(no subject)

[aleathiel]

Okay, just when I think studying archaic and classical Sparta can't get any weirder I get to marriage ceremonies:

They dressed the woman as a man and cut her hair and made her lie in wait in a darkened room for her husband. Nobody knows why, but one suggestion is that it was to make the husband feel more "at home" given that all his previous sexual encounters would have been homosexual.

On Argos brides even wore false beards.

Comments

[hot-x-bunny.livejournal.com]

On Argos brides even wore false beards.

Viggo would be enjoying that then *g*

[londinensa.livejournal.com]

*blinks*

Don't you just love Classical Greece?

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

ROFLMAO. Honey, maybe you should write an AU?

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Well, seriously, I actually love studying it, but studying is studying, you know? And then I find something like this and it makes all the long hours in the library each day worth the trouble.

[hot-x-bunny.livejournal.com]

No...must ...revise.

(yeah, that's why I appear to be on LJ)

Aaargh, bunnies!

[iscaris.livejournal.com]

No wonder Helen ran away with Paris!

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, as you can see, I'm writing an essay.

Well, I kinda am: it's on Sparta!

[hot-x-bunny.livejournal.com]

*g* Glad to see we're all working hard!

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm going to write an AU. Because basically Homer wrote about a Sparta that never existed. At the time in which he set the Illiad there was no such place: it only came into being two centuries before Homer himself. So I'm going to have to have a go at writing Paris in Sparta fairly soon.

I've got the versions of Homer, Ovid, Sophocles and Euripides to look at for the story and then Xenophon, Aristotle, Plutarch and Herodotus for the setting. Because there are so many things in Spartan society that don't fit with the Illiad: like the fact that there was no problem with adultery in Sparta, in fact it was encouraged when the husband was considerably older than the wife (cf Helen and Menelaus) because a younger man's "noble seed" was more likely to produce healthy children. In fact it was the husband himself who introduced persective 'fathers' to his wife.

I'm just too busy to write it yet.

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

And I really should have used this icon.

And that was supposed to read "prospective fathers".

[nitw1t.livejournal.com]

On Argos brides even wore false beards.
According to my classical education (i.e. Monty Python), that was just so they could attend the stoneings.

And may I say, reading your earlier posts, you have the poshest plot bunnies! I'm imagining them with monicles,in tweed, sipping cognac!
*looks down at her own plot bunny which is scratching it arse in public*

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

According to my classical education (i.e. Monty Python), that was just so they could attend the stoneings.
I love that film so much. I have ever since I could understand the jokes.
and as a rather unpleasant aside, I think it was the first time I saw a cock on TV

you have the poshest plot bunnies!
Hehe. They come fully formed and waiting to be written. I'm not very good at PWP. I need plot, or at least some sort of premise.

[anjali-organna.livejournal.com]

but one suggestion is that it was to make the husband feel more "at home" given that all his previous sexual encounters would have been homosexual.

*cracks up* That's hilarious. I love it.

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

It's great isn't it! I swear that came from an academic text.

[coppertone.livejournal.com]

*dies*
This is why I'm going to be a history major. :P And moving to Sparta.
I'm liking the AU already. :)

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

This is why I'm going to be a history major
Good for you! We dont have major and minor subjects: so I spend all day every day studying history. And at the moment that's Sparta. I miss the existance of weekends, but when I find gems like this...

I'm liking the AU already.
Great! Now I just have to find the time to write it. I think I have a bit of clear space a week on Wednesday. (oh I wish I was joking!)