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kitsune024 · 10 months ago

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Stucky Fic Recs Part 2 - will add later

Bucky and Steve's Excellent Adventure by blue_beans I Chapters: 48/48 I Completed Post-Avengers: Endgame Bucky Barnes is very suicidal for a good chunk of this, Sentient Infinity Stones, Fix-It fic, Action/Adventure, Time Travel, slow burn

Six months ago, Steve set out on a final mission to return the infinity stones to their proper timelines, and returned a minute later having lived out a life of peace and contentment with Peggy Carter in the past. He died in his sleep a few days later, surrounded by his friends. Or so Bucky assumes. He wouldn't know, he'd been busy being locked up on the Raft while the government decided whether or not to pardon him for the whole Winter Soldier thing. What with the court-mandated therapy and the constant surveillance by alphabet agencies and the crushing weight of his past, he's not sure if giving him a chance at "normal life" is more cruel than the alternative. But he's doing fine. Great, actually, so don't ask. He didn't have a nightmare. Especially not that strangely disturbing one about Steve... *** AKA I wanted to write the reverse time-heist and I'm still salty about Endgame. This is the result.

Seasons of War by eretria I Chapters 11/11 I Completed Friends to Lovers, World War II, war horrors, Dark

Chasing Bucky, always a step behind, Steve remembers the cycle of seasons that took him from the raw and naive young man to the Captain America who led the Howling Commandos into hell and, except for Bucky, out again. As his memories center on Bucky, one question haunts him: Is the Bucky he knew in the war the same one he knew before?

ampersand by kaydeefalls I Chapters 1/1 I one shot World War II, Friends to Lovers, the Winter Soldier started long before Bucky fell from the train

They've been steveandbucky since they were kids, but that ignores the parts of their lives that don't wrap around each other, that never did. (Bucky needs to figure out who he is, just him, with or without Steve.)

In Vain by kireteiru I Chapters 1/1 I one shot James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers(unrequited), Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Endgame, All hurt no comfort, not a fix it :(

"Nothing of the heart remains, Even if we could've stayed, We've been here long enough, Long enough to know it's all in vain. Everything we tried to say, Up until the final day, I guess we said enough, Said enough to know it's all in vain." _ "In Vain", Within Temptation (Resist) A choice was made, and now the world will bear its consequences.

i'm the furthest thing from heaven, but the closest to home by @buckyismybicycle I Chapters: 6/6 I Completed Guardian Angel Bucky, Identity Reveal, Canon Divergence, Memory Loss

When Steve loses Bucky in Kreischberg, he’s lost the only thing left he cares about. He crashes the Valkyrie into the Arctic, ready to be reunited with his love, but instead, he’s saved by an angel. Except this angel isn’t like the ones he’s read about — no, his angel is armed to the teeth and has wings the colour of blood and night. Yet, there’s something eerily familiar about this angel.

Good God, Let Me Give You My Life by @bellefyre I Chapters 6/6 I Completed Bucky/others, One-Sided Relationship, Non-Consensual Touching, rape, Hydra, Steve/Bucky is Endgame

5+1 meme, five people over the decades who fell in love with the Winter Soldier and died because of him and the one person the Winter Soldier loved and lived because of him.

How to Woo the Winter Soldier by @writeonclara I Chapters 6 /6 I Completed funny fic, gift giving, Steve falls for the Winter Soldier before finding out his Identity, Courting, Identity Reveal, Identity Porn, bad ideas

“I think I’m ready to date again,” Steve said. “What,” Natasha said. “What?” Clint said, lowering his binoculars. He blinked at the dumbstruck look on the Captain’s face, then followed his gaze to where he was staring dopily at—at the Winter fucking Soldier. “Steve, no,” Clint groaned. Or: Steve courts the Winter Soldier.

Ready to Comply by @exclamation I Chapters 31/31 I Completed Canon Divergence - Post-CA: The Winter Soldier, Dehumanization, Hurt/Comfort-But Mostly Hurt, Angst, Protective Steve Rogers

The asset's orders at the end of The Winter Soldier weren't to kill Captain America, but to capture him, so that he could be wiped and turned into another asset. The asset has succeeded in that mission, capturing its target and taking him back to the Hydra base. But the Hydra soldiers are dead, captured, or fled, so there is no one there to give the asset new orders. Alone with its captive, the asset has no instructions on how it is meant to act. But the more time it spends with its target, the more old protocols start to assert themselves, like the protocol that when that face is hurt and bleeding, the asset is supposed to clean away the blood.

From Grit to Pearl by @bluesimplicity73 I Chapters 38/38 I Completed Bucky & Rebecca Barnes, Bucky Recovering, Body Horror, BAMF Bucky, BAMF Rebecca Barnes, Angst, AU - Canon Divergence, Hydra

He does not have a name. He has been called many things over the years; a weapon, a ghost, HYDRA’s Fist, the Soldier, and from what they have told him his work has shaped the century. But he does not have a name. His name, like so many other things, has been taken from him, stolen. Forgotten. Until the day it is not, and remembering, he breaks free, killing his handler and making his escape in a desperate bid for freedom. Frightened, lost and hurt, he seeks out the last person in the world he can trust, his baby sister, now an almost eighty-year-old widow, somehow knowing she is the only one who can help him. It is a difficult journey, one filled with pain, tears, and things that should not be possible. But also with recovery and redemption, rebirth and miracles, family and hope. This story is a love letter between Bucky and his sister Rebecca, the world, and eventually his childhood best friend, Steve Rogers, the boy he once loved. But ultimately, it is the love letter Bucky writes to himself, as he reclaims who he once was, discovers who he is now, builds a new life for himself and realizes he might, just might, be as strong, as beautiful, as precious as a pearl.

