#ancient greek culture in media

[bad-artist-non-historian]

no one come after me but i wholeheartedly believe that the whole dynamic between sokrates and alkibiades would be 100x funnier if alkibiades was pining for his teacher but was never reciprocated, and would have moments where on his end he was obviously flirting, but sokrates seemingly never noticed

[godblooded]

if you write a greek muse, meanwhile, i am kissing you on the forehead with enthusiasm and thanking you for your contribution.

[aspectabundgaze]

Activism : The Play, Scene II

Activism has always been around for such a long, long time. However, not a lot of people are aware of how people back in the days used to use their voices or influence in the acts of activism. Which brings up to the question I have in mind, "What was activism like in the days of Ancient Greece?" "Now I know they have protests too, but did they incorporated it into their entertainment? Entertainment has always been a tool to advocate for changes. Right?"

I've always been a huge fan of ancient Greek history, mainly mythology but sometimes, I do dabble into their philosophical and political sides. To answer my own question, I've decided to do a slight dive on Aristophanes.

First thing's first, what is activism? Nolas, S.M., Varvantakis, C. and Aruldoss, V., 2017 defines activism as an act that could be driven by the intentions to challenge social norms, practices that holds back and oppresses, suppresses identities that does not conform to the values of a society. Now activism can happen anywhere and any time, from a playground where both genders can play together without being judged for being a girl or a boy, a dinner table where discussions from studies, work, world issues can happen. Nolas, Varvantakis and Aruldoss, 2017 have also stated in their papers activism can also be a response to changes and events within the society, such as the rise of new social movements and the need to do a dive in onto political participation in the face of unexpected political outcomes. So how does this relate to Aristophanes?

Now according to an article published by Columbia College, Aristophanes was an ancient Greek playwright and comedian who lived in Athens, he was born somewhere around 446 BCE and died around 386 BCE. He was best known for his comedic plays, wrote roughly around 40 plays, where only 11 of his works survived to this very day. The reason why I found that his work is related to activism, particularly political activism is because his plays were known for its satirical and political nature. He incorporated humour, an exaggeration towards contemporary issues, philosophy and social trends into his work, making him known as one of the first people to be a public relations activist. Using political satire was one of the Ancient Greek's way to perform activism and public relations. (Bisbe, M., Molner, E. and Jimenez, M., 2019).

An example that can be taken from Aristophanes' play called "Lysistrata" written in 411 BCE that depicts the Peloponnesian war between the Athens and the Spartans. As known with his knack for satire and comedy, he wrote this as a portrayal of a fictional attempt by women from Ancient Greek to end the war by withholding sexual privileges with their husbands in order to stop the war until a treaty was signed. Albeit the play talking about a woman's needs with her spouses, the dialogue. talked about how men who focused on the war has been nothing but wasteful of the tax payer's money that women and the society contributed to, going back to Aristophanes' way of addressing the the financial effects of war, showing the frivolous nature of war and also the effects of wat on families.

Another example would be one of his well known plays "The Clouds". The Clouds was written as a political and philosophical satire on Socrates and his institution, which is also known as "The Clouds" Aristophanes used humour and exaggerated language to caricature Socrates' methods of inquiry and the perceived consequences of philosophical education. For example, here is a small dialogue from the play I read.

SOCRATES

Well now! what are you doing? are you reflecting?

STREPSIADES

Yes, by Posidon!

SOCRATES

What about?

STREPSIADES

Whether the bugs will entirely devour me.

SOCRATES

May death seize you, accursed man!

He turns aside again.

The play suggests that the pursuit of abstract knowledge and intellectualism can lead to moral and societal corruption, as The Cloud is about a man named Strepsiades who enrolled himself to Socrates' institution in order to avoid getting caught for his financial debts instead of trying his best to work things out and ethically clear out his debts. And in my opinion, activism doesn't always have to be something we do as a form of protest (physically done with marching), or an online post, or a drawing or photos but it could also be done in a form of writing. A script, a play, a book or a poem.

