#classical reception

[flaroh]

Classicstober day 7: Persephone 🌸

[swordsandflowercrowns]

there are two wolves inside of me. one is yelling that authors have a duty to accurately depict classical cultures in their retellings and not impose modern expectations onto the stories. the other is yelling for them to completely twist the focus and narratives and morals to better convey the current cultural zeitgeist because reception of myths is not only fascinating but actively creating material for me to study. both wolves are historians.

[mycatwantstoeatpins]

I have no interest in seeing Gladiator II but I am enjoying Bret Devereaux's posts about it. Some excerpts (emphasis in original):

Gladiator II is explicitly set during the joint reign of Geta and Caracalla, two emperors of the Severan dynasty, but the film’s depictions of the two emperors is unrecognizable, [...] [H]ow does the film opt to portray Caracalla? Well, both of the emperors were cast as pale white young men with red hair; makeup is used to give their faces a sickly sort of color, with deep bags under their eyes. They’re presented in the film as chaotic, with Caracalla in particular being an effectively insane syphilitic (treating his pet monkey as a senator), and also queer-coded, shown with a decadent entourage of both men and women, wearing lots of jewelry (something only women and villains do in this film) and generally being fairly ‘camp.’ [...] – in contrast to the heroes Acacius and Lucius who are both explicitly straight and married to women. Indeed, even Lucius’ closest ally in the gladiator school, the former gladiator Ravi, stops to make sure we’re aware that he’s married to a woman. [...] Caracalla’s father was Septimius Severus, a man of North African extraction who claimed both Libyan and Punic ancestors. Caracalla’s mother, Julia Domna, was a Syrian woman, from an Arab family born in what today would be Homs, Syria (then Emesa). [...] [I]n the film, both Geta and Caracalla are the sort of emperors who send their generals – the fictional Marcus Acacius played by Pedro Pascal – to fight their ways, while they remain at Rome in luxury, far from any sort of violence. Indeed, this is an essential thematic contrast in the film: Rome’s failure and decadence are represented by the queer-coded, effiminate ‘soft’ men of the city and politics – Geta, Caracalla, Macrinus, Senator Thraex – while its vitality is represented by the hard men of violence – Acacius and Lucius. [...] Except the real Caracalla was exactly the sort of Roman that Ridley Scott pines for and he was a terrible emperor as a result. [...] Far from being a luxuriant, decadent, effeminate and insane figure – as Scott has him – the real Caracalla was perfectly sane. Paranoid, vengeful and violent, but absolutely in touch with reality. He is exactly the sort of man of violence these films glorify. And as a result he was a bad emperor! Caracalla’s lavish payments to the soldiers (he raised their pay substantially) and frequent campaigns (also expensive) drained the Roman treasury, while his reign reinforced the damaging precedent that the emperor was, for the most part, simply a soldier and a general. The problem with that is that if the emperor is just a general, then any general could be emperor and starting in 235, a non-trivial portion of Roman generals would try it, causing the Crisis of the Third Century. [...] For one, the film’s juxtaposition between the burly men of violence like Acacius and the weak, decadent senators is silly on its face. Indeed, Scott relies in both Gladiator films on a contrast between the career military men (Maximus, Acacius) and the political, senatorial elite. In Rome, these were the same men. To be a legatus Augusti pro praetore and to have a provincial command and a large army, one had to be a senator who had at least reached the praetorship. Not every senator was a general but every Roman general was a senator. Acacius’ claim in Gladiator II to not be “an orator or a politician” but merely a soldier and a general is a nonsense claim: at Rome, one could not be a general without being an orator and a politician. And while the film errs in suggesting that Roman collapse is just around the corner in 211 – when in fact we are close to the height of the empire and serious fragmentation is two centuries away – the Crisis of the Third Century (235-284) is coming. But the Crisis of the Third Century isn’t caused by a shortage of burly men in armor doing violence, but a surplus of them.

[strugglingclassicist]

Helen: And who did you say you were? Pen: Penthesilea, Amazon Queen, who went once/ to war to save Queen Helen (that was you)./ "Able to make men mourn" my name signifies, / supreme Amazon speeding to the neediness of Troy,/ leader of twelve good warrior maidens,/ battle-scarred/ and with fierce reputation. We were the last/ hope that queenly Troy could keep intact/ and reachable, the greatest beauty in the world. Helen: I remember that day./ The sky was a sheet of crystal/ and the wind was still. I ran to see your arrival/ from my windowsill./ You were like Artemis to us, you arrow-carrying bear-dykes./ I could tell Hector/ and the other men had learnt/ some of their skill from you,/ and then too, what can confuse/ a man more than a naked female/ breast with a bloody ax behind it? Pen: You and I met before the fight./ I rode into the hall/ on the great long-legged stride/ my mother prized me for./ You turned almost at once/ to look me up and down./ My cheeks burned with pride/ though inside/ I felt more like a clown. Helen: The Amazon were coming!/ To fight on our side!/ We women were electrified./ You looked strange to us/ but exhilarating./ I was especially electrified/ by you. Pen: I knew it too, that moment/ at least, when our eyes met across the room./ I was your last battle ax/ and you threw it.

