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Comment by ericmcer | Hacker News Reader

We do seem to imbue the greek & roman writers with a more serious tone then they might have had.

I was reading some of Ovid's Metamorphosis while waiting for someone else. I turned to a random page and it was an action packed description of Achilles riding his chariot while spears deflect off him and he effortlessly impales opponents. It almost resembled an anime style power fantasy or something. I wonder if Achilles was viewed more like Wolverine or Superman and people didn't really believe that there were immortal warriors blessed by the gods mowing down enemies in battle.

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Among ancient Greek authors, I've read a far better example of mockery mixed with seriousness. Towards the end of the Illiad, the Greek leaders organize a feast where many oxen are roasted. It's followed by sport games. At the foot race, the powerful Ajax is ahead. But Odysseus pleads Athena for help. The goddess makes Ajax slip on bull dung and crash headfirst. In the general hilarity the cunning Odysseus wins the race!

I didn't enjoy much Ovid's books, but Homer was wonderful. The Illiad often surprised me. The human characters and their connections with gods are so intriguing. But it's mostly dark — a hero can seem nice then behead an unarmed prisoner. And I remember vividly when a river was so upset by all the atrocities of the furious Achilles that it flooded the battle ground to stop the massacre.

Idk, neither ovid nor catullus struck me as particularly "serious". Hell, Pygmalion is one of the funniest stories I've ever read in my life. You have to veer into people who are both proud and ideological (eg Cato the Elder) to really get a sense of roman arrogance, IMO. I suppose Seneca might also be a very "serious" roman writer without veering into arrogance.

It isn't just greek/roman writers. We seem to desperately want to think any writer in the past was more serious than I think we can really justify. It gets downright silly when we find artifacts and assume they must have been holy priceless things.

Not that that can't be correct sometimes. Would be interesting to see that quantified.

Historians don't do that much tho. That was one thing I realized when I started to read more serious historians. It is mostly popular "bro that was cool" history that does that ... and history written for concrete political purpose of inspiring the public to something.

I suspected it is largely history as taught to elementary school kids. Which, seems to be all anyone really every indexes on. Consider, "are you smarter than a 5th grader?" was a popular show.

I think it started when Schleimann discovered Troy based on Homer.

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