Refences

Nolas, S.M., Varvantakis, C. and Aruldoss, V., 2017. Political activism across the life course. Contemporary Social Science, 12(1-2), pp.1-12, viewed 22 November 2023.

Bisbe, M., Molner, E. and Jimenez, M., 2019. Public intellectuals, political satire and the birth of activist public relations: The case of Attic Comedy. Public Relations Review, 45(5), p.101790, viewed 23 November 2023

Foley, H.P., 1982. The" female intruder" reconsidered: Women in Aristophanes' Lysistrata and Ecclesiazusae. Classical Philology, 77(1), pp.1-21, viewed 19 November 2023

The Internet Classics Archive: The Clouds by aristophanes’, The Internet Classics Archive | The Clouds by Aristophanes, viewed 24 November, 2023, <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristophanes/clouds.html>

[demonicseries]

Reblog for sample size. I’m multiple of these, but pick the one you resonate with most.

[now-you-sound-like-a-jedi]

In essence, the argument that Satine Kryze destroyed Mandalorian culture boils down to an overly simplistic perspective which reduces Mandalorian culture to violence and warmongering. The vitriol directed at Satine for “destroying” this stems from the fact that what she actually destroyed was the romanticised macho warrior fantasy which may be said to form the basis of many Star Wars fans’ obsession with Mandalorians. This fantasy is symptomatic of a wider obsession in Western media with romanticised representations of warrior societies, such as Japanese samurai, ancient Greek Spartans, mediaeval knights, and Roman legionaries. However, these representations are themselves oversimplified, and gloss over the real impact of the violence these groups participated in and perpetuated in favour of focusing on arbitrary ideals like honour and glory, much like how the impact of the violence in Mandalore’s history is frequently glossed over in attempts to make Satine into the bad guy. In this essay, I will-

[creature-wizard]

Is the spiritual person a conspiracy theorist? A list of red flags

They talk about a shadowy group of people supposedly manipulating everything behind the scenes. They might refer to them by terms such as globalists, bankers, international bankers, secret rulers of the world, the elite, the cabal, Kabbalists, Talmudists, satanists, satanic pedophiles, pedophiles, generational satanists, satanic bloodlines, the Illuminati, the Babylonian Brotherhood, lizard people, Reptilians, Orions, regressives, regressive entities, Khazarians, Marxists, cultural Marxists, or leftists. Sometimes, very rarely, they'll just come right out and say "Jews."

They claim that the conspiracy has been working to conceal historical and spiritual truths from humanity.

They claim that the conspiracy uses stuff like food, entertainment, and medicine to control the masses. For example, "additives in food suppress our psychic abilities" or "Hollywood films contain subliminal messages" or "COVID vaccines were actually created to alter your DNA to make you more docile."

Also, claims that the conspiracy controls people via spiritual or technological implants, 5G, or alter programming, with or without explicit mention of Project Monarch (a conspiracy theory promoted by far right cranks such as Mark Philips and Fritz Springmeier, who used hypnosis to respectively convince Cathy O'Brien and Cisco Wheeler that they'd been put under mind control by a global satanic conspiracy).

They claim that this conspiracy is controlling the media, has fingers in every institution they disagree with, and is generally behind everything they disagree with. (EG, the conspiracy created the Catholic Church; that other New Ager they disagree with is actually controlled opposition, etc.)

They claim that the conspiracy is trying to keep people in fear.

They claim that the conspiracy harvests something from people. Blood and adrenochrome are common ones. Loosh is somewhat less common. Expect to see something else pop up eventually.

They claim that the conspiracy practices genetic engineering; EG, creating animal/human hybrids, using vaccines to genetically sever people's connection to God, etc.

They claim that true spiritual wisdom can be traced back to places like Atlantis, Lemuria, or Mu.

They claim that world governments have secretly been in contact with extraterrestrials for years.

