Doing Justice to the Classics
Scholars responses to appropriations that we have documented
SPQR is an abbreviation for Senatus Populusque Romanus, “The Senate and People of Rome,” which was used in antiquity to represent the Roman state. In the modern world the phrase and abbreviation is a symbol of the city of Rome, where it emphasizes that city’s status as the “eternal” city (perhaps most famously on their […]
This is Pharos’ third post responding to racist criticism of the BBC/Netflix miniseries Troy: Fall of a City, in which a black actor plays Achilles. Our first post discussed Greek attitudes toward Africans in order to show that ancient audiences would have had no problem with a black Achilles, and our second post addressed the […]
This is Pharos’ second post responding to the racist criticism of David Gyasi being cast to play Achilles in the BBC/Netflix miniseries Troy: Fall of a City. Pharos documented that criticism here and here, and the first part of our response addressed ancient Greek attitudes toward Africans. Racist commentators accuse the miniseries of erasing the […]
In February of 2018, the BBC broadcast an eight-part miniseries, Troy: Fall of a City, that told the story of the Trojan War. Netflix later released the miniseries in the United States. The casting of David Gyasi, a British-born actor of Ghanaian descent, to play Achilles provoked a storm of racist criticism on social media […]
Pharos documented a post on Return of Kings (now listed by the SPLC as a “male supremacy” hate group) that complained that “there are very few institutions left that teach the traditional manly character that built all of Western Civilization.” The post recommends that men emulate Roman virtus, which the post translates as “manly character,” and, as […]
In a guest-post on the website of Matt Forney, author of Do the Phillipines, “a thorough analysis of Philippine culture, to better help you bang girls,” John Saxon argues that “The greatest thinkers from antiquity to the modern day have seen that there is a very dark side to women, that if ignored…would lead to […]
As Pharos documented previously, Spartan helmets were among the symbols displayed by white nationalist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, and misogynisitc marchers in the April 2017 Berkeley protests. [Update: Read our response essay]
