History-Makers: Quintus of Smyrna and the Fall of Troy
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Why is it that the Iliad and the Odyssey don't actually cover the Fall of Troy? Seems relevant to the narrative, no? Well as it happens that story was recounted in a series of smaller epic poems, but they were lost to time at the end of the Classical Period. Thankfully, one storyteller who actually gave a crap was able to preserve the story of Troy's final fall, so let's investigate the PostHomerica of Quintus Smyrnaeus.
SOURCES & Further Reading: Loeb Classical Library "PostHomerica" and supplemental notes as edited by Jeffrey Henderson, "Heroes and heroism in Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica" by Tine Scheijnen, "Stuck in the Middle with You: Quintus of Smyrna’s Reception of Homer", Quote from page 731 of Easterling, Pat and Bernard Knox edd. 1985. "The Cambridge History of Classical Literature". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Yay finally all the Olympians are pins now you have to do it to the Norse because Loki is lonely without Thor and Odin there and maybe his children
Haven't covered full videos on all the Olympians yet though... 💁🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
Hey Blue. Great video. I think you should do a video about Armenia. The country has a very extensive multicultural history dating all the way back to the Bronze Age, Persia, and Rome and is one of the oldest countries in the world. Armenia was also the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion in 301 A.D. There is so much you could discuss in a future video.
Now that you've done the Olympians, can we get some Tuatha De Dannans? :D
NOOOOOOO I only discovered this channel a few weeks ago, I never got to get any :((
Troy Story, giving us great lines like “There’s an arrow in my heel” and “YOU ARE A TROJAN!!!!”
Don't forget "To Olympus and beyond!"
@@h0m3st4r and of course “oh no no no… ACHILLES LOOK! A TROJAN!”
My favorite line in the Illiad is when Hector looks at the audience and says
"Its Troyin' time"
Patroclus: "Look! I'm Achilles! Stabby, stabby stabby!"
Hector: "Ah ha, ah haaa..." *Kills*
"You are a sad, strange little Greek."
I love the "Equestrian War Crime" joke, OSP's jokes in general are great
Imagine Princess Celestia banning Trotjan horses.
@@minasthirith6314 In this exciting episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Celestia attempts to warn her Trojan allies of the false horse. Unfortunately, she was eaten by serpents sent by Poseidon before she could warn them (alternate joke, she was cursed by Apollo so they wouldn't believe her)
There's a Hearts of Iron mod like that.
@@minasthirith6314 I don't get it.
It's only a war crime if the survivors could do anything about it.
this episode feels like a very strange overlap between red's and blue's work, I could imagine both of them talking about this
Plot twist: red's next myths video is a summary of the posthomerica
Loki approves
@@NotesFromTheVoid 🤔
I mean, i don't find it a coincidence that Red remakes her old Illiad video into a full on Trojan War video a week or two after Blue's Mycenean Greece and Bronze Age Collapse vid in the same month.
Quintus managed to stitch together an old epic cycle and throw it far into the future right before the window closed on it forever. Absolutely insane clutch move.
Agreed!
The very first recorded instance of everyone slagging some perfectly valid fan fiction
every master (My Immortal) has their teacher (The Posthomerica)
If we ever invent time travel, Ima need a copy o’ that
@@incognitoman3656 If I get a time machine my priorities are: Preserve the Epic of Gilgamesh, preserve Sappho's poetry and then push Hitler down the stairs.
@@loadeddice4696 and then close that one beach and that one zoo down
You mean everyone slagging a twist on someone else's fan fiction. The entire Trojan War cycle is a giant community driven work of collective art.
'Aristotle's gang of nerds' sounds like a DnD group name made entirely of Wizards
I'm a history nerd myself! ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
Oh, god, when my friends discovered Warlock….
"The minotaur faces you. What do you do?"
"Explain to him the metaphysical nature of reality"
"The minotaur eats you"
@@merrittanimation7721 Just a fancy way of saying "I cast Maze" and "did you forget minotaurs are immune to Maze." I very much approve as both a student of philosophy and 3.5 DM.
