Sword and Sandal Fantasy Sub-Genre, a short history lesson and tips for authors interested in this category.
The Golden Age of mythological fantasy takes place in a world of biblical sense. Sword and Sandal is the foundation of the most epic tales such as Hercules, 300, and The Iliad. These stories are set in a primitive world finding a sense of community during tried times; or wrecking chaos on sworn enemies.
From Spartans to samurai this particular sub-genre has a range of appeal to an older world. The need for survival is met with silver and steel. As a reader we see many problems that we face today but shown to us in a primitive sense. Coming across problems with military or political power, romance, and culture (to name a few) were handled differently but still relate with the modern world. If you are looking into writing a story under the sword and sandal sub-genre, I strongly urge you to read the work of Homer. Many stories we see today derive from the Greek culture established by his work.
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Homer, a poet of the seventh century told an epic tale of gods and goddesses influencing the choice of their creations, and ultimately rippling into a ten year war between nations — one of the bloodiest battles, and a fantastic story with multiple layers which lay the foundation for an entire tradition of writing. This is a good read for someone looking to write about sword and sandal fantasy tales — Pay attention to how Homer describes their apparel, dialogue and of course what they thought was important. As the sands of time shift, we forget that incense and wine were for prestigious men and woman. If you want to add a mythological theme you should consider having places of worship, temples, priests/missionaries or Crusaders.
The first series of movies for this genre were Italian peplum, meaning sword and sandal, but deriving from the word 'peplos' – ancient Greek clothing that universally symbolizes an older period in time. The Italian film industry was able to captivate tales from ancient Greece whilst upholding the biblical epics of the past. In fact, Italian peplum were professionally written and technically proficient. The most iconic movie from this time is Goliath, a barbarian slaughtering monstrosity. Hollywood soon took over the sword and sandal theme with overly-muscular men and poorly written dialogue that was lost in translation from the Italian counterpart. Many film critics thought this to be condescending to the culture because these Hollywood movies didn't hold back on the violence and gore.
