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community weblog
Why stone-faced fascists keep getting antiquity wrong
"It's unfortunate that almost none of the people behind these accounts know very much about the ancient world."
Bret Devereaux "Why stone-faced fascists keep getting antiquity wrong" thebulwark.com Homer is back in the discourse on account of Christopher Nolan's upcoming film, The Odyssey. The latest controversy began with Elon Musk, among others, protesting the supposed inaccuracy of casting Lupita Nyong'o as Helen, a fictional character, who among other fantastic elements is the daughter of the god Zeus and was laid as an egg by her human mother. On X, the debate has spiraled to include renewed criticism of Emily Wilson's 2017 translation of the Odyssey, attacked for being "ideological," which is to say that it attempted to more clearly portray the perspectives of the women in the narrative, as compared to earlier translations.
George Connor "Book review: The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate workingclassicists.com Because the study of the ancient world is so associated with high-brow intellectualism, white supremacists trying to strengthen weak arguments and add substance to insubstantial positions turn to ancient sources. This elitist perception gives the discipline power for those who want to proclaim their erudition – a power that is the direct result of centuries of silencing contrary voices. As long as Classics remains "paywalled" by elite private institutions and marginalised in state education, it is perhaps inevitable the subject has become synonymous with privilege.
Tallulah Trezevant "The antiquity to alt-right pipeline" workingclassicists.com The goal of my investigation was to explore how engaging with ancient history-related content as a hobby-historian impacted my user experience on Twitter, with particular attention to the posts placed on my timeline and accounts recommended to me to follow. If I did end up being exposed to alt-right content, which was not a guarantee when I began my project, I wished to understand the connection between contemporary extremist political movements and Greco-Roman aesthetics as well as the rhetorical tactics creators use to radicalize their audience.
posted by cyanistes on Jun 04, 2026 at 11:49 AM
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Frankly I refuse to believe any of these absolute fucksticks have ever read the Odysssey because they already think reading makes you gay or some such nonsense
posted by Kitteh at 11:55 AM
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I think about the dumbo who runs the 'learn Latin' account and their interaction with Bret more than I should. He (a guess, but a strong guess tbh) totally misses the point consistently. Sure, virilitas was a word that was used, but it wasn't a cultural value like the account leans on, and was just totally applying dumb modern philosophy into the past to validate a stupid modern pov. Just uncurious folks who freak out with the slightest push back who have no real knowledge and have to group together to feel safe enough to do anything at all.
posted by Carillon at 12:08 PM
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They don't just get antiquity wrong; they seem to have a tenuous grasp on the modern day as well.
posted by grubi at 12:11 PM
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Wasn't this also the case with Victorians who were obsessed with the ancient world and used their misunderstandings to support bigotry and misogyny? Plus ça change.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:20 PM
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the supposed inaccuracy of casting Lupita Nyong'o as Helen
As someone pointed out, the ancient Greeks would probably have found "person from Africa, the home of great kingdoms such as Egypt and Kush" a vastly more plausible choice than "barbarian from the frigid northern hellscapes, whose people have barely graduated from huddling miserably in rock shelters". All those civilizations circling the Mediterranean had significant trade and cultural relationships with each other!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 12:25 PM
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Of course they haven't read any classics.
But as uncleozzy hints, there is a very long tradition of using the classics for nefarious purposes. One might even say it is the founding myth of modernity, going back to the late Middle Ages.
posted by mumimor at 12:27 PM
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In the 1997 miniseries of The Odyssey, Vanessa Williams played Calypso and if there was a hue and cry, I simply did not know. But holy fuck, these shit weasels need to get lives.
posted by Kitteh at 12:32 PM
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What a great essay. It's sad to think there is this whole ecosystem of classics chuds while the humanities are starved. Such dumb times.
At least, though the academics and classics nerds (affectionate) have made an exodus of it, they are still doing their work, having conferences, and occasionally issuing devastating intellectual putdowns to the pretenders.
It is seldom enough to do what Bret did to that fool on twitter, but few will forget that it happened. And the bluster in the chud's response feels born out of an internal but unacknowledged sense of inferiority. That's a victory on its own!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:59 PM
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Roman helmet guy. A name that screams authenticity.
I read a post from daily roman updates, what a gaseous bag of hate.
He ranting like a grad student on Crack.
What's alarming is how many followers, I don't worry about them winning an argument in academia because they won't, its the amount of people with just enough facts to make them dangerous.
Edit. Im surprised Jason has not been used to further authoritarian goals
posted by clavdivs at 1:00 PM
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Because if fascists cared about truth they wouldn't be fascists.
posted by chasing at 1:01 PM
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one thing i'm grateful for about social media is that if i see a marble statue for a profile pic, i know i can safely ignore anything that account has ever posted. saves so much time.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 1:01 PM
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This reminds me of something a Catholic friend of mine told me a couple of years ago. They said they'd run into a young white guy who, upon finding out that they were Catholic, started asking very broad questions about "how to be" Catholic-- not necessarily about the theological components of Catholicism, like say the trinity or the sacraments, or about what Catholics believe, but "how to be" one. The friend answered their questions and after a while asked where their curiosity stemmed from. The young white guy replied that he wasn't really religious, didn't believe in a god, didn't really "get" the theological dimension of Christianity, but was interested in Catholicism because it was, and my friend very specifically quoted, "based and traditional."