@@zachelkins1229 *slow claps* Excellent! 😂
Ah yes, Quintus of Smyrna... the Patron Saint of Fanfic-Writers. Like, the GOOD ones. The self-insert wish-fulfillment crew have to make do with Dante.
Who gets Chretien de Troyes, originator of Lancelot du Lac? Not quite the aggressive shippers, because it's not like his OTP came from his predecessors' cast of characters; no, Lancey was an OC all the way. Shippers are sadly underrepresented in surviving fanfic from before the modern era.
Surely Virgil is the Patron-Saint of Fanfiction?
@@danielstride198 They specified _good_ Fanfiction.
@@danielstride198 His was government-mandated, though. So, not fanfiction, but tie-ins, reboots, and unplanned continuations.
@@Amanda-C.
Chrétien de Troyes = OC × Canon fic writers.
I love the preamble about how the greatest threat to literary preservation is apathy, turning the phrase “who reads Sappho?” into “who _can_ read Sappho?”
[edit] of course, it doesn’t help if you’re relying on Romans to preserve anything they don’t like or care about.
You read like a salty Carthaginian, but we both know they don't exist.
Agreed... Romans, great engineers, great military, not so good in originality, lousy preservationists.
@@EuelBall I've read enough about Rome to start wondering why we keep thinking of them as a 'great' civilization: Roman history is replete with the _status quo_ being enforced by genocide of non-citizens and repression of actual citizens (most people don't know it was flat-out illegal to get another job), all because the Roman economy was _COMPLETELY_ unsustainable without influxes of gold and slaves taken from the empire's neighbours.
Utterly dominating Europe in order to fund a forever war against Persia isn't hard when you've murdered everyone who had more than three coins to rub together and enslaved their families.
Sorry, this got ranty but man do I hate Rome. Ruined multiple religions while they were at it by putting Romans in charge...
[angry huff noises]
@@Vespuchian To claim Rome wasnt a great civilization is just silly. When you have countries claiming to be a descendent state a full millenia and a half after you collapsed, your greatness is pretty much a given. Thats not saying they were a good nation or a benevolent hegemon, they objectively werent, but they absolutely were great. Something to also keep in mind is, you discount their conquests but they were far from easy. If you havent watched Blues coverage of the Roman Republic I strongly recommend it. At some point Rome did snowball a bit and get big enough that they could claim the mediterranean but that wasnt a quick or easy process.
Maybe it was for the best. Do you know how strong we lesbians would be if we had Sappho's complete work? We would be unstoppable
Quintus intends to close the chronological gap between the events that had been recounted in the Iliad and those described in the Odyssey. He therefore mimics Homer in terms of vocabulary, language, syntax, meter and rhythm, parables, narrative style and construction. Like Homer, Quintus also focuses on the people, their dialogues and actions.
Evidence that would allow conclusions to be drawn about the topography of the city
"Long term preservation of knowledge is a function of our archiving standards and how much we care." As an archivist, so much YES to this comment! The historical record seems to exude a kind of authoritative mystique at times, but it's also incredibly partial and biased simply due to the fact that people need to appraise what is worthy of documenting and preserving in the first place. It is an enormous privilege to 1) have the capability to create a record, 2) have it recognized as something valuable by others, and 3) be identified as possessing enduring value and preserved accordingly. Resources that don't meet these standards consistently usually end up as archival "silences" that only resurface as a result of means like cross-references, inferences, pure coincidence, or deliberately reparative work.
"Describing his work as an episodic retread of a better poet's work"
So kinda like that thing Disney did with every fairy tale story they got their hands on?
OOOOOOOOOH~~!!!
Shots have been fired!!
Much the same, no matter how much we may spite them for it, they helped to revive and preserve the memories of these great tales, even if only by inspiring others to retell them.
Well, since the WDW always seems to both have critical and financial acclaim when they pull it off, something must be working.