They appeal to known frauds and cranks, including but not limited to Erich Von Daniken, Zechariah Sitchin, David Icke, David Wilcock, Graham Hancock, Jaime Maussan, Bob Lazar, Steven Greer, Richard C. Hoagland, Fritz Springmeier, and Drunvalo Melchizedek.

Appeals to forged documents, including but not limited to the alleged diary of Admiral Richard Byrd, The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean, and The Urantia Book.

Appeals to channeled information, such as that provided by Edgar Cayce, Carla Rueckert, or George Van Tassel.

"But all of this has to come from somewhere, doesn't it?"

Oh, it all comes from somewhere, all right, but the where isn't what most people imagine.

A lot of the stuff above is just a modern spin on the content of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a Russian hoax created to justify violence against Russian Jews. The Protocols itself was plagiarized from a political satire and incorporated a lot of the post-French Revolution conspiracy theories about Freemasons and Jews being behind the French Revolution. I wrote a summary of the conspiracy tropes found in The Protocols over here.

The stuff about Satanic sacrifices and the consumption of blood, adrenochrome, loosh, or whatever are simply just variations on blood libel, an antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims Jews practice ritual cannibalism. Blood libel can be traced back to ancient Greece. (With the Greek version, I really can't help but notice the similarity to modern urban legends of gangsters kidnapping random people for initiation rituals.)

Many of these tropes can also be linked back to the early modern witch hunts. It was believed that witches sacrificed babies to Satan, practiced cannibalism, and put people under mind control by way of diabolical magic. It was also believed that some witches didn't even know they were witches; they'd go off to attend the Devil's Sabbath at night and come back in the morning without remembering a thing. In the late 20th century, this witch hunter's canard would be reinvented as the alter programming conspiracy theory when media such as the 1973 book Sibyl and its 1976 television adaptation put DID (note: the woman who inspired Sibyl did not have DID) into the public consciousness. For a more complete list of witch panic and blood libel tropes, I wrote a list over here.

Lemuria was a hypothetical landmass proposed to explain the presence of lemur fossils in Madagascar and India while being absent in continental Africa and the rest of Asia, because if lemurs evolved naturally, they wouldn't be in two separate places with no connection to each other. The discovery that India and Madagascar were once connected not only made the hypothesis obsolete, it precludes the existence of Lemuria.

The whole notion of Mu began with a horrendous mistranslation of the Troano manuscript. A man named Augustus Le Plongeon would link the mistranslation with the story of Atlantis, and use it to claim that Atlantis actually existed in the Americas. (For Plongeon, Mu and Atlantis were one and the same.) And then other people (like James Churchward) got their hands on the whole Mu thing, and put their own spins on it, and the rest is history.

Le Plongeon's ideas influence modern Atlantis mythology today; EG, the idea that it was in the Americas. Another guy who helped shape the modern Atlantis myth was Ignatius L. Donnelly, an American politician. Dude claimed that Atlanteans spread their oh-so-superior culture far and wide. He also claimed that Atlantis was the home of the Aryan people, because of course he did.

The idea that all of the world's wisdom can be traced back to Thoth/Hermes goes back to Hermeticism, a product of Greco-Egyptian syncretism. Hermeticism produced a fascinating body of mythology and an interesting way to consider the divine and its role in shaping human history, but that doesn't mean it was right. And the Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean is a modern text that has fuck-all to do with ancient Hermeticism and more to do with HP Lovecraft.

This idea that the conspiracy uses pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines for evil also has roots in Nazi Germany. The Nazi government, wanting to reserve real medicine for their soldiers, told the general populace that said medicine was the product of evil Jewish science and prescribed alternative healing modalities instead. (Said alternative healing modalities did not particularly work.) It also echoes the old conspiracy theories about Jews spreading the Black Death by poisoning wells.

