Quotulatiousness

October 15, 2021

Nazis “Restore” Law and Order – WAH 044 – October 1942, Pt. 1

World War Two
Published 14 Oct 2021

Resistance against occupation starts rising in the Autumn of 1942. It faces opposition not only from the occupiers, but also from collaborators killing their own countrymen.
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October 11, 2021

City Minutes: The Athenian Empire

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History, Humour, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 25 Jun 2021

Deja Vu? Only slightly! I’m re-imaging City Minutes, and this time the plan is to *Actually Make It Good*! With MULTIPLE CITIES per episode, and HORIZONTAL VIDEO!

I heard your feedback on the first run of the shorts loud and clear — City Minutes Good, Shorts Bad — so this will be the format going forward: networks of cities, with each getting a minute of spotlight.

We’re starting where I always start, in ancient Athens (I wanted to give you the proper version of the pilot), but we’ve got tons of other City Minutes planned!

SOURCES & Further Reading: Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War, World History Encyclopedia (https://www.worldhistory.org/Athens): “Athens”, “Piraeus”, “Sounion”, “Delos”, “Corcyra”, “The Delian League” parts 3 & 4, and my degree in Classical Studies

Cities by timestamp:
00:00 — Athens
1:00 — Piraeus
2:01 — Sounion
3:03 — Delos
4:05 — Mytilene
5:03 — Korkyra
6:03 — Conclusion

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

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From the comments:

Overly Sarcastic Productions
43 minutes ago
Fun linguistic shenanigans: The island of Korkyra (commonly spelled Corcyra when referring to the ancient city) is known today as both Kerkyra and Corfu. The name Corfu comes from an Italianized version of the Byzantine name Korufo.

I use the pronunciation of “Korkyra” with an O because it reflects the more common version of the name as listed in ancient accounts — adherence to the original ancient version is also why I’m using Ks in place of any Latinized Cs.

Essentially: I’m spelling everything the ancient way, but using modern Greek phonetics to sound out those words. It’s an uncommon way to go about, but it feels like the right balance of ancient authenticity and modern linguistic continuity.
-B

October 7, 2021

Houses and Herms: Private Life in Classical Athens

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History, Religion, Science — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Thersites the Historian
Published 6 Oct 2021

In this video, I look private life in classical Athens with a focus on material culture.

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October 4, 2021

History Summarized: Sicily

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 1 Oct 2021

The plot twist of Medieval Italian History is that the main event was happening in the South — In the centuries before the Renaissance, Sicily and southern Italy were sporting one of the most spectacular cultures in the world, combining the greatest hits of Mediterranean history in one place. It’s way cool, you guys.

SOURCES & Further Reading: Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History by John Julius Norwich, The Great Cities in History by John Julius Norwich, Great Courses Lectures “Muslims in the Court Of Roger II – 1130” from Turning Points in Middle Eastern History by Eamonn Gerron and “Renaissance Italy’s Princes and Rivals” from Renaissance: The Transformation of the West by Jennifer McNabb

This video’s topic was requested by our patron Salvatore Corasaniti. Thank you for supporting our channel!

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

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From the comments:

Overly Sarcastic Productions
2 days ago
I can’t even begin to describe how much Ancient Sicily Content™ I had to cut for time.
Fear not, Magna Graecia will get the spotlight it deserves in another video.
-B

October 2, 2021

This Is Sparta: The Material Remains of a Warrior Polis

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Thersites the Historian
Published 1 Oct 2021

A video about the material remains to be found at Sparta, or perhaps more precisely, why there isn’t more to see given the obvious importance of Sparta.

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I was unaware that Sparta, after its final military defeat by Roman forces in 192 BC, was effectively turned into a full-time “Living History” theme park for the benefit of tourists … subsidized by the Roman state.

September 18, 2021

What if Pearl Harbor Never Happened, Life in Cyprus, and Peasant Armies of China – WW2 – OOTF 024

Filed under: China, Europe, Greece, History, Japan, Middle East, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 17 Sep 2021

Ever wonder what would have happened if Japan just never attacked Pearl Harbor but invaded the Indies anyway? Or how the people of Cyprus are faring in the war? Or if the Chinese armies had any specialized combat forces? Find out in this Out of the Foxholes!
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September 13, 2021

Early Rome, Part IV: Plutarch’s Life of Numa Pompilius

Filed under: Books, Europe, Greece, History, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Thersites the Historian
Published 5 Sep 2021

In this video, we look at how the philosopher Plutarch dealt with early Rome when he covered the life and times of Numa Pompilius, the most significant of Rome’s cultural heroes.

