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@BB_Ayet Mind you. You should know that the time of the Greek city states was not by far the time of the Trojan War. There was at least 400 years in between those. The first recordings of Homer's Iliad (which is where our version comes from--one very much turned into myth) were around the 8th century BC. The Classical period is from 500BC-323BC. Personally, I much prefer the classical period, since it feels more real to me. The Archaic period (Trojan War etc) is so shrouded in myth that the line has blurred for a rather large part.

Please do ask further on anything you wish to know :)

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@Alice_Iceflower Why is the Trojan War so...mysterious? I don't know, I always hear people saying that it didn't happen or it's just a myth. Did it really happen with all the gods' interfering and all?

And I'm very familiar with Oedipus' story. Antigone I have no idea, or just forgotten. My Greek Mythology is kinda rusty. ^^

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@BB_Ayet Well, the thing about the Trojan war is that the only account we have of it is the Iliad, written by a man said to be called Homer. Some people don't believe one man could have written all that, and think 'Homer' was actually more than one person.

Obviously the parts about the gods interfering aren't true. Gods just don't happen to land on earth and help some people they like. The famous heroes were most likely not half-gods, but just important people. But the Trojan War did most likely take place. By use of the texts of the Iliad, archaeologists were able to locate Mycenae and Troy, so the Iliad is at least partially true. Problem is that it is impossible to know where the line is.

It's unlikely the war would have lasted 10 full years, but the events concerning Briseis could very well have happened. Same many others, such as throwing the baby Astyanax off the walls of Troy.

You must remember that the Iliad is an epic poem (a huge one), and that ancient cultures usually remembered history by telling stories about it. Those can turn into myth very easily, and with the Iliad, that has happened. The Iliad was after all just an 'account' that was written after the war (perhaps even several hundreds of years after it), in the form of a story, mixed with their mythology. It is an ode to their fallen heroes, so Gods are bound to join, to make things more heroic.

I hope it is a bit clear, because there are many things about this subject no one knows, and no one could know. In my opinion, the Trojan War has surely happened, but I do not know to what extent our account of is true. No one can know for sure. I like to think a lot of it is true, but that is me.

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@Alice_Iceflower Yes, everything is more clear to me now. I'll do a little more research of own in the mean time. Thank you for taking your time and explaining everything to me. ^^

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@BB_Ayet Well, archaeologists have found Troy, and they have found a layer if it that was burned (there are nine or ten cities that were built one in top of the other). So it looks like there was an attack on Troy which did major damage to the city, however because this took place in "prehistory," before there was a historical record, we can't be sure of the exact circumstances. Homer did not compose the Illiad until a couple (or maybe a few, I have to check the dates) hundred years after it happened, so he was writing from legend himself. As to the involvement of the Gods, well, that's up to you to decide. ;)

Herodotus was the first historian in the west. A few years after the Greco-Persian war he traveled the land collecting acounts from soldiers or their surviving families they told stories to about the conflict. He's been given a bad wrap, but the more research they do, the more they find he wasn't that far off. And he deserves credit for being the first guy to try to collect the facts and record them rather than relying on legend.

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@BB_Ayet For Antigone, it was a play we read in our last year. I very much enjoyed reading it, though it is a bit strange if you don't understand the Greek burial culture. It's about Oidipous' four children. His youngest daughter is Antigone. The drama is that she is not allowed to weep on the dead body of one of her brothers, and that she is not allowed to bury him. This of course ensues a very dramatic, typically Greek tragedy... I rather liked reading it. Ancient Greek is such a special and beautiful language, with so much meanings in a few words... and those ancients playwrights were masters of their language...

To go back on the Trojan War for a second. If you study that mythology, you'll notice that the story is rather separate from all the rest of mythology. While nearly all the rest of Greek mythology intertwines endlessly, this seems to be an arc that stands alone. Which only adds to my theory of it being a story of a historical event, written to include mythological beings and references.

