patrochilles vibes

The confirmation of her casting in May kicked off another wave of conniption fits. One YouTuber seemed to seriously suggest that the nation of Greece should file a lawsuit against Nolan. (On what grounds, exactly?) “Helen of Troy” rocketed up the trending topics on X, with the website’s trillionaire owner claiming that Nolan “has lost his integrity” and had “desecrated the Odyssey so that he would be eligible for an Academy Award.” Such a feverish reaction to the idea of a fantastical ancient queen being played by a Black actress has become grimly predictable. History, literature, and even completely made-up myths have become fodder for reactionaries, cranks, and amateur historian content creators with names like @RomanHelmetGuy, all contesting vague ideas of “Western culture.”

Such sympathies naturally offended the sensibilities of those who hold Homer (and Odysseus himself) as foundational to that amorphous notion of “Western civilization,” which can seem like little more than myth sustaining white, patriarchal, Eurocentric supremacy.

For all their squealing about fealty, the assumptions that some fans, armchair historians, and trillionaire rocketeers bring to The Odyssey tend to betray their now narrow understanding of the works they claim to hold so dear. Likewise, describing Odysseus as “complicated,” or casting a Black actress as Helen of Troy, raise hackles not because it is ahistorical—neither Homer’s hero nor Helen were actual historical figures—but because it disturbs modern, conservative assumptions about male heroism and female beauty. Undermine the presumptions of Western literature (and Western civilization’s) foundational myth, and soon the whole project might seem totally forfeit.

Speedrunning courting

I dont know why people are always weird when it comes to Dionysus. This author literally has Dionysus say an ableist slur

This is absolutely fanfiction. It's an attempt at historical romance, but it's beat by beat fanfiction.

Very obviously fanfiction. We're given names and a quick recap of everything to bring us up to date on the situation. This could have been so much more. Why wasn't time spent to develop the crucial backstory to the myth? Are we in a rush to get to the main romance? Lame.

"Last week, I gave two lectures about my research on Classics and the manosphere. Both times, people asked me afterwards, “But what can we do?” I don’t have an answer to that question that I’m completely satisfied with. But I do have a few ideas, and I hope we can start a dialogue within the discipline to discuss the problems further.

When you hear someone —be they a student, a colleague, or an amateur — say that they are interested in Classics because of “the Greek miracle” or because Classics is “the foundation of Western civilization and culture,” challenge that viewpoint respectfully but forcefully. Engage them on their assumed definitions of “foundation,” “Western,” “civilization,” and “culture.” Point out that such ideas are a slippery slope to white supremacy. Seek better reasons for studying Classics.

In your scholarship, focus on the parts of antiquity that aren’t elite white men. Read and cite the work of scholars who write about race, gender, and class in the ancient world. Be open about the marginalization and bias that exists within our discipline. Model a kind of Classics that isn’t quite so congenial to the neo-Nazis of the Alt-Right.

As the Alt-Right becomes more vocal and normalized, we may face pressure to frame our research and teaching in a way that will appeal to this new audience of Classics enthusiasts. Resist that pressure.

Do not write content for these men. Sometimes they publish articles such as “Mate, Hate is Great! A Philosophical Defense of Misogyny”; if you are approached to contribute to such a blog, refuse and write about the incident instead.

Consider coming out in support of progressive student and community movements. Classics has a long history of regressive politics, and if we are serious about social justice and activism, we must speak out.

Write to professional Classics organizations, including the Society for Classical Studies, and encourage them to take a stand against these groups. Samuel Huskey has written and shared a lovely example of such a letter.

If you are so inclined, engage with the classical reception that these men produce. There is a narrative blooming that you can see in that Breitbart Guide to the Alt-Right, where the writers claim, “Skinheads, by and large, are low-information, low-IQ thugs driven by the thrill of violence and tribal hatred. The alternative right are a much smarter group of people — which perhaps suggests why the Left hates them so much. They’re dangerously bright.” But the Alt-Right are not “dangerously bright.” They are young men — if you’ll excuse the pun, the kids are alt-right — whose inane readings of classical texts often provide a window into their intellectual shortcomings."

A slightly dated but still wholely relevant article calling out the alt-right's love of The Classics™.

Deep in the Stygian backwaters of the internet, a fierce debate is raging over a translation of Homer’s Odyssey.

Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, has polarised the classics world for almost a decade. Her translation – the first complete English version of the Odyssey by a woman – is cast in strict iambic pentameter. Its foundation is academically rigorous, yet its language is boldly modernised. Some greeted it as a radical poetic feat. Others accused her of heresy, criticising her colloquial register and political inflection.

Among armchair classicists on X, however, reactions have been almost uniformly hostile. Wilson has been accused of “wokery”, and of the “DEI-fication” of Homer. A post from May 2026 is representative: “The Emily Wilson translation… is basically the Odyssey for people who thought Homer needed to be run through a modern accessibility filter.”

“It would be nice to think that this was a serious dialogue about literature, poetry, translation and the study of Ancient Greek. I would love that. But I think this is about people latching on to particular ways to reinforce the very limited and toxic positions that they already have. I don’t think it’s about learning anything – and that just seems sad to me.”

Wilson’s frustration points to a broader truth: the Odyssey controversy is less about philological complexities than about the culture wars. As she writes in her new book, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature, Homer’s poem is now “ultra-canonical, and often viewed as a wellspring of ‘Western civilisation’.”