#the greek slave

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Hiram Powers, (American, 1805-1873) The Greek Slave, model 1841-1843, carved 1846 National Gallery of Art

[lady-disdain221b]

Reading Greek mythology means repeatedly thinking:

“Hey this dude seems chill… Oh wait no never mind he just committed some horrible crimes against women and children.”

and

“Damn she’s cool…. Oh my god she’s getting revenge against everyone who’s ever wronged her… She’s the coolest!!!!!!”

[sarafangirlart]

“Ajax the lesser did rape Cassandra but Agamemnon didn’t bc he spoke positively of her and loved her!” I’m going to hold your hand as I say this, slaves can’t consent.

[corvidexoskeleton]

I do kind of enjoy the change in Kratos' vocabulary in the norse god of war games, because while a lot of his lines in the original games were pretty aggressive, and he wasn't exactly a conversationalist, he still spoke in that sort of dramatic theater style of speech. But in the norse games, he really doesn't speak much even when he's actively in a conversation with someone, and his choice of words is a lot simpler and direct imo

I'm not sure if it was intended by the developers, but I enjoy the idea that the reason Kratos doesn't speak as much or with as much flair as he did in the original series, is because he's speaking a different language and isn't nearly as fluent in it as he would like, hence his more straightforward and simple choice of words

[just-an-enby-lemon]

If you are an "Odysseus deserves to be crying every day in Calypsos island for seven years." fuck you. No he didn't. Yes, Odysseus is a fucked up guy. No he didn't deserve that. Even if he wasn't my babygirl, pet liar, he would not have deserved that. I wouldn't have said that even to Theseus and I hate that bitch so fucking much. No one, no one, deserves to be a victim!

[official-english-major]

Not really an artist (this is my first attempt at digital art) but I was not seeing nearly enough fanart of Odysseus on Calypso's island

[in-asterism]

Reading Women of Troy while listening to Epic the Musical is an unhinged experience. highly recommend

[durn3h]

One of the most interesting things about religion to me is that so many people don’t even see the mental gymnastics they are doing to try and shape the biblical texts into a framework that is acceptable in the modern day and it comes out looking like something that none of the authors would have approved of.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hi,

Can I ask your opinion? There is one YouTuber who is lives Spain and USA and he sounds quite basic. Thing that makes me think is that he says that ottoman and Arab slavers weren't as bad as Atlantic slave trade. Reason for that was because slaves can earn their freedom and their children weren't slaves and after they get free they lived part of society etc. He says that best way to find information treatment of slaves is people who own them. What is your opinion of this? Like I know how Balkans they tattooed girls to keep the safe and captured young boys were convert to islam and rise soldiers.

"that best way to find information treatment of slaves is people who own them." oh, really? Let's go read old WASP's accounts of their Black slaves. I'm sure they will be very reflective of the truth, right? 😂😂 It's all "please look at the perspective of the slaves!" until the slaves are European, apparently.

I think this whole discussion of "Arab slavery wasn't that bad" is a way to minimize an extremely wide and despicable slave trade that lasted for more than A THOUSAND YEARS (and still hasn't ended). In comparison, slavery in America lasted from the 17th to the 19th century. (400 years if we are generous)

Also, I'm sure they would change their tune once they learned that "Brown" and "Black" people too were taken as slaves in this slave-trade. Especially "Black" people were taken a lot and in rural areas they were forced to work in the hardest of conditions, often not living more than 5 years.

I will link videos below that mention all the countries where slaves were taken from, reviewed by Black African women. But I will focus here on Europe because that's what USians have in mind when they say "it wasn't that bad".

Whole villages were taken. Villages. For centuries on end. The sheer amount of people who were taken is scary. We are talking about large populations that changed the genetic makeup of certain areas. And we have veeery few accounts of these people earning their freedom. Just because they legally could, it doesn't mean their "masters" let them.

Families were separated. They were killed when they were trying to escape. They could be beaten and lashed at any moment, for any minor inconvenience they created for their "lord". Yes, there were house slaves, too, like in transatlantic slavery, but they were also made to work under extreme conditions (e.g. extreme heat). They were working in plantations and in mining, things that the free people wouldn't do themselves.

They were castrated. They were raped and often carried the child of their rapists. Through these rapes, many children were born and mothers tried to hush this fact and hide it from future generations. Being seen as an "exotic commodity" isn't the flex these people think it is. Being a "white breeding mare" the pirates went all the way to Norway to capture, isn't a flex.

A White woman cost higher than a Black woman (racial discrimination against Black people that spread in other areas too) but that meant that European women were hunted down intensely and they had almost no chance of escaping captivity through ransom. It was more profitable to be sold, than to be returned with a ransom paid by their families or foreign countries. Arabs "preferred" non-Black slaves, and so many non-Black slaves were taken for many centuries. A double-edged sword, because you don't exactly want a slaver to "prefer" your "race" for any reason.

And if you think that highly sought enslaved women in the "entertainment" industry weren't frequently abused or raped, you can look at the abuse numbers of free women in the entertainment industry today...

People born from rape during slavery were much more than we think. Having to "ruin yourself" with tattoos (according to your tradition) and raise your child as another gender, speaks volumes of the lengths people went to avoid a very frequent phenomenon. The Greek revolution against the Ottomans clearly stated "we don't want to be taken as slaves anymore! We prefer one hour of freedom over 40 years of slavery!" In many cases, the slaves were outright called "chattel"!