My friend suspected (and I have no trouble believing) that the guy was probably part of the concerningly large coterie of young white men who have been drawn over the past few years to extreme forms of conservatism and traditionalism (and outright fascism). They've also been increasingly drawn to Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity for reasons that have nothing to do with belief and everything to do with, well, pretty much just "the vibe" of those religious traditions. This guy wasn't, like, trying to understand whether the Catholic understanding of God aligned with his own, or learn about how Catholics believe in the resurrection of Jesus. To him, Catholicism meant conservatism, traditionalism, masculinity, so he wanted to "be" Catholic without actually believing the things that I suppose (as a non-Christian) the vast majority of people would say is fundamental to being Catholic... like believing that a god exists.
I think seeing this reminded me of that because it was a prime example of how people on the far right-- fascists, white supremacists, etc-- don't actually really care about the truth, historical or otherwise, of the things they claim to care about. What they care about is how they feel about those things. It doesn't matter if you have faith or if your theological understanding of the world aligns with Catholicism; what matters is that Catholicism makes you feel "based and traditional." It doesn't matter if you've never read any of the ancient Greek or Roman thinkers you're talking about; what matters is that they're the classics, they're old, they're white men (from a time when the concept of being "white" literally did not exist) so you get to feel traditional when you cite them. The actual reality or truth of things doesn't matter, what matters is the vibe. So of course Elon Musk et al are going to get it wrong. Getting it right doesn't matter. Like someone said above, if they cared about truth they wouldn't be fascists, because a fundamental part of fascism is that truth exists only in service to the needs of the moment.
(I'm also reminded, now that I think of it, of that Jubilee episode (I've basically stopped watching them because they platform the worst elements of society for clickbait) that was supposedly 'One Christian vs 20 Atheists' and the Christian in question was... Jordan Peterson, who refused to actually identify himself as a Christian because he simply isn't. Again, not for me to gatekeep the definition of a Christian, but this is a case where the guy transparently doesn't believe in God, or the trinity, or the resurrected Christ, he just likes to talk about the "Judeo-Christian" values that supposedly undergird "the west.")
posted by Method Man at 1:05 PM
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The same premise on X applies, if one puts up a profile facade of roman things but does not ascribe to the crowd or even counters an argument, they are ignored.
Its the imagery that supports the lies and if not, its just a facade.
posted by clavdivs at 1:10 PM
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This reminds me of something a Catholic friend of mine told me a couple of years ago.
I do a lot of catechetical work for people who are considering joining the Catholic Church. There's no denying that many young people, and a number of them young men, are attracted to traditional aesthetic and expressions of worship. We acknowledge it...and then brush past it, because without a relationship with Christ, none of the rest really matters at all.
I am glad that the beauty brought you, but what you see is in service of something else, and we're going to spend these next few months unpacking what that is.
posted by jquinby at 1:20 PM
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Re: converting to a "based and traditional" religion, I saw a tweet years ago that went something like:
Cradle Catholic: we should probably volunteer at the food bank because Christ commands us to feed the hungry
Adult Convert: here's why the Patriarchal Council of Antioch in 364 AD proves women are forbidden to drive cars
So there is definitely a type.
posted by fortitude25 at 1:38 PM
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Vanessa Williams
I looked around, no controversy.
I do believe Jolene Blalock in the Jason and the Argonauts help land her the ST:Voyager role.
The Uses of History in the Anti-War Writing of Robinson Jeffers and Ezra Pound.
posted by clavdivs at 1:38 PM
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There's no denying that many young people, and a number of them young men, are attracted to traditional aesthetic and expressions of worship. We acknowledge it...and then brush past it, because without a relationship with Christ, none of the rest really matters at all.
I think that's a mistake.
So, there are two different things that cause that attraction.
One is wanting a connection to past generations, and it comes with a measure of humility built in. And since humbling yourself before God is important, I'd say you should cash in and not brush past. If you ant to see where that comes from, visit an Evangelical church in the function room of your nearest hotel. That's what they're fleeing from.
The other is of course wanting the feeling that they're pre-ordained to be in charge, which is where the right wing crap comes in, and that needs nipping in the bud more than brushing past.
posted by ocschwar at 1:43 PM
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Malcolm X: We were discussing the disciples. What color were they?
Chaplain Gill: Well, I don't think we know that for certain.
Malcolm X: But they were Hebrews, were they not?
Chaplain Gill: That's right.
Malcolm X: As was Jesus. Jesus was also a Hebrew.
Chaplain Gill: Why don't you just ask your question.
Malcolm X: What color were the original Hebrews?
Chaplain Gill: I have told you - that we don't know that for certain.
Malcolm X: Then you can't believe for certain - that Jesus was white.
Chaplain Gill [pointing to a painting of a white Jesus hanging on the wall]: Just - just a moment. Just a moment. God is white. Isn't it obvious?
Malcolm X [nodding to the painting]: Well, that is obvious, but we don't know if it's obvious that God is white.
Malcolm X (1992)
posted by Omon Ra at 1:46 PM
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"barbarian from the frigid northern hellscapes, whose people have barely graduated from huddling miserably in rock shelters". All those civilizations circling the Mediterranean had significant trade and cultural relationships with each other!
