Historical crushes?

Voyager

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So glad I'm not alone! You all make me feel less weird.

I have a lot of crushes on people with questionable personal traits and habits whom I don't even necessarily like. Like Catullus (bet he was fun company, though).

Oh, thank you so much for making me feel less weird. For years I have had huge crushes on so many classical poets. Catullus, Ovid, Petronius and Martial are among my faves. Vergil, however, is my biggest crush, ever since I read The Eclogues. Eight still makes me swoon :)
 

sohalt

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Hilary Mantel has me well on the way to being in love with Thomas Cromwell, though I must say that Thomas More looks better in his Holbein portrait.

I had to read More's Utopia for uni, and I used to be rather taken with him..... well, that did not last long when reading Wolf Hall. Mantel makes it almost impossible for you not to take Cromwell's side. A masterclass in the direction of reader sympathies. (And I feel you with the incipient crush, Hohlbein portrait not-withstanding - it's not easy to say what's attractive about Cromwell - it can't be the mere power, can it? - maybe it's yielding it with confidence and responsibility. And of course, the whole self-made-man thing he's got going on. And his great tenderndess and care for his family and relatives, his mentees and his nieces. But still, his self-image is that of an "heroic accountant" - he shouldn't be able to create that much UST with the likes of Mary Boleyn).


I think Hilary Mantel could make me fall in love with everyone she wants me to fall in love with. (I've talked about Camille before, but she also made a pretty good case for the appeal of Danton and Robespierre). It almost makes me uncomfortable. I can apparently be played like a fiddle in that regard.
 

Ixtila

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Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. Slept with a queen, escaped from the Tower of London. :heart:

So glad I'm not the only one. ;)
You forgot ''ruled England for 3 years''.
Have you read his biography ''The Greatest Traitor'' by Ian Mortimer (no relation)?

Edit: I forgot to add my other one: Hasdrubal Barca - brother of Hannibal. When I read about how the Romans cut off his head and threw it back into the Carthaginian camp I cried... :p
 
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benbenberi

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For the fans of Roger Mortimer, good news -- they appear to be bringing back into print the English translation of Maurice Druon's "Accursed Kings" series, which are among the best historical novels ever. The focus is on Philip IV of France (vol. 1) & his children,, & Mortimer has a big role in the last 2 volumes (The She-Wolf of France, & The Lily and the Lion). Keep your eyes peeled. These books are great!
 

Ixtila

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For the fans of Roger Mortimer, good news -- they appear to be bringing back into print the English translation of Maurice Druon's "Accursed Kings" series, which are among the best historical novels ever. The focus is on Philip IV of France (vol. 1) & his children,, & Mortimer has a big role in the last 2 volumes (The She-Wolf of France, & The Lily and the Lion). Keep your eyes peeled. These books are great!

Thanks for the tip!
 

VikingRaider

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Couple more ladies

Okay, I'll join in. This is my first post and I just couldn't pass it up. There's an awful lot of guys posted as "crushes" and as a guy I feel compelled to offer up a few more ladies.

Aoife Ni Diarmait, also known as Eva (or Eve) of Leinster, the wife of Richard "Strongbow" de Clare. She was one unique woman. She married the conquering Strongbow, then fought battles and held castles (sometimes under siege) in his name. Amazing woman.

Eleanor of Aquitaine. Well, she certainly doesn't need much of an introduction. Her life's story is just wild and well worthy of study, from going on Crusade to marrying two kings to giving birth to three kings (if you count Henry the Younger) and being all around feisty even in her old age.

These two women experienced things and did things that most modern women would call amazing, yet they lived in the Middle Ages! I cannot admire them more than I do (without getting in trouble from my wife, kind of a modern Aoife but 6 feet tall).

As for men, if I had to choose a historical person for a "bro-mance" it would without a doubt be William Marshal. More of a hero than Superman ever will be to me (but I can't really imagine a Norman knight flying around...I guess that'd be like the equivalent of an Apache helicopter on the battlefield?).

