Greece is Europe's Alabama!? | Overly Sarcastic Productions 

Ancient Greek wine was always diluted with water, usually a 1:3 ratio (one part wine, three parts water). They believed that only barbarians would drink wine undiluted. The reasons seem to be up for debate. Some sources say that the ancient Greek wine was very strong and dilutiuon was a way of enjoying the drink without getting too drunk or making themselves sick. Some say that they used saltwater because the salt improved the flavor of the wine. And some say that it wasn't really about the wine so much as it was about the water. In a time when they didn't have filtration and refrigeration adding alcohol would keep the drinking water fresh and clean. King Eurystheus is the king who gave Heracles the labors. King Augeus was the one Heracles deposed. She did draw them looking very similar.

You got a bit confused halfway through, the King that Heracles kicked out was a different King than the one giving him the labours. Also, the trojan war was ancient greek mythology first and then was later also adopted into roman mythology (a.k.a.: pretty much what the romans did to almost all greek mythology.)

It was common to water down wine up through the Renaissance. Remember, people drank wine and beer all the time then because water wasn’t safe to drink. Wine was mixed with water to make water safe to drink. Getting drunk was viewed as a rare thing, usually part of the mysteries of Dionysus.

12:14 as a fellow kid of zeus who was screwed over by Hera since her conception, complete with delayed birth and all alongside their twin, I’m pretty sure Artemis could sympathise with Herc here. Also you are mixing up Hippolyta with her sister Penthesilea who showed up at troy

When you asked why Eurystheus, Heracles' taskmaster was still on the throne, I think you got him confused with Augeas, the king whose stables H had to clean. Eurystheus is the king of Tiryns and H's cousin, while Augeas is the king of Elis (potentially a former Argonaut) and the nasty-stables owner. Augeas got thrown out of his kingdom by Heracles and replaced by his son Phyleus.

One thing with Greek mythology is that most of the heroes we know from it are the generation or two before those who fought in Troy. Which makes the timeline very screwy, especially when you remember that Theseus kidnapped a 12 year old Helene to try and marry her, plus the fact Medea was married to the king of Athens prior to Theseus, despite him being either on the Argo or trapped in Underworld. Oh, and his son was one of the people in the Trojan Horse. It's easier to just not try and make sense of the mythological family tree, or the timeline of things.

23:43 Nidhogg wasn't guarding apples. He is gnawing at the roots of the world tree. There are special golden apples that grant immortality, though. 31:15 Basically, the Romans really liked Greek stuff, so when they were adapting Greek stories, they also adapted the stories of Heracles, and latinized his name to Hercules.

The Amazon Queen who fought in Trojan War was Penthesilea, Hippolyta's sister. Hippolyta is indeed said to marry Theseus in some tellings, but because it conflicts with the whole "dying to Heracles" bit, people often go with the versions where Theseus marries one of their other sisters, Antiope or Melanippe. Considering that Theseus's son with the amazon is named Hippolytus, I prefer that amazon to be Antiope or Melanippe, naming her child in honor of her fallen sister, rather than just Hippolyta, having her child named after herself. Oh, and if you are curious, Fate also seems so far to lean towards Antiope or Melanippe being Theseus's wife, because in Agartha chapter of FGO, Penthesilea states "Heracles. You stole my older sister Hippolyta's girdle, threw our nation into chaos, and killed her. I shall kill you one day as well. Then there is Theseus, who abducted my younger sister and made her his wife. You cowards... I swear, I shall kill you all one day!" clearly separating Hippolyta from Theseus's wife.

5:44 Fun fact about that: this is how the term Galaxy came to be, because it was said that the milk that spilt from Hera when Heracles bit her was what formed the galaxy, thus it was named after milk AKA gala in greek.

The thing with the snakes was Hera sending a couple snakes into Heracles's crib as an infant figuring they'd bite him and he'd die of the venom. His mother and stepfather would hear a commotion and find the baby was choking the life out of the serpents.

Fun fact : In fate stay night abridged , Gil calls him Heracles while illia calls Hercules

Yes, Geryon's whole thing was that he could fight 24/7 by having his heads sleep in shifts, but Heracles did too much damage for that to matter.