The idea that the conspiracy uses genetic manipulation to create subhuman beings or sever humanity from the divine is a permutation of the Nazi conspiracy theory that Jews are trying to destroy the white race through race mixing. The idea of evil reptilian DNA goes back to the ancient serpent seed doctrine, which is indeed old, but no less pure hateful nonsense for it.

"But there's got to be somebody up to something rotten out there!"

Oh sure. But these people aren't skulking around in the shadows. They're acting pretty openly.

The Heritage Foundation has been working to push this country into Christofascism since the early 1970's. They're the ones responsible for the rise of the Moral Majority and the election of Ronald Reagan. They're also the ones behind Project 2025, which intends to bring us deeper into Christofascism. (Among many other horrible things, they intend to outlaw trans people as "pornographic.")

The Seven Mountains Mandate is another movement pushing for Christofascism. They intend to seize the "seven spheres" of society, which include education, religion, family, business, government/military, arts/entertainment, and media.

There's also the ghoulish American Evangelicals who support Israel because they think that current events are going to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus and cement the formation of a global Christofascist empire. Don't let their apparent support of Jews fool you - they believe that the good Jews will become Christians and the bad ones will go to hell.

All of these people are working toward monstrously horrific goals, but none of them are part of an ancient megaconspiracy. In fact, these are the kinds of people pushing the myth of the ancient megaconspiracy. From the witch hunts to Nazi Germany to the American Evangelical movement, if history has taught us anything, the people pushing the conspiracy theories are always the bad guys.

[wolfythewitch]

Hiui it is 8am and I'm on the zcholl bus and my broam has not shut up about them

There's a lot of discourse about the achilles portrayal in the song of achilles which I agree with for the most part because the sanitization I feel erases the suffering of women and slaves the period was built on by minimizing the raping and violent nature of war hero achilles that Homer wrote - - however, I don't think tsoa ought to be read as a stand alone; tsoa is entirely written from patroclus' pov and I think that idealisation of the man is brilliant because of how grossly codependent they were

I think I really liked one redditors take on it, being [in context of 'the silence of girls'; a breseis pov of the iliad, where in achilles participated in the culture which used her as a bed slave of war] The tsoa protector achilles which defended women who mattered to him and was endlessly devoted, and the achilles that was complacent in the ritualistic abuse of the women he enslaved by pillaging their homes are both coexisting, and possibly one and the same

I personally view the Greek cast as sort of vocaloids, they're tools by which we understand the culture of the ancients, the way we envision their interactions is just a means for our practicing the pragmatics of how we come to understand the period

Okay frankly I'm not the best person to discuss this because I've only read like half of tsoa, but there's two disagreements I have I guess, based on what I Have read

One, as much it's not meant to be a standalone or something like that (to me, it is meant to be a standalone), because of its popularity in contemporary media it is being taken as one, and many people will have Achilles and Patroclus' image forever frozen as tsoa' portrayal. God knows how many comments I've gotten on my videos treating tsoa as fact. I can't really blame the author for that, but it is what it is.

Two, the idealization of man through patroclus' eyes would hold more weight if himself was not changed for the narrative either. Patroclus was a soldier, he was a healer, and he also had his fair share of women (who he slept with). Both of them did. Violence was not shied from, and slave women were war prizes. There are these insidious little rewrites throughout the story to further the narrative of Achilles and Patroclus' only loving each other, and in turn erasing what they've done to the other women in the story. (Taking in slave women because they wanted to save them is. A choice.) Deidamia in the myths, they range from at best her and Achilles falling in love to the point of intimacy, and at worst Achilles raping her. In tsoa, Thetis forced Achilles to sleep with her. Deidamia also forced Patroclus to sleep with her. That flip in the narrative is kind of fucked up, seeing as how both in the myths and in tsoa Peleus raped Thetis.