Anyway, that's certainly not the first post I intended to make but I just stumbled across this thread and had to throw my hat in! :D
 

Nonfic

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Not many women have come down to us in history, and I'm not into queens.

So I'll just say I have a "man crush" on the atomist philosophers Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius. They were well ahead of their times, and I like the whole Epicurean outlook on life, it helped me get rid of my existential angst.
 
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sohalt

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Not many women have come down to us in history, and I'm not into queens.

Oh they are there, once you go past high school textbooks. they rarely get the hollywood blockbuster treatment but not for lack of awesomeness.

sophie scholl (student and revolutionary, fighting the system in Nazi germany)
rosa luxemburg (co-founder of the communist party of germany)
bertha von suttner (leading figure in the pacifist movement, first woman to get a nobel peace prize)
irena sendler (nurse serving in the Polish Underground, smuggling jewish children out of the german occupied warsaw)
lydia lityvak (soviet fighter pilot during WW2)
krystyna skarbek (polish special operations excutive during ww2, real-life inspiration for fleming's tatania romanova and vesper lynd)
hedy lamarr (actress and mathematician, invented an early technique for frequency hopping, paving the way for wireless communication)
ada lovelace (mathematication and pioneer programmer, wrote the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine)
ching shih (legendary pirate, took it up with the Chinese, British and Portguese empire, survived to retire in old age)
juana galan (guerrilla fighter against Napoleon, organized the defense of her village against the french cavalry)
agustina de aragon (highly decorated officer during the spanish war for indepedence)
mary seacole (nurse and sutler, ran a hospital for wounded servicemen in the Crimean War)
 

Kyra Wright

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So glad I'm not the only one. ;)
You forgot ''ruled England for 3 years''.
Have you read his biography ''The Greatest Traitor'' by Ian Mortimer (no relation)?

Late reply: I do have it, but haven't read it. It's currently buried in a box of books in storage due to house renovations. I plan to read it as soon as possible, though. I'll also keep an eye out for the novels benbenberi mentioned.
 

junebugaboo

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Antinous. I'm currently writing a research proposal for an MPhil on The Cult of Antinous, and would love to get past the cold marble features, and find the flesh and blood youth. The statues are so melancholic and masculine, I want to strip away the centuries of romanticism.

Boy was hot.
 

junebugaboo

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I love ancients, so I'll have to go with:

1) Brutus. So sexy-angsty.
2) Mithridates VI. Smart, polyglot, art lover, one of Rome's all-time most dangerous enemies. He'd probably be what some would call a "successful psychopath" today, but I still find him attractive.
3) Clodius Pulcher. If I met him, I'm not sure what I'd do first, slap him across the face or kiss him.

And one not over two millennia dead.
4) Soren Kierkegaard. Philosophical and fine.
 

chickenma

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I think the Menken was hot in a cross-gender kind of way - Adah Isaacs Menken
l.jpg


I'm in love with Edwin Booth. I visited his apartment in the Players Club, and saw his statue in Gramercy Park.
EdwinBooth.jpg
 

la-gamine

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I've been doing research on the French Revolution and I've become quite the Lafayette fangirl. I've now got a version of him in the novel I'm working on, not ashamed...
 

RationalIdealist

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I had to read More's Utopia for uni, and I used to be rather taken with him..... well, that did not last long when reading Wolf Hall. Mantel makes it almost impossible for you not to take Cromwell's side....

I'm sorry, but I'll always be a More girl. ;)
 

Flicka

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I'm going to admit to developing a crush on James Wadsworth, whom I'm using as a character for my WIP.

