Will those gay Greek units be in the next build?

[Dayve]

I mean the units comprised entirely of gay men, i forget what they called them.

You see i've had this idea for a long time. To make a campaign story like everybody does whilst playing as the Greeks, but have 1 unit of the gay guys in an army, only one unit that never gets retrained and never gets reinforcements... And just follow that unit throughout my campaign. Their triumphs, their defeats, screenshots and a story of where they were recruited from... You know that sort of thing.

And i will call the story i make; Band of Bummers.

So will these units be in?

[Lusted]

I believe you are referring to the Theban Sacred band which was made up of 150 gay couples, but i do not believe it was still around in the RTw time period. Plus most of the greek males at tthat time were bisexual so you could technically have any of the greek units as your "band of bummers".

[eadingas]

You mean like the ones in my sig? :)

[tk-421]

If you mean the Theban Sacred Band, then I wouldn't think that the EB team would include them. I think that Plutarch wrote that all of them died at Chaeronea during the battle with Macedon. I did read once, though, that 50 of them survived. Either way, I don't think that they existed in 272 BC. It would be best to get an answer from an expert on Greek history because I am not entirely certain.

If you mean the Spartans, whose Agoge training system involved relationships between two men, they should be in the game but I don't know for sure.

[Mithradates]

Ahh the old april fools day sacred band prank. I remember it like it was yesterday.

[abou]

254 bodies of the Sacred Band were found under the monument at Chaeronea, which means 254 died at the battle. The rest were either injured or surrendered.

[Simmons]

254 bodies of the Sacred Band were found under the monument at Chaeronea, which means 254 died at the battle. The rest were either injured or surrendered.

I thought they cremated people when they died?

[abou]

I'm not quite sure how often that happened. You would have to ask someone like TK about it. I know that there were instances of opposing armies returning cremated dead of the defeated back to their respective cities (I can't remember the battle, but I think Sparta returned Athenian dead in urns during the Peloponessian war).

In the case of the Sacred Band, however, skeletons were found after excavations at the monument.

[the_handsome_viking]

how do you say "Queens of combat" in Greek?

[Reverend Joe]

I seriously doubt that EB will be including a unit of pink hoplites with no pants.

[Volume II]

I seriously doubt that EB will be including a unit of pink hoplites with no pants.

Well, the pink part would be the hard one, because no one has pants anyway...

[general_varro]

"Will those gay Greek units be in the next build?"

I dunno...only if their english boyfriends show up also.....

[Reverend Joe]

Well, the pink part would be the hard one, because no one has pants anyway...

I mean, no bottom. As in 300 exposed penii and 300 pairs of testicles flapping about on the battlefield. Nope. No way in hell. That kind of smut has no place in Europa Barbarorum.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Ah yes, the gay Greeks. Actually it was 150 men and their "boyfriends." The Greeks segregated women quite a lot and it meant that they didn't have meaningful relationships with their wives, just prostitutes and pubecant boys without beards.

Although Plato was gay, read the Symposium.

Xenephon on the other hand liked girls, what a wiedo!

[Reverend Joe]

Although Plato was gay, read the Symposium.

I think it goes beyond just homosexuality; in the Symposium, Plato seems to me to express a deep-seated fear and/or loathing of women. There is the discussion on how the "old" Aphrodite, the version born entirely of Kronos (or was it Oranos? I forget) was the "pure" version of love, because she came entirely from the Male gender; whereas the newer version of Aphrodite was "impure", since she arose from heterosexual love. Then there is the discussion on how people were once conjoined; the people who are now heterosexual are descended from the "third gender". the hermaphroditic combinations, rather than the all-male or all-female combinations. This seems to indicate that Plato definitely viewed heterosexual love as being abnormal, as are hermaphrodites.

The really weird part comes when Socrates speaks his part; he actually treats women and the Female gender with respect, even pointing out that he learned much of what he knew about love from a woman. Yet since this was all in Plato's head to begin with, and Socrates was dead by the time of the Symposium (I think- was he?) one begins to wonder just how Plato's mind really worked... kinda starts to remind me of "Psycho", where Norman Bates' mother lived on in his mind for the explicit purpose of tormenting him.

[Dayve]

How can a whole nation treat women as lesser beings, and not just that, how can a whole nation of men be bummers? Now i have nothing against queers at all, they're people just like everybody else they have feelings and blabla, but why did the Greeks have to treat women as animals and allow them no freedom at all? And how the hell could all Greek men have been gay? I know they say 1 in every 30 men is gay... But a whole nation?

[eadingas]

First of all, it definitely wasn't the entire nation. Second, if it works one way (how can an entire nation hate gays? and yet many do), it can work another. It's just a way people work.

[Zero1]

How can a whole nation treat women as lesser beings, and not just that, how can a whole nation of men be bummers? Now i have nothing against queers at all, they're people just like everybody else they have feelings and blabla, but why did the Greeks have to treat women as animals and allow them no freedom at all? And how the hell could all Greek men have been gay? I know they say 1 in every 30 men is gay... But a whole nation?