Also, you seem to be more interested in real myth. Are you planning on writing something set in true history (which would be the time of the Persian War--like "300"--of the Peloponnesian War, the Golden Age of Athens, democracy, the great tragedies, Socrates, Plato...) or something set in mythology (All the stories about gods and half-gods, Heracles etc.)? Or the Trojan War, which is a very vague area, as you've noticed. Or a mix of these? Just interested, because I can focus more on that kind of things then.

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@KiplingKat Can't but agree with that :)

The only things I know about Herodotos, other than that he's a historian, was that he described Atlantis. We had some sort of class about that... Saw a whole movie about Thera (Santorini) exploding.

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@Alice_Iceflower Oh, actually my story is like about the descendants of the people of ancient Greece in modern time. That's why I was asking about ancient Greece's lifestyle for my characters' background. Like their lifestyle is ancient Greece (but not entirely) but they live in modern time. But I went off topic about Trojan War there though.

@KiplingKat I really like to think they (the gods) did interfere. It just makes it even more interesting for me. Did Herodotus collect facts about the Trojan War too?

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@Alice_Iceflower Well, Plato was the first to desribe Atlantis, which was related in Socrates' work. But Herodotus just garnered so much disparate information in his travels around the Mediteranian, his books are a bit of a hodge-podge of topics. He does have a linear narative about the Persian Empire and Greece leading up to, through, and after the war, but he also has stuff in there about Egypt and Babylon and so on. He left out nothing.

You make a good point about Homer's work standing apart from the rest of Greek Mythos. I had not thought of that before. Antigone is one of my favorite Greek plays as well. Got to see it performed in English, but reading it in the original Greek must be a whole 'nother experience.

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@BB_Ayet No. The Trojan war happened so long before Herodotus' lifetime that Homer was the only thing left. He was focused on the Greco-Persian War, which even at the time the Greeks realized was a pivotal point in their history. (Actually it is a pivotal point in European history. Had the Greeks not fended off the Persian Empire, which they barely did at the beginning, the entire course of European history would be different.)

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@BB_Ayet For ancient lifestyles, I have The History of Private Lives series which are quite good for that. "Sailing the Wine Dark Sea" by Thomas Cahill (The guy who wrote "How the Irish Saved Civilzation") also has info on the daily life in terms of social structure and intellectual influences. I also took a seminar on "Death and Disease un the Ancient World" which was mostly Greece/Athens, but the books I have are pretty dry and technical. "A Social History of Greece and Rome" by Michael Grant is another source, he has some good info on how Greek women lived.

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@KiplingKat Oh can you please tell me about the "Death and Disease on the Ancient World"? Sounds interesting.

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@BB_Ayet Well, it was a semester long class on health, medicine, and disease in Ancient Greece, which is where the beginnings of Western medicine were codified. Hippocrates, Galen, etc.. Greece was the first place in Europe were they began to separate science from myth and religion. Illnesses stopped being curses of the gods and they tried to understand how the human body works and why it got sick. Sometimes they were extremely wrong (my personal favorite was that they believed that a woman's uterus could move around her body and cause different problems, like it could move into her head to cause "hysteria"), but they were applying a more rational academic way of thinking to health issues.

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@BB_Ayet And they did not know about germs at that time (though if I remember correctly someone did postulate it, and in Thucydides History they realized that overcrowding could spread disease faster), so they thought people who caught malaria from being next to a swamp caught it from "noxious vapors" rather than mosquitoes. But they would observe and record the progress of diseases and note what care worked and what didn't.

I'm on my mobile at the moment, but when I get to a keyboard tomorrow I can write more.

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@KiplingKat oh wow. The woman's uterus moving belief was king of crazy. And if you don't mind, can you talk about "A Social History of Greece and Rome"? I think that I'll need that more for book.

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@BB_Ayet Well, you should read it. This thread is to answer specific questions and point people in the right direction, but we can't do all the research for others. We have our own stuff we are writing.

