ah, Achilles, you must be careful against the wrath of the sons of Priam
NEVER
THEY WHO HAVE SLAIN PATROCLUS WILL DIE AT THE HANDS OF A NAKED MAN
NAKED IS MY SWORD, MY GRIEF, AND MY BODY
at least wear a helmet
VERY WELL
BUT NOTHING ELSE
but if they shoot at anyplace on your body besides your head –
THEN THEY SHALL BE SHOOTING AT A NAKED AVENGING SPIRIT
a CAPE, Agamemnon?
yes, why not wear a FULL BODY SACK into battle?
are you ashamed of your iliac furrow, that you would drape your torso near-entire in some sort of shameful gown?
what kind of man wears clothes to war
war is for full nudity and a fancy hat
maybe sandals
everyone knows that
EVERYONE knows that
how will the enemy see your nipples
leave the breastplate and the shield on the floor
where they belong
in my day all a man needed was a mustache and a carefully arranged penis sash to meet his enemies on the fields of battle
I’d rather die fighting than live in a world where a man has to cover his torso just to protect it from spears
at last, my love
I have shed the tunic and the armor of a boy
and donned the light sandals and the dick-ribbon of manhood
DRIVE ME INTO THE SEA IF YOU MUST
I’D RATHER DROWN THAN COVER THIS GLORIOUS NAVEL
armor?
would you put armor on Mount Olympus?
or a
or a sunset?
or a beautiful, beautiful man?
COME, LADS
TO WAR
BE SURE NOT TO AIM YOUR SPEARS AT THEIR HELMETS
THAT’S WHERE THEIR HELMETS ARE
SHOES, Ajax?
and deny the other Greeks the sight of these shapely ankles?
what is even the point of warfare if you cannot compare your feet against those of the men of Troy?
Father, please
get your…get yourself and those clothes back in the house before someone sees you like this
for God’s sake
I cannot even see your buttocks
“take a breastplate with you, Gaius,” she said
“at least cover your genitals and major arteries,” she said
“if you even just wore a cloak you’d have something to store food and arrows in,” she said
every man in the cohort may be dropping dead by my side
but GET THIS ARSE
VICTORY AT LAST, LADS
NO NEED FOR FORMALITIES
TAKE THOSE RIDICULOUS SHOES OFF, LET ME SEE YOUR TOE-STRAPS
Tags: artwork, classical nudity, full nudity and a hat, helmets only, men wearing just one thing
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Dick Ribbon of Manhood new band name CALL IT.
I now have a new reply for bantering. I will give full credit to this article whenever I use “Dick Ribbon of Manhood” in a statement at a dinner party, or in an argument with new friends.
I’d get that arse.
Gaius’ horse, or perhaps simply ‘the horse in the background’, got the full frontal and felt…something odd.
That baby on the ground is also getting an eyeful but doesn’t seem mad about it.
The old woman next to the baby looks like she’s ripping off her dress in a lustful frenzy.
Somewhere I saw a blow by blow post going over everyone’s reactions in that painting but I can’t find it now
and it’s driving me NUTS. It was on a tumblr I think? I don’t know, I don’t tumbl. But it was so funny and damnit. Just damnit.
Old lady in green to the left wants him to kill her via spear through chest after seeing it. Or what IS IT that she is trying to convey?
Oh fudge winterbymorning, you beat me to it!
Lustful frenzy ooorrrr “Kill me Now, please” b/c of full frontal, though?
From the arse side, lustful frenzy of course. Is the front equally impressive? We’ll never know.
Old lady in green has very perky breasts for her implied age. I’m impressed.
If you like that painting you may enjoy this optical illusion: https://www.facebook.com/1384565925122320/photos/…
Mal, your take on art is the best. I wasted 2 semesters in art history 101/102 at Vassar and never knew these things.