One of Heracles' sons(or maybe one of his grandsons, I'm not sure as I have read different versions of the Iliad) fought in the Trojan War and was killed in one of the battles outside of the city's walls. He challenged one of the Trojan heroes, made the boastful claim that no man could slay him as he was the grandson of Zeus(or possibly great-grandson) and was slain by the hero he challenged because that hero was a son of Zeus. Red glossed the events about why Heracles had to self-immolate. Years before the centaur tried to pull a wife snatch, Heracles had a man who he was best buds with. When his best bud died suddenly, the man's wife was inconsolable. Heracles went, "I have a great idea!" and hid near the body, waiting for Orcus, the god of death, to come and take his soul down to Tartarus. Heracles then sprung out and wrestled Orcus to the ground until he agreed to restore the man's soul. When Heracles brought his best bud's wife into the room, she freaked out seeing a ghost and died from fright. When Heracles was poisoned and lingered on death's door because Orcus wouldn't come take his soul because he was terrified of Heracles. Also the whole story about baby Heracles boob nomming Hera's breast was glossed over by Red. When Hera pulled the baby Heracles away from her breast, she wound up squirting some of her breast milk across the sky which became the glowing streak we know as the Milky Way.

Eros and Psyche's myth will confirm that Aphrodite is no stranger to taking revenge in the most convaluted way possible, Red even questions in the video "You are a god, why not just kill her?!"

If I recall correctly the Archer version of Heracles is the version most of the myths revolve around. Something that even goes back to the original visual novel where Rin was confused that Heracles wasn’t using a bow for his Noble Phantasm, since it’s Heracles’s most famous weapon.

13:26 For centaurs, what you first read wouldn't be wrong because basically all of the centaurs except for Chiron were party animals who loved booze and sex

Heracles/Hercules wrath is much more important to his characterization outside of the labors. He’s heavily involved in the creation myths of a lot of villages/towns/cities across Greece and Rome, where he’ll basically show up, kill all the nearby monsters, bandits, barbarians, dangerous animals, etc. so the town can be built, and then accidentally murder someone in a fit of rage and get exiled. It’s a structure that allows the places to acknowledge the destructive impulse involved in their creation and say “we’ve gotten rid of that now, so it’s fine”, while also giving them a heroic lineage.

You really, REALLY need to watch Red's video on Hades and Persephone. (And Dionysus, Aphrodite, Loki, etc.) You're always going on about how you wish Red would go into more details about the history of the myths themselves and how they evolve, and she DOES in those videos. I know the comments have told you this at least a dozen times by now, so I assume you've just decided you're not going to go out of order? For what its worth, I think you would be fine skipping ahead and then coming back to the full playlist... those videos are much longer and quite differently structured than her other Misc Myths videos, and it's not like there's spoilers or anything.

again Atalanta's cat ears are from her and her husband getting turned into lions, i agree it's stupid but there is still a reason

17:48 The king Heracles deposed was the one who owned the stables, not the one who decided the trials.

To make it clear, the king that Heracles kicked off his throne was a different king entirely. In fact, the king whose stables he had cleared and then refused to give Heracles the cows he had promised.

23:46 you would be surprised about how much convergent ideas happen without cross-pollination. Like how the concept of dragons exist in many different mythologies, from Central America to China to Europe, without interactions. Red also did a whole Trope Talk about dragons, in fact

Heracles was part of the generation before the Trojan War. Among his many adventures is serving as a member of the Argonauts, among which includes Pelius, who would father Achilles after said adventures.

The Cretan bull/Minotaur thing is way more Eww than you realize. The story is that Minos refused to sacrifice the bull to the gods and tried to trick them after promising to. Poseidon then took revenge by cursing Minos's wife to go crazy and fall in love with the bull un/fortunately the bull had no interest in railing her because it was... you know... a bull. She then got Daedalus (yes that Daedalus) to construct for her the world's first fursuit in order to trick the bull into giving her what she wanted, resulting in the half human half bull monster, and yes half human half bull because Minos's wife got exactly what she wanted. Edit, also the reason that greek, norse, slavic, indic, and a number of other cultures mythologies look so similar is that they all belong to the indo european culture group and root from the proto indo european myth structure. We think that the norse were the closest of these groups to the original myth structure but that's mostly conjecture based on the fact that it holds the most common elements with all the other branches especially with those that appear to be older and the most common accross multiple other branches.