But to give you a hint, the Greek culture was not kind to women. They were considered property of their father and then property of the husband chosen by their father. Greek noble women remain cloistered, the only time it was acceptable for them to leave the house was to visit female relatives or if they were taking part in a religious ceremony. After they were married, if their husband had guests for dinner, they ate apart from the party. They had no property rights and could not vote. They were educated, could read and write, but taught in the home and mostly only so they could manage it.

But in all this restriction, some women sold their virtue for freedom. Beyond simple prostitution (which there was) there was a high class of courtesans called "hetaere" who took a more active role in the intellectual life of Athens. Entertaining the leading minds, artists, and politicians of the day, they were prized for their intellect, as well as their beauty and sexuality.

"“We have hetaerae for pleasure, pallakae (prostitutes) to care for our daily body’s needs, and gynaekes (wives) to bear us legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our households.” ~ Demosthenes

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@BB_Ayet In terms of health, I suggest you read about Hippocrates and his theories and methods. While their ideas of anatomy were whacked (there was a taboo against dissecting humans, so they really had no clue what was going on in there), his treatments had a lot of common sense. He pioneered the idea that the body has four "humors" which had to be in balance for general health. This has been discredited by modern medicine of course, but it remained THE theory in western medicine up through the renaissance. He didn't bleed or purge people, but favored palliative care, easing the symptoms and making the patient rest to garner his strength through the disease. (Except broken bones in which he used traction to rest and immobilize them.) He also realized that sterilizing wounds (which they did with wine/alcohol) and keeping the patient and their environment clean was of great importance.

Sadly, because of taboos of examining a woman's body, women's medicine remained an archaic nightmare pretty much up until the early 20th century.

I checked my text, actually germ theory was first proposed by the Hindus around 1,000 BC in pone of the Vedas. By 36 BC the theory had made it to Rome (though it remained a highly controversial theory until proven in the late 19th century). It is possible the Greeks knew of such a theory, but they did not subscribe to it in any great numbers.

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@KiplingKat Yes, I will. Sorry for the inconvenience I didn't mean it to be like that. But it's amazing that how the women at that time were treated. Even when it comes to medicine...their lifestyle is really limited. Oh I forgot his name but are you familiar with the very first man to ever dissect a human body? I read somewhere that he had to steal dead bodies from graveyards to dissect them because it was unheard of back then.

Thank you for taking your time to inform me. I really appreciate it. :)

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@BB_Ayet Actually the first person to perform a human dissection was Herophilos of Caledon in the 3rd century BCE. In Roman times it is said some doctors would accompany armies in order to dissect the battlefield dead, so people would not notice.

Grave robbing ("body snatching") to provide corpses for medical school really hit its heyday in the 19th century and in fact, in some countries (including the U.S.) it still takes place.

You're welcome. :)

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@KiplingKat true, it was rather unfortunate being a woman in that age. They did run the entire household, though. I think Socrates' wife was one hell of a woman, since her husband didn't earn a single thing, and she still managed to maintain a household. Indeed voting was only for men over 30, but of those the workers usually didn't come, since they would have to leave work for a whole day, and most couldn't afford that...

Mind you, about those wives. Homosexuality was also a fairly accepted thing in Greek culture. I read at least 10 poems about how attractive beautiful young boys (teenage, I think) were.

And yes, I mixed up Herodotos and Plato, sorry... I never liked Plato much. His way of writing annoys me. Always those dialogues, while he only started writing them after Socrates was dead... and most of his theories were pretty ridiculous.

@BB_Ayet About their lifestyle, it wasn't too limited. Very advanced for their time actually. The women didn't have much rights, true, but the way they lived was of a very high standard. They built big temples (which are very cool, becuase they aren't entirely straight. They're slightly bent to give the optical illusion that they are straight). They practically lived in a marble city, so things were rather clean. They had a huge freedom of speech (with the possible exception of Socrates, since he made everyone question authority and on top of that enjoyed to annoy that same authority with his clever words.) and they invented real theatre, which was incredibly criticising on the current habits. They were able to elect their leaders if they so wished, and at some point, normal people were able to sit in a sort of high council themselves for a year. (that is, in Athens. Spartans were less lucky...)