Bookmark Series

Til the Sun Goes Down by @scyllaya I Part 1 - 2 I Bucky & Loki, Thor & Loki, Kid Loki

Stucky with Fanart

to memory now I can't recall by @etharei | Chapters: 16/16 I Completed Time Travel, World War II, Memory Loss, Identity Porn, Alien Technology The Good Monster by Taste_is_Sweet | Chapters: 2/2 | Completed Canon Divergence, Transformation, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Body Horror, Self-Sacrifice, Self-Harm despite the threatening sky and shuddering earth (they remained) by @praximeter | Chapters: 20/20 | Completed Non-Consensual Body Modification, Canon Divergence, Identity Reveal, Drug Withdrawal, Body Horror, identity Porn, American Sign Language The Second Labor by @aidaronan I Chapters: 18/18 I Completed wartime imagery and violence, pre-serum steve, Alternative Timeline, Psychological Torture, Medical Torture, AU - Canon Divergence

Bookmark Series

Ipseity by @skyisgray I Part 1-3 I Completed Dissociative Identity Disorder, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Torture

#stucky fanfiction #steve x bucky #bucky x steve #steve rogers #bucky barnes #ao3 fanfic #fic rec #fanfic rec #stucky #winter soldier au #stucky fanart #fic recs #I ain't gonna put in all the tags in each fic so yall better read the tags some of them are dark #stevebucky #my rec list #stucky fics

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a-couple-of-notes · 2 years ago

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types in tension: kit tanthalos as royal and skeptic

a lot of people have pointed out how archetypal and dnd-esque the characters from willow feel - and I agree! they're absolutely tropey and built to serve very clear, specific functions within the ensemble. willow is the wizard and the mentor. elora is the sorcerer and the chosen one. boorman is the rogue/barbarian and the sixth ranger.

but I want to talk about my favorite example of this: kit. kit has her own clear place in the ensemble - but the archetypes she's made up of are ones usually in tension. this gives her a fascinating kind of depth and motivation - and is, perhaps, reflective of similar tensions in the rest of the characters. let's discuss.

kit as the royal

kit is introduced in contrast to jade, her humble, dutiful, long-suffering knight. this highlights all of kit's opposite qualities: her relative arrogance, rebelliousness, and desire for adventure over duty. when she conflicts with her mother and makes a scene at the party, we understand that she's feeling constrained by the arranged marriage and dreading a future stifled political life like her mother's. but the narrative also makes it clear that this is a selfish thing to do; kit clearly hurts jade, graydon, and airk, who haven't done anything wrong.

so kit is set up as a rebellious/spoiled royal: she chafes against her responsibilities and her sheltered life, not knowing the full extent of her privilege. she wants to go into the outside world but underestimates how dangerous it is. her arc should be about getting thrust into those dangers and balancing her headstrong, cocky independence with a dose of humility. she should come back stronger, but with more respect for duty and the difficulty of leadership.

basically, kit should be kind of like merida. which makes a lot of sense, given the very merida-like speech kit gives during the party.

but then airk gets kidnapped, and kit is thrust into the outside world, taking her place in an ensemble of other characters. and something interesting happens: kit becomes a skeptic.

kit as the skeptic

to balance the group, they were always going to need a skeptic - someone more invested than boorman (the apathetic) but not falling over themselves to save the world like willow (the mentor and true believer in elora danan, at least as a concept). with jade sworn to the queen’s (and thus elora’s) service and graydon falling in love, they needed someone who could/would consistently challenge elora; who could suggest practical courses of action against high fantasy wish-wash; and whose narrative arc toward belief would be, essentially, the show's ideological argument for hope and idealism.

so it's kit. kit wants to keep them on track. she doubts magic and the idealistic plans the others have for elora. not only is she aware of the practical concerns of the quest, she's often the one reminding the others of that. while it may be out of jealousy, the kinds of questions she asks - “is this really working?”, "how long until elora can do magic?" - are things that the party has to consider just...logically. will it significantly slow their travel if willow has to teach elora for an extended period of time? will they need more rations? when will elora be able to contribute to potential combat?

skeptics on magic shows like this often get a bad rep (except when they get a very good rep because they're hot and sad), because we know the show's overarching philosophy is one of belief. there's a combination of out-of-universe impatience, waiting for the skeptic's narrative arc to catch up, and in-universe - well, arcing, where the the events of the story prove the skeptic wrong and the other characters (the believers) right.

here's the thing, though: skeptics have usually come by their cynical realism after a hard, unfair life. they've seen some shit. they've got a tragic backstory. they’re your han solo from star wars, eretria from the shannara chronicles, cara mason from legend of the seeker. we understand their abrasiveness and accept their position as a legitimate argument because it's born from experience - experience that the idealistic heroes don't have yet.

so here's an interesting tension: how is kit both royal and skeptic?

because the arc of a rebellious/spoiled royal hinges on the fact that they don’t have experience. they don’t know how tough the real world is, and they haven’t thought through the practical considerations. and where the royal is the one who needs to be taught these things, the skeptic is usually the one teaching.

I suspect this is the crux of some people’s annoyance with kit - she’s taking the place of the skeptic in the party, rough-edged but logical, but her introduction indicates she doesn’t have enough experience for that. so instead of going, “you know, even if that wasn’t the nicest way to put it, that’s a good point. in-universe, it doesn’t seem like elora is going to learn magic very fast, and that might be a legitimate liability to the party,” the response is, “what do you know? you grew up a spoiled brat!”

why is this happening?

before I discuss the implications of kit’s character as both royal and skeptic, I want to take a moment to talk about why it’s happening. I think there’s lots of factors - well-written characters often involve things in tension, and there’s a whole layer of kit trying to imitate the seasoned warrior type of her father - but I think there's one main reason: elora must displace kit as the royal in the ensemble.

elora isn’t spoiled, of course. but she starts out pretty naive and chases after airk without practical consideration to her actual abilities or (later) her duties as the chosen one. she is the one that everyone has sworn to protect and save, sometimes from problems of her own making. elora must learn to lead, master her powers, and make hard decisions in a messy world.

the switch is clear even in the very first interaction kit has with elora. when kit asks if dove has any battle experience and dove snidely reverses the question, it’s establishing kit as the more practical, skeptical, and indeed, experienced, voice. kit has, actually, had more real-world battle experience than dove.

so while we were initially introduced to kit as the hero and royal, in the party, elora is the hero and royal, with kit falling to the lancer and the skeptic. this neatly dovetails into kit’s feelings of abandonment and jealousy over everyone choosing elora. even the framework of the story, the meta functions of the characters, have placed elora over kit.