And when the word 'barbarian' first emerged, it was used by ancient Greeks to slander people who weren't Greek at a time when ancient Greece was a podunk collection of unimportant city states trying not to embarrass themselves while trading with vastly more significant Mediterranean-adjacent kingdoms like Egypt and Kush.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:00 PM
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Real talk: are social media echo chambers the reason why these numbnuts can't stand the idea that there were actually non-white people in historical narratives? Like, they are hardcore convinced Jesus was this Aryan dude when given the area that Jesus was born in was not, say, Scandinavia or some shit. I could point to other examples in history--ancient Egypt, for another--where whitewashing is de rigueur. I am definitely not saying that there weren't likely cross letters to historical societies or etc before social media, or before the Internet, but what is this obsessive pathetic need to believe that white people were the glorious norm in nearly all ancient cultures? Frankly, it's fucking embarrassing.
posted by Kitteh at 2:12 PM
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Ignorance alone is bad enough, but ignorance + arrogance is what does the real damage.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:14 PM
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Ignorance alone is bad enough, but ignorance + arrogance is what does the real damage.
Can a "sense of entitlement" please be added to the formula?
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 2:21 PM
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Well, that part is simple: these people are openly racists and not ashamed of it. That is what Trump and a couple of South African tech lords have given to us all: it is no longer shameful to be racist.
I don't know how anyone could get the idea that people who lived in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze Age could be anything near what they understand as white, but that delusion has been going on for a couple of hundred years, at least.
posted by mumimor at 2:22 PM
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This is nothing new.
I remember a book from 25 years ago, titled Trojan Horses: Saving the Classics from Conservatives
posted by cheshyre at 2:50 PM
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I agree to extent, I was going to add a comment about agracola supportive of the thesis. What is new or being re-addressed is the array of people not only supporting but adding to the lie. It reminds me of Volkish like beer hall conversations circa 1928.
posted by clavdivs at 3:15 PM
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Blue Jello Elf: "As someone pointed out, the ancient Greeks would probably have found "person from Africa, the home of great kingdoms such as Egypt and Kush" a vastly more plausible choice than "barbarian from the frigid northern hellscapes, whose people have barely graduated from huddling miserably in rock shelters". All those civilizations circling the Mediterranean had significant trade and cultural relationships with each other!"
The ones who even bother to rationalize their bigotry lean heavily on two of the epithets Homer uses for Helen, "fair-haired Helen" and "white-armed Helen". However, anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with Homer should know perfectly well that the poet (or poets! i'm not sold on single-authorship!) used color words in a really weird (to modern sensibilities) way. The "wine-dark sea" is a famous one, but a number of people are also described as having blue (kyanos) hair and/or eyebrows, water is occasionally called yellow (xanthos), etc. Whatever was going on with "fair-haired" and "white-armed", it's by no means clear that those epithets are supposed to convey a straightforward account of her complexion.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:15 PM
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Wait until they learn about Patroclus. Or Tiresias. Or that the Spartans were a self-destructive state that used centuries of slavery in service to an extremely mid military record.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:18 PM
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The "wine-dark sea" is a famous one, but a number of people are also described as having blue (kyanos) hair and/or eyebrows, water is occasionally called yellow (xanthos), etc. Whatever was going on with "fair-haired" and "white-armed", it's by no means clear that those epithets are supposed to convey a straightforward account of her complexion.
We occasionally say people have blue hair too - old people with died blonde/grey hair. It's probably going away as it does not mean hair dyed specifically a shade of blue, which is becoming common.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:24 PM
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We occasionally say people have blue hair too - old people with died blonde/grey hair. It's probably going away as it does not mean hair dyed specifically a shade of blue
It actually used to! Older women would use bluing to cancel out the yellowing of their grey hair (which is probably less of a problem now that we aren't all marinating in cigarette smoke everywhere all the time). When they overshot the mark, they'd end up with a blue tinge until it washed out a little.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 3:29 PM
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"Ignorance alone is bad enough, but ignorance + arrogance is what does the real damage."
It's a penchant for cruelty that's the real problem. Arrogance is bad, but it is the joy of hurting other people that really defines the MAGA crowd, IMO.
posted by jzb at 3:30 PM
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Honestly, it's stupider than this. Homer, to the degree there was a Homer, probably imagined an Archaic Greek woman, but it's *fiction*. There is no "actual skin color" for a daughter of Zeus in a movie filmed in the modern day. The idea is to portray a character who could be pivotal in starting a war. Maybe they could take a lesson from Aurelius and grow the f up.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:33 PM
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See also Tolkien, Norse mythology, Born in the USA, etc. for things that have randomly been adopted by the right through no fault of their own. As a white nerd who grew up with Tolkien in the 1970s, I literally never met a Tolkien fan with right leanings. Just the opposite. But in the internet age people just do whatever they want. Do I really believe that Elon Musk or Peter Thiel are "stupid", whatever that means? I guess I sort of do. Or maybe it's an INT 15 WIS 3 situation.
posted by caviar2d2 at 3:37 PM
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Boromir and our Relapse into Fascism (3.5 hours YT, and I watched every minute of it and enjoyed it)
posted by runsrealgood at 3:41 PM
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fortitude25: "Re: converting to a "based and traditional" religion, I saw a tweet years ago"
That's this famous tweet by agraybee!
Every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like "I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people" and every adult convert is like "the Archon of Constantinople's epistle on the Pentacostine rites of the eucharist clearly states women shouldn't have driver's licenses."
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:46 PM
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This piece is very good, Prof. Devereaux's blog is linked from it, and is also worth a follow.
posted by gimonca at 3:47 PM
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By laying claim to something that looms large and is seen as powerful and influential is how these chuds hope to accrue power and influence themselves.
