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vulkan02 View Drop Down
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    Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 13:28
Originally posted by Phallanx


Finally Sapphic isn't a name for female homosexuals nor ever was used as it, but clearly used to describe the poetry form/style presented by her and copied by many later Hellinic and Roman poets


I searched  for lesbian and got this:

Etymology

The word "lesbian" originally referred to an inhabitant of the island of Lesbos, in ancient Greece. The term has come to have its current meaning due to the ancient Greek lyric poet Sappho, who lived on the island; some of her poems concerned love between women. Whether Sappho was herself a lesbian, in the modern meaning of the term, or simply a poet who described lesbians, is open to question; whilst she did indeed write poems about love between women, there is some dispute as to just how far to interpret her writings in this fashion. This association with Sappho led to the term sapphism being used as another term for lesbianism.

Many other terms have been used to describe lesbianism over the past 200 years, such as amor lesbicus, urningism, tribadism, and others.

There are a number of slang terms for lesbians, including dyke and bulldyke, both of which are almost always intended to be pejorative when used by outsiders, but many within the lesbian and queer communities have reclaimed their usage.

So yes Sapphism was used for lesbianism and Sapphic was the word for lesbian.


The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief - Le Bon
Destroy first and construction will look after itself - Mao
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 13:37
Hmmm, ok , I stand corrected on the term.. never heard nor seen it before used as such.. Anyway, I once again direct you to the previous discussion HERE where you can find info if you're interested. There's even a little something on Sappho...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 14:05
I already read it and learned a thing or two more, though im taking great pleasure for catching your mistake.
It seems Sapphic had been long used and was replaced by lesbian later on.
The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief - Le Bon
Destroy first and construction will look after itself - Mao
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 14:31
Originally posted by vulkan02

I already read it and learned a thing or two more, though im taking great pleasure for catching your mistake.
It seems Sapphic had been long used and was replaced by lesbian later on.


Well I did my little own search and seems that the meaning mentioned (homosexual) was only given to the term 'Sapphic' in 1890, just 20yrs after they constructed the new meaning for 'lesbian'...

Sapphic Look up Sapphic at Dictionary
1501, from Fr. saphique, from L. Sapphicus, from Gk. Sapphikos "of Sappho," in ref. to Sappho, poetess of the isle of Lesbos c.600 B.C.E. Especially in reference to her characteristic meters; sense of "pertaining to sexual relations between women" is from 1890
www.etymonline.com

Not really long used, actually conveniently constructed after the term 'lesbian' was ...
See how the theory all falls in place

To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 15:38

However, while it did exist, it was never legally sanctioned

 

Except of course at Elis and Boeotia where Plato explicitly notes it was in fact legally approved of

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 15:40

Originally posted by Zagros

What made him a military genius? what in particular? Apart from fielding a highly trained and effective war machine did he have going for him, and other than his huge ambition?

The simple fact that a military genius has the capability - most importantly - of corresponding with the same effectiveness to all types of ancient warfare, including battles, sieges, guerilla war, marches under unfavourable circumustances, being able to cope with the fact that his army is being outnumbered in almost each battle, plus the talent and ingenuity of changing the course of a battle by shifting an emmerging defeat to a glorious victory and all of these in a foreign land, far away from his homeland.

The assertion that leading a highly trained and effective army like Macedonian means somehow things are to be quite easy doesnt hold much water. If so, his father Philip II using the same army would easily crash anyone of his rival armies but instead even him, the famous Philip of Macedonia faced crashing defeats - not from a mighty empire like Persian - but from the insignificant, up to that period, army of Phocis plus their mercenaries and a rather unknown general called Onormachus who obliged Philip to count his first two and last defeats in his military career.

Alexander perfected Macedonian Phalanx, even by changing it into 120 men depth and parallel use of his cavalry whenever needed. Use from Alexander of this modification was in the succesful Balcan campaign of Alexander in 335 BC.



Edited by Aeolus
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 16:18
120 men depth? Aeolus, what are you talking about? 16 men deep in all four large battles is what the primary sources agree upon, and perhaps 32 men deep in Illyria (if you are not talking about the marching thing). Have I missed something?

And Onomarchous and hist mercenaries (the 6.000 professional soldiers the Phoceans managed to finance after depriving the Oracle at Delphi from its treasures) was anything but an incompetent general and his army was one of the prime paradigms Philip used to reform the Macedonian phalanx.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 17:23

Originally posted by Alkiviades

120 men depth? Aeolus, what are you talking about? 16 men deep in all four large battles is what the primary sources agree upon, and perhaps 32 men deep in Illyria (if you are not talking about the marching thing). Have I missed something?

I am talking about the mass formation of 120 men depth he used against Cleitus in Illyria. For more, read the correspoding text of Arrian but yes, i mispelled a word and came out different meaning.


And Onomarchous and hist mercenaries (the 6.000 professional soldiers the Phoceans managed to finance after depriving the Oracle at Delphi from its treasures) was anything but an incompetent general and his army was one of the prime paradigms Philip used to reform the Macedonian phalanx.

Read more carefully what i wrote. Unknown isnt a synonym of incompetent and prior to that era, Phocean army was insignificant and certainly more in comparison with an army like the one of Persian empire which was the original analogy about.

