Greek and Barbarian – Western Voices World News

<div style=”font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;” class=”entry-meta”>by <a class=”url fn n” href=”http://www.toqonline.com/author/fdevlin/" title=”View all posts by F. Roger Devlin”>F. Roger Devlin</a> (Original article available at <a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.toqonline.com/2009/04/greek-and-barbarian/”>www.toqonline.com</a>) </div>
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The Landmark Herodotus

The Histories

Edited by Robert B. Strassler

New York: Pantheon, 2007

Independent
scholar Robert Strassler has produced far and away the best English
edition aimed at the general reader of the work which remains the
fountainhead of the Western historical tradition. Let us hope there is
still a fit audience out there for it—men, that is, capable of learning
what Herodotus has to teach. Generations of schoolboys at British
public schools, German Gymnasia, and American rural academies once read his Histories to learn who they were—in other words, what it meant to be men of the West.

On
a first approach, Herodotus’s great work appears a confusing welter of
names, colorful stories, digressions, and miscellaneous ethnographic
information. I have taught the work to undergraduates and remember
students valiantly struggling to discuss “that one King of Wherever,
who was fighting that tribe, whatever they were called . . .” In
reality, the narrative is carefully—indeed intricately—structured, but
in a manner that only becomes
clear after repeated readings. What Strassler has done is provide a
wealth of maps, indices, cross references, notes, illustrations,
and appendices which reduce the preliminary mental effort required
merely to grasp this overall structure. The reader can thus proceed
more quickly to genuine historical understanding. It
is remarkable that no one in the small, overspecialized world of
academic classical studies has ever bothered to attempt such a project.
Strassler himself fetchingly admits: “I am not a scholar of ancient
Greek and indeed can barely parse a simple sentence in that language”
(xlvi). He commissioned a new translation for this edition by Andrea
Purvis of Duke University. It is not “dazzling,” as the publisher’s
blurb claims, but perhaps something better: unpretentiously accurate,
and less mannered than its nearest competitor, David Grene’s 1987
version.
Herodotus
grew up in Halicarnassus, an important trading center on the edge of
the Greek world, where Greek and Barbarian came into frequent contact.
He traveled widely, visiting Egypt as well as many Greek cities; he
interviewed public figures and veterans of the events he recounts and
gave public readings of his work, which he called the “Inquiries” (historiē
in Greek). His great theme is the contrast between Greek and Barbarian,
and more particularly the struggle of Greek freedom with Asiatic
despotism. The narrative is designed from the beginning to culminate in
a description of the successful Greek struggle to repel the Persian
invasions of 490 and 480 BC. Herodotus,
like most ancient writers, was concerned with freedom primarily in a
political sense. He says nothing about freedom of commerce or religion
or conscience or of individual action. All of these may be fine things,
but they are ideals which belong to a later age. During
the Cold War, many were inclined to cite the greater efficiency of the
market economy as the fundamental distinguishing trait of the West,
proudly pointing to our groaning supermarket shelves and favorably
contrasting them with Soviet bread lines. Persons used to this way of
viewing matters will be especially liable to a feeling of cognitive
dissonance when reading Herodotus, who constantly stresses the wealth
of oriental despotisms; whereas “in Hellas,” according to one Greek
quoted in the Histories, “poverty is always and forever a native resident” (Book 7: chapter 102). An
especially famous and illustrative story, not less significant for
being probably unhistorical, concerns Solon the Athenian lawgiver and
Croesus of Lydia (immortalized in the expression “rich as Croesus”).
After proudly displaying his wealth to his Athenian visitor, Croesus
hopefully asks whether Solon in all his travels has “yet seen anyone
who surpasses all others in happiness and prosperity?” Solon
disappoints him by naming a number of Greeks who lived in relatively
moderate circumstances. Croesus indignantly asks “are you disparaging
my happiness as though it were nothing? Do you think me worth less than
even a common man?” Solon explains that no judgment can be made while
Croesus is still alive, for reversals of fortune are too common.
(1:30-32) Croesus eventually attempts to conquer the Persians, but is
defeated by them and deprived of his kingdom.
The Asiatics as portrayed by Herodotus might be described, for lack of a better word, as accumulators.
This applies no less to political power than to wealth. “We have
conquered and made slaves of the Sacae, Indians, Ethiopians, Assyrians,
and many other great nations” says one Persian grandee matter of
factly, “not because they had committed injustices against Persia, but
only to increase our own power through them” (7:8). In other words,
they are believers in what a contemporary neoconservative journalist
might call “national greatness.” They build larger monuments than the
Greeks and undertake vast projects such as diverting rivers. It never
seems to occur to them that anything might become too big or too
organized. When they attempt the conquest of Greece, Herodotus shows
them becoming encumbered by their vast baggage trains, unable to moor
their multitude of ships properly in tiny Greek coves—generally crushed
beneath their own weight like a beached whale as much as they are
defeated by the Hellenic armies. 
A
related Asiatic trait is a failure to acknowledge human limitations.
When Xerxes’ invasion is delayed by stormy weather at the Hellespont,
he orders the beachhead scourged and branded. His slaves are instructed
to say: “Bitter water, your Master is imposing this penalty upon you
for wronging him. King Xerxes will cross you whether you like it or
not” (7:35). Similarly, there is no real place in the Asiatic’s thought
for death, because it is the ultimate limitation on human planning and
power. Xerxes weeps while reviewing his army as it occurs to him that
all his men will be dead in a hundred years, but decides he must simply
put the matter out of his mind. 
The Solonian view of happiness as a life well lived from beginning to end, by contrast, begins
with the fundamental fact of human finitude. It is this
characteristically Greek view which Aristotle eventually formalized and
extended in his discussion of happiness (eudaimonia) in the Nicomachian Ethics,
and which has continued to influence the best minds of Christendom to
this day. The modern “consumerist” mentality, by contrast, might be
understood as a relapse into Asiatic barbarism.