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September 12, 2021

Early Rome, Part III: Livy and the Roman Tradition of Early Rome

Filed under: Books, Europe, Greece, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Thersites the Historian
Published 5 Sep 2021

Here, I examine Livy’s Book I with an emphasis on the tradition that he worked in and his agenda for undertaking such a massive and ambitious project.

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September 7, 2021

Early Rome, Part II: Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the Greek Tradition of Early Rome

Filed under: Books, Europe, Greece, History — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Thersites the Historian
Published 4 Sep 2021

In this video, I provide an analysis of the opening sections of Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ History of Rome, discussing where his place in the historiographical tradition and the goal of his work.

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September 6, 2021

Early Rome, Part I: The Historical Problem of Studying Early Rome

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Thersites the Historian
Published 2 Sep 2021

In this video, I discuss why early Rome is difficult to study and preview the upcoming episodes in this series.

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August 30, 2021

The Worst Withdrawal from Afghanistan? (330 BC)

Filed under: Asia, Europe, Greece, History, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Invicta
Published 28 Aug 2021

Afghanistan has a long history of foreign invasions and withdrawals. Today we explore the first of these chapters with the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Signup for your FREE trial to Wondrium here: http://ow.ly/C3xs30rNLaU

As the last chapter of the US war in Afghanistan appears to draw to a close, the world watches armed and civilian forces alike conduct their final evacuations. However in these moments we hear echoes of the past. The history of the so-called “Graveyard of Empires” is filled with many chapters that tell of yet another major power that has been forced to withdraw after years of spilled blood and treasure. The most well-known instances have occurred in recent memory. However the pages of Afghan history go back thousands of years. Today I wanted to take a look at one of these first major military withdrawals that may just be the most FUBAR one on record; The evacuation of Alexander the Great’s Macedonian army from Afghanistan.

In order to contextualize this conflict we first begin with a quick overview of the history of Afghanistan. No country existed by that name or with those borders in antiquity and it was instead made up of a variety of tribal coalitions and minor kingdoms for much of its early history. However it would first see foreigners begin to claim its lands with the rise of the Median Empire and the succeeding Achaemenid Empire. The lands of modern Afghanistan would now be carved into a series of Satrapies such as Bactria, Gandara, Arakhosia, Drangaian, and Areia.

Following the Ionian Revolt and the Greco Persian Wars, the Kingdom of Macedon would rise to power and take on this ancestral conflict as a way to unify the Hellenic world behind its rule. Phillip II first began to plan and invasion of the Achaemenid Empire but it would be Alexander the Great who carried out this vision. He would campaign for several years through Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, consuming vast swaths of the enemy’s domains. However King Darius would escape to the east. Alexander initially pursued the Great King but when he was killed by his own Lieutenant, Bessus, Alexander set off against this traitor.

In this chase, Alexander the Great would be sucked into a multi-year war to subdue the eastern satrapies that made up modern Afghanistan. We cover the most significant events of this campaign, the establishment of occupying forces, and the eventual withdrawal of the army following the death of Alexander the Great. The ensuing settler revolt would make it (in my eyes) one of the most FUBAR Afghanistan withdrawals in history that would certainly be worthy of a Vice news documentary had it existed.

The Campaigns of Alexander the Great by Arrian
In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great by Michael Wood
Alexander the Great and Bactria: The Formation of a Greek Frontier in Central Asia by Frank Holt
The Greeks in Bactria and India by W. W. Tarn
On the revolt of the Greek settlers by Diodorus

Credits:
Research: Invicta
Script: Invicta
Narration: Invicta
Artwork: Penta Limited

#History
#Afghanistan
#Documentary

August 21, 2021

“Free” Navies of World War 2 – Small but Deadly (and a little crazy)

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, Greece, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Drachinifel
Published 13 Aug 2019

Today we take a brief look at the various “Free” navies that operated with the Royal Navy and how that interaction played out across the years of conflict.

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July 16, 2021

QotD: Thebes

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History, Quotations — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

John Stuart Mill rated the Athenian triumph at Marathon as more important in English history than the battle of Hastings. Did he mention the almost immediate humiliation, by the Athenians, of their victorious general Miltiades? After his brilliant victory at Salamis, ten years later, Themistocles was banished from Athens and ended serving the Persians whose fleet he had destroyed. A tough house to play, old Hellas. The Athenians did the chat; the Spartans the silences. And Thebes? Supplied settings and plots, mostly in the form of awful warnings.