LOOK IT’S VERY SIMPLE
WE WEAR THE HELMETS SO PEOPLE KNOW IT’S WAR
OTHERWISE IT WOULD BE JUST
JUST A BUNCH OF NUDE GUYS RUNNING AROUND
POKING EACH OTHER WITH STICKS
THIS IS NOT THAT
THIS IS SERIOUS
Naked dudes poking each other *is* serious!
But it’s not war. (You can also tell because the dick-ribbons are not salmon. But the millinery is important, too.)
Well, Achilles has a point. He doesn’t even need a helmet. A reinforced sock, maybe. Possibly 2, to confuse archers.
Or maybe three.
I am torn between ALL OF THE UPFISTS and reporting this on account of you beat me to the joke.
You know, people tend to categorize erotic fan-art as just gross garbage made by thirsty teenage girls but really it’s just part of a grand artistic tradition.
Fanart, fanfic, shipping, etc are all SERIOUS academic/artistic PURSUITS until girls/women do them, then they suddenly become shallow and laughable.
I can just picture all these old dudes in Ye Olden Times being like “It is very important to my artistic vision that these historical/mythological figures be extremely buff and also mostly nude. It’s very deep, you probably wouldn’t understand, don’t worry about it, just send in the life models.”
*cut to Madeline Kahn-esque audition scene*
Now I hear all those comments in Ms. Kahn’s voice. Thank you.
Speaking of Achilles, there was an honest-to-god Academic Debate for centuries over whether he topped or Patroclus did. For very serious thematic reasons, of course.
Sources, please! My day could use a lot more old Greek beardos chinstroking over hot young flesh.
Most of my sources on this are just the “yep, they queer” type, but here’s the general thrust of the debate: the Greeks were living in a culture of pederasty, so many thoughtAchilles and Patroclus were in a pederastic relationship, with one erastesand one eromenos. The eromenos was younger and took the more “feminine” role in the relationship. Literarily speaking, whoever bottomed was analogous to a wife or youth. If Achilles is the erastes, Patroclus is likened to Briseis or Andromache and shares a similar role in persuading and comforting. If Patroclus is the erastes, then the loss of a mature partner is what changes Achilles from whiny wonderboy on strike to a full-fledged man, ready to fight and avenge and finally forgive.
My take is that Achilles is a whiny pissbaby but also a terrifying warrior, and while Patroclus takes on a caregiving/persuading role, he’s competent with a spear as well. I don’t go in for that Madeleine Miller “I love Achilles and heal people and am terrified of combat” bullshit.
Academia, ye have fallen so low in recent times.
I bet the guy who invented armor got called a sissy.
Hahaha, excellent ABOFL reference in the second-last caption Mallory. “Friedrich, that has got to be the cutest little bum ever!”
#4 and #6 are wearing phrygian caps, not military helmets. Those lads are probably not going to war because of their inappropriate attire.
I assume the goddesses are all for this trend, as divine intervention is the only explanation for how the cloth manages to oh so perfectly conceal their dicks and ONLY their dicks.
Double sided dick-ribbon tape?
Duck tape, dick tape, WHATEVS…
Athena, the goddess of weaving, possesses the cloth when it is necessary. She carefully, lovingly protects the dick.
Just because you’re a virgin goddess doesn’t mean you can’t cradle the genitals of the finest men the Mediterranean has produced.
Either that, or it was the equivalent of sighing and deleting a dick pic
“so female nudes are erotic, but male nudes are heroic” — said by my classical mythology prof, followed by a lecture room full of Smith women collectively snickering at the ~heroic naked dudes in his powerpoint.
Hey there Smithie! (Duckett ’01)
I hope this isn’t creepy but, hey there SweetMachine! Glad you’re still hanging around the feminist interwebz.
Not creepy at all!
Maybe both were supposed to be in some sense erotic, but your classical mythology professor just can’t fathom the idea that anything but a straight male perspective exists, or that some art may have been created with gazes other than the straight male gaze in mind.
