Today I am going to answer one of the truly big questions. It is one of the questions everyone has been wondering for years but never learned the answer to: “Why do fraternities and sororities have Greek letters for names?” I mean, why? Who came up with that idea? Why did it continue? Well, today you are going to finally learn the answer—but it is far stranger and frankly far more hilariously silly than you possibly ever imagined before now.
Continue reading “Why Do Fraternities and Sororities Have Greek Letters for Names?”Category: Classics
No, Throwing Apples at People Was Not Considered a “Marriage Proposal” in Ancient Greece
Internet memes are a notoriously unreliable source of information about the historical past. It should therefore come as little surprise to most people that a popular meme in widespread circulation on the internet claiming that throwing apples at people was “considered a marriage proposal” in ancient Greece is largely inaccurate. It may come as a surprise, though, that this meme actually does have some remote grounding in factual reality and—as is often the case—the truth is far stranger and more fascinating than the fiction. While it is true that the ancient Greeks had no custom of proposing marriage by pelting someone with apples, throwing apples was really considered a ploy at seduction.
Continue reading “No, Throwing Apples at People Was Not Considered a “Marriage Proposal” in Ancient Greece”Greek Deities Mentioned in the New Testament
Many people are familiar with the Greek and Roman deities from reading about classical mythology as children. One thing many people are not aware of, however, is that there are actually quite a few direct references to a number of different Greek deities in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, which describes the apostles visiting Greek cities and encountering opposition from supporters of traditional Greek religion. The deities mentioned in the Book of Acts by name are Zeus, Hermes, Artemis, and the Dioskouroi.
Continue reading “Greek Deities Mentioned in the New Testament”Debunking the Misconception of the Flat Earth
Hardly anyone nowadays believes the earth is flat. Many people, however, wrongly believe that people during the Middle Ages thought the world was flat. In reality, however, the sphericity of the earth was common knowledge throughout the entire Middle Ages. The idea that people in the Middle Ages thought the earth was flat is a canard invented in the Early Modern Period by authors who wanted to portray the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness and superstitious regression.
Continue reading “Debunking the Misconception of the Flat Earth”Misconceptions about Roman Gladiators
It is certainly no secret that the film and television industry absolutely loves gladiators. In fact, the film Gladiator from 2000, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crow, has been widely credited with rekindling popular interest in the classical world in the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, almost everything Hollywood thinks it knows about gladiatorial combat is actually wrong.
Continue reading “Misconceptions about Roman Gladiators”Most Bizarre Deaths from Classical History
Classical history is kind of notorious for its menagerie of stories about bizarre and humiliating deaths. Today we will hear stories about a philosopher who covered himself in cow manure and was devoured by wild dogs, a military leader who committed suicide by drinking bull’s blood, a playwright who was killed by a falling tortoiseshell, a poet who jumped into a volcano to make people think he was a god, a tragedian who was killed like a character in one of his tragedies, a tyrant who was assassinated with a poisoned toothpick, a Stoic philosopher who literally laughed himself to death, and even a Christian religious leader who pooped out his own internal organs. All of these stories are almost certainly apocryphal, but they are still interesting to retell!
Continue reading “Most Bizarre Deaths from Classical History”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.
Continue reading “Three Times the Winners Did Not Write History”Bizarre Ancient Greek Festivals
One thing that I am always fascinated by are ancient traditions and rituals. Traditions are highly culture-specific and, to anyone outside of the culture that practices them, they seem bizarre, foreign, and inexplicable. Just think how strange our modern holiday traditions here in the United States will undoubtedly seem to someone thousands of years from now! To us, the customs and traditions associated with various ancient Greek festivals seem baffling and bizarre. The ancient Greeks had hundreds of festivals that were celebrated in various regions throughout Greece and during different periods of their history. Here are just a few of the more peculiar ones by modern standards:
Continue reading “Bizarre Ancient Greek Festivals”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.
Continue reading “Three Bizarre Stories from Ancient Greece”The Origins of the Christmas Tree
Decorating Christmas trees every December is a time-honored western holiday tradition, one that almost everyone has fond memories of. According to the USA Today, in December 2017, approximately 95 million households had Christmas trees in the United States alone. Strangely, though, few people actually know where this tradition originally comes from and most people who think they know where it comes from have been misinformed. Decorating Christmas trees is not nearly as old of a tradition as many accounts would lead one to believe.