♏♋♐ @moralityandcinicism - Tumblr Blog

starsoblivion

What’s your opinion on philosophy?

I think therefore I am!

westiec

I joked about this earlier but I'm curious now:

have you ever studied Latin?

yes

no

Voting ended onDec 26, 2025

doesn't matter if you remember any of it now

westiec

See yeah, 200 people (at the time of this reblog) is obviously neither definitive nor likely representative of tumblr at large, but I do not think I would get a 45% yes rate to this question in many other forums. 😂

#i had advanced Latin in high school #also my middle school history teacher was ancient history freak and made us learn some basics of Latin #then I went to study classics #I also wrote my after his exam in Latin #basically I'm masochist

"But Oddysay is fantasy", "But Illiad never happen". No, those are actually historical fiction, you know, the genre where the author sets the plot in times they did not live but try to emulate those times as best as they can. And on top of that, like myths, it's compendium of ancient beliefs that helps us understand them better. Not only that, those stories were used later on as basis to continue various beliefs, they were the inspiration behind Ennead - famously a tool for the Octavian Augustus' propaganda machine. It's not ACOTAR or Twilight.

Studying classics meant I had to read all Homeric or pseudohomeric works many times so my professors could finally be sure I grasped everything that was to be grasped.

You know why Polyphemus goes to sleep after the wine? Because he's barbarian, he's not greek and he doesn't know wine should be mixed with water first. He doesn't know customs, that's why he is mean to his guests. If you swapped cyclop for a random guy who just doesn't look greek, that layer still stands. And we know those customs were real and Homer helps us learn and understand them with the use of proper tools and comparison with more historical sources.

On top of that, for you Trojan War could be fiction, but the cult was real, the belief was real. The heroes of the Trojan War had places of worship and the whole plot is written in a way realistic enough that we are able to predict, with a margin of error, what times and what places were depicted there. We're not even sure if the Trojan War wasn't based on real discours that happened between the ancient nations. It's also explicitly about GREEK customs. If you suddenly put Viking ship in there or put Greeks in pants, you take away their greekness, you make them into barbarians, the story makes no sense.

And as one of my professors always says: ancient greek polytheism had no known written rules, the closest we can get to anything in any way resembling a Bible here it would be looking into Homer.

So yes, it's important for a movie to at least keep Greeks greek. And even in fiction you need to stay true to the settings. I think making a ww2 reimagining of The Odyssey would be very cool, but once again, at least make Greeks look greek and costumes look true to the settings. And if you don't want to do that, why do you pick this story? So the advertising would be easier? Be more creative, you're a fucking movie director!

#rant post #the odyssey #the iliad #crying in classics #crying in historian

inaloversquarrel

enchanted-fairytale-dreams

clementine-kesh

the big three questions of media analysis: what the author wanted to say, what they actually said, and what they didn’t know they were saying

clementine-kesh

for the last one i don’t just mean oh the author inadvertently wrote in gay subtext or whatever i’m talking about media as a cultural artifact which can reveal a ton about societal norms, biases, ideals, etc. it’s all about positionality and an unexamined positionality is often the most revealing of all

thoodleoo

there's definitely an assumption that kids who take latin are a certain type of weird and i try to make it clear that latin is a subject anyone can take. that being said the other day i had to quiet my children down by promising that i would teach them about cannibalism but only if they behaved

#how do I cite random Tumblr post in my very serious thesis

thoodleoo

possible my favorite footnote from bostock's translation of pliny's natural history. he means slugs probably.

yan-wo

afterthemovie

by gustaf fjæstad (swedish, 1868-1948). oil on canvas

I’M SORRY BUT THE NORWEGIAN BUTTER CRISIS OF 2011 JUST CONFUSES MY GODDAMN BRAIN BECAUSE HOW THE ACTUAL FUCK DOES AN ENTIRE COUNTRY RUN OUT OF BUTTER. DID NORWAY JUST COME DOWNSTAIRS LIKE: N:*Opens fridge* HELVETE N:VI KJØRTE UT AV SMØREN

caffinatedstory

I was gonna explain how the butter crisis happened. but then I noticed your fucking /hilarious/ attempt at writing “we’ve run out of butter” I’m not sure if you know but you just basically wrote: “We drove out of the lubrication”

dude-the-ancient-dragon

THE POST FROM THE LEGENDS! IVE ONLY SEEN IN SCREEN CAPS!

lizzibennet

waking up everyday is just like. good morning sun. good morning sky. good morning evergrowing festering pit of primordial rage inside of me. good morning birds

annabelle--cane

the first law of tragedies: the end is already written and inevitable. the second law of tragedies: your actions are all your own and you can choose to get off this ride whenever you want. the third law of tragedies: we both know that you are never going to do that.

thelonerforlife

bosco di latifoglie

what-even-is-thiss

Welcome to my ancient Roman villa. We’ve got running water. Fancy, I know. I paid a lot for that. There’s our household gods. They live in the breakfast nook. Oh look and here’s my husband Julius. He’s playing games with our daughter Julia and our daughter Julia and our daughter Julia and our daughter Julia and our

duckbunny

"Irish doesn't have a word for please, you have to say if it be your will" buddy do I have news for you about "please"

"Irish doesn't have a word for hello you have to use a shorthand religious blessing" buddy do I have news for you about "goodbye"!

"In Polish the word for car is that which walks by itself" BUDDY what do you think an AUTOMOBILE is?

you have got to understand that your mother tongue is not the model of language. all your words have secret histories and layers of meaning just the same as other people's words. the word you think of as just a word has etymology, it wasn't handed down from God as a finished word. English doesn't have a word for movie you have to either refer to the recording medium or use a short version of "moving picture", isn't that cute?