"I'm not just a raindrop! I'm part of the flood!" is quite the seductive concept to someone with no talent or integrity.
posted by tclark at 4:05 PM
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Previously on the blue: Spartans Were Losers
posted by AlSweigart at 5:53 PM
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This reminds me of something a Catholic friend of mine told me a couple of years ago. They said they'd run into a young white guy who, upon finding out that they were Catholic, started asking very broad questions about "how to be" Catholic-- not necessarily about the theological components of Catholicism, like say the trinity or the sacraments, or about what Catholics believe, but "how to be" one.
The answer is so simple... Love others, and forgive others. Faith is barely required.
Now I understand that was absolutely not fishing for that answer, but Catholicism is the simplest thing, if you distill it to its core.
I was raised Catholic, I'm an atheist now but I still try to adhere to this kernel. Except the faith in Christ thing obviously. I do not see love deriving from faith in Christ, to me its the core axiom of human existence, no need for more justifications, it is the way.
(not saying I succeed at it all the time though)
posted by WaterAndPixels at 6:44 PM
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Take a bunch of old white men and the patriarchy.
Then add a thick brown layer of fascism. Here we are.
I think it's partially a failure of the imagination. They can't wrap their little fascist minds around anything being different than the white world they have envisioned, and it scares the shit outta 'em. Musk dings Nolan for casting Lupita Nyong'o claiming he's 'defiling Homer' by choosing a Black actress? Homer would have been drooling. She is gorgeous. AND I'm betting Homer would have a few choice words about Musk being who and what he is and how he's a menace to society and couldn't recognize a beautiful woman if he saw one.
So according to mythology, the gods lived on Mt Olympus. Zeus, of course, being the supreme deity of the Greek pantheon probably blended right in with the rest of the Mediterranean crowd. But since he didn't mind looking like an eagle, a swan, a bull and a bunch of gold coins, he probably didn't mind being any color he felt like being on any particular day as long as he could get in somebody's pants.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:01 PM
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Isn't another reason why conservatives love the antiquities is that mainstream history was almost always written from an elite or establishment perspective? Myths supporting the elite masquerade as history, and conservatives can identify with those myths. They are legitimately shocked, I suppose, when the Brett Ds of the world say that the known facts of the ancient world don't support those myths. I dabble in history and I've been following along my sons' history courses in high school. The courses portray reactionary lies as
legitimate interpretations (recognize anything here?) that can be reasonably debated. For example, Franco is described as a conservative nationalist who was alarmed by the changes sought by atheists and socialists. He was really a garden variety murderous anti-intellectual authoritarian who knew what side of his bread was buttered. So I can imagine the average school graduate 'knowing' that Franco was a patriotic traditionalist who was forced to resort to violence because of Stalin's communist interference. And I imagine the same process happens in relation to ancient history.
posted by SnowRottie at 7:03 PM
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A related post by Bret Devereaux on his own website ACOUP: On the Cowardice of the Statue PfPs.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:53 PM
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Re: converting to a "based and traditional" religion, I saw a tweet years ago that went something like:
Cradle Catholic: we should probably volunteer at the food bank because Christ commands us to feed the hungry
Adult Convert: here's why the Patriarchal Council of Antioch in 364 AD proves women are forbidden to drive cars
The hope here, fortunately, would be the Jesuits: "actually, you're using a translation of the Patriarchal Council of Antioch that was found fraudulent, and if you take into account the teachings of St. Augustine during his fifth sermon to the Eumenidies you'll realize it was totally stupid to be listening to the Council of Antioch in the first place because the guy leading the council had beef with Augustine and was a misogynist (and here's the three other sources to back THAT up) and besides there's this passage praising women's intellect which is from the same Council of Antioch in 364 which honestly should have tipped you off that the passage you quoted was bullshit anyway, but all of this is beside the point because whether a woman drives is her business and God hasn't said He cares either way so stuff it."
Man, Jesuits are bad-ass.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:25 PM
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Apologies for the detail, but any description of Franco that doesn't include his absolute, boot-shaking fear of Freemasonry is guilty of sane-washing.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 8:51 PM
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The_Vegetables: "We occasionally say people have blue hair too - old people with died blonde/grey hair. It's probably going away as it does not mean hair dyed specifically a shade of blue, which is becoming common."
Yes, but the entities Homer describes as having "kyanos" hair/eyebrows are, for instance, Hector (a young manly warrior) and Zeus (an extremely manly god). Whatever he is talking about, he's not talking about blue-haired little old ladies. Color words in Homer absolutely cannot be interpreted as straightforwardly talking about "what color the thing is", and there is a literal mountain of scholarship on this.
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:29 PM
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Next thing you're going to tell me is John the Baptist wasn't a Southern Baptist.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:02 PM
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They'll lose their shit when the discover Nolan is doing Atlas Shrugged
posted by mattoxic at 10:15 PM
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I think seeing this reminded me of that because it was a prime example of how people on the far right-- fascists, white supremacists, etc-- don't actually really care about the truth, historical or otherwise, of the things they claim to care about. What they care about is how they feel about those things.
This is so important and so difficult to remember. If your perspective and outlook is 'being a normal person' this shit trips you up all the time. The fundamental dishonesty, the rot beneath the soul.
posted by mayoarchitect at 10:48 PM
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My complaint about Nolan's casting is that Zendaya is tiny and the only time she could be described as "towering Athena" is the scene where a grief stricken Odysseus is sitting slouched by the ship's prow and she's standing above him.