Judy Grahn, the Queen of Swords

[blackhholes]

Goodbye Riverdale, Dante's Inferno & Classical Greek Views on Homecoming and Death

Poets and Teachers in the Underworld: From the Lucianic katabasis to the Timarion by Ingela Nilsson / Hercules Unchained: Contaminatio, Nostos, Katabasis, and the Surreal by James J. Clauss / Inquiring into Nostos and Its Cognates by Anna Bonifazi / Round Trip to Hades: Herakles’ Advice and Directions by Annie Verbanck- Piérard / The Sounds of Katabasis: Bellowing, Roaring, and Hissing at the Crossing of Impervious Boundaries by Pierre Bonnechere

[alittlegreekreader]

i was going to add this in the tags of that last post but i decided to spare op. anyway re: classical reception i do not see what the point of the charles martindale school of thought is where quote-unquote "lowbrow" media (e.g. gladiator or 300) is not worth studying or analysing qua classical reception bc it doesn't "initiate dialogue" with the ancient world in the way that ulysses or dante's inferno do. because, maybe that's true. but people watched gladiator and they watched 300. and no doubt at least some of those people will have had an interest in gladiators or thermopylae or hoplite warfare or whatever sparked by those films and i do not see what the use is in turning your nose up at those people and saying those things that they found enjoyable are not really worthy of the mantle classical reception and do not, in fact, Say anything to the ancient world. unlike a 900 page modernist novel which i suppose they should just go off and read instead.

[flores-et-dracones]

Who did they pray to,

The dying and the dead,

Mothers for their sons,

Sisters for their brothers?

I would shear my head,

Rip my face open,

Drown Greece with tears,

And flood wretched Troy.

I would bleed my nails,

I would stain my soft skin,

This is the face that torched

The citadels of Troy.

For this body, my body,

Her men and maidens burned.

The earth was quaking,

I gave birth to tears and blood.

Pray for good fortune?

No, pray for mercy.

- Euripides’ Helen: A Version by Frank McGuinness

[mascula-sappho]

*ancient Romans in pop culture voice* yes it's really important for me as a woman to be as scantily clad as possible, nevermind in my culture us women look like walking rolls of fabric with faces poking out! yes it's really important to depict us as culturally Christian and American, despite us being neither of those things!!

[classicstober]

It’s the last day of #ClassicsTober23 , and I ( @greekmythcomix ) just want to say a massive thank you on behalf of me and Dr Fraser to everyone who has taken part over here on Tumblr, in our third year of running the prompts!

Such. Utterly. Fabulous. Art!

And such creativity in the types of posts!

If you’re on Twitter or Instagram it’s also worth checking out the hashtag - on Twitter particularly we’ve had artefacts: mosaic, pottery, stelae, and sculpture; reception paintings; storytelling; explanatory videos; translation; poetry; memes; cross-cultural mashups; jewellery design; soap, scent and candle creation; musical reception; cross-stitch; sewing patterns; and of course illustration! It has been a FEAST this year and such an amazing celebration of the ancient world!

Thank you all again!

Jenks x

[herodotean]

Everyone look at this depiction of Hercules in a full body lion onesie/fursuit .. obsessed

(from Urb.lat.355 - 14th century Illuminated Manuscript of Seneca's Hercules Furens with commentary by Nicholas Trevet)

[flaroh]

Lepus leaping into the new year 🐇💫🌌

[vordemtodgefeit]

i got a high 1st in my classics creative project!!!!!

[greekmythcomix]

Excited for #Krapopolis. Looks hilarious and silly and has some of my favourite actors/voices.

But

But

The fan pass is in the form of ‘KRAP CHICKENS’, Greek myth chickens…

And I’m just

👀

reminding everyone I first drew mine in 2021 😂

Anyway, can’t wait for this show!

[drtonykeen]

In week 2 of my MANCENT Screening Britannia course, we're looking at screen portrayals of Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain, with the case study being Asterix in Britain. You can still join the course and receive the recording of week 1.

[blackhholes]

Riverdale as Classical Reception I II III IV V VI VII⎮Dialogues of the Gods by Lucian (trans. by M.D. Macleud)

[bibxrbie]

Shouting into the void: Can anyone help me with write my Master's proposal in ten days??!