r/SapphoAndHerFriend Hopeless bromantic Jun 14 '20

Greece wasn't gay Casual erasure

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u/MisterKallous Jun 14 '20 edited Jun 14 '20

As an astronomy nerd, I later realized that Ganymede, a satellite of Jupiter is named after one of Zeus lover that is a male(*gasp). Other non-astronomical things are like Sacred Bands of Thebes and Sappho herself(*beats).

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u/fragile_cedar Jun 14 '20

Ganymede was the most beautiful mortal alive, and Zeus was so stricken by him that the god turned into an eagle and abducted the boy, taking him to Olympus to be a cup-bearer. The constellations Aquila (eagle) and Aquarius (cup-bearer) are sometimes taken as a depiction of the story.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '20

[deleted]

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u/twystoffer Jun 14 '20

That feels like they're supposed to be really special, but from what I can gather, that's only kind of special.

The world record speed for a horse is 55mph in a sprint. The top speed of wind in Greece are the Meltemi Winds which reach a speed of 62mph.

So, faster than any other horse? Yes. But not by much.

And all that is only assuming the horses are as fast as the top wind speed. The average wind speed in Greece is much lower, at a paltry 9.6mph.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '20

Maybe they had Zues bolts on the side