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On this video we are reacting to the video posted on the channel Vanity Fair called: Mythology Expert Reviews Greek & Roman Mythology in Movies (Part 1) | Vanity Fair. Unfortunately I cannot recommend this video. If you want to watch it here is the link Link to my video where on the second half I tell the truth about the Kandake of Africa Stand with us! Form the wall! Defend the truth! Without dismissing the issues inherent to Spartan culture that have been listed, such a statement clashes with everything we know: in 404 BC, Sparta emerged victorious from the Peloponnesian War that had pitted it against Athens, inaugurating what historians define as the Spartan hegemony in Greece, which lasted throughout the first quarter of the 4th century BC and beyond, only shattering in 371 BC with the defeat at Leuctra against the Thebans. 2:59 Defining the Spartan army as “the greatest gay army that's ever been on the planet“ is a provocation to the alt-right, amusing if we want, but essentially nonsense (we have already talked hundreds of times about how the sexuality of the ancients is not superimposable on modern sexuality. The most correct definition (if one really wanted to give one) would be “pansexual army“, given that at the time everyone could have been defined more or less in a certain way as “pansexual“, but also remembering that sexuality followed specific norms and rules (e.g. after puberty, passive homosexuality tended to be stigmatized). Subsequently, however, he recovers and presents a more or less FAIRLY correct picture. The point is that the masculinity expressed by Spartan culture, a mixture of frankness, roughness, simplicity, frugality, remains evident (just read the various Apophthegmata Laconica by Plutarch), and this is because in antiquity someone could quietly be perceived as virile and at the same time have (active) homosexual relationships, e.g. Philip II of Macedonia said “If I enter Laconia I will raze it to the ground!“ The Spartans replied: “If“ (hence the adjective “laconic“) [A Spartan responds, during an initiation rite, to a priest who asks him the most nefarious action he had ever committed]. (Spartan): To whom should I confess it: to you or to God? (Priest): To God. (Spartan): Then you go away. A Spartan is asked if the roads leading to Sparta are safe, the answer given by the Spartan is the following: “It depends on what you are; while the lions with us roam wherever they want, the hares end up in the pot. An orator makes a speech with very long sentences and a Spartan comments: “Wow, what courage this man possesses! How skilled he is in wrapping his tongue around emptiness!“ “The Spartans were strange catalysts of democracy: They were utter fascists. They had the best land in Greece, and it was tilled by slaves and the citizens were all soldiers to defend the territory. The Athenians were the ones who gave birth to democracy, but the Spartans made it all possible.” Relativamente alla rappresentazione della mollezza persiana in contrapposizione con la virilità dei guerrieri greci, invece, sono le stesse fonti classiche a parlarcene: “Since the sight of the Persians inspired terror in Agesilaus' troops, he ordered his Persian prisoners to be stripped and their white soft bodies, contemptuous to Greeks, to be displayed to his men” - Frontino, Stratagemata, Certainly, 300 represents the Persians in a caricatured way, emphasizing the “oriental softness“ (I wouldn't say “racism“). The film is based on the Graphic Novel by Frank Miller, who, as in his other works (e.g., “The Dark Knight Returns“), employs a very particular form of social satire, and if read in-depth, he is an author who loves to put forth great contradictions. In fact, Miller does not describe the Spartans in a positive way, but plays with the narrative according to which, at a given moment, their contribution was incisive in defending Greece, and therefore also Athenian democracy, from the aims of an autocratic state such as the Persian empire. “The Spartans were strange catalysts of democracy: They were utter fascists. They had the best land in Greece, and it was tilled by slaves and the citizens were all soldiers to defend the territory. The Athenians were the ones who gave birth to democracy, but the Spartans made it all possible.“ Regarding the representation of Persian softness in contrast to the virility of the Greek warriors, however, the classical sources themselves tell us about it: “Since the sight of the Persians inspired terror in Agesilaus' troops, he ordered his Persian prisoners to be stripped and their white soft bodies, contemptuous to Greeks, to be displayed to his men“ - Frontinus, Stratagemata, #ancientgreece #ancientrome #propaganda