At least, this is the general impression I have... You should probably research a bit more on this.

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@Alice_Iceflower Wow that's pretty cool the way you put it. Sure, I'll dive into that more on my own. Thank you for the info. This really helps! :)

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@BB_Ayet You're welcome. I can't guarantee everything I said is true. I do mix things up sometimes (as you've noticed), but I think it's quite alright for a general impression. And yes, I really love the Ancient Greek times, so they're very cool to me.

Good luck with your writing :)

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Hello My Fellow Historians! I just have some questions about 1800s London, it is for my story. If anyone can help, any bits of information is very helpfull.I will list the questions below. To be exact I need information about 1820s & 1830s....London

1. The weapons mostly used during 1820s & 1830s by aristocrats, street theives, thugs & pickpockets of London

2. A descreption of "gaming hell" or "gentlemen's club" of 1800s. The person that runs them are usually of high class or not?

3. Where did people store all their food during 1800s in the house? Was this anywhere near the servants quarters? Descreption of servants quarters and where it's usually located.

4. Does anyone know the slang used by street kids of 1800s of London?..if there is a link..that would be awesome too.. ;)

I did do some research on these questions but its really hard to figure out exactly what is true because I am getting different answer from everywhere. Thank you guys.

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@MissDiorCherie 1. Where is this taking place? For instance, people would not regularly carry rifles in the streets of London or New York, but they would in the American West.

What weapons they used depended on what they could afford. For street thieves swords and rifles were too expensive and too bulky to carry anyway. It would be rare for one to have a pistol. They relied on knives, blackjacks (small baton), and clubs.

Gentlemen in cities like London or Boston or New York usually did not walk around armed, but kept swords and pistols at home for dueling, rifles for hunting. Gentlemen would be trained in fencing and shooting.

2. In big cities a gentleman's club was not a gaming establishment. A gentleman's club was a place where upper class men met and socialized outside the house for the purpose of politics or literature or whatever common interest that it was created for.

Gambling houses ran for all classes of people, the higher class of clientele, the nicer the establishment. But it would be unlikely that any true blue blood would actually run such a place. You would probably find the owner of such an establishment was someone who could move in those circles with discretion, but was not actually a member.

3. Food was preserved their pickling, smoking, or drying. Cold storage was down in the cellar. Lasted a long time in winter, not so long in summer. Food that needed to be kept dry would be put a separate room near the kitchen chimney (or in lower class houses, in the attic).

4. Again, where are you writing about? Street slang in NYC is going to be different than street slang in London. @MissDiorCherie

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I'm so sorry.. I reminded myself to put in "LONDON" but I forgot anyway..erg..I really am sorry. So yes I am asking about 1800s London. :)

I wanted to actually know if let say these people are (very bad...very rich) french men in London who have knifes, rifles, pistols...does that make sense? and let say they get rich in many illegal ways.. such as running a gambling house which does not follow ALL the rules..with a side business of specializing in kidnapped virgin prostitution..Am I on the right track so far or did I add too much "fiction" and not enough "historical"? Oh.. I also have a retired cavalry man who also holds a pistol (not in public) in my story.. would that make sense or no..would they only have knifes at hand to use? What about "bow street runners" my main character is a bow street runner...I'm thinking about making him carry around a weapon maybe a small pistol..

lol.. I noticed you said 'Gentlemen' to emphasis.. so woman don't know how to shoot or fence.. or do some of them? I do want my heroin to know how to shoot ...not acceptable.. or am I right track?

Got it! So the person that runs the gambling house will not be a respected member of society just accepted.. cuz he runs a useful establishment. So making my french man that no one knows much about.. running that establishment.. won't be so bad? Do you by any chance know a small description of a gambling house.. anything at all.. will be of great help!

Thank you so much for replying to my post! I really appreciate that...I really though no one will reply since it says "closed" at the top...still wondering why that is...once again thank you! :)

@KiplingKat

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