Trying to make a statement that it is written through the idealized eyes of man, well it doesn't really work here. If anything, it feels more like an author writing with the intent of not having her MCs be morally reprehensible. So Patroclus cares when the plot demands it (saving briseis, outrage when she is taken away. Asking Achilles to save the other slave girls) and not when it doesn't affect him (talking about his mother nonchalantly, questioning why thetis hated Peleus when he also acknowledged how Peleus was involved in her rape).

[deception-united]

Naming Fantasy Races, Step-by-Step

1. Understand their characteristics

What's special or different about them? Define their attributes—consider the physical, magical, and cultural traits of the race.

Determine their societal structure, beliefs, and history.

2. Choose a base word

Use elements from mythological roots or existing folklore and literature.

Draw from nature, such as "aqua" for water-based creatures or "sylvan" for forest dwellers.

Look at words from Latin, Greek, or other ancient languages for inspiration, such as "lupus" (Latin for wolf).

3. Find appropriate prefixes and suffixes

Examples of common prefixes:

Drac– (dragon)

Lycan– (wolf)

Syl– (forest/nature)

Aqua– (water)

Examples of common suffixes:

–kin (family, race)

–folk (people)

–ari (noble or magical)

–shade (mystical or ethereal)

–borne (born of or origin)

4. Combine & modify

Merge the base word with your chosen prefix or suffix and, if need be, adjust it to make for better pronunciation. For example, you might combine "sylvan" with "-ari" to create "Sylvari".

Mix parts of words to invent new, unique terms.

5. Ensure uniqueness

Once you've come up with a name, I suggest checking its uniqueness with a quick search to ensure the term isn't already widely used in popular media.

6. Contextual integration

Integrate the term into the lore and history of your world. How did this race come to be known by this name?

Consider the cultural significance. Think about how other races view them versus how they view themselves.

Here are a couple examples to get a better idea of how you might choose to go about it for different creatures:

Forest dwellers: Base word: Sylvan (related to forests) Suffixes: –ari, –folk, –kin New terms: Sylvari, Sylvafolk, Sylvakin

Water-based beings: Base word: Aqua (water) Suffixes: –nix, –morph, –ari New terms: Aquanix, Aquamorph, Aquari

Don’t be afraid to combine unexpected elements for a fresh take, and keep the cultural nuances within your world in mind when coming up with a suitable term. A race’s name might change based on who is using it or the context.

Hope you find this helpful! Happy writing ❤

Previous | Next

[sarafangirlart]

I feel like there should be more controversy against media that makes Ares a Nazi, not only is it a misunderstanding of his character, but blaming real life bigotry on the ancient religion of a real country that was oppressed and occupied by nazis who also appropriated Greek culture feels hella disrespectful.

It’s like making Tezcatlipoca a Conquistador bc he’s a war god, not only is it shallow and lazy but extremely culturally insensitive.

[katerinaaqu]

Retellings is one thing, there's also this obsession with making the Greek Gods and Heroes as other races beside Greek. Like why the need to reimagined this Gods/Heroes like you? Why they need to have body shape/hairs/colour like you? Don't you know that these are cultural figures from the country it hail from?

Like never in my life I want to see Aphrodite looking like me or my people, I have my OWN mythology! If I want a mythology figure that show my culture and society, I just turn to my folktales. Why did the Greek mythos suddenly bear the burden to represent every single person/nation on earth?

You wanna claim that bc Greek mythology is mainstream? I think there's more nuances to it, bc no one in this world know my culture lore except the people from my own country but it doesn't stop us from appreciating our mythos and figures. And if we want to look at our own representation, we just look at our own culture. It's mind-blowing to me that these people can't do the same, and they feel the need to project their identity on another culture instead of embracing theirs.

☝️☝️☝️THIS! JUST THIS ANON!!! ☝️☝️☝️

Honestly I am not sure how is that even considered "empowering" or "representation" to swap existing characters with known background like this! Honestly if someone race swapped the amazing African Orishas to look like Greeks because "we need representations of Greeks in media" I would be insulted. I would be like "why? Ain't greek mythology important enough to create so that you need to insert my myths to African pantheon?"