Also the fact that Matt Damon speaks with a Boston accent while Homer tells us that Odysseus is from Ithaca, which is upstate New York.
posted by autopilot at 12:07 AM
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I do believe Jolene Blalock in the Jason and the Argonauts help land her the ST:Voyager role.
Not to derail, but Jolene Blalock played T'Pol in ST:Enterprise.
posted by Pendragon at 1:01 AM
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Zendaya is 5'10'' / 178cm, not exactly tiny.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:09 AM
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From Deveraux' own blog (linked above):
In the case of the current contretemps, they wanted to argue against the idea that Roman strength came from the unusual willingness and ability of the Romans to incorporate and include a wide range of peoples and cultures (an observation in such ample evidence that it has been commonplace among academics for many decades – to the point that even the hoary old racists of yestercentury had to admit it was true and were stuck arguing that it contributed to decline even though that chronology does not really work out).
It's interesting, because I am working on a lecture which might become an article with the working title: The American Century, about the 20th century. It's inspired by the realization that throughout my adult life and those of my parents and grandparents and professors, the USA was at the center of innovation and of a lot of scholarship and knowledge. Of course I went to the US to study, of course my parents encouraged me to stay, just like my great-grandparents had encouraged my granddad to stay there, and so on. My granddad was in medical stuff, my dad was in the army, I'm in architecture and adjacent stuff. We all looked to America. Now things are different, but that's the next lecture.
Anyway, I realized that a lot of the reason why the US was so powerful was mass immigration. Both because it created a formidable workforce, and also because the sharpest minds from all over the world wanted to be in the US. Isn't that fascinating?
posted by mumimor at 2:22 AM
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their thumbless grasp of antiquity
I really appreciate this insult
posted by chavenet at 2:53 AM
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Heh; this is suddenly reminding me of a screenshot I saw a year or so back, where some guy on Twitter posted a picture of a expertly-done sculpture of woman, and gushed about it: "THIS is called 'art'. This is the legacy and heritage of the West. This is what men of the West fight, sacrifice, and die for. This is victory. #DeusVult" He and another poster also go on to assert that it's not just a triumph of The West, it's a triumph for men - a woman couldn't have "committed herself to the same level of detail" and "That sculpture is an act of Worship Before Heaven".
....And then someone finally responds with a second picture of the same sculptor, WITH the artist pictured, and points out: "the sculptor is a chinese woman, you dork ass losers."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:09 AM
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Just wait until they hear about the Sacred Band.
posted by kokaku at 4:23 AM
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re: "their thumbless grasp of antiquity," reading about the etruscans :P
Forget the Roman Empire - "Women, in particular, enjoyed an elevated status in Etruscan society. They were highly literate, could inherit property, kept their maiden names and participated in public life. A reproduction of a painting in the Tomb of the Leopards spreads across one wall of the exhibition, showing both men and women lounging, conversing and generally enjoying themselves at a banquet. Greek symposia, in contrast, were the sole domain of aristocratic men."
Who Were the Etruscans? - "Etruscan women enjoyed greater rights and liberties than their Greek and Roman counterparts. They were highly literate, could inherit family property, and participated in public life, including banquets and religious rituals. Etruscan women also played essential roles in politics, family, and social spheres. After death, many received elaborate burials that recognized their status within both family and society. Etruscan women were identified in inscriptions by a double-name system. This combined their given name with their family name. It wasn't until the 3rd to 1st centuries BC that the husband's name was added, likely influenced by Roman practices."
The Surprising Independence of Etruscan Women - "Many of the artworks on view highlight the range of roles women played in various aspects of Etruscan life. At home, they were not only wives and mothers but also in charge of craft production in numerous media. In the city, they held significant roles in religious and funerary activities. After death, many were honored with elaborate burials that celebrated their status and importance not only in relation to their families but also in relation to their own social and civic identities. As the Etruscans were absorbed into the Roman world, Etruscan women became increasingly aligned with the more restrictive Roman laws and culture, and they lost the independence and empowerment that was unique to ancient Etruria."
Etruscan Civilization in Rome - "Etruscan society was marked by a high degree of leisure and luxury, evident in their art, elaborate burial practices, and the status of women, who experienced more equality compared to many contemporary cultures."
The third and last Etruscan king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, reversed the Servian Reforms, established absolute rule, and succeeded in antagonizing both plebeians and patricians. Arrogant, tyrannical, and a lavish spender, Tarquinius built a temple to Jupiter larger than the Parthenon. He is also credited with building Rome's great sewer, the Cloaca Maxima. According to legend, Tarquinius's son raped Lucretia, the wife of a friend. To regain her honor, Lucretia stabbed herself, inspiring a friend, Lucius Junius Brutus, to lead a revolt against Tarquinius's tyranny. In 509 b.c.e., the revolt was successful. In reaction to monarchical tyranny, the Romans turned legislative power over to the senate. Preventing overbearing executive power, Rome established a system of two consuls, elected only for a single one-year term, each with the power to veto the other. Junius Brutus was the first consul of the newly established Republic of Rome.
US exhibition unearths the Etruscans and their enduring cultural influence - "Dreyfus will close the show with an exploration of how Etruscan innovations were adopted by the Romans, including hydraulic systems and city planning." (speaking of superbia!)
posted by kliuless at 4:36 AM
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I saw a very fine exhibit on the Etruscans at the Doge's Palace in Venice; it's on through September
posted by chavenet at 5:03 AM
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Isn't another reason why conservatives love the antiquities is that mainstream history was almost always written from an elite or establishment perspective?