No no, Greece was Alabama before it was Alabama

7:03 So Kratos killing his family was a Hercules reference.

I should also point out that the magic boob milk that gave Heracles powers also created the Milky Way galaxy in that teething situation.

19:19 Red is shockingly good at drawing genuinely scary imagery.

The common seed for most of these myths was likely the Indo-European people, A group of people that started in the Pontic Steppe who's migrations brought their myths to those lands. The channel Kings and Generals has a good video on this

The snakes actually inspired the scene in Hercules where Pain and Panic turned into snakes

Wine in ancient times was supposed to be diluted, often times in a 1 part wine to 9 parts water. They used wine as a way to make water safe since water from well was not always the safest and it was expensive to bring water from rigers outside the city.

23:49 both are Indo-European in origin along with Celtic, Hindu, Zoroastrianism and many more. All of whom share many similarities, including dragons/great snakes.

Thanks for this. Thinking of that _"History of Hercules"_ song I once suggested, it ends with saying they have to talk about some of his lovers, then lists about 20 guys *"and his own nephew".* Seriously though, the legend has hundreds of women constantly begging him to impregnate them and a lot of men hoping to have fun.

It’s a different Amazon Queen who participates in the Trojan war. It’s covered in the myth video on The Trojan War.

You confused Hyppolita with Penthesilea. The former (who is in Strange Fake) banged and died to Heracles, the latter is in FGO and died in Troy to Achilles

To my knowledge, Red hasn't animated that epic God fight, one can hope she does someday though. If you'd at least like to see more Hades content, I'd recommend the episode (A Valentine's special, think there was at least one more but that might have actually been a Pride Month thing, it's been a bit) where Red covers the story of how he kidnapped Persephone.

The existential dog mad me laugh so hard I got light headed and nearly passed out.

Sweet home Greece.

the amount of times he's paused to ask a qeustion, only for it to be immediately answered as soon as he hit play again...

"Really? They intentionally water it down?" It isn't explained here, but in the Dionysus video... basically ancient greek wine is potent, like drink enough and you might start hallucinating things. Hence why the need to water it down....

In the myth i remember reading about Heracles's death. A single thread gets caught in the door of the the house he has with his third wife. This one single thread causes the whole house to burn down. And the wife actually tries to stop Heracles from putting on thr shirt but doesnt grt there in time (i believe anyway. Been awhile) he throws himself into a river to try to wash the posion off but it just makes the water boil around him. So ue asks his friend to build him a funeral pyre which hes then burned on.

“Love handles of steel” made me go all George Takei with a big old Ooooh, myyyyy. :D

The funny thing about you talking about the tomb of Aeolus and it being someone's real tomb who's history kinda got associated and then overwritten or inflated by myth... there was a movie starring Dwayne Johnson as Heracles, but he wasn't some demi-god. Just good at acting, improvising and intimidating, with a group of tricky people with him who helped inflate his legend. Like killing the Hydra, was actually him killing this Swamp tribe of brothers who wore lizard helms: every time people thought they'd been killed, more would show up, like the multiplying heads of a beast, because they never let anyone know how MANY there were of them. But Herc killed them all and brought the lizard-helmeted heads back. And being able to kill a guy with one punch was easy for Herc... when he snuck an arrowhead between his knuckles and used his punch to jam it so deep into his opponent's forehead that it disappeared. Lol

32:01 if you want the myths behind the Hercules opening song explaining the war between the Olympians and Titans, try the Theogony video

Airier: "Greek history was Alabama of Europe." Habsburg Dynasty: "We are forgotten."

Great re-telling (as usual), though Cerberus should probably be spotted. Gotta love the God of the Underworld who names his dawg "Spot"!

So to make things even more uncomfortable. Both of Heracles’s parents are directly related, Zeus being a great whatever grandfather to his mom due to her relation to Perseus.

The apples from Norse mythology are called the Apples of Idun and they keep the gods young

The Gigantomachy sadly does not have a whole video on it yet but her video on Typhon is a fun one if you want to see Zeus almost get overthrown from the Olympian throne.

The marriage of Hippolita and Theasus is the royal wedding in a Midsummer Night's Dream.