the implications

so why am I even talking about this? why does it matter? after all, despite her function in the party, large parts of kit’s arc follow the rebellious/spoiled royal’ arc. kit is constantly getting knocked down a peg, losing what she thought was hers; this follows the general arc of spoiled royals losing everything and then rebuilding themselves as stronger, kinder people. but I do think the royal-skeptic tension adds another layer, and here are three thoughts as to why:

1) I said that viewers might feel that kit’s royal background makes her “unqualified” to be the skeptic; I also think this is an interesting lens to apply to the characters. graydon dismisses kit’s irritation with elora as “she’s just jealous.” jade and boorman say that kit could never do the dirty work of killing a corrupted graydon, with the implication being that kit can’t take the reality of it. are these lines just excuses for the writers to tell us with 100% certainty what kit’s motivations and limits are? maybe. but it’s more interesting to me if these characters are interpreting kit through their experiences of her - as a royal who graydon barely knows and who jade has spent years protecting - and missing some stuff.

2) it adds a cool dimension to kit and elora’s relationship. we’ve talked about the rebellious/spoiled royal’s arc as one of learning humility, and that’s one kit’s definitely going on. but at the same time, kit must complete a skeptic’s arc: learning to believe in magic and idealism, learning to believe in the chosen one/royal - which means the story is just as dependent on elora proving herself to kit as it is kit yielding to elora. a lot of kit’s other relationships center on kit humbling herself (kit has to apologize to jade and graydon, kit has to learn to respect willow). but kit and elora’s dynamic - and their whole arcs! - require both of them to make an equal effort.

3) the royal-skeptic tension just...adds all sorts of possible motivational layers to kit’s actions. there’s the jealousy underlying kit’s questions to elora, which we’ve talked about: it’s both a royal’s discomfort with losing privilege and a skeptic’s practical logic. but there’s also kit’s name-dropping; it seems like a classic royal move to get special treatment, but two of the three times she does it, she’s doing it for pretty practical reasons. she’s identifying who sent them to the nelwins - not trying to pull rank - and she’s proving to the bonereavers that she can get them money - a pragmatic offer to get the party out of trouble. how much of kit’s friction with willow is royal naïveté, ignoring the words of a more experienced mentor, and how much of it is an equal competing philosophy, a skeptic’s real-world practicality against an idealist’s grand plans? it’s both. kit is always both.

(note: I feel like this reads as favoring skeptics over royals, which is not the case; they’re value-neutral narratives. however, as this is, at least in part, my attempt to figure out why I've felt so bothered by people interpreting kit as simply a “spoiled princess,” some of that frustration may have leaked in. though I think even if kit had followed the royal arc to a T, with none of this archetypal tension, I still would have been frustrated by, like, misogyny and people not letting characters go on an arc. you can’t win, I suppose.)

#willow 2022 #willow meta #kit tanthalos

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jeannereames · 7 months ago

Note

Reading the Wikipedia articles of most Ptolemaic kings, there's a note right at the beginning: "Numbering the Ptolemies is a modern convention. Older sources may give a number one higher or lower. The most reliable way of determining which Ptolemy is being referred to in any given case is by epithet (e.g. "Philopator")".

I did not find a similar note in articles about the Argeads, Seleucids, or any other Hellenistic dynasty, for that matter, even if their members generally had epithets. This made me look into the list of Ancient Macedonian monarchs, as it occured to me that, besides Alexander the Great, I could not name a single pre-Alexander monarch with an epithet! The only ones I could find were Alexander I the Philhellene and Amyntas II the Little.

Hellenistic monarchs seem to have had all sorts of colorful epithets - Soter, Nicator, Epiphanes, Euergetes, Philopator. Even Macedonian kings had them, but most post-Alexander - Poliorketes, Gonatas, Keraunos. Is there a reason why the Macedonian monarchs from the Argead dynasty do not generally have epithets for which they are known?

Tl;dr answer: as the world widened and certain names became increasingly repetitive in ruling families, epithets were an easy way to separate them. The “numbering system” is recent and largely European. It was retrofitted to the medieval and ancient worlds when writing histories about these eras (and sometimes non-European regions too, such as Japan and China).

Epithets, or “nicknames,” became useful when identifying individuals outside their usual sphere of reference, especially if there might be more than one famous person from (say) Macedon named “Alexandros.”

Thus we get the most famous Alexander (III) Magnus/Megalexandros [the Great]/Alexandros ho Anikētos [the Undefeated], but also Alexandros (I) ho Philhellenas [the Philhellene]/Alexandros ho Khruseos [the Golden]. The first name listed for each is the one used by posterity, the latter was the name used in their own lifetime. So no, Alexander III was not called “the Great” until a while after his death. 😉

Identifying Individuals in Ancient Greece

We find a two- or three-tiered identification system:

Given Name

Father’s name in the genitive = [son/daughter] of ____ (patronymic)

Place of origin (also in the genitive = “of ____”)

The first two are all-but-universal, and the third is a common addition, but may be omitted in cases where the place of origin can be assumed. “Place of origin,” however, can vary. It may be a city-state/nation, or within a city-state, the phratry (clan) or tribe.

So, if you were to travel from, say, Eretria (on Euboia Island) to Athens, you’d identify yourself: Myron Apollodorou Eretrias = Myron, son of Apollodoros, of Eretria. You wouldn’t get specific about a phratry because you’re not home. Nobody cares.

Just like when I travel to Greece, I rarely say, “I’m from Omaha.” I usually just say, “I’m from the States,” and if they ask which state, I add “Nebraska”—which solicits confused looks. LOL If I were to begin with “I’m from Omaha,” they’d really be confused! It’s only inside the US that I say I’m from Omaha, Nebraska. Inside Omaha, I may give my neighborhood. So that’s a good referent as to how specific they might get, and under what circumstances.

Another fun fact: it was typical (if not absolute) for the first son to be named for his paternal grandfather, the second for his maternal grandfather, and then by various other male relatives. So, for instance, Perdikkas III, the first of Amyntas III’s sons to have a son, named the boy Amyntas. Ergo, Philip named Alexander for his elder brother, who didn’t live long enough to marry and procreate. Yet, again, it’s not absolute (unlike in Greece today); e.g., Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes; Aristobulos, son of Aristobulos … Alexander (IV), son of Alexander (III).

