Tag: ancient greece

serakosumosu:

incognitoprompts:

midnightlighthowlite:

oursexyking:

whatwouldjessicajonesdo:

hiccstridforever:

durinswrath:

kurtsaunt:

justin-john:

wtfhistory:

jesuisuneetoile:

THIS IS MARRIAGE!!

Thats right!

Permission to be a bad ass. Nod.

He looks back at the guy like, “SEE THAT? SHE SAID YES. YOU’RE SO FUCKED.”

Like, guys. Sparta was so kick ASS sometimes when it came to women. Spartan women were given these small knives so that if their husbands came home and tried to hit them or assault them, they had a weapon within reach. That weapon was for CUTTING THEIR HUSBANDS’ FUCKING FACES so that when he went out in public everyone would know he was an asshole, abusing jerkface and they would publicly shame him.

LET’S JUST TALK ABOUT SPARTAN WOMEN FOR A SECOND.

In Sparta, women could own land and were considered citizens. THAT IS A HUGE BIG FUCKING DEAL. Why? Because that was RARE AS FUCK and there are lots of places TODAY where women don’t even get that much.

Divorce was totally fine, and a woman could expect to keep her own wealth and get custody of the kids because paternal lineage wasn’t very important. And it didn’t make her a pariah! She could totally remarry, no big deal at all.

Spartan women participated in some fuckin’ badass sporting events, too. And because they were expected to be as physically fit as the Spartan menfolk (who all had to serve compulsory military duties, btw, and couldn’t marry until they finished them at thirty) they didn’t have time for lots of swishy dresses. So they wore notoriously short skirts. According to some accounts, their thighs were visible at all times. HOLY SHIT. 

Also, In Sparta men only got their names on their graves if they died in battle. And women? Women only got their names on their graves if they died in childbirth. THE SPARTANS COMPARED CHILDBIRTH TO FUCKING BATTLE AND IT WAS VIEWED AS A GODDAMN BADASS AND HONORABLE WAY TO GO OUT.

FUCKING SPARTAN WOMEN. THIS DUDE HAD FUCKIN’ BETTER MAKE SURE SHE’S COOL WITH WHATEVER HE’S DOING, IF HE KNOWS WHAT’S FUCKIN’ GOOD FOR HIM.

^^ I throughly enjoyed the history lesson dashed with the colorful adjectives.

I mean, he knew she was Cersei… lol

And the women were trained the exact same way as men were. As children they were equals ; they were not allowed to wear clothing until a certain age and at that point they were sent away to a training camp until they were 18. It was only the men who were sent into the wilderness for an extra two years to ensure their strength for battle. 

Plus the women could marry whomever they pleased and the men weren’t allowed to live with the women in their house until she said so. And they were tough in Sparta but also all about family. To have male offspring was good luck, to have female offspring was an honour. 

This part of the movie was true; King Leonidas really did kill a man because he insulted his wife and he always ensured that he had his wife’s approval. And while Leonidas was away in battle she did rule Sparta on her own. 

Sparta knew what was up. 

#Hiccstrid

As a historian I can confirm all of this is totally true and amazingly badass.

It’s also worthy of note that people like to romanticize Athens because of its democracy whereas Sparta was a hardened monarchy. But Athens was nowhere near as open for women as Sparta was.

I’m sharing this here for those writers who need a touch of history or inspiration

@deadcatwithaflamethrower

thoodleoo:

recently i taught one of my eighth grade classes about sappho. the main focus was on the structure and fragmentation of her poetry, but of course it’s hard to talk about sappho without talking about her love of women (though straight people manage to pull this off all the time, somehow)

i was very upfront with them about it. i didn’t dance around the topic. i told them that sappho was known for loving women romantically, and i showed them one of her poems about a woman. hearing the word lesbian did not blow their minds. they did not freak out at the idea of a woman loving other women. they were respectful and mature. they asked some questions- and they were smart questions, too, like whether sappho’s sexuality was part of the reason her poetry doesn’t survive. we even got into some of the dicier parts of ancient greek sexuality, like pederasty. when class was over, none of them were freaking out about having to learn about an ancient lesbian. they were arguing about taylor swift on their way out, because they’re in 8th grade and that’s what 8th graders do

if anyone ever tries to tell you that we shouldn’t tell students about queer people because they “can’t handle it,” that’s absolutely not true. students are absolutely capable of discussing lgbt issues, and they can even want to talk about it, because it’s something they might not feel comfortable bringing up on their own if they have questions. there’s no reason why students can’t be introduced to queer rights and queer people, even in middle school. even in elementary school. queer does not mean “not child friendly”

and if you don’t think middle schoolers should learn about queer folk…well, then i know a bunch of 8th graders who are far more mature than you

postmodernmulticoloredcloak:

photodox:

Ephesus // cats + ancient sites

I like to think the souls of the past lived on in the stray cats inhabiting the remains.

Fun fact: stray cats in Rome are not considered “strays” but “free cats” and they have legal citizenship of the city. They mostly live in the Roman ruins in the city and have legal rights and protection and are taken care of by thousands of specialized volunteers who make sure they’re healthy and fed. A lot of them also get sterilized and there are initiatives to get them adopted.

I guess cats everywhere have a kinship with ancient ruins 🙂

like the brightest of stars

emilyenrose:

When I tell the story of Achilles, I tell it like this:

Once there was a wedding, goddess to mortal man. She wasn’t
very happy about it. Who knows what he thought. When orders come down from
Zeus, what idiot says no? But they were married, and there was a child, and that
child was almost something more than human.

I say almost because
he was still human in the way that mattered most: he was mortal, doomed.
Imagine being Thetis, his mother, pale and ocean-eyed, looking down at this
tiny scrap of life and knowing you would have to watch it die. I don’t think
any mother could stand it. She did what she could to protect him: bathed her
baby in the Styx, the river of death, and he had little to fear from ordinary
weapons after that. But a mortal is a mortal. Achilles was born to die.

There were two deaths woven for him by the Fates. Achilles could
have had a long and happy life, beloved and honoured, surrounded by kin, living
in peace and good fortune, dying at the last mourned by children and
grandchildren who would honour his memory as long as they lived; and when the
last of them was gone, Achilles’ memory would pass away from the world as well,
the final embers of a long-banked fire going dim.

That was one death.

The other was simpler: to die young and be remembered
forever. A brief bonfire blaze of life and then eternal glory.

How do you choose?

Maybe for you it would be easy. But remember Achilles was
young, he was proud, he was beautiful and swift and strong almost beyond what
is human, and he lived in a world of brief lives and brilliant deaths, a world
of hero-songs and clashing bronze. For him it was not easy.

Keep reading

autieblesam:

lesbianshepard:

my fave greek history story to tell is that of agnodice. like she noticed that women were dying a lot during childbirth so she went to egypt to study medicine in alexandria and was really fucking good but b/c it was illegal for women to be doctors in athens she had to pretend to be a man. and then the other doctors noticed that she was 10x better than them and accused her of seducing and sleeping with the women patients. like they brought her to court for this. and she just looked at them and these charges and stripped in front of everyone like “yeah. im not fucking your wives” and then they got so mad that a woman was better at their jobs then them that they tried to execute her but all her patients came to court and were like “are you fucking serious? she is the reason you have living children and a wife.” so they were shamed into changing the law and that is how women were given the right to practice medicine in athens

Yeah, this isn’t some Greek myth story about a hero or demigod or something, Agnodice was a real person who actually did this.