Ancient literature Archives - Page 9 of 9

Three Times the Winners Did Not Write History

“History is written by the victors” is a saying so commonplace that it has become almost a platitude. It seems as though everyone has simply come to accept it and believe it. The problem is that it is not actually always true. Strictly speaking, history is not, in fact, written by the victors. History is written by the people who write history. These people are often the victors, but not always and not necessarily. There are examples throughout history of history being written by the people who lost. In this post, we will explore just a few of the occasions when the victors did not write history.

Three Bizarre Stories from Ancient Greece

Like many people, I am deeply fascinated by the obscure, the bizarre, and the perplexing. Thankfully, I happen to study the classics, which is a subject that is full of obscure, bizarre, and perplexing stories. There are so many such stories, in fact, that I cannot even count the number of them that I have read. Nonetheless, I thought I would share a few of my favorites here. Here are three stories I picked out as being among the most bizarre stories told by classical writers: a story of a dying man who allegedly stayed alive for three days by sniffing a loaf of bread, stories of a man with a golden thigh who could make rivers greet him by name, and a historical event in which an oligarchy was overthrown by conspirators disguised as prostitutes.

The Most Depressing Book Ever Written: Death by Starvation by Hegesias of Kyrene

When they hear the words “most depressing book ever written,” most people probably think of a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky or Émile Zola. While works by these writers are well-known for being depressing, just wait until you hear about a book written by the early third-century BC Greek Cyrenaic philosopher Hegesias of Kyrene. The book was called Death by Starvation or The Death-Persuader. According to the Roman orator Cicero (lived 106 – 43 BC), the entire book was essentially an argument for why everyone should just give up on life and kill themselves.

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Hades: Not Such a Bad Guy After All

There is an interesting trope common in films based on Greek mythology in which Hades, the ruler of the Underworld, always seems to be the villain. It is a trope seen in films such as Walt Disney Pictures’ Hercules (1997), Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), and Wrath of the Titans (2012). It seems that every movie that includes Hades always seems to uniformly portray him as a maniacal, conniving scoundrel, constantly seeking to overthrow Zeus and claim supreme power for himself. The problem with this picture is that it really does not come from the myths themselves.

In ancient times, the Greeks did not think of Hades as being evil. He was neither regarded as some sinister, fast-talking, flamy-haired cartoon villain, nor a fifteen-foot winged fire demon. They did not consider him decidedly malevolent, but rather merely reclusive, coldhearted, and somewhat aloof to the misery of the people residing in his kingdom.

The Ancient Greek Cinderella

The story of Cinderella is a classic European folk tale that almost everyone in the western world has known since childhood. Most people here in the United States were first introduced to the story through the classic Walt Disney animated film Cinderella (1950), which was based on a French version of the story published in 1697 by the French writer Charles Perrault in his book Histoires ou contes du temps passé (“Stories of Past Times with Morals”). The story of Cinderella itself, however, is far, far older than Perrault. In fact, the oldest known version of the story of Cinderella was actually first recorded by a Greek writer in Hellenistic Egypt during the early first century AD.
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