A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 17:47

Originally posted by Alkiviades

He inherited a well-trained phalanx, a superb cavalry and... that's it. You should know that Philip has never - not in one single battle - utilized a combined arms approach as Alex did. Philip's battles were won - bar one by the Phalanx. Alexander's battles were won by a well-calculated cavalry charge at the enemies weak point, never by the Phalanx.
Ah, btw, the single battle Philip won by a cavalry charge was Chaeronia... where Alex commanded the cavalry and engaged it without orders by his father at a moment he conceived fitting.

Not so! You forgot the crucial victory of Philip against Onormachus. It was a victory accomplished almost exclusively from his Thessalian and Macedonian cavalry.

A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 18:05
Originally posted by conon394

>>Except of course at lace>Elislace> and lace>Boeotialace> where Plato explicitly notes it was in fact legally approved of



Well it does seem that way from the text "Symposium 182a-b" but as I recall he also compares the citizens and their laws to the 'barbarians' that have given an evil repute to the ideas of philosophy and gymnasium.. because as he wrote "the tyrrants want their subjects to be poor in spirit"...

This makes me wonder,  if the relationship he's talking about is purely sexual, why mention "poor in spirit" and why just a few lines down, give us the exact definition of "eratais" ??

Symposium 184b 

" it is our rule that, just as in the case of the lovers it was counted no flattery or scandal for them to be willingly and utterly enslaved to their favorites, so there is left one sort of voluntary thraldom which is not scandalous; I mean, in the cause of virtue.
It is our settled tradition that when a man freely devotes his service to another in the belief that his friend will make him better in point of wisdom, it may be, or in any of the other parts of virtue, this willing bondage also is no sort of baseness or flattery.


While I can't argue about the text, since it does look like he implies that homosexuality was an accepted 'custom' in Elis and Boeotia, maybe it's just me, but I see the idea of obtaining knowledge and virtue, nothing refering to anything sexual... otherwise there'd be no comparison to 'philosophy, gymnasiums and poor spirit...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 18:09
What does it matter if Alex was bi? He probably was, but the real issue is that he was a tactical genius on the battlefield and the came pretty close to being the Hitler of the ancient world when he was actually a ruler.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 19:01
  What does it matter if Alex was bi? He probably was,


This is the whole point, its a distortion of historic facts. We have no account of him being bi- or whatever.. but as we see it's influenced everyone and has lead even you to say "he probably was"

This is just yet, another constructed story to try to justify their "sick nature" by connecting it to historic personnas by creating fairy tales (appropriate) that have messed up historic reality..

I recall reading another topic something about Hitler and the Nazi being homosexuals, I've seen the names Donatello, Da Vinci, King James... all added in the list made up by them for them..
Why don't they just live their pathetic lives and stop distorting texts, what is their objective anyway ??
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 23:31
Must you be so ultra-nationalist all the time?

I'm sure there were many bisexual people throughout the history. And Alexander was one of them.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 23:50
Originally posted by Barış

Must you be so ultra-nationalist all the time?

I'm sure there were many bisexual people throughout the history. And Alexander was one of them.


Quite correct, from Caesar to Hadrian (that's 15 supreme rulers of the Western World) the only man we know who absolutely did not have sexual relations with men was Claudius.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2005 at 23:51
ALEXANDER IS A GREAT CONQUEROR!!! but i wonder of his REAL personality...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Oct-2005 at 00:21
Originally posted by Phallanx

Originally posted by vulkan02

I already read it and learned a thing or two more, though im taking great pleasure for catching your mistake.
It seems Sapphic had been long used and was replaced by lesbian later on.


Well I did my little own search and seems that the meaning mentioned (homosexual) was only given to the term 'Sapphic' in 1890, just 20yrs after they constructed the new meaning for 'lesbian'...

Sapphic Look up Sapphic at Dictionary
1501, from Fr. saphique, from L. Sapphicus, from Gk. Sapphikos "of Sappho," in ref. to Sappho, poetess of the isle of Lesbos c.600 B.C.E. Especially in reference to her characteristic meters; sense of "pertaining to sexual relations between women" is from 1890
www.etymonline.com

Not really long used, actually conveniently constructed after the term 'lesbian' was ...
See how the theory all falls in place


Well im still right that the word can be used as an alternate to lesbian .

Hmm ok so if Sapphic was indeed first used after the word lesbian what would the word be before these two to describe a female homosexual??
Anyways this just doesn't follow logic because the word lesbian came as a result of Sappho living in Lesbos. But Sappho's rhymes where considered erotic so Sappho was the beginning of this term. Why would they call all women interested in other women after an island name when its much more reasonable to call them from the first (Lesbian?) poet??


From wikipedia:

Some of her love poems were addressed to women. The word lesbian itself is derived from the name of the island of Lesbos from which she came. (Her name is also the origin of its much rarer synonym sapphic).

Maybe Sapphic was used before but it fell out of favor later on as not to insult the poet??


Edited by vulkan02
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Oct-2005 at 02:27
Why don't you guys take the Sappho discussion to a relevant topic and stop spamming this one? Sappho's erotism is quite irrelevant to Alex, if you haven't noticed...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Oct-2005 at 02:31
As there are hundred of Alexander threads all over AE and as this one has deteriorated steadily, it's hereby closed.
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