#classics rant

[citheroniaregalis]

Minor Wuthering Heights rant but I cannot believe that in gods year of 2025 we have not cast another black or Romani Heathcliff. Like I’m sorry did you not fucking read the book??? Did you not read the fucking BOOK??? And I know logically it’s just racism. That’s really what it is, because why the hell else would you choose Heathcliff, of all characters, to be cast as white. I really thought we were trying to leave this shit behind but I guess not. And JACOB ELORDI? One of the whitest white men to ever be a white man!? And you just KNOW they’re gonna fuck up the message behind the story. Which, I’m sorry, is not about Cathy and Heathcliff, it’s about Cathy and Hareton. The whole point is that they are the ones who break the cycle. Because THATS WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT.

Anyway…. Not a fan of Emerald Fennell

[pondering-narratives]

classics revision thoughts from a potential hellenistic polytheist

I do think that a lot of the Classics' word's issues could be fixed if we stopped treating certain practices as a monolith for all attitudes at the time.

Even beyond city-states, I guarantee people didn't look forward to blood sacrifices in Athens, and there were people who didnt really see a point in one of the festivals because they didn't feel like it that day, but they had to go or else they might face the divine consequences.

Not to mention, some playwrights at the time even included the detail that to get some action, it wasn’t uncommon for a guy to claim to be Zeus for a woman to sleep with him.

Were then considerably move brutal than us? YES! There was a whole other culture that we clash with all the time when reading about it . But do we think in the distant future, scholars will think we worshipped pedophiles because we were ruled by them? Or we deified celebrities due to stan culture? Would they think we agreed with all of the policies of whoever’s in charge? I hope not! But that's how people discuss individual ancient people.

Also not to mention, MYTHOLOGY is not reflective of the same figures they worshipped. They worshipped epithets sometimes associated with mythology, but I guarantee when they worshipped Zeus Herkeios they weren’t thinking he was a rapist!

The lore was shaped by the literal events happening at the time, hence why it was always changing. Arguably that’s more healthy than what we have now, where Abrahamic religions basically believe god has left us to our own devices bc we annoyed him!

anyways rant over ily guys

[pondering-narratives]

why’s hellenism twitter so fucking racist and sexist oh my god…

i agree with a lot of the stuff they say about christianity but like????

to be fair the christians on twitter are nazis so maybe it’s retaliatory but omg.

in all seriousness i’m gonna stick to tumblr probably 😭😭

[pondering-narratives]

i think before anyone can become a world leader, they should read the histories by herodotus.

[risisse-cupido]

The title of the essay I am trying to write is just so unimaginitive and overdone.  I really just DON'T care.  Like...I get that it's a compulsory module and the lecturer OBVIOUSLY hates having to teach it, and that there's loads of us doing it so it has to be a really broad title, but REALLY???  This is why I can't wait to do my dissertation.  Because then I get to write about something I actually WANT to write about.  Just... gah.

[demonbloodsausagedog]

Dear tumblr classicists,

Why is Catullus 60 such a pain?  I was planning to spend 15 minutes on it but that's not happening b/c all the older articles are in German.  Does anyone know if Libya had any particularly negative associations for the Romans?  

Here's the poem:

num te leaena montibus Libystinis

aut Scylla latrans infima inguinum parte

tam mente dura procreavit ac taetra,

ut supplicis vocem in novissimo casu

contemptam haberes, a! nimis fero corde?

Julia T. Dyson's 2007 translation:

Did a lioness birth you in the mountains of Libya,

or a Scylla, barking from the lowest depths of her loins -

you, with your mind so hardened, so full of cruelty

that you'd treat the final cry of a suppliant's despair

with scorn, your heart as hard as that of a feral beast?

Send me a message if you have any ideas.  I will be internally, externally, and eternally grateful.

[analdehyde]

kleisthenes. what kind of name is that? It's got its e and i around the wrong way and then its hard to pronounce. But at least it isn't Kimon (or Cimon) which some people pronounce as Simon. I feel sorry for you Kimon.

AND THEN YOU GET PENTACOSIOMEDIMNI WHICH I CAN NOW SPELL OFF MY HEART AND HIPPEIS WHICH I"M SURE I"M GOING TO MAKE HIPPIES DURING THE EXAM AND THETES. I ONLY LIKE YOU THETES. YOU AND YOUR SEXY 'I"M GOING TO STAY THE SAME THROUGHOUT EVERY REFORM, BUGGER YOU ALL ;)'

and don't get me started on tribal organisation. You have your demes which make up the phylae which fifty are chosen of every year to make part of the boule and then one tribe for every month is chosen to be the prytaneis and then you have the dood with the key called the epistates and then you have your ekklesia and your heliae or heliea i don't even know any more and lkijsgkjfgjfhghj

[saamwisechester]

Fuckin' Hadrian's Villa. Why did you have to be so fuckin' huge. It is impossible to study your vastness.