But – again, according to Herodotus (and note how this fits his own agenda in writing) – the wealth of Persian court life leads...
But – again, according to Herodotus (and note how this fits his own agenda in writing) – the wealth of Persian court life leads to polygamy (Hdt. 3.2; 1.135), the presence and prominence of ‘too many’ women (Hdt. 7.187; note also Atossa, Hdt. 3.133ff), the embrace of foreign luxuries (Hdt 1.135), and consequent defeat at the hands of the Greeks, which Herodotus has no less a figure than Xerxes himself express in gendered form: “my men have become women and my women, men” (Hdt. 8.88). Indeed, the trope of effeminate Persian men, sometimes contrasted with ‘manly’ elite or royal Persian women, is a fairly common topos of subsequent Greek literature, contrasted with supposedly manly Greek men (I can’t help but note that humor that the Romans will employ this very trope against the Greeks – cf. for instance Cic. de Oratore 1.102, “the trifling inquiry of some little Greek [graeculus], pleasured, chattering and only maybe knowledgeable and learned”).
love the way that “a man spending too much time in the company of women is gay” is a trope that dates back to Herodotus.
As an aside, the geographic component also tracks with Herodotus: the assumption that wealth, indolence and moral decay come from the East. Sallust maintains (10.6) that for a time the spread of vice was contained, but the true breakout is when Sulla allows his army to indulge in the luxury and license of the East “against the customs of our ancestors” (11.5). He is clear that is directly a product of the soft lands of the East, a function of place (the loca amoena, the ‘charming land’ of the East, full of luxury and indolence), and, “there it was first that the army of the Roman people indulged in love [amare, by which he means something closer to ‘chasing women’] and drink; to admire statues, paintings, and engraved vases” (11.6). Consequently, the virtue of the Roman people was ruined (12-13), which is in turn offered as an explanation for the moral failings of Catiline and his compatriots (14).
Note how closely Sallust’s model mirrors Caesar’s – the Belgae and Suebi are powerful, strong and upright because they are far removed from the sorts of vices (luxury, drink, and the East) that Sallust claims corrupted the Romans.
ultimately the one thing that holds Western Civilisation together is unabashed Orientalism expressed as the gayest brand of homophobia you can imagine.
It is interesting to remember that, as @kontextmaschine has noted, prior to 2001 the typical SF/Fantasy treatment of Islamic-trope societies was “decadent, sexually permissive, overtly queer-positive”…
I never said that, I think you’re crossing multiple memories of me there. I was talking about the midcentury general sense – the sultan’s harem, belly dancers in sheer silks, the whole I Dream of Jeannie thing, Lawrence of Arabia’s gay (rape) subtext, etc.