"Poseidon himself tore open
The bowels of the earth and caused a great upward gush of water
Together with slime and sand. With all his might he shook
Sigeion, making the beaches rumble, and Dardania
From its foundation. So that enormous fortress vanished
Under the sea and sank down into the ground
When it yawned asunder. Only sand could still be seen,
When the sea had retreated"
--Quintus,
@The Philosoraptor true true
I like it. Put it on a T-Shirt and give me a %50 discount.
Everytime I see something about Troy, I keep thinking about my brother (who's name is Troy). "The ancient texts of Troy" sounds so funny when you can imagine it as some sort of grease-stained fan fiction/homework.
As a librarian who wrote his Master's dissertation on the loss of the Library of Alexandria, I love everything about this video's treatment of the subject.
The Trojan War was like the MCU… each side told grand stories about their super hero’s, some individual tales, others in team ups, and then the big groups fights. To me it represents a completely fictional tale that was set in a real world setting like Avengers. People know that these groups existed and fought. They know at one point the ancient Greeks sent many ships over to attack a foreign power. And they know the men were away for multiple decades. Everything else is probably fiction.
Jason and the Argonauts was like another Avengers movie. A bunch of the classic heroes were in that one. Alas, they were all being led by an OC and his sexy witch girlfriend for some reason.
The Iliad and Odyssey were basically Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame.
I’m always pleasantly surprised whenever I hear Jocat’s SMITE in one of your videos. Your precise use of it is always hilarious and somehow brings me more into the video I don’t know why
So, in a shoddy attempt of an analogy, Quintus has written an extremely large fanfic worthy of praise and its own publishment for fleshing out pieces of plot the originals did not cover. But cancel culture has written the originals off and, with it, the fanfic itself. Now the fanfic is just sitting in its archive, only known by the fandom and sometimes only praised by certain fans.
Lost literature is one of the things that keeps me up at night.
And I put book-burning on a circle of hell beneath traitors.
There is exactly one valid reason to burn books and that's if they're infected with dangerous mold.
Ohhhhh, I have literally never heard of this guy before today, but I already love him because he had both the skill and passion to create a comprehensive midquel to a series he loved based on the already existing canon source material he had available to him.
So ya boi Quintus was basically playing Pokemon Marble, collecting all the Trojan War accounts in the Mediterranean region, under the guidance of Professor Homer.
Pokemon Greece/Pokemon Rome
@@Codebreakerblue most Pokémon games were named after a precious stone, but I love the fact that this title would entail you picking up either a Roman or Grecian god Pokémon
@@Codebreakerblue This has been the worst bard hunting journey ever trekked
- Quintus to his companions on their way to a musical hermit's hut / ol' abandoned ransacked Roman city sacked by barbarians, pretender rebels, or rival empires / proselytized philosophical lyceums or Christian churches refurnished out of now cleansed and partially smoldered academic libraries... (around the 3rd-5th centuries AD)
It's so surprising to see this video come out! I'm actually in the middle of reading through the Posthomerica (At book 5 currently) and I've been saying it's criminally underappreciated and unknown!
Sure, it's not as good as Homer, but what epic writers were? For what it is, Quintus is a highly talented, and crucial writer who preserved the only cohesive narrative tying together the Iliad and Odyssey, and that's something I think most of us in the comments can really commend him for.
If you're curious for my thoughts on the Posthomerica thus far, I'll share a bit:
Pros:
-Quintus is talented and fluent enough in the techniques of Homer, that you can jump from the Iliad over to the Posthomerica with no real whiplash from the change in authors, which is great!
-It's so cool (to me at least) seeing more of the charaters like Ajax, Odysseus and Achilles. Quintus' work can hit some real high points of emotion and excitement such as when Achilles enters a DBZ-esque fight with Memnon, king of Ethiopia. Both Memnon and Achilles are well-honoured by Zeus, so he basically gives both of them superhuman levels of power and the earth is described as cracking around them and fierce storms flying all about. Then you have Achilles who,, after being mortally wounded by Apollo in the heel, continues to fend off the swarming Trojans as his body weakens and he finally falls in battle.
