Dude graduated in alternative time line.

The absolute reach they made this guy do to get black panther in here 😂😂

oh Metatron destroyed this guy

The fact this has 62k likes shows he fooled 62k people (or bots). I'm only here thanks to Metatron pointing out all his lies w/ actual sources.

Its sad that people actually believe what this guy is saying, he is lying and he knows it.

As a Greek, I'm genuinely surprised to hear about Spartans being labeled as bisexual. How do such accusations arise when there's no evidence in our historical records? And please, spare me any claims of superior knowledge on the matter.

Just watched Metatron over on his channel call this guy out on all the lies in this video. it was amazing.

An activist pretending to be a professor

“Great bisexual army” 😭 never thought I’d hear that statement ever

Many of the things he said are wrong and have been debunked. He also let his politics come through instead of just being neutral about the history.

Metatron has cleaned this chap's clock. He's waffling

Freak literally went on about racism. These people cannot help themselves.

This “historian” is the equivalent of “biologists” claiming men can get pregnant.

Wow, this guy would argue even the vikings were Africans. This is like a parody.

Go figure a professor of mythology would make some myths of his own.

First of all, 300 is made after a comic book by Frank Miller. It isn't meant to be historically accurate. That's one. And second. They didn't let the diformed guy go with them because he couldn't lift his shield, not simply because he was diformed.

The wokest video I've seen in a while

Can we get a non-woke expert?!

Dear lord, how is this person allowed to spread such ignorance and misinformation? falsehods, slander, nonsense.

This fantasy movie based on a comic book is not accurate. Omg no way 😂

Hades is so misunderstood - only Greek god who ever did his job; didn't impregnate a bunch of chicks, was in fact faithful to his wife that he loved (that the other gods had to shift the cosmos to make that romance happen), and actually ferried souls, etc. He's really not a bad dude.

I took a class with him when I was at NYU. To this day, still one of my favorite classes. He invests a lot of time with his students. He took on a trip to Barnes and nobles to teach us how to pick our translations. He also took us to the met and taught us how to read the ancient pottery. And he had a theater company and we went and saw them perform Promethus Unbound. He even brought in masks one day and taught us how people used to perform the ancient Greek plays with masks on. He was a really awesome teacher.

"300 is racist" the word doesnt even have meaning anymore because of people like him. Apparently everything is racist😂

Metatron sent me here. This guy isn't just a clown he's the whole circus.

Heavily politicised. Meineck keeps conflating Egypt and Maghreb with subsaharan Africa although they have little to nothing in common besides being on the same continent.

I don’t believe it’s fair to say that 300 was racist. It was based of a graphic novel and the Persians were hyperbolically depicted as monsters. It’s a fictional adaption of that war.

I wish there was more history and less wokism.

Another cliche woke professor inserting his politics into everything. Yawn

What an insult to all those who enjoy history & learning it. Pathetic.

In Wonder Woman, the enmity between the Amazons and Ares is somewhat ironic, because in mythology Ares seems to have been a major patron of the Amazons. The Amazon queens Hippolyta and Penthesileia were daughters of Ares.

Does this guy actually like the people he studies? He seems VERY anti-Greek and anti-European. Almost like its politically charged or something. Like, why on Earth is he talking about Jan 6th in the middle of a video on Greek and Roman mythology? The same question can be asked of why they included Black Panther in this video, its neither Greek, Roman, Mediterranean or actual mythology. Its almost like they needed a movie that didn't include people that look European.

I hope he is not that political in his teachings cause that would be a shame.

I took Professor Meineck's class on Performing Homer in college. And then I took it again, just because who wouldn't want to listen to him talk for an entire year? In one lecture he announced that cheesemaking was "the ultimate example of human-animal symbiosis," and I've thought of that probably every week since.

I would love to see a second part of this with him, he was really superb!

How gullible were you Vanity Fair people?

It's funny how Sparta has become this idealized place in modern times because it fully would have suuuuuuucked to live there haha. I remember in one of my college classes on ancient Greece some classmate asked if there is a modern equivalent of Sparta and the professor spent the next 10 min or so breaking down how, yes, there is a modern equivalent and it's called North Korea. lol

Would love to hear his thoughts on "Troy" the movie, and how that fits in with other interpretations of Achillies and Petrocles

The snake on a stick is the rod of Asclepius a god of medicine

5:35 I actually feel this is just his pandering opinion. There's no way Spartan society would look at physical disabilities with anything but disdain given everything we know about them . . Wonder if there'll be other woke topics for the rest of the video and we're only 5 1/2 minutes in

This guy does not explain mythology, he rewrites it to better fit his own 21st Century political narratives.

oh my gosh, i loved peter's explanation of greek and roman mythology. it's something i studied in school and even considered getting a masters in! his approach is so easy and digestible with honesty that links to todays world. please bring him back!!