And I have been called a racist for saying that! As well as other people who say the same as me too 🙄 like if you claim that "whitewashing" is so evil and erasing culture then how is it okay to do the opposite to Greeks (or even depict them as the other end of the spectrum like as if they are Norse vikings or something lol). And usually they do not use the excuse of "universality" or "mainstream" their favorite excuse is:

"There were black people in Greece and they deserve to be represented"

In other words they claim they are right and that anyone who disagrees is a bigot and a racist (the usual formula that is) and so they indeed hire literally any other kind of actors but Greeks or at least Italian and Balkan descend and they do not even make an effort to cast someone that remotely looks like the part sometimes (for example they casted The Rock to play Heracles in 2015. But at least they made an effort with makeup and the lighting of the film to make him remotely look like the part and the casting didn't appear bad or out of place to the degree it is nowadays)

So for once even if that were true (and so far we do not have plenty of archeological evidence for it) they were still considered foreigners and they were not always mingling with society. Where? Athens? Where foreigners even from other GREEK cities were not allowed to live within the walls? Sparta? That didn't allow anyone in their closed society? And we have no clue what was going on in Mycenaean world. But we know ancient myths were including people that Greeks were familiar with.

But do you still wanna go with your little hypothesis that let's say an Egyptian and a Greek had a kid that is mixed? Go ahead and create an original character with an original story. Why race swap an existing one with known story. I swear once I saw someone race swap Antigone. ANTIGONE! The woman was as inbred as she couldn't be more.

Another excuse they use is the modern day Greeks that are born out of immigrants. Are they less of Greeks than I am because they are of different ethnicity? Absolutely not. They are as Greek as I am nationally. They are born in Greece educated in Greece live in Greece. Are they ethnically Greek? No. There is a difference there. And antiquity especially heroes and characters with known backgrounds being race swapped is the same as me race swapping African Orisha with the excuse that "Greeks existed in Africa" instead of me creating an original character of it

And Greeks existed in Africa. We find cities of Greeks in north Africa all the time. Even Odysseus proves this. Lotus Eaters were probably Tynisian. We have Memnon the king of Ethiopia who has an entire poem dedicated to his people in Epic Cycle called "Aithiopis". Why isn't anyone properly representing those? Why do they feel the need to race swap existing characters to achieve that? And I couldn't have said it better Anon! Suddenly greek mythology becomes responsible to represent every nation on earth...instead of focusing at the amazing nations and their stories or myths.

If again the scream bloody murder on how extremely disrespectful old Hollywood was for not representing cultures properly then why are they doing it now? And if what they do is okay thanks to their excuse then why do they scream bloody murder for old Hollywood?

Which is it?

[love-and-deepspace-wiki]

Wiki Guide Post:

Welcome!

I'm V, an unofficial representative for the Linkon City Tourism Bureau. Allow me to be your personal tour guide through Linkon City and the surrounding areas! Whether you're a visitor passing through or a brand new resident, I hope you enjoy your stay! The links below will be updated as information is posted.

If you have any leads, screenshots, or info you'd like to contribute, please:

Send the info via dm

Include when/where in the game you found it

All information is sourced directly from public, in-game resources.

Any theories or extrapolation will be clearly defined as such. (For any Speculation & Theories posts, search the "#speculations and theories" tag)

Spoiler warning because 100% of the information I learn in-game will be posted without spoiler omissions.

