5 Historical Figures Who May Never Existed Part 1

Published in Entertainment at April 13th, 2017 at 10:40 AM

5 Historical figures who may never existed part 1, here is a twist to the history lessons you got told in school, they could have been just made up legends stories.


King Arthur

King Arthur from Britain epitomises the very essence of chivalry. The earliest references to Arthur have been found to be from Welsh sources, where he was mostly projected as a monster-slaying warrior with his band of superhuman followers. The first account of Arthur is however attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth. The embellished account details how Arthur went on to defeat the Saxons, Scots and even the Romans. Later works based on Romance traditions had however largely come out of this trend of praising, and sidelined Arthur’s eminence as a warrior-king. In any case, some historians believe that Arthur may been based on historical characters or even a Roman military commander named Lucius Artorius Castus.


Lycurgus

The authoritative lawgiver of Sparta, Lycurgus is mentioned by many ancient writers, including Plato, as the man who transformed the state into a powerful military entity. But the most famous of his reforms was arguably the ‘agoge’ – the brutal military training program for Spartan boys. However, in spite of these achievements, most historians are not too convinced of the man’s existence, especially in light of contradictory literary accounts that were penned later as Spartans didn’t have the tradition of maintaining written records. This has led to various feasible speculations that Lycurgus might have been a symbolic ‘god-like’ personification of the Spartan qualities that many later Greeks came to admire.


Homer

While historians have been trying their best to find the factual evidences that could support the epic occurrences mentioned in the Iliad and Odyssey, the presumed author of these magnificent works might not have existed at all! The primary theory that fuels this sceptical claim directly relates to how less we know about the life of Homer. In fact, his biographical accounts directly conflicts with his impressive status as one of the most prominent writers from the Western world.


William Shakespeare

This entry is going to cause the most uproar and its William Shakespeare. No doubt there are legions of high school kids all wishing he didn't exist as they try to revise the meanings of Othello and so on but his existence is not in question here, he did exist. this is written in historical texts. The doubt comes with his work, with many a historian believing not all of his works were written by him but other writers, up to 80 of them in fact! The allegations come from the fact he was supposedly a working class poverty stricken man but some plays focused on the life of aristocrat, a life he wouldn't know about. Other cases that are brought up against the existence of Shakespeare generally pertain to the inconsistent spelling of his surname in various records and the lack of documented evidence that strictly portrays him as a writer.


William Tell

He isn't the last on this list who was an expert archer, William Tell's legend begins in the 14th century. This story is, of course, the one to reference that famous apple on the head shot and an assassination to boot. There are also references to him in the Tellenlied which dates back to 1501, this revels in the daredevil like nature of Tell, who was a folklore hero.