Ancient Greece: Difference between revisions

 

In fact, this picture is a [[Anachronism Stew|blend]] of two distinct periods; mythical Greece, conventionally said to end with the [[Trojan War]] around 1000BC, and classical Greece, home to the first philosophers. The "classical Greece" period itself tends to [[Cultural Blending|blend cultures]] that evolved and combined over the course of many centuries. Until Athens pulled the city-states together for defense against Persia, Greece didn't have a monolithic culture; it was the sum of the cultures of many independent city-states, all angling to make their patron gods the most important, and all ultimately blended together in the giant food processor of history. If you were to visit the Balkan Peninsula in, say, Pythagoras' day, you'd find that religious practices and social mores varied heavily depending on what city you were in.

{{tropelist|Popular tropes that feature this time period are}}

* [[Achilles' Heel]]

* ''[[The Aeneid]]''

* ''[[The Metamorphoses]]''

* [[Gene Wolfe]]'s ''[[Soldier of the Mist]]'' and ''Soldier of Arete'' tell the story of a mercenary in Xerces' army who does something to offend the gods, and is cursed with forgetting everything that happens more than a day ago, but who can see the gods. [[Gene Wolfe|Wolfe]] "translates" place names (for example, [[The Spartan Way|Sparta]] is "Rope", and they fought the "Great King" at "Hot Springs"), lending a sense of immediacy, and distancing the book from the familiarity of the trope.

* ''The Firebrand'' by [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]].

 

 

* ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]''

* ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'': Though the series is ''also'' happening at the time of [[Ancient Rome]]. The writers never tried to respect chronology.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon]]

[[Category:Hollywood History]]