you were born for misery... @thethebaid - Tumblr Blog

cypress ☼ they/them ☼ classics sideblog

i love the house of cadmus! they're my favorites. my favorite tragedies are the bacchae and antigone. cadmus and harmonia shipper. antigone defender. pentheus understander. oedipus appreciator. etc

i also really love the aeneid and the iliad

#cypress.txt

friedmagazinebouquet

Anyone want to come with me to the mountains of Thebes to get ripped limb from limb by the bacchae?

#the bacchae

im back to posting about my favorite play

#cypress.txt #the bacchae #pentheus #maenads #greek myth #greek mythology #greek myth memes #greek tragedy #tagamemnon

glossc1

ACHILLES STRIKES!

#achilles #the iliad

homericnerd

#the iliad #achilles #my yucky :)))

justvea18

Eros and Psyche redesign

#eros #psyche #sooo cutes

kyleesarthell

A witch and her failure of a son

#circe #telegonus

maximumqueer

Odysseus is a thick hairy man in his mid 40s-50s throughout the Iliad and Odyssey. His thighs? Massive. His tits? Gigantic. Not every character has to be slender and hairless and young to be considered attractive! Please, please I am begging! Let him be older, hairy and built like a brick shit house! It's what we deserve! Let him be a dilf as Homer intended!

#odysseus #yayyy

starweaverblog

Pentheus: "Bind his hands! This one is in our net, and now he is mine. But he is not so swift to escape me." Dionysus: "You do not know what you are doing, nor what you are saying, nor who you are." Pentheus: "I am Pentheus, son of Agave and Echion." Dionysus: "You are well named for suffering."

#the bacchae #dionysus #pentheus

katerinaaqu

Hi, there's always been one thing that generally confused me about Achilles.

From what I understand in the ancient greece, in the period that Trojan War is supposed to happen, it was not allowed to have more than one legal wife. Sure, men could take concubines, but it was not the same, and the children from these women would not have the same status as legitimate children. There was a possibility of divorce and another marriage, but still no more than one wife at a time.

Achilles is married to Deidamia, Neoptolemus is their legitimate son, and, from what I know, there are no mentions of them divorcing or any other variants that could lead to the end of the marriage.

But then we have a situation with Iphigenia, where she is supposed to be marrying Achilles, to which Achilles agrees. So, I do not understand how he could agree to marry her without divorcing Deidamia first. Wouldn't that be illegal?

(And later, there is the same situation with Polyxena, who he also in some sources, if I remember correctly, supposed to marry. There is also Briseis, to whom Patroclus promised Achilles will marry her, but in this case, i guess, we can say it was an empty promise just to comfort her)

Oh that reminds me of yet another ask I had not so long ago in regards to the marriage proposals of Achilles which you can find here:

💬 19 🔁 1 ❤️ 22 · For if the gods protect me and I reach back home, Peleus later shall find a woman for me to marry. There are many Achaean

Where basically we have not just others speaking of marriage for Achilles but also Achilles himself speaking about his father picking a wife for him. So was this question that my anon also had at that time.

So as I mention to my other reply which you can see, polygamy is definitely not a thing at least for most part of mythology and as much as Greek heroes are concerned. As you said they have lovers or concubines but the idea of marriage to one wife existed. Even Zeus who did several marriages before according to some traditions, he never had multiple wives in his palace and most of the time divorced his previous wife. We do not know if polygamy was a thing in historical mycenean times but given the evidence we have from myths and such it doesn't seem likely. Now as I mentioned to my answer it is possible that either it was a later tradition (which again I doubt given that Neoptolemous is a thing in Homer) or for one or other reason she was divorced to Achilles.

However as I mentioned to my reply I find it rather intriguing that we do recognize Deidamia as Achilles's wife because Neoptolemous was his heir but what if Neoptolemous was recognized as his official heir because of Achilles's fame and his godly status as over the normal process of legitimization, pretty similarly to how Heracles had several kids that continued his legacy that came from outside the wedlock.

Even Neoptolemous himself seems to build his legacy on affairs outside the wedlock (we have like a very brief mention of "marriage" by Justin that Neoptolemous kidnapped and married Lanassa, granddaughter of Heracles and had eight children with her, the girls of whom he gave as wives to other lords for high bidding. The main legacy of Neoptolemous seems to come from lines through Andromache such as Molossus etc and Andromache was his concubine slave. With Hermione he fathered no children even if a great number of sources have her as his wife. So there seems to be a pattern here

So I did entertain the thought that Achilles and Deidamia might never have been married in the first place or rather that they were not recognized as such given the incognito state of Achilles. Maybe Achilles simply recognized Neoptoplemous as his own and that was the end of it. Given how hastily he departed from Skyros to go to his father's hall and gather the fleet to join Aulis I wouldn't be surprised. Either way also Agamemnon not being aware of the whole Deidamia business just yet doesn't seem THAT weird given the circumstances hence in Aulis choosing Achilles as the alleged future husband to Iphigenia. Moreover in "Iphigenia in Tauris" it is revealed that Odysseus suggested the process of the supposed engagement and marriage. Odysseus was the one to bring both Achilles and Neoptolemous from Skyros. I wouldn't be surprised if Odysseus kept the whole thing tight about Deidamia given the circumstances. I mean I doubt Achilles would make it public that he was hiding among women wearing women's clothing either

On a funny story can you imagine if the existence of Neoptolemous was revealed to the general public after the death of Achilles? Like

Odysseus: Helenus revealed that we can win the war only if we have the son of Achilles... Achaeans: The who?! Odysseus: Oh...that's right. Well to cut the long story short the kid had an adventure in his youth. He has a son waiting at Skyros. I will fetch him myself, no worries

Hahahaha however jokes aside that is basically what comes to mind to summerize the whole thing; Either Deidamia was a later addition (not a fan of this given that Neoptolemous is a homeric tradition) or Achilles divorced her or as I like to think recently, he was never married to her in the first place and that the "recognition" happened only given the circumstances of war, Neoptolemous took the legacy of his father upon his shoulders by the war and his legacy rather than by official marriage (which could explain even further his obsession with power and legacy)

Last but not least it is important to mention that Achilles is not the most stable fellow around and I am sure he falls in love as I said in the past, fast, strongly and easily. His new love for Iphigenia or Polyxena or others doesn't sound THAT unheard of even of his feelings for Deidamia were there and we can assume many of the things he does are out of impulse rather than out of logic or cultural propriety. As for Briseis yeah it seems that Patroclus was trying to console or straightout help her, in one way promising her that her status as a slave would be lifted away and that Achilles despite the fact he slaughtered many of her people, he would be good to her (which I have no doubt it could be true even if that wouldn't make THAT much difference to Briseis apart from the elevation of her status which at that time was important as well but still). It seems possible that the promise of Patroclus could be fulfilled given how marriage was not some sort of ceremony at that time

I hope this helps! ^_^

#achilles