Plagiarism in Pop Culture: Assassins Creed: Origins

Jonathan BaileyJanuary 8, 2025

4 minutes read

Over the 40+ entries of the Plagiarism in Pop Culture series, I have examined TV shows, movies, songs, and even stand-up comedians. However, I have not examined a video game.

The reason is simple: Plagiarism isn’t a common plot point in video game stories. A plagiarism story doesn’t afford much opportunity for action or user engagement in a medium based on interactivity.

So, I was surprised when I ran across such a story while playing Assassin’s Creed: Origins. Not only does the game feature an (admittedly brief) side quest centered around plagiarism, but the story is based on an actual tale from history. Even more surprising, it was one that I was unfamiliar with.

Since then, I have spent a great deal of time researching the original story to see how the Assassin’s Creed version compares. Along the way, I learned a great deal about how plagiarism was viewed/handled in ancient Egypt. However, that will be the topic for another post.

For now, I want to focus on the game itself. It’s interesting to see how a historical case of plagiarism made the jump to a modern video game.

With that in mind, how does a game like Assassin’s Creed handle a plagiarism story? As one might imagine, it’s with a decent amount of stabbing.

Content Warning: Minor Spoilers for Assassin’s Creed: Origins

The Plot

The plagiarism dispute is first mentioned in the main story quest, End of the Snake. During that quest, the game’s protagonist, Bayek, visits a public bath with the intent to assassinate his target, The Snake.

However, as Bayek walks through the bath, he can overhear two people discussing a plagiarism controversy.

Bayek First Learns About the Plagiarism Allegations

According to the two men, an author named Aristo is taking his contemporary Eudoros to court over plagiarism allegations. Specifically, Aristo accuses Eurodos (Eudorus) of copying whole paragraphs from his book about the Nile River.

After Bayek kills The Snake, he leaves the bath and overhears two more people, friends of Aristo, discussing the story. They say that what happened to Aristo is a “shame” and that “intellectual theft is a serious crime.” They note that Strabo agrees with this.

Two more men discuss the plagiarism allegations in front of Bayek.

It is then Bayek hears a woman cursing the name Eudoros. When Bayek speaks with her, he learns that she is Aristo’s wife and that Aristo has been jailed. She claims that after Aristo took Eudoros to court, he found himself beaten and jailed for making the allegations.

She then says they will flee the city if Bayek can free Aristo. Bayek then tracks Aristo, who is being transported in a jailer’s cart, and frees him (after killing the jailer). Bayek then carries Aristo to the ship; all the while, Aristo talks more about the ordeal.

Once Aristo is on the ship, he and his wife leave for Crete, where they hope to start new lives.

Understanding the Plagiarism

Assassin’s Creed: Origins is unique in that we know precisely when and where the game is set. It takes place in and around 50 BCE, and this portion takes place in Alexandria, Egypt. While the game generally plays loose with historical accuracy, this story has a surprising amount of truth.

First, Aristo, Eudoros (Eudorus) and Strabo all exist. Furthermore, there was a plagiarism controversy between Aristo and Eudoros around this time. While it’s impossible to say precisely when it happened, both philosophers were from the first century BCE and would have been active around this time.

Also accurate is that the plagiarism controversy was over a book about the Nile River. Aristo did accuse Eudoros of plagiarizing passages from his book. However, we don’t know much more than that.

The reason is that Strabo recounted the story. Strabo was alive at this time but would have been only 13 years old in 50 BCE. This leads to the first inaccuracy, as people would not have relied on Strabo’s word to determine who was at fault. His prominence was after this story took place.

Instead, Strabo is the reason we are aware of the story today. He recalled it after the fact and, seemingly, sided with Aristo.

However, the legal and physical drama over the allegations was the most significant and glaring inaccuracy. It is unlikely that Aristo would have taken Eudoros to court over the allegations. However, even if he did, Aristo would not have been arrested and functionally exiled over it.

The game needed to add those elements so that the player could resolve the quest with stabbing. In a game series that reviewer Ben “Yahtzee” Crowshaw described as “Stabbing Enthusiast’s Dogma,” this was a way to resolve the issue with the game’s mechanics.

Bottom Line

I was very surprised to encounter this side quest while playing Assassin’s Creed: Origins, and I was even more surprised to learn that the story is based on actual history.

To be clear, no one would have used the term “plagiarism” at the time. The first use of the word “plagiarism,” coming from the root of “kidnap,” would not happen for a century. Ancient Egyptians would have likely used the term “Literary Aegisthus” or “Literary Usurpation.”

However, I won’t blame the game for translating it into modern terms.

Similarly, I can’t blame the game for elevating the stakes significantly. Little is known about the story because it seems to have been a footnote even then. Though neither Eudoros nor Aristo are prominent names today, Eudoros is still known for much more than plagiarism.

If the game was going to include the story, it needed more significant stakes and a way to resolve it with stabbing. Accordingly, the game turned into a major court battle followed by a dubious arrest.

The game handled the story well for the most part. It was just interesting to see that ancient Egyptians (and Greeks) cared so deeply about plagiarism and to see it represented in modern media.

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