Your professor needs to read Plato’s book Charmides.
Oh I see it is time for my Morning Thirst.
… (quietly files away the piece he wrote on spec for The Toast about the very unusual circumstances that caused him to be expelled from his college’s ROTC program).
Kaiser Wilhelm posed for number 3, yes?
Oh, it’s called an iliac furrow eh? I’ve always known them as cum gutters.
I’d always heard them called pelvic pointer lines. Which is somewhat less dirty, but also somewhat less amusing.
The Adonis Belt is my personal favorite term.
from wikipedia: “The iliac furrow, also known as a Aphrodite’s Saddle, Hercules’ Girdles, athlete’s girdle, Apollo’s Belt or an Adonis belt”
I used to call them hip dips, but I like ‘Aphrodite’s Saddle’ .
My sister and I always called them Jesus dips. Shows where our minds were during mass. But, I mean, when you’ve got a larger than life statue of a mostly naked man hanging there with all his musculature very prominently displayed…
On a related note, a woman I went through Air Force basic training with had the most defined set of those I have ever witnessed on a living person. They were incredible. I just spent eight weeks living in awe of this flawless being of pure muscle every time that we showered. (So… usually two awe sessions a day or so.)
Oh I know what you mean about Mass, I’ve often wondered whether some of my *ahem* more unusual predilections are due to the fact that all images I saw of naked men as a child were in various tortured states.
the way the drapery in #5 has come to life and is literally clutching that dick, as if to say: “ok, ONE OF US has to care about covering up your bits, but since you have too much ‘bro-fisting the sky’ to do, I guess I’ll have break character & physics to do it.”
#8 is also particularly good in the drapery department. That’s clearly not even a piece of cloth, that dude has just painted his dick burgundy.
war is for full nudity and a fancy hat
maybe sandals
everyone knows that
*is slain deader than Achilles*
Hercules sees your puny helmets and laughs at your cowardice.
REAL men fight lions naked.
This depiction of Hercules was modeled after the sculptor’s close friend, Claude Balls.
My rottweiler is useless at commands like “Kill” and “take down” so I’m instead training her on “Nut Punch”. She’s got the action down, just needs to learn the command.
Or maybe I should use a different language, like the real trainers do? What’s Danish for “nut punch?”
You have the wrong breed altogether. A wolfhound-briard mix is wonderful for that…head is at the perfect height, and the type of herding dog that naturally head butts what it’s herding…my dog was great. I always let her loose when my husband’s friends showed up in the driveway. Or strangers. Nothing like a full-on ramming speed encounter to set the tone.
Um..are…are you sure they’re ‘fighting’? You know how weird some of those ancient artists could get…
MIND THE PAWS!
I’ve never dressed up for Halloween, but this year I think I might.
The more I look at the details of that last one the more I just…
The man in the extreme right corner is skipping. Just downright skipping. The two in the left corner look like they’re about to perform some type of ballet lift. Naked beflowered guy back there is straight up whispering sweet nothings to his erastes while guiding his hand to his nipple. But I want to know what’s up with Mr. Sitting on a Rock and Sulking. I think he may be admiring his reflection in the main guy’s shield.
Yes! It’s just full of woderfully strange things happening in the background.
There’s the “No, come back down, stop wall climbing, we’ve got flower wreaths for you!” to the left behind Main Guy’s back, and to his back right there’s Mr Startled by Sudden Horn Blast.
Those dick ribbons get more and more flimsy
Nothing but “helmets”
That second-to-last bit was meant to be read in Stephen Fry’s voice, right?
“TOO MANY DICK SHOTS, NOT ENOUGH BUTT.” ~me, looking at these paintings though. Seriously though, classical painters, the butt is a man’s crowning glory, not his dick.
Also I thought war was for nudity and body paint.
To be fair though, that one butt sure is one hell of a butt.
Olden Times elementary school students made out like bandits with their Fancy Dick Wrap Fundraisers.