Eh, none of the Grecco-Latin races/cultures really had 'enlightened' opinions of women. I mean the Romans were just as bad as the Greeks when it came to treating women poorly, and in some ways even worse. It's not like treating women poorly is unique to the Greeks, it's a recurring "and in my opinion, rather disturbing" trend of sorts that seems to come along with urbanization. If you look at ancient more tribal peoples they by and large held women in higher status, but when urbanization and big stone walls and "civilization" quote un quote come around, it always seems like women get turned into little more then slaves.

But that's just my two cents on that issue

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Actually I think it has to do with the developement of a standing/oranised military. The Celts and Gauls were fairly civilised really but they had a far more even handed view of women. I think it basically has to do with the fact that women aren't a lot of use in an unbanised culture like Greece or Rome. All they can really do of use is make food and clothes and have children.

Men did all the fighting and building and hence they did all the law making after the fighting and building were over. Women can't really stand in a shield wall or use a war bow. Its the old "might is right."

As to Plato, it is generally considered that Socrates is used as a mouth piece for Plato's ideas in the Symposium. It is also considered that the event is quasi-historical. Plato's dialoges are not just his own ideas, they are set up as debates for a reason.

[Rodion Romanovich]

How can a whole nation treat women as lesser beings, and not just that, how can a whole nation of men be bummers? Now i have nothing against queers at all, they're people just like everybody else they have feelings and blabla, but why did the Greeks have to treat women as animals and allow them no freedom at all? And how the hell could all Greek men have been gay? I know they say 1 in every 30 men is gay... But a whole nation?

When man started wearing clothes the main argument for being heterosexual became hidden and unkown to the masses and made it more difficult for men to realize why they should seek women rather than any body cavity to fulfill their lusts with. Thank God we have porn these days
The greeks didn't have porn, and many of their soldiers were kept away from women all their youth so that they first of all didn't really get to know the benefits of women, and secondly didn't get to know how to interact with them successfully. For men who had spent so much time with men it was probably easier to convince them of sex than it was to convince women, about which they knew nothing, to do it. Also just as with love today, it's not a matter of preference who you "choose", it's a matter of who is easiest to catch and logistically easiest to couple with. A bird in the hand, you know... If they didn't know what benefits a woman had and at the same time thought it more difficult to catch a woman, is it really that odd that they didn't bother about women as much? And after happening a while the idea of homosexuality became culture and tradition, so it remained for some time even after the causes of it had disappeared. It's no coincidence that many other cultures where women and men were distanced from each other, for example the 100-150 AD Rome, also started becoming pedophilic and homosexual.

[Darkarbiter]

This is from RTR gold. So dont think no one is prepared to put nude men in mods.
https://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3108/rtr5ox.jpg

[Subedei]

This is from RTR gold. So dont think no one is prepared to put nude men in mods.
https://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3108/rtr5ox.jpg

That is right, you got a hell of a lot "barbarian" units with NO clothes...e.g. "Naked Fanatics", right????

[Avicenna]

The Arveni already have their nude Gaesatae. It's more of the fact that the Theban Sacred Band were largely gone by the time.

By the way, about cremation. Didn't the Greeks tend to bury the dead instead? That was what the whole play Antigone was about. I guess times change though.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

When man started wearing clothes the main argument for being heterosexual became hidden and unkown to the masses and made it more difficult for men to realize why they should seek women rather than any body cavity to fulfill their lusts with. Thank God we have porn these days
The greeks didn't have porn, and many of their soldiers were kept away from women all their youth so that they first of all didn't really get to know the benefits of women, and secondly didn't get to know how to interact with them successfully. For men who had spent so much time with men it was probably easier to convince them of sex than it was to convince women, about which they knew nothing, to do it. Also just as with love today, it's not a matter of preference who you "choose", it's a matter of who is easiest to catch and logistically easiest to couple with. A bird in the hand, you know... If they didn't know what benefits a woman had and at the same time thought it more difficult to catch a woman, is it really that odd that they didn't bother about women as much? And after happening a while the idea of homosexuality became culture and tradition, so it remained for some time even after the causes of it had disappeared. It's no coincidence that many other cultures where women and men were distanced from each other, for example the 100-150 AD Rome, also started becoming pedophilic and homosexual.

Wow, you really hate society, don't you. Well for starters pedastry, that is a relationship between an adolecant and an adult post dates the Mycenaean Civilisation and was usually restricted to the Ionians and Dorians, whereas the Arcadians and Achaeans were somewhat homophobic.

It was a cultural developement which came about with the city state as late at 700 BC. That said homophobia is really a Christian preocupation and it had more to do with the idea that a man should not take on the role of a woman, that was the abomination.

The Greeks had porn, they had very experienced and competant female couresans and prostitutes and they put on live sex shows at their parties (Xenaphon.)

It was also considered far harder to catch a boy than a woman.