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[ratticus-the-emperor]

yes, i could write a long and convoluted essay about how it irks me that zeus gets a lot of hate, and though a lot of it is “justified” most of it comes from a place of putting modern values and expectations on an ancient deity, not fully understanding the cultural context of Zeus’s identity, and the overall futility of holding a deity to the same standards as you would a modern human but—

i am totally and completely incapacitated by my adhd.

but don’t get me wrong, that’s not to say i approve or like Zeus in any way. i do believe using the gods and the perceived dynamics of olympus to tell stories about abusive families, fatherhood, the corruption that pervades the souls of people in power is good for storytelling, but you can tell when people just don’t understand. and this when the adhd monster strikes and drags me away because this is the segue to why i believe that ‘circe’ by madeline miller should’ve never been written.

how does this tie in to me being irked at the perception of zeus in modern media? oh, it doesn’t. but it ties in loosely to the idea of enforcing the modern on the ancient. but what irks me most about circe is the perception of odysseus. odysseus is not a hero, he’s just a man. but he’s also not the sexist or misogynistic monster some media portrays him as. he was just a man, and on top of that, a man who wanted to get home. circe follows the telegony which was composed centuries after homer, so there’s debate on whether or not it’s even canon in regard to the overarching story of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but personally i believe it isn’t.

the story that miller wanted to tell was a feminist one but using circe and odysseus was her first mistake. especially because odysseus himself is a victim of SA and the characterization of him as sexist and misogynistic is just… not true. there are countless of heroes in greek mythology who are, and miller chose one of the few who wasn’t. it shouldn’t have been circe. it should’ve been ariadne, because theseus is the bad guy people who subscribe to the image of odysseus make him out to be.

[onlyfangz]

i think the reason that we dont see myths such as hippolytus being adapted is because we're so intent on sanitising greek myth.

its easy to say zeus slept around behind his wife's back. it's too far to say he raped anyone. or that poseidon did. or apollo.

we talk endlessly about hades being a wife guy (which i must unfortunately um, ackshually, point out is a modern addition), or orpheus looking back at euridyce -- tropes that i myself love, but are oversaturated in the adaptation sphere.

we can talk about the tragedy of cassandra's curse, we can't talk about WHY she was cursed. we can talk about odyseus's great deeds, but not about what he and phyrrus did to astyanax. we can talk about how gay and in love achilles and patroclus were, but not why achilles refused to fight in the trojan war, which led to patroclus's death.

you know the name oeidopus. do you think you would if freud hadn't shat out the oedipal complex onto a piece of paper ages ago?

sure you know that greece is "super gay", but do you know what pederasty is? would you be so quick to call greece the homosexuals paradise if you did?

with greek history and myth, we sand it down, we sanitise it for a modern audience, and i think it's such a disservice to the time period, the socialogical contexts, and the cultural contexts as to why these stories were told. we almost prop the ancient greeks up as some sort of idealistic, simpler time, a utopia for gay men, where transgender people were accepted, and only a handful of gods did truly reprehensible things.

not only is all of that not true, and a form of historical revisionism, but if you really want to think about why pointing to an ancient european culture as how things should really be might be a bad thing, ask yourself why when a white dude has viking or celtic tattoos, you pause for a second.

not to expose myself as a classicist on main, but the thought of phaedra being cursed by aphrodite to fall in love with her step-son, whilst also fully aware that all of her actions are being influenced and yet there's nothing she can do about it, only to kill herself in the end in desperation, implicating her step-son in crimes he never committed to preserve her name? THE psychological horror of all time.

wanting to fuck your step-son, one you potentially raised, is already such a taboo thing, but to know that those feelings arent coming from your own desires? that youre trapped behind a forced biological reaction? that you werent even at fault in the events that caused you to be cursed? GOD. phaedra is my favourite horror protagonist <3

[respect-the-locals]

🐬 Daily Cetacean Fact: 🐬

Common Dolphin: The common dolphin is the most abundant cetacean in the world, with a global population of about six million. Despite this fact and its name, the common dolphin is not thought of as the archetypal dolphin, with that distinction belonging to the bottlenose dolphin due to its popular appearances in aquaria and the media. However, the common dolphin is often depicted in Ancient Greek and Roman art and culture, most notably in a mural painted by the Greek Minoan civilization.

[gemsofgreece]

As a Greek i am confused about some things about Hellenic paganism i see here online.