Wow... so much misinformation in one video. Guess he is a professor so that checks out

The shield is an ‘aspis’ or a ‘hoplon’ - a hoplite is the name of the armoured soldier

“Spartan soldiers were very much into each other” An excellent choice of words

I think a point in 300 that’s often missed, that explains as lot of the historical inaccuracies, is that the whole story is in fact a retelling of the events of the story by the guy who lost his eye and was sent off to tell their tale, so the unreliable narrator is kind of built into the story.

Absolutely loved the last point he made about myths and fidelity. Stories are made richer by allowing it to be influenced by the zeitgeist.

Expert? 😂

Orwell: if you control the past, you control present time

There is no way the Coen brothers created O Brother, Where Art Thou? while being completely unaware of The Odyssey - I don't believe that for a second.

As a Greek mythology enthusiast, I initially clicked to see the professor point out all of the many inaccuracies in Disney's Hercules, but I'm glad I watched the whole thing for all of the knowledge and valuable historical insights he offered.

M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender was more faithful source material than Disney's Hercules 🙄

Greek and Roman mythology. Black Panther. What?

the shield is called a Hoplon, not a Hoplite. Hoplite means "soldier that carries a Hoplon"

Regarding 300, I always thought persians were described in that fashion because Dilios is telling the story. He has embelished the story to boost the moral of the troops that are about to fight in the battle of Plataea.

Didn’t know you were an expert on racism, shoulda put that in the title

I just finished watching Metatron's reaction to this video and came here to check out the comments section. 😂

Laughed so hard at the point he made about Spartans being bisexual and the fact that on Jan 6 people were dressing up as Spartans and being totally oblivious

I love how he points out that African mythology and tales influenced Greek and Roman mythology. I also love how literally no one is talking about it 😂

Shield called "hoplite"....yes professor

Peter Mienick- love his disclaimer at the end, where he basically says that mythology is STILL alive and changing, and that is good. I used to teach a high school mythology class, and I always enjoyed teaching what I'd learned, but also suggesting ways in which those myths might be represented today and how they might have changed without losing validity.

Peter you are a true scholar. You talk with such confidence and ease. You are a role model historian/scholar/professor. Please invite him again. Vanity fair I like your content more than GQ who has a similar series. Much respect to you. I have never learned so much in your videos or GQs like this one. Really ty Peter for coming

Probably the best episode I've watched. Absolutely loved his assessment on the "disabled" in the ancient world, and the representation of those in film as distrusteful.

If you can't talk about mythology for a few minutes without starting about January 6th, your world is microscopically tiny and you are effectively in a cult, unable to have thoughts that are not about the three or four obsessions the cult teaches you to obsess over.

Happy to see Metatron making a video about this. A lot of anachronistic political horsecrap that sadly goes to the big audience.

I don't wanna correct the expert so I won't, but the creation myth the Greeks held ( as I was told it) was that Zeus and Prometheus created Man together and afterwards Prometheus, loving his creation so much gave fire to mankind which angered Zeus, which in turn led to Prometheus being chained to a mountain and having his liver eaten every day. So Idk, maybe the professor has a different version that he studies/teaches.

Jan 6th, bisexual and racism all in the first 3 minutes. We’re on a roll here

this guy clearly doesn’t know the medusa myth or is purposely misrepresenting it

This guy missed the point no country and civilization can survive remaining in isolation.

I could be mistaken but I think 300 isn't about the 300 it's about the story the one eyed dude told people about the last stand of the 300, that's why it's exaggerated so much. To hype up the spartans.

One thing that needs to be mentioned whenever Sparta is mentioned they could be professional soldiers because of the THOUSANDS OF SLAVES they had. The ratio of slaves to spartans was something like 7:1.

I see the title of expert is very loose nowadays.

The movie 300 is based on a comic book, not a historical book, that’s why there is so many “non accurate” info there

It was really interesting including the Marvel movie angle. I had thought everything about the Marvel myths was made up. It was great seeing how there was some tradition to those stories.

Professor Meineck will now go right up there with Erik Singer for must watch "experts break down" content. This is by far one of the best episodes of this style show across all producers. I particularly appreciated his commentary on the fidelity discourse at the end of the video, as well as his careful attention to the way the modern tellings handle the different cultures.