Rome was never a homosexual society or a heterosexual society until the arrival of Christianity.

Greece was homosocial they used women for sex and had meaningful relationships with men, which were also erotic. This was a result of the social segregation but there was never a physical ignorance of the images of women, Homer praised the beauty of women and there were some truly stunning sculptures of Aphroditae and other, mortal, women.

[Kralizec]

I believe you are referring to the Theban Sacred band which was made up of 150 gay couples, but i do not believe it was still around in the RTw time period. Plus most of the greek males at tthat time were bisexual so you could technically have any of the greek units as your "band of bummers".

The Theban sacred band was slaughtered and the survivors captured by Alexander, though I forgot the site of the battle. Thebes was razed to the ground afterwards (Athens got off the hook by surrendering at the last moment)

So they obviously aren't going to be in, unless some other city state took on the concept themselves wich I'm not aware of.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

IIRC it was Philip but a may be wrong, either wy its all been said.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Wow, you really hate society, don't you.

Define hate and define society. I'm being no more than a realist, objectively noticing the faults of our less than perfect society which has largely been formed by power struggle and random arbitrariness of our leaders, rather than by enlightenment and insight into the mind of humans. Unlike those who try to prove me wrong, I can accept the truth and live with it, so I don't have to deny it. That our societies with regular intervals give rise to a Hitler, a Stalin or any of the other all too often mentioned guys pretty much proves my point that our leadership and our society systems have been far from insightful throughout history. The rise of civilization was mankind's expulsion from Eden, and this is not a conclusion I've made from being religious, on the contrary I reached this conclusion from scientifically analysing the world and the human mind, then I noticed that it was exactly what some wise men had written in a book from thousands of years ago. If you want a discussion of benefits and curses of civilization I can take that debate in another thread in the monastery or backroom. I've not yet begun to list the arguments against civilization, but it's a long list.

The Greeks had porn, they had very experienced and competant female couresans and prostitutes and they put on live sex shows at their parties (Xenaphon.)

I have to be more specific I guess - high resolution porn in full 24 bit RGB color is what I meant.

It was also considered far harder to catch a boy than a woman.

Source? It doesn't sound logical so it sounds like something made up by someone who was in a state of denial.

Rome was never a homosexual society or a heterosexual society until the arrival of Christianity.

Greece was homosocial they used women for sex and had meaningful relationships with men, which were also erotic. This was a result of the social segregation but there was never a physical ignorance of the images of women, Homer praised the beauty of women and there were some truly stunning sculptures of Aphroditae and other, mortal, women.

Yes, it seems facts do agree with my view then.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Firstly, the facts do not agree with your view because you said that the focus on men was physical because of an ignorance of the female form, which personnally I think sounds homophobic. The truth is that social segregation led to male-male relationships.

The segregation in Ionian society led to the homoerotic relationships, not clothes or a lack of apreciation and Arcadian and Achaean society was the opposite, viewing relations between man and woman as preferable.

"I have to be more specific I guess - high resolution porn in full 24 bit RGB color is what I meant."

How is that better than live porn?

Some quotes:

Anacreon of Teos:

Cleobulus is the one I love
Cleobulus the one I'm mad for
Cleobulus is the one I gaze upon.

Commentary, Dr Tim Whitmarsh, from Ancient Greek Literature
"The threefold repetition of the boy's name at the beggining of eacg line...emphasizes the grip the boy has on the narrator. The syntax and poetic form lend a mesmerizing power to his name. But the narrator is also trying to control the boy.... Other prederastic poems also present the narrator's submission to the boy. In poem 357, a conventionalprayer formula is adopted to to invoke Dionysus...the god is entreated to become the 'councellor' of Cleobulus, to persuade him to 'accept' his love. In this poem, the boy is imaged as a haughty king; even the god Dionysus can only act as an intercessor."

Tim then goes on to contrast this with poems about maidens which compare them to fillies (virgins) which need to be broken in. However in Anacreon's poem the "filly" is a Thracian and therefore a coutesan, which be extension presents all heterosexual sex as male dominance anf female subjegation.

As I said, snaring a boy was considered harder and therefore worthwhile. Would you like me to quote the Symbosium on the virtue of a boy who attempts to evaid capture as well?

This was your arguement:

When man started wearing clothes the main argument for being heterosexual became hidden and unkown to the masses and made it more difficult for men to realize why they should seek women rather than any body cavity to fulfill their lusts with. Thank God we have porn these days.

I have demonstated that ancient Greek men were fully able to interact with women, just not in an emotional way, thereby demonstrating that the homosexual relationships were a product of the segregation practiced by a particular section of Greek society and not a result of civilisation itself.

[Reverend Joe]

[Rodion Romanovich]

Firstly, the facts do not agree with your view because you said that the focus on men was physical because of an ignorance of the female form, which personnally I think sounds homophobic. The truth is that social segregation led to male-male relationships.

That's exactly what I've been saying - social segregation, but in several forms.