Wait, I think I’ve just found a way to make soccer more appealing to american audiences.
So we complain about how fantasy video games and films put women in ridiculous bikini-armor, but maybe we should just even things out in the other direction and have the male characters wear li’l dickribbons.
Dickribbon of Warding, Dickribbon of Featherfall, Penis Sash of Greater Fire Resistance
And have the latest and greatest priding themselves on their “dickribbon-flutter physics”.
come back with your shield and without your pants
With your dickribbon or on it.
Mmmmmmmm . . . manflesh.
“BE SURE NOT TO AIM YOUR SPEARS AT THEIR HELMETS
THAT’S WHERE THEIR HELMETS ARE”
Predecessor to modern-day American warning labels?
“I have shed the tunic and the armor of a boy
and donned the light sandals and the dick-ribbon of manhood” Also, the lyre.
VICTORY AT LAST, LADS
NO NEED FOR FORMALITIES
TAKE THOSE RIDICULOUS SHOES OFF, LET ME SEE YOUR TOE-STRAPS
I’m terribly sorry, but I read this and heard it in my head to the tune of Savage’s Let Me Hear See Hips Swing, and it has added a whole new, very important hip-hop dimension to this whole collection.
And there I was thinking that the fight scene in the BBC Coriolanus was having us on when they clad Coriolanus and Aufidius in nothing but loin cloths, spears, swords and shields. Don’t worry, they get rid of the last three, and when it fades out it looks pretty certain that the first will be going soon, what with them leaning in to kiss and everything. Plus when Coriolanus writes to his wife and his mum asks whether he ran into Aufidius this time, his wife says, “Coriolanus says he did, but that Aufidius got off.”
I really enjoy these but i get bummed that you don't list the names of the artists.
I’ve been doing an art crawl through Europe for the last few months and, once again, am amazed at how painters and sculptors of yore love the dick. The details of women’s genitalia on the other hand are, almost uniformly, smoothed away to nothing or covered altogether. But dicks? They love the dick. I’ve come away with the sneaking suspicion that men are, at heart, fundamentally homoerotic.
Eh, a lot of it is just narcissism, I think.
I've been doing an art crawl through Europe for the last few months and, once again, am amazed at how painters and sculptors of yore love the dick. The details of women's genitalia on the other hand are, almost uniformly, smoothed away to nothing or covered altogether. But dicks? They love the dick. I've come away with the sneaking suspicion that men are, at heart, fundamentally homoerotic.
Everyone is looking at that guy's wang in the second-last painting. The horse. The baby. Everyone.
I feel like we need to discuss the mustaches some of these fine gentlemen are sporting–I mean, those are like dick ribbons for lips.
Of course, the great Cellini sculpture of Perseus cannot be forgotten
While this article is hilarious, the only place Achilles needed armor was on his heel.
So are you trying to make a comment on gender equality?
Cause if so, I disagree. Women have not been left out when it comes to art, war, and nakedness.
🙂
P.S. I hope that was funny and not offensive. I am trying to make attempts at humor more often, but honestly, I usually crash and burn.
Having been a soldier for 21 years….Wounded 4 times in combat….I am sincerely glad I found these paintings…The author is great in the pictorial sense…Mainly the glorifying the war…It shows even more starkly the emphasis placed on the conquer…The Warrior….Humans can not filter through the horror of war…Still it is glorified in the sub concise….But…Politicians and still cling to death and policy; “By implementation of political policy by other means.” It is a malady of the human condition…That will end in the total destruction of Homo Sapiens….The ART and Sculptures will rot and crumble…Then God will begin anew with the hopeless artifact of Man killing Man….For greed, avarice, love, hate, lust, revenge, power, insanity, religion, and the love of killing….There can be no eulogy….No empathy…No compassion…Finally, no words of reason left…It’s final glory is eternal death…lost in time like tears in rain…..