Heracles not only predated Troyan war but also in my opinion planted the seed for the war itself. As during his famous labours he sacked Troy due to it king not paying him for monster slaying. Not only did Heracles kill the king of Troy at the time but also killed all of his heirs all expect for one called Podarces who went onto become King Priam of Troy. After this he took Priam's older sister whom he gave to one of his war buddies. When Paris arrived at Sparta it was under Priam's orders to negotiate the return of his sister.

19:27 i'm reminded of the friendship is tragic with those horses (look it up at your own risk)

3:19 it's the hair being pushed up and back by the crown/head/sweatband

Herakles wanted to protect illya so much to prove he can be a good father because he only knew her gaslighted side of her fathers situation (Emiya did not want her but wanted Shirou). Mind you that story that her grandfather and the corrupted grail spun was for 2/3's of her life. Herakles wanted to be a better role model than the lies even if she was an adult.

It was Penthesilea who fought in the Trojan War, not Hippolyta. The Trojan War takes place several years after the legends of Heracles, as well as the argonauts

Yeah, the wine was a potency thing. One part wine for every hundred parts water

Sterling Archer made the joke that germany was the alabama of europe. But honestly greece has a far better claim to the unwanted title.

King Augeus (owner of the disgusting stables) is the one Heracles replaces with his son. Heracles’ cousin is the one setting the trials.

8:49 Well Aphrodite *is* a direct descendant of Uranus. So... The gods are ineffective at getting revenge, while the one Titan in their pantheon isn't.

In making wine the fermentation is allowed to grow then they put something into it to stop the fermentation. In the early days of making wine they didnt understand how to stop the fermentation so it got very strong. They therefor had to water it down particularly if they were having a civilized dinner etc.

23:30 ish. So, fun fact: Indo-European proto-religion is a thing! Norse, Greek, and Hindu/Vedic religion can trace their lineage here.

Troy and Jazons journey include characters from other myths, and they both make a mess out of the timeline.

You are mistaking Hippolyta for Penthesilea. Two "very" simmilar sounding names.😂

22:07 Geryon is also the grandson of Medusa and Poseidon

The wine of Ancient Greece was a lot stronger than modern wine, to the point where it was called “fortified wine.” It had to be diluted with water so that it was safe to serve at a dinner.

28:11 Again that's mostly Roman influence rather than being how the ancient Greek themselves believed it to be.

5:50 At least Red left out that this is the origin of the Milky Way. It's...disturbing. 15:30 Herakles was in line for the throne, and his children could have contested a succession. Best to nip that in the bud.

The guy he is getting the trials from is his cousin the King. The King he kicked the ass of and took cows from is a different guy.

The Greeks can't handle how strong alcohol is so they dilute it so they can drink without the harsh after effects

9:43 airier in some myths zues has a child with Persephone (his *daughter* ) as a snake!. ancients greece was weird. 17:48 he kicked out a different king (the one he cleaned the stables for) his cousin is still in charge.

9:45 Only Plutarch (a roman era writter says so and is the only one who actually says anything about Heracles having male lovers.

I'm amazed how much Hercules legendary journeys got right

17:47 he kicked out a different king from a different Greek city, not his cousin who is giving him the challenges.

You know the Ring Wraiths from Lord of The Rings, specifically the sound they make? I heard that with the "REEEEEEEEE" of the Mares of Diomedes.

12:16 They are half-siblings, so that probably makes things a bit easier.

A giant with three bodies, is a bit of a vague descriptor, then again some people say legion is still just one demon, despite the name being apt.

Hey Ariesr, have you ever played Skyrim or any Elder Scrolls series. Do you know Saintess Alessia and Morihaus the Winged Bull and their connection to the minotaurs? Yeah, the bull thing is requiring things.

Helen of Troy is probably who you're thinking about.

Norse Myth does have Golden Apples belonging to a goddess. Iounn, goddess of aplles and youth. So yes, there are some myths with similar traits even in other culture.

So the Greeks and Romans dilute the wine (or add a little wine to water, 1/5th), to "purify" the water and to avoid getting drunk from drinking all day; they thought of those who drunk neat wine, or heaven forbid beer, as savages. They also made a lot of spiced punches and flavoured vinegar drinks.

A lot of wines are in the 12%-18% alcohol range. If not water, what did you think the rest of the percentage was?