As for women, they’re identified by father or husband (or son or brother). It’s much rarer to see a place identifier, in part because women were assumed not to travel much. We get exceptions: the famous Aspasia, Perikles’s mistress, was identified (in Athens) as “from Miletos.” Also, in royal marriages. So, Olympias was daughter of Neoptolomos, of the Molossoi (ruling clan of Epiros): Olympias Neoptolomou Molossou.

When we get to these upper-class families, with their clan designations, we get closer to what, today, we’d call a “surname.”

Athens had several aristocratic clans, but the most famous/notorious were the Alkmeonidai, of which Kleisthenes, Perikles, Alkibiades, and Plato were all members (some via their mothers). Another Athenian example were the Philaidai (Miltiades and Kimon).

These aristocratic families took their name from a mythical forefather: e.g., Alkmaion, great-grandson of Nestor (yes, from the Iliad). This pattern was true all over Greece, not just Athens. These are largely the descendants of the old kings (basileis) and nobles (aristokratoi) of the Greek dark age/archaic age (e.g., Late Iron Age).

But in some areas, royal families persisted, such as Epiros, Macedon, and Sparta, who also kept the royal clan designation: Molossoi (Epiros), Temenidai (Macedon), Agiadai and Eurypontidai (Sparta). Thessaly’s main cities also has a semi-ruling royal family, such as the Aleuadai of Larissa, traditional allies of the Macedonian royal house.

While you’ll often see me refer to the Macedonian royal family as “Argeads,”* the clan name they’d have used was “Temenidai,” as they believed themselves to be descendants of Herakles (and thus, Zeus) through his great-great-grandson Temenos. Outside Macedonia, however, they’d use “Makedonon” (of Macedon). We find Alexander referred to on an ancient Roman bust (the Azara Herm) as Alexandros Philippou Makedonon

Non-royal Macedonians would use Patronymics (+ origin place), so Hephaistion is identified in Arrian as Hephaistion Amyntoros Pellais (Hephaistion, son of Amyntor, of Pella). Krateros, however, is identified only by his patronymic in our texts (the most common pattern), so we’re less clear on where he was from: Krateros Alexandrou (Orestidis?).

In the pre-Philip/Alexander era, it’s usually possible to untangle Macedonian kings by patronymic if employed, but even that doesn’t always work. The first Alexandros (I) was the son of an Amyntas and so was the second, Philip’s older brother. Fortunately, we find them referenced in such a way that we usually know who’s meant.

Usually.

Yet take the fragment from Anaximines (FGrH 72 F 4) that says simply “Alexandros” created the Pezhetairoi (Foot Companions).

Um… WHICH ONE?! Arguments have been made for Alexander I (Wrightson), Alexander II (Greenwalt), and Alexander III (various).

Welcome to the Wild, Wild West of ancient history. We write entire articles arguing “which Alexander” because the ancient sources didn’t identify him beyond a single name.

In any case, once Macedonia emerged onto the “world stage,” so to speak, it became critical to find better ways to identify the various Successor kings (Diadochi) of the Hellenistic era. All the more so as they frequently reused names (Ptolemies) or alternated (Seleukos/Antiochos). Ptolemy, son of Ptolemy, son of Ptolemy isn’t very meaningful! Epithets became an easy way to identify which Ptolemy.

——————

* “Argead” is a modern usage for reasons I won’t go into or it’s Rabbit Hole Time about the putative Greekness (from Argos) of the Macedonian royal family. Suffice to say Alexander would be mightily puzzled to be called an Argead.

#asks #ancient royal designations #epithets for ancient kings #alexander the great #macedonian royal house #ancient greece #ancient greek naming patterns #ancient macedonia #classics #temenidae #naming ptolemies #naming seleucids #tagamemnon #royal designations

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austinswhitewolf · 2 years ago

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One of the Last Morrigan Pt. 11

“You must be Eretria’s friends.” He spoke, eyeing how Wil had moved you to stand between him and Amberle. They quickly grabbed the three of you. You and Amberle were taken to a room where they made you put your clothing back on. They wanted to keep the dresses. When they got you outside, you saw they had done the same with Wil, obviously wanting to keep the outfit he had nabbed. Once you were back together, they took you into the woods and when you came to a small clearing with three large wooden posts, you noticed Cephelo tied to one. WIthin moments Wil was moved to the middle one, you were pushed quickly behind and tied on the opposite side of the post with him. Amberle was then tied to the third. “You can’t leave us out here.” Wil spoke up to the woman who had tied you and him up. “Shut it, Elf.”

It was then that you heard almost growl like sounds in the distance. You became very uneasy when the woman said they were coming. Who?

You grabbed Wil’s left hand with your right.

“Who’s coming?” “The trolls, Princess.” Cephelos spoke up finally. “I told you there was something not right about these people, didn’t I? Never thought I’d end up as dinner.” “We’re being fed to the trolls?” Wil asked, with complete disgust and disbelief in his voice.

“And now he’s up to speed. I got a proposal for you, Blondie. In exchange for my freedom.” You rolled your eyes at Cephelos. He was always trying to weasel his way out of everything.

“And what exactly is that? Hmm?” The woman moved over to him.

“I’m talking about elfstones, the most powerful magic in all the four lands. The last hope for the Elvin race. And they could be yours. I got them here right in my pocket. This could be our chance to get rid of the elves once and for all.” At those words you had to bite your lip to keep from laughing out loud at his stupidity. As the woman pulled out the pouch, you snickered softly and shook your head. When she saw that they were the dice, you actually laughed. “Have a nice life, Rover. Well, for the next 20 seconds anyway.” With that the woman and two men who had brought you out here, turned and started to walk away.

“Here’s a thought, since you’ve still got the real elfstones on you, why don’t you whip ‘em out and show us what you’ve got before that pack of trolls rolls in and sucks the meat off our bones!”

“Even if I could reach them, they only work on one thing… Demons.”

