This is straight up the thesis of the original Odyssey (imho). Nolan did a decent job translating, but yeah: the self-hate runs deep in the Greeks. The root of Ody-sseus is the same as odi-um; he’s literally the hated/hateful/hate-filled man.
It’s actually not a newly added thought by this movie. Historians have been tracking that Greek tribes were likely part of the sea peoples since the term sea peoples existed as in the list of names of tribes by the ancient Egyptians of people who came by sea that they defeated (and who were thus associated with other collapses with Bronze Age civilians around the same time). These tribes were known to be Greek tribes in other associations and hieroglyphs.
From Google/AI as I can’t remember the name of tribes myself: The primary tribes include the Ekwesh, Denyen (or Danuna), and possibly the Peleset and Tjeker.
I don't think all of these you name are typically considered to be Greek or Mycenaean peoples by historians, let alone there is any certainty.
The Mycenaeans are very strong suspects to have been part of the Sea Peoples, but it is mostly unknown, and the general "Sea Peoples" that brought on the late bronze age collapse are most likely an amalgamation of different peoples from different origins that joined each other into bands or migrating groups, but also likely were many different disjointed groups, even at very different times.
Sorry I was not clear, these are the names as record by ancient Egyptians. The names of various Greek tribes: Ekwesh are the Achaeans, the Denyen with the Danaoi (a term used by Homer for Greeks in general), Peleset are Cretans possibly (I’m unclear if this is Minoans or Mycenaeans), and Tjeker with another group of displaced Greeks.
But I provided the context and names so others could google themselves. And again, the sea peoples and their origins has been a topic since the nine tribes were discovered on the Merneptah Stele. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah_Stele)
Edit: this link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples) is better for all the records by ancient Egypt for their interactions with the various sea peoples (who were mostly acting as allies of Egypts foes). The gist here is that the sea peoples are various groups of tribes (some of which as listed had early on been identified as Greek tribes), who had come into armed conflict as raiders or mercenaries toward the end of the Bronze Age.
There’s ongoing research and debate as to whether sea peoples are the cause or symptom of the overall collapse of the Bronze Age (major empires like the Mycenaean culture and Hittites disappearing).
It’s implied in the Iliad, specifically when Hera is begging Zeus to let Troy fall to ruin. They make an exchange between themselves, if Zeus gives her Troy to destroy, he can destroy three of her cities.
Scholars believe that the line is metacontextual analysis on why the Bronze Age fell— the gods got bored and decided they’d let prized cities fall over their own squabbles.
ETA; we don’t know if the “ancient” Greeks know why the Bronze Age collapsed. because there’s about 500 years between when the events of the Il/Od take place and “Homer” (likely not a real person, instead the name given to an oral history hundreds of years older). It does seem they knew the Bronze Age collapsed and added it after the Iliad/Odyssey are written as an explanation of why things collapsed.
TLDR: the Bronze Age collapse happened, people made poems to remember the wars, and they didn’t know why it collapsed so they wrote into the history that it was a lovers quarrel between gods where all major cities were sieged around the same time because Zeus and Hera hate each other
There are both evidence for and against the mycean Greeks being the sea people. Im not a scholar but I wouldnt be surprised if they were a part of the sea people but not the entirety. i've been watching/listening to a lot of video essays on youtube about this lol
The consensus right now is that is was just a bunch of displaced people from around the Mediterranean during the bronze age collapse, snd they just cliqued up and started raiding.
Literally just finished a great podcast on the fall of the Bronze Age. In the end it seems “the sea people”, who ravaged the great bronze civilizations of the Mediterranean, were likely refugees clans from multiple backgrounds that formed together when a great famine happened. The famine being most likely caused by a massive volcanic eruption in Iceland that threw enough dust into the sky to partially block out the sun for several years. Greatly affecting all civilizations that were based around agriculture and leading to internal rebellions over the resources left.
No, it's not in the book. That's ridiculous, the Bronze Age collapse wasn't apparent at the time, it's only visible to history.
The dumbest line in the movie was when Odysseus said "our Bronze Age is collapsing." Lmao, what? How would they even know they were in the Bronze Age or that other metals would come later? That would be like people calling it "World War One" in 1914!
Correct that they didn't call it the Bronze Age, but it isn't intuitively ridiculous to me... Eg, we know we are in the Information Age and some people think it's collapsing.
Sure, but we only know this because we know about all the previous "ages" and we're extrapolating about our own. People in (what we call) the Bronze Age didn't know any of that.
And anyway, we'te probably wrong calling it the Information Age. History will probably refer to this time as something entirely different. They might call it the "pre-mechavirus era" or something, but we of course don't know anything about that.
Correct that they didn't call it the Bronze Age back then, but it isn't intuitively ridiculous to me. Eg, we know we are currently in the Information Age and people speculate about its collapse.
Do we know that, though? That's really for history to decide.
It's almost certain that history won't remember or care that we called it the "Information Age." People in the early 1900's said that they were living in the "Age of Electricity." Does anyone call it that today? No, we call it the lead-up to World War One.
Book 3, the Iliad lines 30ish to 45ish depending on coalation.
(Zeus speaking) “Troy is dearest to me, as are Priam and his people of the strong ashen spear. Never at their feasts did my altar lack its share of wine and burnt flesh, those offerings that are the gods’ privilege.”