It seems like a theme it ancient Greece, if it's just Zeus that a woman sleeps with she has a baby but if she has a husband she also boinks she gets Zeus's demigod baby and her husband regular mortal baby as twins. Like Castor and Pollux.

Another fun fact about Heracles and his family tree... you know Perseus, the dude Heracles descends from? He's also one of Zeus' sons. So... basically, Zeus was banging his great granddaughter and that resulted in Herc. Might've been one point that made Hera just especially pissed off at this, Zeus did it twice in the same bloodline... more reasonable explanation might be though that, since she's the goddess of marriage, she really didn't appreciate Zeus disguising as her husband to bone her. Also, yeah, Herc 1st Interlude in FGO I think quite explicitly calls out that Herc has a soft spot for kids and protects them with all he can probably as a way to atone for killing his own children... which is also quite ironic since he's summoned in a state inspired by that period, so you'd probably more so expect Berserker Herc to lose his mind even more when he's around kids and just attack them, but nope, exact opposite, because Herc's just built different. About the boars... I guess there's a reason cultures from the celts to the greek had demonic boars... Diarmuidh can sing a song about that... The one who died at Troy was Penthesilea, Hippolytas sister. They're both summoned in Strange Fake... they seem to be going with the interpretation that Hippolyta really didn't appreciate getting killed, even if it was just by accident and through Heras ploy. Norse myth had golden apples, pretty sure they were the source of the gods immortality in that one, and the one responsible for them was a goddess called Idunn, whose Shin Megami Tensei-incarnation btw looks like Red Ridinghood. The reason there's overlap like that most likely lies in Indo-European myth btw, the culture that most cultures around Europe and India evolved from or were inspired by. Reason you see so many heroes slaying dragons to save maidens and stuff... even spred to Japan, looking at the myth of Yamato-no-Orochi... Reason Heracles didn't feel Persephones wrath is probably because it's the season she's not in Hades/the underworld, that's my headcanon at least. For the timeline on Greek myth, refer back to the Atalante video or specifically the Argo. Atalante wrestled Achilles' dad and won, so the Argo was a generation or two before the Trojan war. If you remember Okeanos from FGO, the Argo also appears there and Heracles is part of the crew, because in myth he also was either a temporary member of the crew or just barely missed them, Fate going with the interpretation that he was a crew-member and actually Jasons only real friend, there even was a nice story in one of the mangas I think that, iirc, explains this by saying how Heracles was still somewhat ostracized by people for killing his family, but Jason just approached him like a regular human being and even invited him onto his ship. One of the few redeemable qualities of Fates Jason... well, before LB5 at least, after that he became a fan favorite. Anyways, it's neat because now in FGO, Herc doesn't just have to be Illyas silent protector anymore, but also as someone brought along by Jason as his most trusted crew member. I... don't remember Red making a video on the Gigantomachia? Best thing I can think of alternatively is Typhon.

I believe you are thinking of the Idun Apples in norse myth

Funny how you missed this one 3:47 his grandfather (Perseus) is also his half brother (same father). Mull that one over. ;)

Cat ears are lion ears airier. If you know Atalanta, you know what happen.

I'd like to clear up your confusion about Hercules being a Roman story about a hero from before Troy. Much like much of the Greek mythos, the Romans heard about the story of Heracles from the Greeks and loved it enough to steal it. They didn’t actually change any of the details beyond the names.

no HEracles's cousin and Philas's dad are two seperate people. and No Penthesilea is the amazon you were thinking of I remember cause Achilles

Have you seen the anime blood of Zeus? It is a Greek themed mythology anime where hera IS THE VILLAIN

17:00 no you are thinking if Iceland

Ah, the war with the giants would be called the titanomachy. Also, the tomb was for herc’s nephew boyfriend.

So you were getting confused by it was King Augeas he kicked out for not playing him, not our quest giver here

Youre wrong the way Hera was drawn makes her look like the secret final member of Twisted Sister.

Wasn't the creatian bull zeus in the forum of a bull because zeus was the father of the minotaur

I love your reactions to OSP. I've watched pretty much all of them and recommend you cover Red's Iliad and Odyssey. I have one issue. You really need to listen a little closer because you end up misinterpreting really obvious things.