“Would it really hurt to try?” Cephelos snapped back at Wil. “Wil… They are coming.” You spoke nervously. You could feel him start to fumble, trying to reach his pocket. “Hurry!” Amberle yelled out.

“I can’t reach the stones.” Wil was straining to try and reach them, and your hands were not at the right angle to even try to help. You watched as the troll slowed down as it reached the four of you. Its stench made you feel sick to your stomach. It moved around so it was standing in front of Wil. Just as it raised it’s ax to hit him, you heard a loud noise ring out and heard the body of the troll hit the ground hard.

You lean to the side and look around Wil’s shoulder. You see Eretria and let out a sigh of relief at the same time Wil does. She moves over and cuts the two of you free before moving to Amberle. The moment she was freed, she wrapped her arms around Eretria. “I’m sorry for what I said.” Her voice was muffled into her shoulder. You and Wil watched the interactment. Though you rolled your eyes when Cephelo cleared his throat. With a roll of your eyes, you reach down and grab the blade from Wil’s boot and move over, freeing the rover before gently flipping the blade and holding it out to Wil.

It was then, that the woman and man that had cut you off and one of the men that had brought you out here stopped near you.

“Oh, no, no, no! Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“Ty, please.” Eretria pleaded, holding the gun up towards him as he raised his.

“You’ve doomed us all.” He said before shooting at you all. Wil gripped you and pulled you into him as he put his back to the wooden post as cover. Shots rang out, your ears hurting from the loud noises. Crossbow bolts were soon hitting the wood by you. You grabbed Wil’s hand and moved back into the woods for some cover as Eretria shot back. Wil had his arms around you, watching what was going on. The moment the grunt moved forwards, he was shot in the head. When he dropped to the ground, Wil shot forwards towards him. “Wil!” You shout out as he moves, your eyes wide and fear filling your heart. He grabbed the crossbow the man had and shot back. You glance over as you hear both Rovers talking to each other, and see that Cephelo is bleeding, having been shot in the gut.

When she handed the gun over, you looked back to Wil. “Wil, come on!” You needed him to get out of there. He was back at your side in moments as Cephelo stood up and started towards the two left alive, shooting the gun. You glance back when you hear him fall. He had given you enough time to get out of range before he had been killed. The smell of Trolls was strong to you. “This way, I don’t smell troll as much.” You speak out and start to lead the way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you finally stop running, the night has given way to morning. The sun was rising and the trees thinned out as you caught your breath. “What now?” Eretria asked, her breathing heavy as she looked at Amberle. “Now, we find Safehold.” She responded, resting her hand on the woman’s shoulder with a small smile. With that she took off again.

Wil looks over at you. “You okay?” “Yeah, I just need to rest soon. We are near water, can you smell the sea?” You ask, he nods in return, grabbing your hand before taking off after the other two women.

It wasn’t long before they broke through tree cover and were upon some metal ruins and just past that was the sea. All four of you stopped and looked across the large gap of water between you and another area of land. Only a small part of a bridge was still standing. Eretria looked at the map and then back up. She sighed and looked between you all. Wil leaned against your side, looking around the front of you and looked down at the map in her hands. “What about that? The yellow line?” He asked, reaching over and pointing it out. “Do you see another path? The bridge was it.” “Well, hope you’re a swimmer.” Wil responded to Eretria. Out of the corner of your eye, you watched Amberle move off. You turn your head and watch her. When she looks down, you start over towards her. “We’re not going across.” She calls out. When you reach her side, you see what she was talking about. “We’re going under. There’s a tunnel.”

You could feel the color drain from your face, your lungs contracting and having a hard time drawing in breath. The world started to dim around the edges and you gripped onto the railing in front of you. “It’s almost dusk. We go in there now, we’re spending the night. If there are trolls down there…” “Would you rather sleep out here in the open?” Amberle cut off his words.

Her words made your knees weak. Yes you would rather sleep in the open than down in enclosed tunnels. “That tunnel could be flooded.” Wil responded. After a few moments of silence he turns, noticing you. He quickly moved to your side. “What’s wrong?” He had never seen you like this before.

“I can’t go down there.” Your voice is barely audible. “What do you mean?” He gently turned you away from where you were looking and guided you a few steps away to have some privacy. “Small spaces. I can’t do them Wil. I feel like the walls close in on me, I can’t breath. It’s bad.” You looked into his crystal blue eyes while speaking. “You’re claustrophobic?”

“Well, it never came up.” Your tone was layered with anxiety and unease. “Hey. I will be right beside you the entire time okay? Just focus on me, not where you are. You were meant to be at safehold with us.” He rested his hands on your upper arms and gave a gentle squeeze. Wil leaned his head down and rested his forehead against yours. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

Taking a few deep breaths, you try to focus on him, grounding yourself. The smell of the fresh air and water helped. After a few moments you felt a little better. Wil pulls back slightly, kissing your forehead before leaning back. “Ready?” “As I’ll ever be I guess.” You nod slightly. With a deep breath you turn towards the other two women. Both you and Wil glance over a green sign but stop on it. “Wil?” Your voice is soft and questioning if he saw it too. “Yeah.” He nodded before moving over to it, grabbing a chunk of soft white rock. By now Amberle and Eretria were standing side by side against the railing. They looked up and over when Wil moved to the sign. He wrote out the letters E and H, the sign now saying Safe Hold on it.

“Safehold.” Eretria spoke softly. “We made it.”

“Alright, let’s go.” Wil said, reaching his hand out for you as he moved towards the stairs. Lacing your fingers with his, you moved right into his side once you were both down the stairs. Amberle and Eretria were behind the two of you.

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aboutanancientenquiry · 2 years ago

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A “revisionist” article on the battle of Marathon and its historical significance, with some critical observations of mine on this text

The “revisionist” article to which I refer is written by Dutch historian Jona Lendering, who runs the well known website Livius. I reproduce below in its entirety Lendering’s article on the battle of Marathon and its historical significance (or rather, according to him, insignificance). After his text, I present my critical remarks on it.

