalry retreated off field into the heavy infantry lines. This retreat disrupted the heavy infantry’s attempt to outflank the Boeotian left wing, where the Sacred Band and the core of the Boeotian military was situated. The left wing was ordered to advance diagonally, super revolutionary for the time. Due to the Spartan cavalry’s haphazard retreat, the disruption of the heavy infantry’s line, and all the freakin’ D U S T, the Spartans didn’t know what hit ‘em until immediately before it hit ‘em.

An attempt was made to engulf the incoming Boeotians, but it was all in vain. One-thousand (1000) Spartans were slaughtered. Four-hundred of the dead were Spartan citizens. Most importantly, one of the dead was Cleombrotus I.

Why is Cleombrotus so important, you may ask. Or you may not, but I shall answer anyway. Cleombrotus, you see, was one of Sparta’s two kings.

So, there you have it, boys and girls and anyone in between. The story of how some diagonally marching gays killed the Agiad king of Sparta and became a Hellenic power rivaling that of Athens.

Enter stage right, Macedonians.

[haileysallgreek]

Real Men (Post #1)

The history of Ancient Greece is, in my opinion, one of the more under-studied areas of history, especially among high schoolers. Certainly, most any teenager could ramble off a list of gods and goddesses - Zeus, Apollo, Hades, Athena. Herakles (HONEY, YOU MEAN HUNKULES), though a demigod, will likely be thrown about as well. Someone who half-listened in an English class would word-vomit, “Wasn’t there a guy who slept with his mom?”

What could a typical high school student say about the living, breathing humans who shaped the history and culture of early Western civilization? Leonidas - or, as he is better known, “the dude from 300″ - will often be acknowledged. Maybe - and this is a big maybe - Socrates or Aristotle. Other than that, few can throw about names without serious prompting.

Maybe the under-discussed nature of Classical Greek history is what pushed me toward it. I love underdogs. I love undervalued things. To learn about them, to understand them is special. It’s as if you’re part of an exclusive club. That thing, whatever it is, becomes special to you and you share a deep connection when you occasionally encounter a soul that appreciates it with the some fervor as you yourself.

Or, maybe, gods and heroes aren’t anything special. Sure, Herakles cleaned horse dooky from Augeas’s stables and killed the hydra (with his boy-toy’s help). Sure, Achilles hulked out after Patroclus was killed and, in turn, killed everyone and dragged Hector’s body around. 

So what? Herakles was the son of Zeus, king of gods. Achilles was the son of a river nymph and grandson of a sea god. They had the silverest of silver spoons in their mouths.

What about Alexander the Great, a small man with a twisted back, considered effeminate by his father, who later became one of the few military leaders to go on undefeated? Or Epaminondas and his army of Boeotians, who defeated a Spartan army with at least three-thousand more men than the Boeotians, stripping Sparta of its dominance over Ancient Greece?

They were not gods. They were only men. Men who faced insurmountable odds and rose to greatness. Their lives deserve more recognition, more discussion than some fairy tales made to placate the masses.