-As you may have gathered from above, Quintus work rarely comes off as dry
Cons:
-Though his similes can be quite enjoyable, you **WILL** hear about the lions and the shepherds more times than you could imagine lol, so you've been warned.
-I feel like Quintus isn't as bold or daring with what his characters say or do as you'll find in Homer's Iliad which *really surprised me at times. Like when Diomedes attacked Aphrodite and wounded Ares in the Iliad. Still, I feel like this is understandable since Quintus probably didn't want to stray too far from the public's consensus on what happened after the Iliad.
-You **REALLY** should read the Iliad before this and have a good familiarity with the naming schemes for characters from the Iliad. You're rarely going to hear Nestor called by his name, you'll *much* more often hear something like "And then the famed son of Neleus (Nestor), gifted in oratory spoke to Thetis". Achilles himself is often referred to as the son of Peleus or the grandson of Aeacides (I think that's how you say it?). So it can get frustrating trying to know who is who when characters are rarely referred to by name. (Which strangely reminds me of the Tale of Genji where virtually no characters have names of their own)
Overall. *Definitely give the Posthomerica a read if you have any interest in the Homeric epics and want to see the continuation of the Iliad and start of the Odyssey, you won't regret it. The easiest to find addition is probably the Loeb classical library edition of the Posthomerica for 35 dollars. It's the version I'm reading.
Even before the Horse War Crime Athena had this nasty habit of impersonating people's loved ones to lead them to the slaughter.
She also had a tendency to manipulate fights behind the scene (Like she did with Diomedes and Ares and later with Hector and Achilles)
Tended to be indifferent to humans until it involved her directly (When the women of Troy prayed for their safety she ignored them but when Ajax the Lesser defaced one of her temples she had Zeus destroy the greek ships)
And could also be incredibly unfair as far as goddesses go (Her competition with Arachne)
@@CollinMcLean I'll have to object on her competition with Arachne, you most likely read Ovid's version of that story, which is very explicitly "oh noooo the gods are such big manchilds who don't care about humans they're soooo unfaaaiiirrr even the most level-headed of the pantheon is a jerk even though it looks so OOC oh my gods look at Athena's injustice against a woman paying the price for her hubris isn't that sooooo unfair"
Red has talked about it in her Arachne video, you oughta go check it out to see what I mean by that
@@adlirez I did... it's why I came away with that conclusion...
It feels like Red is being a bit too generous to Athena...
@@CollinMcLean Yeah, like no matter what beating someone over the head and turning them into a spider is fucked up
@@CollinMcLean Athena was literally helping the Achaeans in a _massive war against Troy_ and thus had no obligation to help the Trojan Woman. Sure, she probably could have, and reading the accounts of what happened to them afterwards make me think she _should_ have, but she had no reason to do so. Ajax the Lesser, on the other hand, was on her chosen side, and had the audacity to besmirch her temple and _rape a girl that was clinging to a statue of Athena herself_
It was Ares and Aphrodite's (Because she appears at the same time as Ares, so she deserves mention) fault that Diomedes shanked them, considering they were helping the Trojans. Hell, it's Aphrodites fault that _this entire war is happening in the first place_
Could you please make a video about the history of Austria? It was such a huge european power and gets often times overlooked because its such a small state today.
“Could you please come to Brazil? We really want you here and it is such a nice place”
The problem here is that multiple already exist.
Czechoslovakia, maybe?
As an Austrian myself, I can only say Austrian history only becomes interesting after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 with the occasional interesting Habsburg monarch before that. Essentially Austrian history is dominated by Habsburg history until the end of the empire in 1918 and creation of the 1st Austrian Republic, at which point the most interesting part of Austrian history begins.
@@buttpain171 It's also one of the birthplaces of the Celtic Halstatt culture.
Have you seen guy bloke’s video
@@CollinMcLean I agree celtic culture is very interesting, but you can't really link it to Austrian history. It only was partly based in the geographic area, that is Austria today.
