Using Greco-Roman culture to support political agendas, for good or bad, goes back centuries. Examples:
Dante used the idea of a secular emperor to argue against papal power.
At the beginning of the Age of Exploration, a Spanish scholar named Sepúlveda used Aristotle to defend slavery.
During the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church used Aristotle to bash Galileo for “heresy.”
In later centuries, religious skeptics like Gibbon and Nietzsche considered ancient Rome the embodiment of “manly virtue” and blamed Christianity for undermining it.
In the Victorian Era, homosexuals used terms like “Sappho” and “Greek love” to escape what was then a stigma.
In Edwardian England, classics professor Gilbert Murray used Greek philosophy to support liberal causes. His friend George Bernard Shaw portrayed him in Major Barbara as the scholar Adolphus.
What the alt-right is doing is just more of the same politicking. The crucial thing is not to accept their caricature as real history.
Using Greco-Roman culture to support political agendas, for good or bad, goes back centuries. Examples:
What the alt-right is doing is just more of the same politicking. The crucial thing is not to accept their caricature as real history.