The thing is, it wasn't. The founders of Athens picked their site (according to Herodotus) because it was nice enough to live in, but not nice enough to fight for, so they could have some peace. Then they developed enough of a reputation for artistry to become exporters of sculptures, with which to have access to imported Egyptian papyrus, and with which to be able to have a literate middle class.
Gods know Herodotos's writings on court intrigues in the Eastern Mediterranean is sufficiently unflattering about the various royal families to be at least somewhat populist.
posted by ocschwar at 6:45 AM
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Isn't another reason why conservatives love the antiquities is that mainstream history was almost always written from an elite or establishment perspective?
Conservatives love the Founding Fathers, unborn babies, God, the "silent majority", ancient Romans, etc. because conservatives can shove words into their mouths and they can't speak for themselves.
posted by AlSweigart at 6:56 AM
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there is also an Etruscan exhibit at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, through September, which I will definitely be checking out.
I read most of these links, and particularly enjoyed BD's article. I find his writing very engaging.
As a history nerd myself (primarily Medieval but I do play the field) I'm well versed enough in ancient history to appreciate just how stupid and baseless this claiming is. If you are so pathetic, and your "movement" is so lame that you have to distort the truth like a pretzel to justify your naked bigotry and hatred, well, just go home. Losers.
posted by supermedusa at 7:41 AM
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doh just realized kliuless'ssss link is also to Legion of Honor exhibit. so good we had to say it twice!
posted by supermedusa at 7:44 AM
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Matt Damon is also 5'10"
posted by supermedusa at 8:13 AM
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Surely Elon would champion a pornographic retelling of the Iliad, then? Because Homer had HELLA very repetitious passages about shirtless dudes being speared to death, upward, usually through their right nipple, viz:
"Agamemnon led them on, and slew first Bienor, a leader of his people, and afterwards his comrade and charioteer Oileus, who sprang from his chariot and was coming full towards him; but Agamemnon struck him on the forehead with his spear; his bronze visor was of no avail against the weapon, which pierced both bronze and bone, so that his brains were battered in and he was killed in full fight. Agamemnon stripped their shirts from off them and left them with their breasts all bare to lie where they had fallen. He then went on to kill Isus and Antiphus two sons of Priam, the one a bastard, the other born in wedlock; they were in the same chariot -- the bastard driving, while noble Antiphus fought beside him. Achilles had once taken both of them prisoners in the glades of Ida, and had bound them with fresh withes as they were shepherding, but he had taken a ransom for them; now, however, Agamemnon son of Atreus smote Isus in the chest above the nipple with his spear, while he struck Antiphus hard by the ear and threw him from his chariot."
Seriously, I wish I had a digital copy of the Iliad right in front of me so I could CTRL-F and see if getting speared in or around the nipple happens at least 30 times in that story, which is what I'm remembering.
I'd bet most of these people crying about casting someone who is arguably one of the 5 most attractive female-presenting humans alive right now would be scandalized by Homer's actual texts. They almost certainly glossed over all the incest, rape, child slavery, and human sacrifice littered throughout the Old Testament, too (assuming they've read literally any of it).
More people should read the classics, full stop. There's so much interesting stuff out there, but people just don't bother to read any more.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 8:15 AM
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Those darn Etruscans.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:19 AM
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the ancient Greeks would probably have found "person from Africa, the home of great kingdoms such as Egypt and Kush" a vastly more plausible choice than "barbarian from the frigid northern hellscapes, whose people have barely graduated from huddling miserably in rock shelters".
When I first saw that Ms Nyong'o was cast in an unspecified part, I thought there would probably be either some connection to Memnon of the Blameless Ethiopians, or, at a stretch, Queen Penthesile of the Amazon. But as golden (ξανθός) Helen, she of the white arms (λευκώλενος) and cyan (?)* κυάνεος colored eyes - that's pushing suspension of disbelief a bit far against reasonable expectation. (Counter arguments here.)
I like Devereaux but his take on κυνῶπις is I think not so cut and dried. Both Liddell & Scott and Keep's translation of Autenrieth give us impudent, shameless. (AUtenrieth's original German frech, Latin impudens) (I don't have quick access to Cambridge or to Montanari, so updates are welcome.) For Il 3.180, Devereaux has her as shame-faced for the trouble she's caused. Maybe. But she's talking to Priam, who let her in, let her stay, and is still her champion. One could argue that she's playing the old man. ("No no, Helen, don't say that!") She talks about regret for how things are turning out, but she doesn't actually do anything to stop it.
For Od. 4.145, Helen and Menelaus back in Sparta recalling Odysseus to his son Telemachus, ten years after the fact, and she reminiscing (at a wedding featst no less) how the Achaeans went to war for κυνῶπιδoς her. Not a lot of emotion attached to it either on her part or on Menelaus'. I get the vibe of a Daisy Buchanan after the crash, but a little more unconcerned.
Other interpretations are, of course, possible. Which is kind of the point with the better class of literature.