Taking the male population as children is also looked by the outsiders as "good" because "they lived in good conditions and they were educated" but please go tell that to the mothers who never saw their children again. These children were also stripped of their culture and religion and language, and were often employed to oppress and kill their own people. Many Balkan countries have songs about this phenomenon.

This slave-trade was totally legal and acceptable within the Ottoman and Arab empires but it was also pirating activity that supplied the slave traders. It was mostly the Beber nations but many Africans, and West Asians and Arabs in the Arab peninsula benefited from it. They often took part in the "stealing people" operations. For example, the most exposure to Black people Greeks had was when they saw them as pirates in Arab ships. That's why the slur for a Black person in Greece historically is basically "Arab".

Europeans were building WALLS toward the sea to prevent these attacks. (Ironically, some were built by the same government that took their subjects as slaves) Thessaloniki had these walls, for example. Like, I'm not sure if the USians who often compare the slave trades ever thought of having a wall towards the sea as a normal thing. Some European nations still have sayings like "there are no Moors at the coast" as another way to say "all is safe". That's how much the trauma has stuck.

In the video linked below, there's also mentioned a revolt towards an Ottoman leader because "why won't you let us have slaves from Europe??" Does this conflict ring a bell, fellow US-ian friends? 😂

European nations and the US had created TREATIES with African states (which didn't stop the attacks in many cases) as an effort to basically say "ok, stop taking our people! we will pay you!" The amounts paid were extravagant but they were still small in comparison to how many people (and profit lol) would be lost otherwise.

There were a few cases where a slave could free themselves in the Arab slave trade but this was the case in the American slave trade too! Legally slaves in the Americas could be freed if their master wanted it, if they paid off their master, or if they were illegally enslaved. They could also have court cases to win their freedom, or serve in the military in exchange for freedom. Some were allowed to have side businesses and earn their own money (and eventually pay for their freedom).

We know there were such cases but, as I mentioned above, just because it is the law, it doesn't mean that it happened a lot.

An American would tell you "noo! Despite some legal protections it was still horrible!" and I'm asking, why don't you say this for the millions and millions of slaves in the Arab slave trade when it comes to laws VS actual treatment?

"their children (the children of slaves) weren't slaves". The recorded history shows that they usually were slaves, though. A minority, if lucky enough, could gain freedom while being born a slave. But slaves were often lumped together in certain areas so they had children with other slaves. And even children by free men often were considered slaves, unless the free male master decided to recognize them.

Just because it isn't Louisiana weather and just because the slaves (usually) didn't die on the way to their destination, it doesn't make it less atrocious. There was a reason our traditions speak of people killing themselves before they could get captured into slavery.

Like a gay Greek man said the other day "we are not supposed to be thankful just because you're not dragging us on the streets and stoning us". The laws saying "Provide shelter, and healthcare and don't mistreat your slaves" doesn't mean this was followed. "Shelter" could be a dirty shed. "Medical attention" could be splashing some water on the wounds from the lashing. "Don't overwork them" could be "I work them too much but not to death, so it doesn't count."

The video speaks more about the white slave-trade of US people but it's good to note how this looks "mild" (for lack of a better word) to what was happening in Europe. I'm not saying this as "these slaves had it better compared to the European ones". No. I'm simply saying that the danger and frequency were much larger for European people, mainly those who lived in coastal nations.

This video focuses on other areas, mainly in Africa, where slaves were frequently taken from.

[boybasher]

GOD SUX 🖕🏻 (my dark goddess aesthetic moodboard and halsey music video)

[transmercar]

shadow dragon... tevinter... rogue... snake... poison... serpentine.... mediterranean... Ophis? Draco? Python?

[sarafangirlart]

Sparta is super feminist you guys! Just as long as you aren’t a slave, disabled, poor or a foreigner! So much cooler than Athens!

[godlikecunning]

ever seen a take on ancient texts so rancid it makes you want to gouge out your eyes

[padfoot-lupin77]

The fact that Hera is the goddess of marriage is the biggest Greek myth irony since Hector said that his son would grow to be a greater soldier than him so that Andromache would be happy

[optimisticaudience]

“Hades does ancient Greek culture badly because Hermes is Asian”

Buddy, in the first game, you could literally wield an assault rifle powered by a Christian angel.

[specialagentartemis]

Reading Euripides’s “Hecuba” and it’s fascinating that he has Agamemnon, specifically, oppose sacrificing Hecuba’s daughter Polyxena after the war to appease/honor the demanding ghost of Achilles. The Athenian leaders, Neoptolemus, and, very prominently, Odysseus, convince the Greek forces to sacrifice Polyxena; Agamemnon seems to be the major voice opposing it.

Iphigenia’s name doesn’t come up, but Agamemnon’s resistance to sacrificing Polyxena even though Achilles demands it, Polyxena’s dignity in going to her sacrifice—it all evokes Iphigenia so strongly. A sacrifice of a noble daughter to begin and to end the war. Agamemnon’s sympathy and even kindness to Hecuba after Polyxena’s death makes me think he’s thinking of his own daughter sacrificed at the beginning of the war—and after ten years of this, ending right back where he started, in a way. His sympathy to Hecuba is extremely personal. He knows. He’s sorry.