Friday, September 26, 2008

A History Lesson

So many of you that know me know that I am currently attending Drama school. Part of the requirements of this is to take a Drama History course, so here is an example of what I learn. Seriously, read it. You might know something. I tried to put the definitions to things in brackets if I've found a place where you would have no fucking idea what I'm talking about.

548 BCE: the Ionian City states (Asia Minor) came into contact with Persia, whose king was Darius. Darius totally kicked Asia Minor’s ass, and then the Athenians were like “NO!” so they burned the treasury to the ground and Darius was pretty pissed off, so Darius launched an attack on Greece starting with Eretria (a city on the shore), where he killed all the men, and enslaved the women. Athens heard about this and sent their fastest runner, Pheidippides to Sparta, and he ran 150 miles in 2 days to Sparta. Sparta was like “Yo, We’ll come, but we gotta wait until the next full moon cause we’re in some religious business”, and that wouldn’t have been for a week. So Pheidippides ran back to Athens to tell them. Then he died.
Miltiades (a general type dude) told the Athenians that Hippias (this guy whose dad was once king of Athens and then everyone hated Huppias so they kicked him out) was chillin’ with the Persians and he would become Tyrannos (aka evil dictator) if the Persians won so the Athenians were like “HELL NO”, and they went out and kicked the Persians ass during the battle of Marathon (490 BCE) even though the Persians had like, tons more dudes on their side, but the Athenian death tolls were in the hundreds, whereas the Persians were in the thousands (like 6400). By the time the Spartans arrived all that was happening was some parties so Sparta was like “Okay, what the hell. We’ll party with you, even though you won without us”.
There were these ships called tiremes, which were the idea-child of Themistocles who was all like “YO, ATHENIANS, You won the battle, not the war”. The Athenians put a shitload of money into this, but they were supah useful.
Then it was revealed that Themistocles was right and The Persians were persistent buggers. After they returned home from having their ass kicked Darius was totally assasinated because everyone was like "You fucking suck and now people are dead. Good job, no job", and his son Xerxes was like “HELL NO YOU DIDN’T”, and then he was like “I will totally have my revenge on Athens. They’re so going down”.
According to Herodotus (writer of The Histories- “To account for the great deeds of noble men.”), Xerxes got this huge ass army of 1 700 000 people, and the Athenians were shaking in their boots, so they sent a runner to Sparta, and he totally wasn't as fast as the last one, but thats okay, because the Athenians totally heard ahead of time and 1 million dudes DO NOT move fast, and King Leonidas of the Spartans sent out 300 mens to delay the Persians, and they ended up holding them off for 3 days by forcing them into a pass. Then King Leonidas was betrayed and the 300 men were pwned but they were seen as heroes and there's still a monumental type deal there thats all like "Spartans Died here, but they were epic and heroes, therefore they were epic heroes". Then the Spartan and the Athenian Army joined together to fight, and Xerxes got to Athens and kept it for about 3 weeks, but the entire navy was lured into Salamis (which is where Euripides, another tragis playwright, was born) and the Athenians picked off the entire navy 3 men at a time, which is pretty mocking. Then in 479 BCE at the Battle of Plataea the rest of the Persians were Pwned, and Athens were like “DAMN RIGHTS, WE OWN, SO GET THE FUCK OUT”. But people were still like “Athens, stfu and pay attention so that if the Persians try and kick some asses again you’re on their tail”.
Sparta and Athens totally just started a fight then because Sparta prided itself on its military (Remember 300, when they were all like "SPARRRTAAAAA"?) and Athens was like the little brother trying to copy them and be better. Persia was like “Yo, if we can’t pwn them with the Military we’ll just let Sparta and Athens duke it out and they'll pwn each other."
Athens was like “Yo, we betta watch out back for them Spartans, so lets build some walls” which was a huge issue with Sparta because they liked to be able to just waltz into wherever the hell they wanted without walls being some issues. The Spartans invited the Athenians over for some tea and it lasted two years until Themistocles was like “OKAY, this discussion is done and so are our walls. Pce.” Sparta was like “OUCH. You totally just slapped me in the face” and the Athenians were like “YAH. NOT SORRY.” The Athenians decided to go save some Polis' (aka Cities, because people didn't belong to a country, they belonged to a city) that were under the control of the Persians and then they got smart and told everyone “Holla. If you pay us money we’ll protect you.” Its like, World War I and the Sopranos all at once. Sparta got pissed and started making some leagues too. Then the Polis’ got all confused because everyone was like “JOIN US” and they didn’t know what to do with the Spartans and Athens, and then one day someone didn’t make up their mind, and both Athens and Sparta claimed it and then they started bickering and this lasted 431-401 BCE. The Persians were totally still lurking like “haha. Someone just die so we can PWN you peoples.”
While all these shenanigans were taking place the Theatre was still functioning and the different leagues were like “Hahaha. Come to Athens/Sparta. Look at us, we’re dancing!”
Then the womens of Athens and Sparta got sick of this shit, so they came together and were like “If you don’t stop fighting, you’re not going to get laid. LOL.”
We haven’t gone past this point in history in class, but I’m assuming that Sparta and Athens probs gave up, because I know from observing teenage boys and mens that when there is a threat of not getting laid, they’ll give up almost anything. Including grudges. But I’m not for sure because the only thing greater than a mans sexual desires is his pride. Which is a pain in the ass.

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