One of my favorite stories about lost literature is that of the Hill of the Books, which I learned about in a Ripley's Believe it or Not! book. Apparently, during the Islamic period (around 1500, I think), a noted noble and scholar was traveling in Egypt in a caravan accompanied by his personal library (which was very large) The caravan was attacked by Bedouins, who slaughtered everyone in it. When the Bedouins found the books, they simply ripped off the covers (to recycle the leather for saddles) and tossed the actual manuscripts in a huge pile in the desert, then rode off.
That pile REMAINED in the desert for the next 400 years and actually became a way marker called appropriately, the Hill of the Books. It was on a MAJOR caravan route and people rode by it for centuries, until it finally disintegrated around 1900 and collapsed.
So here was a pile of books sitting where MANY people could see it for centuries, and, as far as I can tell, NO ONE ever tried to dig up and recover any of the books.
It's similar to what Caliph Omar said when he re-burned the Library of Alexandria for the last time in 640AD. He asserted "All of the books in the library either disagree with the Koran or they agree with it. If they disagree, they are heresy, if they agree they are superfluous"
Yknow I’m both glad and disappointed that a fire can’t wipe out knowledge like that.
"Would all 37 of Shakespeare's play have made it through?"
You say that as if there's not two Lost Plays: Love's Labours Won (also possibly an alternative title for a surviving play) and Cardenio. Also, specifically with Taming of the Shrew, there's a framing device that disappears after a little bit, so there's some discussion over whether that was lost or if the framing device was an addition.
"I sit amid the dusty books, the dust invades my very soul
It coats my heart with weariness and chokes it with despair
My life lies beached and withered on a lonely, bleak, uncharted shoal
There are no kindred spirits here to understand, or care
When I was young, how often I would feed my hungry mind with tales
And sought the fellowship in books I did not find in kin
For one does not seek friends when every overture to others fails
So all the company I carved I build from dreams within
Those dreams - from all my books of lore I plucked the wonders one by one
And waited for the day that I was certain was to come
When some new hero would appear whose quest had only now begun
With desperate need of lore and wisdom I alone could plumb
And then, ah then, I'd ride away to join with legend and with song
The trusted friend of heroes, figured in their words and deeds
Until that day, among the books I'd dwell - but I have dwelt too long
And like the books I sit alone, a relic no one needs
I grow to old, I grow too old, my aching bones have made me lame
And if my futile dream came true, I could not live it now
The time is past, long past, when I could ride the wings of fleeting fame
The dream is dead beneath the dust, as 'neath the dust I bow
So, un-regarded and alone I tend these fragments of the past
Poor fool who bartered life and soul on dreams and useless lore
And as I watched despair and bitterness enclose my heart at last
Within my soul's dark night I cry out, "Is there nothing more?" "
The Archivist - Mercedes Lackey
Thank you for sharing this, it really is a great poem!
@@jaojao1768 Thank you! I try to find something for every OSP Video.
The fact that this is the first I'm hearing of this book is the biggest tragedy of all, Quintus really got done dirty by history, his forgotten work should easily be just as important to the canon as Homer and virgil
The apparent unoriginality in such earlier story telling means there are probably tropes that we need to talk about…
Are you familiar with the term "Deus Ex Machina"?
@@loadeddice4696 Heard it, heard of it, little confused ngl lol
So yeah, vaguely
@@connorwilson2475 The name comes from Greek theatre, originally. It literally means "God from the machine", and it refers to points in Greek plays where Our Hero would be trapped and a god would descend from the heavens (or stage right, either or) to save him
@@loadeddice4696 Interesting, thanks for the explanation, now I know
"Inadvertently burned down by Caesar"
Ah I see, you're still trying to cover up for Cleo.
I’m really sad rn so this is the perfect time to boogie down to history town with Blue
I hope you feel better and that the video helped!! 💗
2:10 however if you look at for example the Myriobiblos by Photius you can see that the Byzantines continued to read ancient literature in various genres. In fact I believe Islamic scholars were mostly interested in scientific and philosophical writing rather than classical poetry
Thank you, Blue!
I studied classics, but from the history side instead of the literary side, so while I appreciate all the Caesar jokes, that was old hat for me. But I knew nothing about the Posthomerica! This is absolutely fascinating and I have a new rabbit hole to dive into now!