“The Significance of Marathon

Battle of Marathon: famous clash between a Persian invasion force and an army of Athenians in 490 BCE. Its signicance is greatly exaggerated

It often said that the battle of Marathon was one of the few really decisive battles in history. The truth, however, is that we cannot establish this with certainty. Still, the fight had important consequences: it gave rise to the idea that East and West were opposites, an idea that has survived until the present day, in spite of the fact that “Marathon” has become the standard example to prove that historians can better refrain from such bold statements.

Presenting Marathon – Then and Now

The Spartans were the first to commemorate the battle of Marathon. Although they arrived too late for the fight, they visited the battlefield, inspected the dead, and praised the Athenians. The story is told by Herodotus, note the author of our main source for the fight. The very first question we ought to ask is why he chose to tell it. After all, his ambition was to record “great and marvelous deeds”, and the late arrival of the reinforcements was neither great nor marvelous. The Spartan presence at Marathon, however, served to present the battle that had been, or ought to have been, a fight by all Greeks.

That “Marathon” had been more than a normal battle, was hardly a new idea. Prior to Herodotus’ writing, monuments had already been erected, which presented the warriors as the equals of the heroes of the Trojan War. Other monuments, like the one mentioned by Pausanias, presented the dead as defenders of democracy: Pausanias mentions an Athenian “grave in the plain with are stones on it, carved with the names of the dead in their voting districts”.note A monument erected in Delphi presented the ten tribes and lauded the democratically elected Miltiades, but conspicuously ignored the polemarch Callimachus.

Herodotus of Halicarnassus

Framing the Battle

Herodotus chose not to present the battle in the same way. Knowing that the Persians had returned in 480 and had tried to conquer Greece, he interpreted the battle as a first attempt to do the same, which made the fight important for all of Greece. This is unlikely to be a correct judgment: the Persian army was too small for conquest and occupation, and most historians have rejected this.

What they did not reject, was the context in which Herodotus presented the violent actions. His Histories presuppose an elaborate model of action and reaction, which is Herodotus’ way to express historical causality: Cyrus conquered the Greek towns in Asia (action), they revolted (reaction), a war broke out in which Athens and Eretria supported the rebels (action), Persia restored order and decided to subdue the allies (reaction), the Persians came to Attica (action), where the Athenians defeated them at Marathon (reaction), so the Persians returned with a bigger army to avenge themselves.

This pattern of action and reaction is unlikely to correspond to historical fact. After all, the first action and the first reaction are separated by a considerable period, and the campaign of 490 was not aimed at the conquest of Greece. So, while Herodotus’ sequence of the events between 500 and 479 is probably correct, we may have some doubt about the causal connections. The Halicarnassian may in the end turn out to be right, but that is not now at issue: what needs to be stressed is that the framework in which we place the battle of Marathon, was created by Herodotus.

This framework also presents the struggle between the Greeks and the Asians as going back to times immemorial. The very first part of the Histories is a slightly ironic account of some ancient legends about women being carried away, but Herodotus continues by pointing at “the man who to the best of my knowledge was the first to commit wrong against the Greeks”, king Croesus of Lydia. The restriction “to the best of my knowledge” suggests that Herodotus believed that the conflict had started earlier. Herodotus is not just the father of history, he is also the father of the idea that East and West are eternal opposites.

Even more importantly, he is the first author to make this antagonism something more than a geographical opposition. The Asians were the slaves of the great king, and they went to war because the ruler ordered them to, while the Greeks were citizens of free cities, who obeyed the law and went to defend their liberty. This is borne out by the words of the Spartan exile Demaratus to Xerxes:

Over the Greeks is set Law as a master, whom they fear much more even than your people fear you”.note

This speech is, of course, one of Herodotus’ own compositions: not only are “tragic warners” in the Histories invariably speaking on behalf of the author, but the topic under discussion, the tension between the rule of a leader and the rule of the law, is typical for the political debate in democratic Athens.note

Herodotus’ framing of the Persian Wars as a struggle between a monarchical Asia and a free Greece explains his authorial choices. He might have mentioned the Spartan visit to the battlefield very briefly, but inserted a long digression, because the incident, although completely irrelevant for the battle, was useful to convert Marathon into a panhellenic event.

Nineteenth-Century Theories

Greece versus Asia: although popular in the classical age, this theme lost relevance in the Hellenistic age. Once Rome had seized power, the main opposition was that between the barbarians outside the Empire and the civilized Mediterranean city dwellers. When Christianity became popular, the main antagonism was between pagans and orthodox believers. In the Early Middle Ages, new self-identifications and oppositions arose: the scholars of Constantinople believed that Islam was the archenemy of the Byzantine Empire, whereas in the Carolingian Empire, scribes believed in an antagonism between Islam and those who were called “Europenses”. The first reference to Europeans as a cultural unity is the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754.

For centuries, the inhabitants of western Europe associated their culture with Rome and Christianity. In the eighteenth century, however, the famous German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann created the modern paradigm that Rome had merely continued Greek culture, and that Athens was the real origin of western civilization.

This new idea was successful, and in the early nineteenth century, the belief that Athens was the cradle of a freedom-loving, rational European civilization, was fully accepted. It was freedom, philosophers argued, that had at Marathon been defended by the Athenians. Because their victory had inspired other Greeks to resist Xerxes, Marathon had been an important battle: in Marathon, the foundations of western civilization had been laid. The British philosopher John Stuart Mill judged that “the battle of Marathon, even as an event in English history, is more important than the battle of Hastings”.

That bold, often repeated statement, is based on three assumptions. The first is that the Athenians were fighting for the independence of Greece. The pre-Herodotean monuments prove that this was not the perspective of the participants: Athenian democrats fighting against a Persian army that wanted to bring back the tyrant (sole ruler) Hippias. As indicated above, it was Herodotus who introduced the panhellenic element.

The second assumption is that the political independence of Greece guaranteed the freedom of its culture. In 1901, the great German historian Eduard Meyer wrote in his Geschichte des Altertums (“History of Antiquity”) that the consequences of a Persian victory in 490 or 480 would have been serious.

The end result would have been that some kind of religion … would have put Greek thought under a yoke, and any free spiritual life would have been bound in chains. The new Greek culture would, just like oriental culture, have been of a theocratic-religious nature.

