My feelings on this are simple:
1) Leonidas was suitably awesome and is one of those guys who are on my carte-blanche for public monuments list (also includes Augustus, Hammurabi and
2) Melbourne has the second largest Greek population after Athens, so this statue might as well be in a Greek city (especially in Brunswick).
3) I have no problem with publicly funded art. And hopefully this bust will go ahead, be awesome and then I can post pics.
John Birmingham wrote:Haven't they heard? THIS IS SPARTA!
October 22, 2009 - 9:45AM
If King Leonidas had a grave, rather than just a glorious undying legend, he'd be spinning it. The most arse-kicking King of our most arse-kicking classical forebears wouldn't have let no bunch of uppity shop ladies get in his way. He'd have roared and stomped and kicked the nearest visiting diplomat in the tummy and sent him flying backwards screaming into a bottomless pit, all the while making damn sure that everyone knew, "THIS IS SPARTA!!!"
I reckon we could do with some of that tummy-kicking action down in Brunswick at the moment, specifically at Sparta Place, where a veritable coven of frock merchants and dainty knick-knack sellers have jacked up at a proposal by the local council to erect a statue in honor of Leonidas and by extension the brave 300 who stood with him in the Hot Gates at the Battle of Thermopylae, delaying the advance of the so-called God King Xerxes, and buying enough time for the Greek city states to organise a stunning seaborne defence at Salamis, thereby securing the future for democracy and niceness.
God bollocks, I'll not have it I tell you! There should be statues of Leonidas everywhere! Not just in Sparta Place, Brunswick, but in Brisbane's Queen Street Mall, and on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and outside the tuck shop of every primary school in the country, and somewhere prominent in your local RSL, perhaps at the entrance to the poker machine alcove, because that's how important Leonidas is.
Cheesecloth ... it's no match for loincloth
Who the hell do these small-business women think they are? What on earth gives them the right to deny the rest of us the opportunity to doff our lids in quiet appreciation of noble Sparta and its slightly psychotic but undeniably very brave king for saving us from hordes of Xerxes's armoured battle elephants and black-clad sand ninjas? Do they imagine for a second they would have the freedom to sell their little cheesecloth bags of patchouli-scented potpourri and caged cooking pots (I'm working off the photo here) if Leonidas hadn't closed up the Hot Gates with the savagely hacked off arms and legs of Xerxes' warrior slaves?
Not only should the statue be built, but these terrible women's council fees should be jacked up about 10,000% to do it in solid gold.
Because THIS IS SPARTA!!!
Or Brunswick, that works for me too.
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