Thank you, this was interesting!
I'll admit I've never read Iliad or Odyssey, so I had no idea it was this limited in scope. But as a child I had a book that was a collection of adapted Ancient Greek myths, and a significant part of it was dedicated to the Epic Cycle. While some parts of it were obviously stitched together, the transition between the Iliad part and PostHomerica part was so seamless I didn't even notice it was there. And that book had all the sources properly listed, now I have to find it and verify Quintus got the credit where it's due.
Oh, Red!
What a beautiful and captivating image of Sappho - that's genius applied! I was literally stunned and stopped listening when she appeared on my screen!
Very lovely, lively, and amazing as always too Blue! But I believe we can agree that it's ok to fanboy when genius art appears before our very eyes!
I just wanna say Thank you for making this video Blue. I've long since wondered where we got most of our information about what happens in the Epic Cycle if we only have the Illiad and the Odyssey, and now I have a much better idea along with a bunch more books to read! :D Thank you so much for making this video! I think you guys are the best history-makers around.
Impossible! Perhaps the Ancient World's Archives are incomplete?
I refuse to live in a world where Aeneas gets his own epic poem but ma boy Diomedes sentenced to getting attention only in lost poems
I'm glad you didn't include Telegony as part of the Epic Cycle here. You know, since it's a bizarre fanfic sequel to the Odyssey based on a tiny handful of surviving lines of the text.
Those book covers are so good. I would absolutely buy them
Sounds like Quntus was doing the same kind of preservation/reimagining that a certain professor in Oxford would be famous for in the mid 20th Century.
True, although the work of said professor is now subject to same kind of reverential awe that put push past critics to disregard the work of Quintus.
Am I being dense and you're referencing Tolkien? Because he was Oxford no?
Or is there another mid 20th century professor I'm completely forgetting?
@@thomassaxon8254 oops. Yay edit button! Misremembered
I would love to see Red cover and draw "Song of Achilles"
Heh, and I'd like Red to cover the "Tales of Brave Ulysses".
Blue trying to downplay his burning of the Library of Alexandria.
11:11 absolutely SENT me
I guarantee that St Jerome read this and had it in his collection.
He loved his funny little classical books, and was a habitual hoarder of them.
So, I recently started listening to the OSPod, and I am at episode 12, which contains a conversation about this topic, when I look at my notifications to see Blue has posted a full episode on the topic of lost epics. I just think that's so cool, so thank you Blue!
I wish the Cypria survived, I love the summary from Procles, so many interesting events, like the Greeks' hilarious first attempt to sack Troy when they and a teenage Achilles accidentally landed on Telephus' kingdom and he kicked their asses (and also that was when Achilles and Patroclus had their first vow to always be together while Achilles tended Patroclus' wounds, according to Pindar).
Who here thinks PostHomerica looks like an amazing book?
PS, mentioning Islam was pretty nice of Blue, I just played AC revelations (up to the 5th sequence), I know it’s not really true, but it was nice making my own library of classics in Istanbul
Oh, wait 6th sequence. Anyways,
Quintus really is one of the OG *Good Fanfiction Writers.* He wrote a novel-length re-telling a well known story, but in a way that used the original as a foundation to build on. Settings got more worldbuilding, characters were fleshed out, and disjointed side-stories were neatly tied together to create a united continuity.
this is helping me understand a tiny bit of my classes more, thx keep up the good work, loved the vid :))
Outstanding work as always, Blue.
I think it would be really cool if you did an episode about other Ancient authors Historians like to dunk on. Xenophon is a clear example, Cassius Dio too, and I don't always think it's fair, although understanding way they were relegated in such a way would be interesting to explore!
Is anyone else in love with the book covers that are shown?
I bought the PostHomerica because of this video and I read it in one sitting on a Sunday. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm looking into Bibliotheca now, hoping to find a nice copy somewhere.
That bit about the dual... I felt that
I'm at a reading classics "roadtrip", so thanks for bringing this to my attention
Wow! I had no idea that the history of ancient Greek epics was so complicated! Thanks Blue! This was neat!!