The argument is, more or less, that the great king would have replaced democracy with tyranny, so that the free Athenian civilization would have vanished in a maelstrom of oriental despotism, irrationality, and cruelty. Without democracy, no Greek philosophy, no innovative Greek literature, no arts, no rationalism. In this sense, the Greek victory in the Persian Wars was decisive for Greek culture.

The third assumption is that there is continuity from ancient Greece to nineteenth-century Europe. This sociological statement has never been properly tested, even though there is an obvious counterargument: after the fall of Rome, people did not recognize this continuity. The “Europeans” were not recognized as a cultural unity until 754, and when they were, they were Frankish Christians fighting Iberian Muslims, not Greeks fighting Asians. Some scholars (e.g., Anthony Pagden) have tried to solve this problem by arguing that, in spite of the fact that nobody had noticed it, the spirit of freedom had always been there, just like the spirit of monarchism had always remained alive in the East, influencing individual behavior. This type of argument is called “ontological holism”, and is better known from Marx’ idea that history was forged by the struggle between classes, or the notorious idea that history was a war between races. Class struggle, race war, or the clash between free Europe and tyrannical Asia are abstractions that do not really exist.

A more sophisticated way to refute the counterargument is the idea, best known from Jacob Burckhardt’s famous Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien ("Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy", 1867), is that the Renaissance was a rebirth of Roman civilization and that Winckelmann was the first scholar who understood that Roman civilization had been a continuation of Athenian civilization. This cannot be discarded out of hand, because social scientists have never developed the tools to test such bold statements about continuity.

Meyer’s View Assessed

Today, the German scholar Max Weber is best known as the father of sociology, but he started his career as an ancient historian. In 1904/1905, he published the two “Critical Studies in the Logic of Cultural Sciences”, in which he investigated the epistemological foundations of the study of the past. The second essay deals with “Objective Possibility and Adequate Causation in Historical Explanation”, and has become rightly famous. As it happens, one of Weber’s examples is Meyer’s analysis of the meaning of Marathon, which is shown to be the result of a counterfactual argument: if the Persians had won, the preconditions would not have been met for the rise of Athenian civilization. But, Weber argued, this was nothing but speculation. Counterfactual arguments are usually fallacious.

For example, how did Meyer know that the Persians, after a victory in the Persian Wars, would have put an end to democracy? We must pause for thought when we read that Herodotus explicitly states that the Persian commander Mardonius supported Greek democracy.note Another point is that very few historians, right now, will accept that the ancient Near East was “of a theocratic-religious nature”: it was in Persian Babylonia that astronomers developed the scientific method. Plato and Aristotle might have lived in a Persian Athens. Likewise, Eric Dodds’ The Greeks and the Irrational (1951) meant the end of the idea that Greek culture represented a more rational view of life.

So, Meyer’s reading of the Persian War has been decisively challenged. We cannot make bold statements about the meaning of Marathon. Unfortunately, not everybody is aware that there are limits to what we can understand about the past: over the past years, several books have appeared that pretend that there is a direct continuity from Marathon to our own age. Historians and social scientists have something really important to discuss.

[Originally published in the Marathon Special of Ancient Warfare (2011).]

This page was created in 2011; last modified on 15 October 2020.”

Source: https://www.livius.org/articles/battle/marathon-490-bce/the-significance-of-marathon/

Jona Lendering is Dutch historian and runs the website Livius (see about him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jona_Lendering )

And now my critical remarks on Lendering’s article:

1/ In the battle of Marathon Athens, a free city-state and fledgling ancient democracy, dared to resist the most powerful Empire the world had seen till that time and, against all odds, she won the day. If one bears this truth in mind, the historical significance of the battle of Marathon is obvious for all humans of all ages who see with favor the cause of freedom and sympathize with peoples who dare to fight powerful empires in order to defend their independence. This is even more the case for people who see with sympathy democracy and the defense of democracies face to imperialism and authoritarianism.

2/ The fact that, when the Athenians fought at Marathon, they had quite naturally first of all in their minds the defense of their city does not exclude the Panhellenic significance of the battle. Marathon was not of course the decisive and final battle of the Persian Wars. However, it was the battle which proved to the Greeks that the Persian Empire was not invincible. Moreover, as Herodotus says, the Persians had already decided to subjugate (in the one or the other form) the whole mainland Greece. If they had won at Marathon and taken Athens, the Athenian army and above all the powerful navy that Athens built in the years 490-480 BCE would have been out of the equation. If one properly understands the critical role played by Athens in the Greek defense during Xerxes’ invasion of Greece in 480-479 BCE, it becomes evident why Marathon, although not the decisive battle itself, played a major role in the eventual outcome of the Persian Wars.

3/ It is true that, as Herodotus writes, the Persians and more particularly Mardonius experimented with democracy in the Greek cities of Asia Minor which they occupied again after the quelling of the Ionian revolt. We can only speculate about the reasons which made a Persian satrap (moreover, according to Herodotus, the most hawkish one) introduce democracy in the occupied by the Persians Greek cities. However, we should not have illusions about what “democracy” meant in such conditions: this “democracy” was no more than a form of limited self-government of cities which were in fact under the total domination of the Persians. I don’t think that we can compare this “democracy” under Persian control with the great democratic experiment of sovereign Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE and with the tremendous stimulus the latter gave to Greek political thought and intellectual life.

Moreover, one of the aims of the Persian campaign in Attica in 490 BCE was to reestablish as tyrant of Athens the Peisistratid Hippias, who had been expelled about two decades before, a thing which means that there would be no repetition in Athens of Mardonius’ experimentations in Ionia. The other aim of the Persian campaign was of course to punish the Athenians for their previous support to the Ionian revolt. This punishment would have meant destructions of the one or the other extent in Athens, but also captivity and deportation to Persia of an important part of the Athenian population, as the Persians were already doing with Eretria, the other Greek city besides Athens which had sent troops to support the revolted Greeks of Asia Minor. Families and groups which had been the most hostile toward the Peisistratids and had played a prominent role in the political life of the city and in its involvment in the Ionian revolt would have been of course the first among the deported (if the Persians and Hippias did not choose to put them to the sword). Now, I think that it is obvious that an Athens largely depopulated and under a vindicative pro-Persian tyranny could not have become the intellectual and artistic center of Greece that she became after the Greek victory in the Persian Wars. So, although Lendering is right that the Persians would not have imposed some kind of “oriental mystical religion” on Athens, I think that it is evident that, if the Athenians had lost at Marathon and the Persians had subdued Athens, a very important damage in the development of the classical Greek civilization would have occured.