Because religion is supposed to be something spiritual and sacred and i see people saying they have conversations with the deities about mundane stuff like favourite singers group! as if they went for a coffee or how they speak in regards of a god if someone in their words "has offended x god" px.

I don't think back then something like that happened. Ancient Greeks would pray, chant and sing songs for the gods but those "habits" I believe are quite modern and misleading.

I am not throwing every single person practicing the religion under the bus but a considerable number of them are just following a fashion, let’s be real.

Neo-paganism is trending in the west and Greek mythology is also everywhere in the media, so these two fostered the rise of a western neopaganist subdivision with Greek mythology sprinkles.

It used to annoy me but a couple of years ago (I am old here lol) I got into a discourse with a tumblr user who was a believer and after I presented my side of the argument, they answered to me with an “Aphrodite just appeared to me and said you are wrong so shut up”. I swear that’s what they said, if you dig hard in my blog you might find the post. But after this I realised that although I am still young, I am definitely now too old to care about this too much. It’s fashion, it’s being impressionable, it’s being young, even Hellenic polytheists in Greece take an issue with such approaches to the religion. I think this type of thing will eventually fizzle out and only the few true believers will remain. I mostly think it’s people who want to leave Abrahamic religions and kind of do a “cool” trendy thing, sort of a reactionary thing.

On the other hand, I confirm I have received many asks by people who are interested in approaching the faith with the appropriate reverence and ask me to provide cultural context too so that they won’t do anything inconsiderate, so there’s that. It’s not all cringe worthy.

Having said that, all religions seem to have superficial followers and followers who have completely misunderstood or even intentionally warp the true essence of their religion’s doctrine. Dare I say they always seem to be the majority.

[classicstober]

Welcome to ClassicsTober 2023!

✏️🏺🖊️

In 2021 my friend Dr Cora Beth Fraser and I (@greekmythcomix ) accidentally started ‘Classics-tober’ – a list of Ancient Mediterranean Myth and History prompts for each day in October, so that we had an excuse to draw Classics stuff for a month. We did it again last year and even more people joined in, so we’ll be running it again this year – we’re just putting the final touches to the prompt list for this year. And now that there are a LOT of new Social Media platforms, we’re going to be attempting to run it on as many of them as possible!

The idea is to create something - anything - for the prompt. Like other October prompt lists, it can be an illustration, but it can also be text, reference, historical artefact, video, story, translation... pretty much anything you're interested in from the Ancient Med World that fits with the prompt. There's no pressure to do every single one, just the ones you like.

This year we’ve chosen Ancient Greek Myth Characters, some well-known and others less so.

If you'd like to join in, tag this account and use #ClassicsTober and #ClassicsTober23 on your social media posts when you share them (and if on Tumblr tag this account)

NOTE: please make sure if you share the graphic you add the ALT text (below for you to copy and paste)

ALT:

Classics*-Tober3

Ancient Greek Myth Characters

* meaning Ancient Greece and Rome because no one's come up with a better term yet, but if you want to add additional Ancient Med cultures then yes please - especially if you can link them to versions of these myths/ characters!

1 Cassandra

2 Medusa

3 Asterion

4 Lycaon

5 Chiron

6 Medea

7 Persephone

8 Icarus

9 Achilles

10 Asklepius

11 Pandora

12 Theseus

13 Arachne

14 Helen

15 Prometheus

16 Circe

17 Atalanta

18 Phaedra

19 Sisyphus

20 Odysseus

21 Psyche

22 Midas

23 Orpheus

24 Hephaestus

25 Talos

26 Thetis

27 Pygmalion

28 Nyx

29 Nemesis

30 Tiresias

31 Hecate

#ClassicsTober #ClassicsTober23

Share or create any style of media inspired by the prompt for the day - illustration story, poetry, artefacts, video, translation, anything! Do as many as you like. Share with the hashtags above.