I actually *just* finished re-reading the Iliad yesterday - so, this is good timing for me.
Please make a video on the Mahabharata cuz everyone has to know this masterpiece
“After our favourite speedy boy’s death” shouldn’t be so funny to me- 😂😂
Regarding lost popular media, there are relatively recent examples of things like popular TV episodes being unknown if any copies survive.
It's a small detail but I like how you made slightly different covers for the books, like at 4:57 the smaller ones have a slightly lighter colour and different detailing!
I had a classical and medieval philosophy professor in school who was eternally grateful to Augustine, because Augustine was, in addition to other things (theologian, Bishop of Hippo, peach lover), an extensive commentator on other people's works. That meant that we have a lot of summaries of arguments and plots from works that are now lost to history, thanks to him....just a lot of, "In his work 'Jesus, what a cool guy!', the theologian Exampalus says of the Incarnation....." or "I quote the neo-Platonist Stultinus, who argued in his work 'Just because Plato wasn't precise enough about why chickens weren't people doesn't mean he wasn't really smart'....."
Augustine was also the bloke who kept Platonism around in Western Europe until the Renaissance (Christianised Platonism, of course, but still...). The only direct Plato available until then was the first half of the Timaeus, translated into Latin.
In the Time Heist continuity the villain has learned from history and makes sure to catch the entire library on fire
Really love these disscusions of ancient literature. While I rarely get around to reading it. I love knowing it exists.
Lmao the Jocat smite sound effect was perfect
Gotta pay respect to the classics -B
It's video's like these that really get me excited about old texts and also wanting to know more about how this in other area's of the world.
I read the Posthomerica as an undergrad in the days of card catalogs and library shelves, but didn't realize he was from the west end of Anatolia. Today we know a lot more about historic Troy and the later Greek and Roman settlements that consciously memorialized it. Add that these were the earliest days of Rome switching to Christianity. Quintus may have lived both in the presence of vivid Trojan War heritage and keen awareness that it could fall victim to political and religious changes.
while obviously it's a shame that we've lost the epic cycle (like just a bunch more epic poems sounds great and we can finally deal with who shot achilles) the fact that quintus was able to step in and give us something great is a benefit to that tragedy and who knows maybe we'll do some digs in the future and find more and more of the epic cycle only time will tell (we might just get the best of both worlds if we're lucky)
On a side note, I love that JoCat's smite sound effect is used so much everywhere. It's great. :3
That preamble is mildly existentially terrifying. Given the yawning void of what was lost to time, who's to say what we chose to preserve is at all accurate?
i, for one, am crushed that blue doesn’t recognize the taming of the shrew as billy shake’s finest 😤
I feel like what Stephen Fry is doing today with his Greek mythology books is just the same as Homer and Quintus of Smyrna
Oddly good timing on this video, considering my Homeric RPG campaign is kicking off this Sunday and I could use some more research material/story ideas.
I had a dream a few days ago about OSP doing a video on the Angel of Death, Azrael, and I don't know why. It got weird when in the dream, Blue talked about Azrael's spin-offs, even going into pop-culture and games. It would be an.... interesting video topic, to say the least.
Hey Blue, guess what? I am trying my very hardest to write an epic of my own! (But don't get your hopes up, I'm nowhere close to done, but it'll hopefully get published sometime in the next five years!)
So even back then, "the book is better than the movie" applied, and of COURSE the majority of the populace still went with the latter... LOL
But thank you Blue, this also folds nicely into your video on how languages die/are born.
The burning of the Mayan Codices, though…
It's ironic that this video is not in the playlist of history maker ._.
