Martin Classical Lectures

Erich S. Gruen

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781400836550
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Prevalent among classicists today is the notion that Greeks, Romans, and Jews enhanced their own self-perception by contrasting themselves with the so-called Other--Egyptians, Phoenicians, Ethiopians, Gauls, and other foreigners--frequently through hostile stereotypes, distortions, and caricature. In this provocative book, Erich Gruen demonstrates how the ancients found connections rather than contrasts, how they expressed admiration for the achievements and principles of other societies, and how they discerned--and even invented--kinship relations and shared roots with diverse peoples.
Gruen shows how the ancients incorporated the traditions of foreign nations, and imagined blood ties and associations with distant cultures through myth, legend, and fictive histories. He looks at a host of creative tales, including those describing the founding of Thebes by the Phoenician Cadmus, Rome's embrace of Trojan and Arcadian origins, and Abraham as ancestor to the Spartans. Gruen gives in-depth readings of major texts by Aeschylus, Herodotus, Xenophon, Plutarch, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, and others, in addition to portions of the Hebrew Bible, revealing how they offer richly nuanced portraits of the alien that go well beyond stereotypes and caricature.
Providing extraordinary insight into the ancient world, this controversial book explores how ancient attitudes toward the Other often expressed mutuality and connection, and not simply contrast and alienation.

PART I

Impressions of the “Other”

Chapter 1

PERSIA IN THE GREEK PERCEPTION: AESCHYLUS AND HERODOTUS

THE PERSIAN WAR represented a mighty watershed in Hellenic history. Its effects resonated through Greek literature in subsequent centuries. Current scholarly consensus in fact goes further. It designates the conflict with Persia as the pivotal turning point in the conception of Greek identity. The clash prompted Greeks to reconsider the values that gave them distinctiveness and to shape those values by contrast with a constructed “barbarian” who would set them in high relief.¹ The “Orientalizing” of the Persian, therefore, stemmed from that international contest for survival or supremacy. It drove Greeks to distinguish their special characteristics from the despised “Other” who lived contentedly under despotism, scorned freedom, and preferred servility to rationality and self-determination. Such is the overwhelming communis opinio.² Should we buy it? A fresh look at some key texts might be salutary.

Aeschylus’ Persae

Aeschylus produced his Persae in 472 BCE, a scant seven years since the Greeks had turned back a massive Persian invasion. Hellenic armies and navies had won decisive victories over a numerically superior foe, a highwater mark in their history, a salvation of the land from the fearsome easterner whose conquest would have brought Greece under the heel of the barbarian. So the clash was destined to be celebrated through the ages. And the conflict had by no means ended when the Persae hit the stage. Athenians (and perhaps Greeks generally) could not breathe easily until the next decade, when they smashed the Persian fleet at the Eurymedon and a peace of some sort took hold thereafter. The image of Persia, however, still loomed as the preeminent adversary of Hellas. And Greek statesmen charged with or suspected of leanings toward Persia were branded as “Medizers,” emblematic of treachery to the nation. Yet Aeschylus presented a drama set entirely at Susa, the seat of Achaemenid rule, without a single Greek character onstage. And the effects of the great naval victory at Salamis are viewed altogether from the (presumed) perspective of the Persians. What does this signify for Greek attitudes toward the great eastern power?

Aeschylus was not the first to compose a work along these lines. Phrynichus had produced his Phoenissae probably in 476 and had carried off the prize. Only the first line of the play survives, but Aeschylus, so we are told, modeled his Persae on it and shared its perspective, that is, its presentation of events as seen from the Persian angle. Athens, in the immediate aftermath of the great war, evidently did not discourage the presentation of that vantage point.³ Just how to interpret the phenomenon remains controversial. Critics fall broadly into two camps. Some find the Persae to be the quintessential expression of Hellenic superiority, a celebratory drama that extols the victory of freedom and democracy over barbaric despotism, of western values over eastern degeneracy. Persians appear as effeminate and emotional, softened by luxury and inured to servility, a foil for the egalitarian, hardy, and disciplined Greeks.⁴ Others, by contrast, offer a precisely inverted analysis: Aeschylus expresses sympathy for the Persian plight, recognizes the common humanity of both peoples, and provides a universalist perspective that transcends national sentiment or ethnic antagonism.⁵

One need not, however, embrace either end of the dichotomy.⁶ There is little or nothing in the drama to promote jingoism. Ethnic distinctions play no explicit part and political distinctions only an indirect one. Persians may enjoy wealth and splendor, but Aeschylus nowhere suggests Greek austerity or self-denial as national traits.⁷ The idea of luxury and extravagance as signaling Persian decadence, the intimations of Persian effeminacy as against Hellenic manliness, the “Orientalizing,” in short, of the barbarian is hard to discern in the Persae. Many of the features associated with an opulent lifestyle, in fact, found favor with Greek poets and writers of the archaic era, particularly as they reflected the aspirations of the aristocracy.⁸ The receptivity in the Greek world to Persian dress, Persian products, Persian art, and the Persian aesthetic generally as status symbols and modes of cultural expression among the elite was widespread. And the adaptation of such symbols gradually devolved into the lower strata of society as well.⁹ Greeks were familiar figures in the Persian empire as envoys, traders, soldiers, artisans, and skilled professionals.¹⁰ The remarkable overlap and interconnections that linked the cultures would discourage any drive to demonize the high life of the “Oriental.” Aeschylus, despite claims to the contrary, does not engage in such stigmatization.¹¹ The play avoids trumpeting any inherent superiority of Hellenes over barbarians.

On the other hand, compassion for Persians hardly suits a dramatist who fought proudly in the war, whose brother was killed in action, and who, according to Aristophanes, portrayed his work as a lesson to Athenians always to seek conquest of their enemies.¹² The Persae eschews universalist preaching—let alone pacifism. A different path to understanding seems called for.

The very fact of the drama itself, produced when wounds had not yet healed and future fighting was in store, remains the most striking point. Persians alone constitute the cast; they suffer the losses, they lament their fate, they encompass both the admirable and the flawed. The tragedy is theirs. And tragic figures, for all their limitations, are not despicable.

The outlook of Aeschylus resists reductionism. Persian rulers are despots, to be sure. The playwright does not disguise their absolutism. All nations of the empire follow the fearsome processions of the monarch.¹³ Even kings are subordinate to the Great King.¹⁴ Xerxes, the Achaemenid monarch who ordered the host to Greece, will remain sovereign of the realm, so his mother exclaims, regardless of the outcome of the war: he is not accountable to the polity.¹⁵ He has the power of life and death over his subjects, and, if his forces should allow the enemy to escape, their heads will roll.¹⁶ No wonder that many scholars find the drama as demonstrating the advantages of Greek democracy over oriental despotism.¹⁷ Autocratic governance, to be sure, may have been unappealing to many Hellenes. But Aeschylus is not making a constitutional ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I. Impressions of the “Other”
• Part II. Connections with the “Other”
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index of Citations
• Subject Index