Too far, historical inaccuracies, too far

[calapine]

There are an Unsurprising Number of historical inaccuracies in Spartacus and mostly I don't give a toss (though it has taken a bit to get used to Julius Casear looking, and acting IMO, more like Alexander the Great) but argh there was just one of my HISTORY BUTTONS DAMMIT and now I'm unreasonably annoyed. Some dude just said to a widowed Roman

Comments

[chocolatepot]

Interesting, I always see it on the other side of the coin - "look how bad things were in history [except they weren't because I'm basing this on impressions and fiction], we are so much more awesome now." Okay, yes, and People Being Wrong Are Annoying, but that.

[calapine]

I feel like I am being daft here, but that sounds like the same thing? I think I am parsing your words wrongly.

[chocolatepot]

It is basically the same thing, that's what I meant to say! Except that - this is hard to explain - instead of being like "don't be stupid, you have it great and don't need anything else" end message it often (when written by women, anyway) strikes me as more of a "rah rah, we have done awesome". Which is not a bad thing in itself, really, because it's good to celebrate advancement, but when you base it on an incorrect foundation it rings false and becomes more about being self-congratulatory than about considering what women used to have to live with. The idea that everything progressively gets better and never goes backward (and that therefore the 18th century was like the Victorian era but more so, the middle ages were the same BUT EVEN MORE SO, etc. etc.) is pretty outdated but still lives on in a lot of people's instincts.

[selenak]

Also, even Crassus with all his money would be in big legal trouble for essentially treating a free Roman woman as a slave by handing her over to someone as his property. He's not her pater familias, the only one who could do that legaly, and as she's an Aedile's widow, she presumably has family and property somewhere. There is a reason why even generations later in the imperial days the stories emphasizing how degenerate and tyrannical Tiberius got in his old days bring up specifically the case of him raping someone's wife and her committing suicide over it. Hell, it's one of the founding myths of the Republic with Sextus Tarquinius and Lucretia. For a Roman politicians to do that before he made it to the top and became dictator for life would have been career suicide.

[calapine]

QUITE. It makes sense to me if it's the only way he could persuade the Sicilians and he kept it a secret, but there was no sense of that, and the pirates were wandering through the city with her. And it was played more "Crassus knows what he's doing is wrong and is bothered by it a bit but it's within is power to do this" rather than "this is illegal, Rome is still in the Republican era and if any of his political opponents find out about this it will mean KIND OF A LOT OF TROUBLE for him."

It's a bit silly this bothers me so much when I'm happy to go with the flow for so much else, but it does.

[fatpie42]

I read that some converts to Christianity made use of that set-up. "Oh look see, I've converted this building and land into a nunnery and my friends and I are all devoted to a life of chastity now, so I'm afraid I just WON'T be able to marry another man and share my wealth with him. Sorry! - Nope, no remarrying here. Against my religion y'see? Don't let the door hit you on your way out!" ;)

[calapine]

Yeah, a few hundred years later joining the Church was usually the best way for a woman to have a good bit of freedom and a decent education. For a bit. Then they started making all those rubbish rules for nuns.

[spiralsheep]

Being a rich widow was ftw in so many European cultures.

I'm trying to imagine foricng Alexander into a historical role created by Julius Caesar and, no.

[calapine]

Yah, Hawise of Aumale was this woman who was married three times and then she was "omg, enough, how much not to have to marry again, King John?" and paid him off cause she was one of the richest landowners in the country.

IT'S SO WEIRD. There are moments I think "that's a bit Casear" but mostly he is getting my Alexander!hate alas, because if there's one person in history that's a total Mary Sue it's bloody Alexander the Great.