Ah Troy, it needed more attention than that one war
1:40 WHOA WHOA THERE! I am the bibliophile child of a bibliophile, who was herself the daughter and granddaughter of bibliophiles. My bookshelves are quite well maintained, thank you very much! 😄
This video went an entirely different direction than I initially thought it was going to, and it's a great video! but also it would be rather excellent to see you cover actually _deliberate_ destruction of literature. Granted the one that popped immediately to mind for me is Magnus Hirshfeld's library which is far more _recent_ than your usual fare... and TBH I'm not sure there are any other significant examples... but, well, it's a thought! :)
Only tangentially related, but in Book XIII of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Ajax and Ulysses are arguing over who properly inherits the arms of the fallen Achilles. They are basically dissing each other in what was originally rhymed verse, so that makes this one of the earliest fictional "rap battles" ever recorded. Ajax ultimately commits suicide because Ulysses roasts him so badly, one of Ovid's many hilarious desecrations of prior classics. I'm genuinely surprised that neither Red nor Blue have delved into the more satirical stories in "Metamorphoses" like that one yet.
Quintus of Smyrna establishing the proud tradition of fanfiction writers self-deprecating in the preface.
yay NOW it's Friday!
Wow, what a parade of gorgeous artwork. This is a real joy to look at.
Imagine what our records of things like The American Civil War and WW2 will look like a few thousand years from now if the records survive in a similarly fragmented and fictionalised allegory recounting of historic events. It makes you wonder which cities we live in now that people in the future will think was actually a myth mistaken for reality like Troy was, or which idioms will be mistaken for litteral accounts and habits.
at a buffet, i personally sneak corndogs into the buffet so others can enjoy them. I hide 6 corndogs in my jacket pockets. it then, is a joy for me to see other patrons of the establishment eat my corndogs thinking they were part of the buffe
What the hell? Didn't you say this at Weird History's channel? What up with that? Are you saying this to be funny or being random?
Marry me 😍
Chaotic Good
Who are you?!?!
I love you, Doc. Marry me.
Cæsar didnt burn down the library, he burned the docks to make his escape. The royal palace complex was untouched by the fire. Highly suggest checking out Our Fake History podcast, they do a great 3 part series on the Library of Alexandria
But what was the 8th epic?
(script said 8 repeatedly; animation showed 7 - 1 Illiad, 1 Odyssey, 3 between, 1 after and 1 before)
Good catch, the 8th epic is the Telegony, an epic so completely inconsequential I managed to forget about it entirely.
-B
@@OverlySarcasticProductions indeed, what even is the Telegony? (also this seems like an opening to do some Obscure History)
@@incognitoman3656 The Telegony is a follow up to the Odyssey where Odysseus's bastard son Telegonus by Circe accidentally kills his father. Not much happens.
@@incognitoman3656 It's a book where Circe marries Telemachus and Penelope marries Telegonus, Odysseus' son by Circe. It's a lost work but the world isn't missing anything.
man this video must have took a while to research. I really appreciate all the setup.(it's my favorite part of a dbq)
I just found you lads randomly, you are wonderful at making ingo entertaining and the style of the art is wonderful!
Oh man. This is a big coincidence. I just started listening to the ospodcast and I just finished the one where a discord question asked about which lost epics you'd want to read. It's cool to see how far back the ideas and research on this stuff goes.
11:11 - a great text tone
I learned about the hobbit in 6th grade, which I read. My dad, knowing me and seeing how much I enjoyed it, bought me a three pack lord of the rings for my 12th birthday. I finished them quickly, but reread and reread them. Then, when the movies were coming out, my younger sister decided she wanted to read lord of the rings. But she didn't try to preserve books like I did and after about 4 years of service my LotR paperbacks were barely hanging on to the binding. My dad replaced my books (of course it was him and not her) and to this day 20ish years later I'm still annoyed about it.
So thank you for busting one of the most popular(if not the most popular) myths about knowledge preservation.
If I recall, one of the major epics survives as a portion of a summery of a summery of the original.
I'm under the impression that more than a few of these were in a "pay to read, but not copy" situation. Sort of ancient DRM.
That takes guts to turn many different styles of Ancient Greek literature to a Homeric style and show support for both the Greeks and Romans.
Hot damn! I do love your historical videos so much, Blue. I spat up my coffee when I got to 11:25.
Posthomerica is so good, I hope we see Red do a summery so.e day