Alrighty so, history time! I think you're getting a bit confused by the timeline here. Firstly, about Rome and Troy. The Romans *claimed* they were descendants of Trojans, but this theme only appears in much later documents after significant Greek contact and influence. Going further, archaeological remains of both ancient Rome and ancient Troy show that such a relationship is pretty impossible. Now, the various hills around Rome show settlements going back as far as 1600 BC, but they don't show any sign of uniting into a single entity we could call 'Rome' until much later. The classical Roman myths claim the city was founded sometime around 750 BC, but the archaeological remains from this time show four major, but separate, settlements on the Palatine hill, the Capitoline hill, the Quirinal and Viminal hills, and the Caelian, Oppian, and Velian hills. However these four settlements do show signs of being somewhat united by a shared religious cult and burial site, and there's some evidence of an ancient wall around 730 to 720 BC showing a further level of unity. The general consensus among scholars is that each of these hills was likely the territory of a particular clan in ancient times, a style of life and government that likely lasted nearly a millennium, and that they gradually combined together into a single polity by the late eighth century BC (so by 700 BC), most likely under the influence of the spread of Greek city-states in their various colonies across the Mediterranean, especially southern Italy, from 850-750 BC. This would've still been a gradual process though, but at latest we can confidently say that Rome was a single unified city-state by 600 BC. Now this entire timeline conflicts pretty badly with the date of the historical Trojan War/sacking of Troy (assuming that it did indeed happen). The most likely candidate for the Troy of the Iliad would be Troy VIIa, one of the archaeological layers of Wilusa. This layer of the city shows it was destroyed by 1180 BC at latest, which ironically lines up quite well with what many Greek authors claim (their dates are scattered across the 1200s and 1100s BC, with one going as far back as 1334). Now, the earliest settlements in the hills that became Rome date back some 400-odd years earlier than this, while their unification into a single polity comes some 450-odd years after. There's also no archaeological or linguistic connections between Rome and Troy. The Romans famously spoke an Italic language (i.e. Latin and its relatives) whereas Troy would've spoken (most likely) some variety of Greek, or (less likely) some Anatolian language related to Hittite. So in general, the Roman accounts of their own founding and most of the events associated with the "kingdom of Rome" prior to the Roman Republic are presumed to be, for the most part, complete inventions created by Roman authors several centuries after the times involved, with only broad themes surviving as any kind of remote fact. IIRC, this mainly involves the domination of the Roman city under Etruscan kings whom they ultimately rebelled against, most likely establishing independence with a system of two joint kings to avoid the same kind of tyranny, eventually opening up these seats of rule to the city aristocracy, eventually evolving into the two consuls the Republic was famous for as well as the other early republican mechanics. Now, Heracles was often worshiped as a god in his own right in various parts of Greece, but like all gods, his popularity varied depending on the specific city involved. IIRC, the various 'Doric' regions of Greece (typically the western parts) especially venerated him, and it was also spread by them into much of Magna Graecia, the Greek colonies of Sicily and southern Italy. However, while it'd be convenient to say that worship of Heracles/Hercules came to Rome from these colonies, the etymology of the name "Hercules" shows that the deity actually passed through Etruscan before reaching the Romans, with Etruscan inscriptions often showing "Heracle", "Hercle", "Herceler", etc. So its likely that the Etruscans got their own version of the deity from these Doric Greeks, who inhabited much of the western Greek coastline and possibly had more direct contact with the Etruscans, and then in turn the Romans (and possibly other Italic tribes) got "Hercules" from the Etruscans. This is further supported by some Latin phrases using the "Hercle" or "Herucle" form of the name. As a Roman deity, Hercules would get his own unique myths separate from the Greek Heracles, and have his own fascinating history of worship throughout the days of the Roman Empire.

the timeline of greek mythology can be really wacky unfortunately

I mean I'm not defending anything, but until a relatively short while ago, _everywhere_ was as you say _Alabama._ If you're looking at the past, it's probably sensible to bear in mind that for the majority of human history, 3rd+ degrees of those relations was just considered practical common sense, if not necessarily optimal. Though being outside a marriage contract certainly shifts the dimension a bit.

Is it me or did Garfield just make the loss meme not cringe

you should do TheMythologyGuy's everything inaccurate with Disney's Hercules