Random Rambling: History

We have... let's say an eclectic mix of interests, and we feel our patrons do too.  With that thought in mind, we present a feature we call "Random Rambling."  It isn't quite random, but it's close:  we made a little spinner with some of our favorite subjects.  Every Friday, we give the thing a spin, and then you, lucky people that you are, get to learn a fact related to the subject the spinner landed on.

This week's topic is:

History!

In that case, let us tell you something fun about history:

It's full of lies.

Probably the biggest one is the old adage, "History is written by the winners."  History is actually written by historians, and not only that; it's written by the most popular historians.

There are reasons for that, but probably the biggest one is related to statistics.  You see, information is really, stupendously hard to store for long periods of time.  Hard drives have shelf lives measured in mere years; discs deteriorate over time.  Books crumble, especially those that weren't deliberately built to stand the test of time.  Stone erodes.  And that's leaving out the possibility of disasters, both natural and unnatural, wiping out whole swaths of information at once!  If you want an example, ask any history nerd about the Library of Alexandria and prepare for the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

So, how do you preserve information for future ages?  Well, so far, the statistically best method is by making so many copies of whatever you're trying to save that at least one of them is bound to survive.  And, throughout history, the history books that have shaped the way we view the past have been almost entirely popular histories, those books that every school had to have a copy of.

You'll note that this has nothing to do with the accuracy of such books.  In fact, one of the most famous of ancient historians, Herodotus, is widely acknowledged to have made most of, if not all of, his histories up... and he is still the go-to authority on the Ancient World.  That's because Herodotus, like all the best historians, was concerned less with telling the truth than he was with telling a story.  Say what you will about his accuracy, the descriptions of the ancient wonders of the world in his works still captivate to this day.

The funniest thing about the fact that popular histories shape our view of the past is that this is true even when we know, without a doubt, that the people telling those histories are making it all up.  And for that, we're going to give what might be a startling example:  Frank Miller's 300.

Frank Miller is not a historian by any stretch of the imagination.  He is a comic book author, illustrator, and artist whose particular style has left an indelible mark on modern media.  When he wrote 300 and made the antagonist an 8-foot-tall god-king leading a million-strong army of slaves and twisted freaks, nobody thought he was drawing from historical accounts.  And yet, were you to ask a typical American what a Spartan warrior from Ancient Greece looked like, you would likely get a description similar to this:

Probably with more rippling abs, but you get the idea.

You might think to yourself, "Well, of course, Frank Miller has a style, and he applied that style to the Spartans, using elements of symbolism to portray them as the masculine ideal."

And you'd be wrong.  Because, while your typical historian agrees that the Spartans of 300 are inaccurate, at least one historical theory holds that the real deal took the... ah, opposite approach to displaying their masculinity.

...Ladies.

The argument goes something like this: it has been established in quite a few historical records that most of the ancient Olympic games, and by extension athletic games in general, were played in the nude.  Depending on who you ask, this has to do with the cultural norms of the time, the Mediterranean climate, the fact that watching nude young men in peak physical fitness get oiled up and wrestle each other is just good clean family fun, etc.

Also established?  In the especially physical games, it was not unknown that the winner would rape the loser.

This has more to do with power than sexuality, for the record, and our personal favorite take was that it was more of an intimidation factor than anything else.  After all, would you want to wrestle a man who had a good 80 pounds of muscle on you and a raging erection?

...Don't answer that.  We forgot we were on the internet for a second there.

Anyway, these tactics didn't end at the Olympics.  Underwear wasn't really a thing in Ancient Greece, and neither were pants.  This means that, especially during a military charge, the short tunics that were popular in Greece would tend to, well, flutter.  And only the most elaborate armor had a full skirt, as seen above.  Most warriors, if they wore anything besides the tunic at all, would either wear a heavy coat of some sort or a simple breastplate.  Which in turn means that few, if any, charging warriors had a way of covering the ol' dangly bits.

And again, that may have been the idea.  Sure, 300 Spartans charging down a narrow path at you while wearing nothing but leather hot pants might be intimidating enough, but imagine 300 Spartan warriors charging you, wearing 30 pounds of armor but somehow still having enough exposed that you are eye to "eye" with, thanks to adrenaline and the rumored predilection of Spartan warriors to prefer their comrades to their wives, 300 erect phalluses.

...Some of you are getting excited again.  Calm down, people.

To loop back to our original topic, history is written by the popular historians.  It's full of lies.  Sure, Frank Miller's take on Spartans is inaccurate, but that hasn't stopped everyone from believing it carries some element of truth.  Similarly, the sight of Gerard Butler leaving little to the imagination may have convinced folks that Frank Miller was laying some ancient truth bare, when the opposite may well have been true.

We leave you with a thought.  No sources are provided for the information we've just laid out for you.  That's because this is for entertainment purposes only, just like 300.  Being able to prove what we've said is secondary to telling you an entertaining story.  Should this prove popular, just how many people are going to come away from this article thinking that Spartans waded into battle wearing their war underwear, and how many are going to think that underwear was the only thing they weren't wearing?