He was probably a real bastard - he was an ex-Catholic ex-expat turned pursuivant who hunted down Catholic priests in England and handed them over to be hanged, drawn and quartered and who also appeared on the fringes of several alleged cases of demanding compensation from Catholics in return for "protection". But he had a fascinating life. His father was an English clergyman who converted to Catholicism when on an embassy to Spain. When James was about 7, the rest of the family joined his father in Spain and he was educated at the English Jesuit College at St Omer. At 18, when returning to Spain, he and his fellow travellers were captured by Barbary pirates and he spent a year as a slave in the pirate republic of Sallé. Ransomed back to Europe, he was was an interpreter to the English during Charles I/the Duke of Buckingham's visit to Madrid. After that he was given a command at Breda by Philip IV, before finally defecting to the English in 1625 and returning to the Spanish as a mole. He was exposed as a spy in Paris in 1626 and spent almost two years in different French prisons under horrid conditions (he describes being in a dungeon, crawling with lice, doing his business in a corner and not allowed a change of shirt for ten months - he also wasn't give food, but a purse and a string so he could beg for alms through the prison bars). After that, he went back to England, wrote and published his autobiography (which is quite funny) and spent some time at Christ Church, Oxford, before launching into his career as a pursuivant. During the Civil War, he worked as a "messenger" aka agent for Parliament, and published two more books - one "Lonely Planet"-type of travel guide to Europe and a translation of a Spanish book on chocolate (he's extremely enthusiastic about chocolate) which I think is the first one in English on the subject. Finally, he is described as "a common hackney" and "pimp", and his wife "a bawd" in 1655 and the, poof, he vanishes.

I like him because he comes across as rather cheeky in his writing and because he lived such an interesting life. I do suspect he must have had a good deal of charm because he managed some pretty extraordinary feats of persuasion and it seems lots of people simply refused to believe his double-dealing true nature because he was such a likeable fellow. But by now I have trouble separating the real James and my own fictional version of him, and the character I have made out of the measly scraps of facts is someone I can't help loving. Still not sure if he is hero or villain – a bit of both I think. He comes across as a very mercurial person with a most flexible code of honour from the facts I have, so I have made him a trickster type of character, and we all now how charming they can be... Also, I have made him good-looking because, well, I can. ;)
 
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donroc

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Opera Singer Lina Cavalieri for looks and talent.

The young Empress Judith of Altorf and Bavaria, second wife of Emperor Louis the Pious, for her charm, wit, literacy and musical talent so rare for a woman in the 9th century before she became a "grizzly mom" and accelerated the demise of the Carolingian Empire.

Infanta Maria sister of Philip IV and later Holy Roman Empress for coolness under pressure, or as Olivares called her, "that block of ice" and for her diplomatic skills.
 
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Flicka

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Infanta Maria sister of Philip IV and later Holy Roman Empress for coolness under pressure, or as Olivares called her, "that block of ice" and for her diplomatic skills.

...who almost married Charles I and whose English tutor was James Wadsworth Sr, the father of "my" Wadsworth, and who secured his pension for dear James... :)
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

Still writing the ancient Egyptian tetralogy
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I thought I'd already mentioned mine on this thread, but apparently not, so I'll share.

alcibiades2.jpg


Alkibiades. He was the 5th century BC equivalent of a rockstar; loved, despised, feared and adored in equal measure. A dashing young aristocrat who was ward of Perikles, pupil and favourite of Socrates, but whose promising career as a statesman was diverted by extravagance onto a path of self destruction. He could have been as brilliant a military commander as Alexander, had he enjoyed the same love and trust. But instead he was reviled as a profligate, gambler and womaniser whose affairs and bad behaviour were as legendary as the battles he fought in. When Athens kicked him out, he went to Sparta, their arch enemy he had been fighting against. And because Sparta had no whores, well... he just had to screw the king's wife instead, thus burning his bridges with both sides, so he tucked tail and ran to Persia ;)

Who couldn't love a man like that? :D

One day, when I'm finished with my Egyptian stories, I'ma write a novel about Alkibiades :)
 
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flapperphilosopher

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I love this thread. :) Flicka, your fellow sounds terrifically interesting! Compared to the rest of you I feel so shallow...other than the couple I mentioned above, the majority of my (many) history crushes are mostly if not wholly looks-based, hahaha.
 
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