What does black panther have To do with greek and roman mythology?

300 was based on the graphic novel, not history. And the reason why the Persians are depicted the way they are is because the narrator in the film is a Spartan that returned to Sparta to tell the rest of Greece what had happened to gather support. He demonized them so that they would appear evil and non-human.

i could listen to this man talk all day. i was a classics major and his analyses of Black Panther and Wonder Woman were extremely compelling. this is actually, now, my favorite VF Expert Review.

Persians looked like twisted monsters because, as we see at the end of the movie, it is a story been told to inspire the Spartan army, so they would exaggerate to fantasy some details to hype the warriors

300 is based on a comic made prior to internet knowledge , hence it,s a story told by one to share a glimpse into another world and toold through the charm of an individual

This guy is such a lib

talks about Mythology. uses the term "Herkules" for the GREEK HERO. Not Herakles. Until he does. Weird decision there. Could've mentioned that Hades didn't have those two "imps". Those were Ares's. also uses the term "african" like it encompasses the whole continent, but then Greek and Roman for respective mediterranean people. also forgot to mention that greeks respected snakes and believed them to be connect to healing, hence why it's in the medical symbols. Athena's animal was also the snake, not just the owl.

I think this expert doesn't know '300' is based in a comic book / graphic novel. The movie is almost identical and very graphical. It's not meant to be historically accurate by any means

My one complaint is that this man is ignoring that 300 was a propaganda story that the only surviving spartan warrior is telling to a united army to inspire them and the last thing you do when you want soldiers to kill is humanize their foes.

What a clown..

I would love to hear the professor's perspective on "Alexander" esp. Alexander's campaign in India and the connection between Ancient Greece and India, given that many of Alexander's soldiers stayed on in present-day Pakistan.

To be fair, 300 is based on a graphic novel, which is obviously a very stylistic type of comic. Alas it’s based in history but it partially explains why certain liberties were taken in regards to the supernatural elements.

the 300 is a movie based on a fricking COMIC BOOK (excuse me. "graphic novel"). It is NOT intended to be a history lesson. Anyone who treats it as such needsto do a little reading of books.

these people cant go 2 seconds without mentioning january 6th.

Omg, I didn’t expect so much social/political commentary when I clicked this video.

300 - We find in the end Dilios is the narrator, re-telling the battle of Thermopylae, prior to battle at Platea. Dilios is not professor of Greek studies at Spartan University lecturing to grad students. This is a "ra-ra" locker-room type speech to fire up the troops for battle, something leaders do all the time. This story is told a specific way for the purpose of his audience - troops about battle and die. He portrays the enemy as formidable but not honorable. The enemy is/will be difficult to defeat, but on the wrong side of things. He portrays his fellow Spartans as idyllic, and the enemy as bizarre and flawed. Ephialtes is portrayed as most grotesque of all to a Spartan, as he is traitor to his own and too weak for battle. I have no idea if Dilios had ever faced an armored charging rhino or a 50' foot tall elephant, but I bet he'd exaggerate re-telling the story to his peers!

"The Cohen Brothers never read the Oddessy." yet, in the credits, they credit The Oddessy......

I disagree with the final thought. For some people, what we call "myths" represented their religions and now their culture. Some actually believed these stories. If we want them to respect our religions and cultures, it seems reasonable for us to respect theirs. I know Hollywood loves some creative liberties but it often cheapens the stories into a set of clichés.

This is a truly great breakdown showing how our modern depictions focus more on reinforcing our modern stereotypes and attitudes rather than educating the audience about actual history

You know, this honestly was probably the most compelling one of these videos y'all have put out yet. I'd pay to audit this dude's lectures for a semester.

It's so annoying that everything has to be about sexuality...

“It’s a bit problematic, innit?”

Need to remember that in the movie '300', it's narrated after the fact as a propaganda tale to inspire the army, & just like in all wars, demonizing the enemy is common in propaganda. Look at WWII propaganda as a example

I am literally BEGGING you to have him come back in again (and again and again) for more breakdowns. This man is INCREDIBLE.

Historically, Spartans did wear armours when they ventured to Thermophilae . My brother and my mother visited Athens' museum on their tour to Greece last year, and they saw the war equipment the 300 Spartans used to fight the Persians. Besides, the Thermophilae battle is not a myth, but a real fact occurred during the Persian invasion to Greece. The Spartans tried to contend the Persians to gain time for the Greeks could assemble an army. It's illustrated in 300 Rise of an Empire movie.

62k people are gullible simpletons who think this guy knows wtf he's talking about