*Yes, I know. The meaning is debated. But if dark is the default Mediterranean eye-color, what makes Helen's distinctive enough to mention at all?)
posted by BWA at 8:32 AM
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The notion that adaptions of historic texts should be accurate or authentic seems very silly to me. For one, they never, ever have been. And second, if they were they would be boring.
posted by mumimor at 9:30 AM
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The notion that adaptions of historic texts should be accurate or authentic seems very silly to me.
yeah, there are two aspects to that - one, that creative reuse of classics and "new" classics like shakespeare are commonplace and often lauded. like this is not remotely controversial. this can be done well or poorly of course.
but this gets undercut by the statue guys saying, this is our cultural inheritance, you can't dilute it or change its color. that's their justification - but of course that is in its turn undercut by the fact of their "thumbless grasp" (I do love that phrase) of the content. if you don't understand Tacitus in a deep and meaningful way, you simply aren't in a position to tell anyone how they should understand Tacitus. And when people who do tell them... of course, they don't listen. Basically their behavior damns them either way: either we ignore them because they are ignorant, or we ignore them because, as they argue, their views on these matters are purely personal.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 9:48 AM
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See also Tolkien, Norse mythology, Born in the USA, etc. for things that have randomly been adopted by the right through no fault of their own.
(Aside: the Thiel fascination with Tolkien in particular may make more sense as a fascination with The Last Ringbearer, a work derivative of Tolkien's that imagines Sauron as good (technological progress!) and Gandalf evil. But for sure, more broadly, there are plenty of people on the right that consider Tolkien to be conservative- which he... was... in a certain sense that is likely different from what they're imagining)
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 9:56 AM
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Tolkien to be conservative- which he... was... in a certain sense that is likely different from what they're imagining
Yes, Tolkien's conservatism was not one that tech-bros would like if they really encountered it.
posted by Galvanic at 10:41 AM
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*Yes, I know. The meaning is debated. But if dark is the default Mediterranean eye-color, what makes Helen's distinctive enough to mention at all?)
The "kyan" part of "kyanopis" ("blue-eyed") is exactly the same "kyanos" used by Homer to describe Hector's hair and Zeus' eyebrows. (He also uses it to describe metal.) I say again, you cannot take this to be a straightforward description of color.
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:47 AM
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There was an FPP the other day... uh... 13 years ago on colour in ancient Greek texts. You can still see this archive page explaining the theory that the "colours" are more about the qualities of light: clear, murky, saturated, unsaturated than the hues that we think of today.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:10 PM
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"I need something here with so-many beats..."
--- Homer, probably
posted by jquinby at 12:28 PM
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The "kyan" part of "kyanopis" ("blue-eyed") is exactly the same "kyanos" used by Homer to describe Hector's hair and Zeus' eyebrows. (He also uses it to describe metal.) I say again, you cannot take this to be a straightforward description of color.
When you put it that way, I sense that it might have described a particularly brilliant/shiny black. Whatever. We can't know and it doesn't really matter.
posted by mumimor at 1:14 PM
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I saw this article the other day about an enormous personal library of a classicist scholar, and at the end of the article was this: " After spending a couple of decades at Cambridge, Butterfield crossed the Atlantic to go from one of the oldest institutions of higher education to one of the very newest. He's now Provost of and Professor of Latin at Ralston College in Savannah, Georgia, which received its first cohort of students in 2022. With its master's degree program closely focused on ancient, medieval and modern literature and art considered foundational to Western civilization..."
My thought upon reading this was, oh a new college that is heavily investing in...Latin Scholarship?! Reading the FPP and links in this thread, I would say some of it will be used for learning, but it's more likely it will be used to indoctrinate 'Western civilization as more-than any other' and link it as we've seen to theories of race and culture.
posted by winesong at 2:22 PM
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MetaFilter: getting speared in or around the nipple happens at least 30 times
posted by chavenet at 3:41 PM
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chavenet: "their thumbless grasp of antiquity
I really appreciate this insult"
[Citation needed]
posted by Reverend John at 4:26 PM
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winesong: "He's now Provost of and Professor of Latin at Ralston College in Savannah, Georgia, which received its first cohort of students in 2022. With its master's degree program closely focused on ancient, medieval and modern literature and art considered foundational to Western civilization..."
Damn. That place is still unaccredited. The institution where I work, also in Georgia, was founded in 2005 and accredited in 2010. It was a shit ton of work that everybody involved is still justifiably proud of. Ralston was founded in 2010 and is still not accredited. Hard to take them seriously. That "master's degree" is not worth the papyrus they scribe it on, or whatever.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:27 PM
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mumimor: "When you put it that way, I sense that it might have described a particularly brilliant/shiny black."
That's certainly my headcanon? But in any case it's clearly not about "blueness" in any obvious sense! wrt the metal thing, even in the modern day steel is often described as "blue", but there wasn't any steel in the Bronze Age! (it's in the name!)
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:38 PM
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there wasn't any steel in the Bronze Age
not to well actually in the well actually thread but
posted by mittens at 4:58 PM
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These callous people are like dog owners who let their dogs off the lead in a grave yard. I suppose being tone deaf is not a crime.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 7:16 PM
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People take apart Greek etymology about color words and shapirwhorf themselves into thinking that ancient Greeks literally saw color differently and then turn around and say "he was green with envy" without the slightest twitch of an eyebrow indicating any realization.
Unanimously you must concede
to adorn Achilles' grave
with chlōros [green] blood
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:22 PM
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mittens: "not to well actually in the well actually thread but"
Yeah, i knew that one would come back to bite me, lol. It's not that there was literally no steel, but what steel there was, was really crappy and probably accidental (and didn't exist in any significant volume).
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:27 PM
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Pyrogenesis: "People take apart Greek etymology about color words and shapirwhorf themselves into thinking that ancient Greeks literally saw color differently and then turn around and say "he was green with envy" without the slightest twitch of an eyebrow indicating any realization."