4/ Herodotus is not the inventor of some eternal opposition between West and East and between Europe and Asia. The “West” and “Europe” as civilization and as political and cultural identity meant nothing for him; it is for instance obvious that he saw as far more relevant for the ancient Greek cultural identity the Egyptians than the Celts. Herodotus chose for sure as the central theme of his work the conflict between on the one hand Greece and on the other hand the Persian imperial monarchy, which had under its command all the resources not only of Iran, but also of the ancient civilizations of the Near East and of parts of Central Asia and of India. But this conflict, which culminated with Xerxes’ invasion of Greece, was of course a historical reality, not some invention of Herodotus.

Now, concerning the ideological aspect of the same conflict as opposition between on the one hand freedom and law and on the other hand despotism, again what Herodotus writes is not out of touch with reality, because, put aside some rhetorical exaggerations from Greek writers (less in Herodotus and more in later authors), there was a very real ideological dimension in the Persian Wars. I say this because the Persian Wars were the endeavour of the Persian imperial monarchy, characterized by an immense concentration of power in the hands of the Great King, to subdue the Greek free city-states, which were implementing to various degrees and in various forms institutional experiments with rule of law, balance of power, political participation of the people, and active citizenship, and even, in the case of Athens, an institutional experiment with political equality between free people, equal free speech, and direct political democracy. I don’t say that we should idealize these experiments, first of all because slavery was a feature (and a major flaw) of the ancient Greek social and economic life (although this was also the case with most societies of the ancient world, including of course the Persian Empire), secondly because among these city-states there were Sparta and some other Dorian polities ressembling Sparta, which were undoubtedly militaristic and one-sided in their development. However, despite these flaws and historical limitations, in their pluralism the institutional experiments of the ancient Greek republics and first of all of course Athens were the great precusors of later historical developments and experiences with political, social, and individual freedom and with democracy. Therefore, the successful defense of these republican Greek experiments face to the autocracy and imperialism of the Persian Empire is obviously of major importance not only for the political and military history, but also for the history of ideas.

All this does not mean that we should subscribe to some essentialist opposition between a supposedly by nature free-loving West and a supposedly by nature despotic/servile East, notions that Lendering correctly criticizes. And I remind here that Herodotus is far more nuanced in his presentation of Greeks and non-Greeks than many believe: on the one hand, he describes tyranny and tyrants like Periander, Polycrates, and Gelon as an important problem of the Greek world, and most scholars believe today that his work contains implicit warnings about the Athenian imperialism of the Periclean and post-Periclean age; on the other hand, he accepts that the “Oriental’ monarchs, although for sure too powerful for the Greek standards, were not necessarily hybristic despots (Cyrus the Great was seen as “father” by the Persians, Egypt before Cheops was governed according to justice and custom), and he describes freedom-loving “barbarians”, like the Scythians, the Massagetae, and even the Persians, when they followed Cyrus and overthrew the yoke of Astyages and of the Medes. Moreover, in the “Constitutional Debate” of Book III of Histories Herodotus presents the Persians as able to envision other constitutional dispensations than monarchy, including even democracy.

5/ Marx’ theory of history is not of course above criticism, but I believe that Lendering’s grouping in his text above of Marxism with the racialist (racist) theories on history as instances of “ontological holism” is very unfortunate on many levels.

6/ Lendering alludes in his text to some idiosyncratic and erroneous views of his on the origin of science and scientific method, for instance to his belief that the scientific method developed in Antiquity not in Greece, but exclusively in Babylonia, and that Aristotle would have borrowed his theory of science, of scientific syllogism, and of scientific truth from the Babylonian “Astronomical Diaries” (see with more details about his views on these topics and my criticism of them https://at.tumblr.com/aboutanancientenquiry/the-babylonian-astronomical-diaries-and-their/9kwxss8gyvuf and https://at.tumblr.com/aboutanancientenquiry/the-babylonian-astronomical-diaries-and-their/8m68it6lzmru ). Moreover, contrary to what Lendering thinks, the reality that the ancient Greek civilization was not only rationalism had been understood before Dodds, as for example already in the 19th century Nietzsche had discerned the existence of the “Dionysian’ element in it. More generally, it would be illusory to search for some purely rationalist ancient civilization (and we should not forget that our own civilization has its own types of irrationality), and in fact one of the great triumphs of the ancient Greek culture was that it transformed the “irrational” in human life (extreme passions, reversals of fortune, undeserved suffering etc) and ‘irrational” myth into great literature, which contains immortal insights into the human condition. However, it is beyond doubt that rationalism too was something of major importance in the ancient Greek civilization. And I think that Lendering underestimates grossly the great innovations, breakthroughs, and contributions of the Greek rationalist thought and their importance for the intellectual and cultural evolution of humanity.

8/ I think that it is also beyond doubt that, although it is true that there is not some direct continuity between ancient Greece and Western Europe, the ancient Greek heritage played a very important role in the formation of the Western European cultural identity, either indirectly (via Rome and Western Fathers of the Church heavily influenced by Platonism like Augustine) or directly (above all with the rediscovery of ancient Greece in the last centuries of Middle Ages and in Renaissance). However, it seems that Lendering suggests that the Western European heritage is in fact exclusively Roman and Germanic and that ancient Greece has been included in this heritage rather artificially much later, a view which is shared today also by others in Western Europe. I don’t agree of course with this point of view, but I recognize that people have every right to include and exclude things from what they see as their cultural heritage and identity. Moreover, I recognize also that, although erroneous, such a point of view has at least the merit that it may facilitate the appreciation of the great ancient Greek civilization for what it was in itself and not just as an ancestor of the modern West.

#battle of marathon #athens #persian wars #herodotus #jona lendering

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