Paul Cartledge makes the case for a central historical role for Oedipus’s home town. As scholarly as he is revisionist, his handsomely garnished Thebes is neither freckled with footnotes nor fancy with Gibbonian phrases. The Thebans’ exceptional capacity for disastrous decisions begins in mythology with the rejection by king Pentheus of the androgynous divinity Dionysus, dramatised in Euripides’s Bacchae.

There followed the king’s death at the hands of his own raving, Bacchanalian mother and the seismic ruin of the city. Homosexuality has no place in Cartledge’s index, but Oedipus’s father Laius, mythical king of Thebes, is the first man said to have swung both ways. The Sacred Band, in classical times, was a select Theban formation of pairs of male lovers, all full citizens.

However gay ancient Hellenes were (not all that, some say, certainly not all), the Sacred Band’s reputation suggests that a zest of scandal accompanied its bravura. Sexual aberration was integral to their city’s fame. Oedipus’s inadvertent marriage with his own mother, Jocasta, led to the mutual slaughter of their sons, as well as to the refusal of his daughter Antigone to marry Haemon, the prince chosen for her by King Creon. Creon then walled her up, the original ochi (NO!) girl. It needed the Athenian Sophocles to make a play out of it. Modern Greeks celebrate ochi day every 28 October, anniversary of the date in 1941 when their dictator, Ioannis Metaxas, refused to surrender to Mussolini and so refurbished himself as a national hero.

Thebes and the confederation of Boeotian states it headed figured on no honours board during the fifth century BC, presumed, until recently, to be the Golden Age of ancient Hellas. When Xerxes marched into Greece in 480 BC, the Theban oligarchs took advice from the Delphic oracle — they may well have leaned on it first — and so had a divine excuse for not offering any obstacle to the barbarian invaders.

Half a century later, the Thebans’ levelling of plucky little Plataea, the Athenians’ sole ally at Marathon, was a lowlight of the Peloponnesian war. It was matched only by their vindictiveness after defeating an Athenian army (including infantryman Socrates and the subaltern Alcibiades) at Delium. They left the enemy dead to rot rather than hand over the bodies.

[…]

Mythical Thebans figure again and again in the work of the great Athenian dramatists, almost always as bad examples. The city and its neighbours may have originated political federation, but it produced no remarkable artist, no Demosthenic orator, no great dramatist. As far as the arts are concerned, Cartledge cites only Pronomus, the pied piper whose mastery of the aulos (not so much flute as “double-oboe”) won wide renown. Nostalgic seniors may recall Danny Kaye’s line, “The oboe, it is clearly understood / Is an ill-wind that nobody blows good.”

Thebes specialised in wrong turnings. During its two decades of ascendancy in the fourth century BC, it sought to keep Macedon in its place by holding the young Philip II hostage. Having learnt the military skills of his captors, the unforgiving outsider returned to chasten them. His son Alexander finished the job by literally flattening the city, save for the house of its greatest poet, Pindar, and the temples of gods whose favours he hoped to enjoy when he set off to purge and pillage the Persians. No second Pindar hymned his conquests; the Greeks never took him for one of their own. His death in his early thirties prompted an immediate rebellion against Macedonian dominion.

Frederic Raphael, “Thick as Thebans”, The Critic, 2021-03-25.

June 22, 2021

History Summarized: The Athenian Temple at Sounio

Filed under: Architecture, Europe, Greece, History, Humour, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 29 Sep 2017

On my summer vacation, I had the distinct pleasure of visiting Cape Sounio, at the southern tip of Attica at sunset, and I have to say it was one of the most historically exciting moments of my life. For all I myself have said about the Athenian empire, seeing the view from this temple made everything click into place and feel tangibly real for the first time ever (even my 10+ trips to the Parthenon over the course of my childhood didn’t do that). So uh … here’s 7 minutes of me gushing about it under the thin guise of persuasive historical argumentation.

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May 20, 2021

The Birth Control Movement and Eugenics – A Curious Link | B2W: ZEITGEIST! I E.18 – Winter 1923

Filed under: Books, Britain, Europe, Greece, Health, History, Law, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TimeGhost History
Published 19 May 2021

In the winter of 1923, a controversial activist takes a Catholic doctor to trial for libel. The proceedings capture a much bigger moment in the history of the interwar period: the controversial — but inherent — link between birth control and eugenics.
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