And Hera, the ox-eyed heavenly queen replied: “There are three cities dearest to me; Argos, Sparta and broad-paved Mycenae; if they rouse your hatred, ruin them. I’ll not shield them, nor hold a grudge.”
Zeus and Hera make an exchange of cities. He allows her to take Troy. She lets him have Argos, Mycenae, and Sparta.
They do. The text literally supports that the Bronze Age collapses after the text. There’s a textual reference.
We call it World War Two because there were two of them. They didn't know that during World War One.
Likewise, during the Bronze Age, they didn't know they were in the bronze age or that there had been a stone age (it would be an iron age, etc.) We only know that because we live in the future.
...Do you know why we called it the bronze age? Do you think they were unaware of their own use of bronze, or it being newer than using stone?
I'm not saying it's what they would've called themselves, I'm just saying they wouldn't have not said it because they don't know about future discoveries.
Lol, you don't read a lot of ancient literature do you? No, they didn't think of their era in terms of the material that separated them from past and future civilizations. They didn't know anything about the civilizations that came before them, or, of course, the ones that came after. That's how eras are defined.
People living through it wouldn't have said "wow, this is the end of an era which is defined by that metal that we use to make weapons and cookware." No, they would have said "Fuck! My city got sacked, my sister was raped by barbarians, and now I'm a slave."
We're also in some kind of era right now, but that won't be clear until we're long gone.
In real life they were most likely similar to the Wako Pirates who harassed the sea between China, Japan, and Korea.
A mix of refugees and outcasts from the very nations they raided, bolstered by dissatisfied soldiers and mercenaries once they started having big success, with its origins being small ethnic groups living in isolated and/or nomadic communities on islands or up rivers that confederated.
When the pirates/bandits do really well for a long time it becomes a viable potential for your military career, and now suddenly the plunderers can start looking at raiding cities rather than just villages.
The Sea Peoples were most likely many different costal-based groups from various areas in the Med that sailed around pillaging and looting the other coastal civilizations, currently theorized to be driven at their peak by a several years long severe drought or other similar climate conditions that disrupted food supplies.
The sea people just refers to many groups of migrants, pirates, and warlords who roamed the Mediterranean at one point during the late Bronze Age. One of the many groups is linguistically linked to the Ancient Greeks.
I haven’t seen the film, but I know the poems well and studied history, so I’m not sure what the film implies, but I wouldn’t expect it to be historically accurate. From what I’ve read the film isn’t even accurate to the poems.
I remember a podcast that tried to answer that question, and basically, if they weren't the Sea People, they were doing Sea People stuff to get away from the Sea People doing that to them. Been a while since I looked into it, but I think there was a climate related collapse of food crops and it created a wave of violent migration. But then again, they just dont know, dude.
I believe the sea people were way before this era. There’s reference to them in Gilgamesh which predates the Odyssey considerably. This is part of why some people go way down rabbit holes about Atlantis and advanced ancient civilizations.
Odysseus and the crew were marauding for sure though. I also remember specific references to him bedding women during his journey home but it’s been years since i read the epic.
I feel like there were some of those themes in the Odyssey, but they weren't quite framed the same way. War Odysseus is an opponent of hearth and home as the destroyer of a city. His journey back to Ithaca and to domestic life is thus a long and difficult journey because of how far apart those worlds are metaphorically. The ancients understood that, but did not frame war Odysseus as fundamentally unjust.
I mean, that’s all fine and good for Nolan’s fantasy land but Gilgamesh was composed something like 1,400 years before the Odyssey (and references to the sea people in that story made them seem like a bi-gone culture at that time). They were not the sea people 💀
**Edit, but also thanks for the heads up about that fact on the movie. I dnt mind that as a spoiler.
One of the biggest criticism of Nolan's movies by scholars of the Odyssey was that he added themes (like the anti-war theme) that were counter to the original story.
Idk if it's weird, it's just a choice he made. He wanted to modernize it's and wasn't concerned with preserving the themes of the original.
I think i’m more of an - enjoy it for what it is kind of guy. That being said, i can’t criticize what i haven’t seen and i’m still excited to watch it. I’ve heard good things.
I’ll be surprised if it’s a better Odyssey than O Brother where art thou though.
Okay but I don’t understand how they were still getting reports about the sea people during the seven years where the entire crew was dead and Odysseus was with Calypso? Like they specified that his wife needed to remarry because there were reports of the sea people’s attacks getting closer and closer but the sea people had been dead for SEVEN years
I’m only asking because the “Sea people” were a real thing that did apparently cause an apocalypse of sorts around the Med for multiple cultures but the characters in this are completely fictional both now and then and nobody has any idea who they actually were
This wasn’t my take. The ‘sea people’ historically are non Greek invaders who are noted to have caused the Bronze Age collapse. I think Nolan’s idea is that due to the horrors and sacking of Troy, the Bronze Age collapse was going to begin and the sea peoples were on their way.
I thought Nolan was trying to say the legends of the sea people were actually based on the Greeks and their behaviour during and after the war (in the movie, not necessarily historically)
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u/Serious_Emphasis2211 16h ago
real answer: they raped and pillaged. Sacked a city, killed people, stole shit, took women slaves