Oh yeah, i don't think they "saw color differently"; i just don't think Homer was doing the things with color words that more modern audiences expect him to be doing. The linguistic conventions are just different!
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:28 PM
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Modern colours don't actually make as much sense as people think. Grey, brown, white, black and magenta don't exist on the rainbow. People sometimes say "those aren't colours". But if an online store offers a T-shirt in red, brown, green, grey, yellow, black, magenta and white it doesn't really make sense to say half of those are colours and half of them are something else.
Those colours only make sense if you include saturation and brightness in your theory of colour.
High saturation means a pure frequency. Low saturation means you have a mixture of frequencies. Grey and brown are low-saturation: they have a broad mixture of frequencies. With grey the mixture is pretty uniform across the spectrum. With brown the mixture has a peak around the red/yellow part of the spectrum. White is a bright low-saturation colour. Black is a dark low-saturation colour. Magenta is a bright mixture of two highly saturated blue and red frequencies.
So our language of colour includes some elements of brightness and saturation, but because we focus on hue, we get confused about them.
It's not that hard to believe that ancient Greek colour language was more focused on brightness and saturation and less on hue.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:34 PM
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The Homeric epics are so old, I don't think we can really understand them or their context. Also, they are poetry. Words and phrases can make poetic sense even if they don't mean anything in a more literal sense. Specially for the Homeric epics that were meant to be performed, not individually read.
For instance, the wine-dark sea has always made sense to me, even as an unfocused teenager. Maybe because I have almost always lived near the sea and wine-dark sort of rhymes with a feeling I sometimes get by the shore. Maybe there would be even more that made sense if I had ever succeeded in learning classical Greek and could hear the colors and rhythms of the language. That said, there might be some interesting differences between translations. In the Danish translation, cow-eyed Hera sounds very beautiful and meaningful, but I can see how it looks a little weird in English.
The stone-faced fascists don't seem to be people who appreciate poetry.
posted by mumimor at 12:36 AM
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mumimor: "That said, there might be some interesting differences between translations. In the Danish translation, cow-eyed Hera sounds very beautiful and meaningful, but I can see how it looks a little weird in English. "
In English we use different ruminants! ("Doe-eyed" is used to describe someone with a wide-eyed, innocent look, and to "make sheep's eyes" at someone is to pine after them romantically.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:23 AM
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And yet my poetry falls on deaf eyes
"Skink-lipped Hester"
no? nothing?
posted by runsrealgood at 6:44 AM
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"Skink-lipped Hester"
Wrong thread.
posted by mittens at 12:13 PM
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To defend the casting of Lupita Nyong'o as Helen in Christopher Nolan's movie, we shouldn't need to get into the weeds of Homer's use of colour terms, interesting as that might be. (That could be counter-productive, since we could get sucked into a pointless argument about Ἑλένῃ λευκωλένῳ, usually translated "white-armed Helen", in Iliad 3.121. Yes, λευκός has the senses "bright, shining" and "grey", but it also means "white".) I think it is stronger to stand on the principle that the characters in the Odyssey are fictional, and we are free to reimagine and reinterpret them, informed by our own values if we so wish.
I suspect that the popularity of the "stone-faced" accounts indicates a popular hunger for ancient history and classical literature, and that this could in theory be harnessed to progressive ends. The classics are not inherently right-wing, and if you read the epic poems you'll find that they aren't remotely paeans to "great" men. The Iliad may be a catalogue of slaughter, but it is aware that every man who dies with a spear through the nipple, or a sword through the liver, had a family that loved him, and a flock of sheep or herd of cows pastured on green meadows by a clear stream that he will never return to see. It's not an accident that the poem ends with the funeral of Hector, tamer of horses. The Odyssey is clear about its hero's faults: he lies, boasts, murders, and leads his men to their deaths. At the end of the poem we find the king of Ithaca at war with his own subjects. Achilles and Odysseus are heroic, but neither admirable nor virtuous. One can make this kind of observation about the Aeneid, the Pharsalia and the Thebaid too.
Similarly, I think that the kind of nit-picking attitude that some have to Emily Wilson's translations (for example, her choice of "complicated" for πολύτροπον in Odyssey 1.1) can't survive trying to learn the language. Nothing makes you respect the difficulties faced by a translator than attempting it yourself! You can't shirk the tricky passages, where you'll find that every choice can be nit-picked.
posted by cyanistes at 2:00 PM
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cyanistes: Oh yeah, i don't feel any need whatsoever to defend the casting of Nyong'o, because (a) i don't like Christopher Nolan, (b) i mostly don't watch movies anyway, and (c) i don't actually think it's a problem to cast one of the most beautiful women on earth to play Helen. Mainly i just like talking about Homer!
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:20 PM
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I just wanna know why the guys who are claiming Nyongo's casting as "inaccurate" aren't saying a DAMN thing about Tom Holland, as Telemachus, referring to his father as "Dad".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:20 PM
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Telemachus, referring to his father as "Dad".
Is this not a reasonable translation of πάτερ φίλε (beloved father, Odyssey 16.222)?
posted by cyanistes at 1:27 AM
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The meaning is the same, but the temporal accuracy is off. And if we're talking people who want to stick that close to a status-quo vision....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:47 AM
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Nothing makes you respect the difficulties faced by a translator than attempting it yourself!
I'll use that as an opportunity to plug one of my favorite books: Le Ton beau de Marot by Douglas Hofstadter.
posted by Slothrup at 6:03 AM
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