The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Sword and Sandal movie updates
Kerry:
--- Quote from: Mikaela on July 10, 2009, 04:15:02 pm ---
I'm sorry, and this is not directed at you Kerry
--- End quote ---
No offense taken, Mikaela. We are all entitled to our own point of view and I respect your opinion entirely. And I agree with you. Um, that is, I agree with you from the perspective of a modern person viewing the ancient world through the eyes of someone from the 21st century. Alas, however, that does not change the facts. For example, I'm also not particularly pleased about the fact that the great and noble Ancient Greeks also kept slaves. I wish that wasn't the case. Alas, however, they did keep slaves and no matter how much I may wish they hadn't kept slaves, the fact is that they did. :'(
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: Mikaela on July 10, 2009, 04:15:02 pm ---"Widely held" views in the Greek world on this subject were widely held among men. Which means less than 50% can have held that view. One hopes women thought of themselves as slightly above mere moronic baby producing machines even if male-dominated society didn't allow them to reach their potential in so many ways.
I'm sorry, and this is not directed at you Kerry, but there are few things that annoy me more than modern historians and scolars discussing or presenting ancient Greece or Ancient Rome and speaking as if the male half of the population was the whole "real" population - and reducing women (50% of the population, except that so many women died in childbirth that AFAIK they represented less than 50% in adult age groups) to a small insignificant chapter of "special interest". Right next to that equally limited chapter about the condition for slaves. The Ancient Greek person wasn't by default a "he".
The ancient male attitude towards m/m relationships being far above m/f relationships is so misogynistic it makes me see red. It's a sad state of affairs that in societies where male homosexual relationships were approved of and even lauded this came only as the flip side of a coin that severely repressed women and denied them any sort of status, worth and equal terms.
Olympias seemed to consider herself more than a meek baby making machine, so one would think Alexander had some perspective on the matter, but no doubt he accepted and was a product of the prevailing attitude among upper class men and male philosophers at the time.
No wonder Roxane was spitting mad, being reduced to a "coarse raw sex experience". So if that was what Stone was trying to convey, perhaps even that scene makes sense after all.
--- End quote ---
I like your post Mikaela, but don't hold it against historians/scholars. They can only use what information they have, and unfortunately what written records they do have from the ancient world were written by men. There are next to no writings of women by women - a couple of poets here and there, and certainly nothing from slaves - so historians can only report the ancient world from the male perspective (though some ancient writers/philosophers do write of women speaking up with great spirit about the double-standards and other issues they faced either in fact or in literature, sometimes left-handedly but there you are).
Historians try to speculate on how the women and slaves probably might have acted and felt, but that's all they can do, speculate.
I'd like to think you're correct in that women such as Roxanne and Olympias come across time as harridans with bad reputations because yes, they considered themselves more than bargaining chips and baby machines and their inability to be anything other than a disposable commodity in the patriarchy they lived in manifested itself inwardly as ruthless behind-the-scenes scheming and outwardly as anger, contempt and hauteur.
And the men around them took that as "uppityness" and so wrote of them in the worst light possible.
Indeed, in the case of Alexander, in the end, both Roxanne and Olympias were fighting for the legitimate dynasty - Alexander's - against his former generals.
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: Kerry on July 09, 2009, 08:37:23 pm ---And I would never agree that Hadrian had moved on to another, younger eromenos ("twink"). As with Alexander following the death of his beloved Hephaestion, Hadrian went into deep mourning following the death of Antinous
--- End quote ---
I never doubted their grief, but apparently - at least from this one author I'm currently re-reading - Hadrian was a bit of a drama queen when it came to love, loss and mourning. I quote:
...with Antinous and [his new twink]...this most secretive of men and most cautious of Emperors declared and published his love in ways so extravagant and unparalleled as to astonish...even in his poems and memorials to his favorite horses and dogs...and flamboyant mournings... there appears the same exaggerated need to express and embody his feelings in a manner bordering on histrionic.
As for Alexander and Hephaestion, well, I believe with my heart that Alexander's grief was real, but some historians say at least some of it was for show or dramatic effect - to solidify his belief - and that of his subjects - in himself as a hero in the legendary sense. Alexander styled himself and believed himself descended from Achilles and per Homer:
Achilles went wild in his grief over Patroclus' death
He lay on the body for days
He cut a lock of his hair in mourning
He presided over his beloved's funeral
Alexander went wild in his grief over Hephaestion's death
He lay on the body for some time
He hacked off all his hair and the tails of all the horses in Babylon, in mourning
He presided over a lavish funeral for his beloved
Kerry:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on July 11, 2009, 01:39:51 am ---I never doubted their grief, but apparently - at least from this one author I'm currently re-reading - Hadrian was a bit of a drama queen when it came to love, loss and mourning. I quote:
...with Antinous and [his new twink]...this most secretive of men and most cautious of Emperors declared and published his love in ways so extravagant and unparalleled as to astonish...even in his poems and memorials to his favorite horses and dogs...and flamboyant mournings... there appears the same exaggerated need to express and embody his feelings in a manner bordering on histrionic.
As for Alexander and Hephaestion, well, I believe with my heart that Alexander's grief was real, but some historians say at least some of it was for show or dramatic effect - to solidify his belief - and that of his subjects - in himself as a hero in the legendary sense. Alexander styled himself and believed himself descended from Achilles and per Homer:
Achilles went wild in his grief over Patroclus' death
He lay on the body for days
He cut a lock of his hair in mourning
He presided over his beloved's funeral
Alexander went wild in his grief over Hephaestion's death
He lay on the body for some time
He hacked off all his hair and the tails of all the horses in Babylon, in mourning
He presided over a lavish funeral for his beloved
--- End quote ---
Who is the author?
Which historians?
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: Kerry on July 11, 2009, 02:52:31 am ---Who is the author?
--- End quote ---
Royston Lambert
--- Quote ---Which historians?
--- End quote ---
Gag, you want me to go dig up every Alexander book and article and dissertation I've ever read?
Just a quickie search gives me Arrian and Plutarch mentioning the Illiad-style tributes. I'd have to dig dieeper for the modern historians.
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