The
Persians make efforts to buy off Greek leaders. Herodotus describes the
wealth of a Persian Satrap named Hydarnes, and then recounts his advice
to some Spartan envoys passing through his province on the way to the
Persian capitol:

“Lacedaemonians,
why are you trying to avoid becoming the King’s friends? You can see
that the King knows how to honor good men when you look at me and the
state of my affairs. This could be the same for you if only you would
surrender yourselves to the King, since he would surely think you to be
good men and allow each of you Greek territory to rule over.” To this
they replied, “Hydarnes, you offer us this advice only because you do
not have a fair and proper perspective. For you counsel us based on
your experience of only one way of life, but you have had no experience
of the other: you know well how to be a slave but have not yet
experienced freedom, nor have you felt whether it is sweet or not. But
if you could try freedom, you would advise us to fight for it, and not
only with spears, but with axes!” (7:135)
 When the envoys arrive in Susa,

At
first the King’s bodyguards ordered them and actually tried to force
them to prostrate themselves before the King; but they refused to do
so, saying that they would never do that, even if the bodyguards should
try to push them down to the ground headfirst, since it was not their
custom [nomos to prostrate themselves before any human being. (7:136)
 King
Xerxes, by contrast, is a great believer in “leadership:” if he were
alive today, one might picture him topping the bestseller lists with
books on his “Seven Principles of Effective Leadership.” Before
invading Greece, he asks:

How
could 1,000 or even 10,000 or 50,000 men, all of them alike being free
and lacking one man to rule over them, stand up to an army as great as
mine? Now if they were under the rule of one man, as is our way, they
would fear that man and be better able, in spite of their natural
inclinations, to go out and confront larger forces, despite their being
outnumbered, because they would then be compelled by the lash. But they
would never dare to do such a thing if they were allowed their freedom!
(7:103)
 At
the Battle of Salamis, he has a throne erected for himself on a
prominent hill, convinced that his men will fight best knowing they are
under his watchful eye.
Herodotus leaves us in no doubt where he stands on this issue; he relates in his own voice that
 
the
Athenians increased in strength, which demonstrates that an equal voice
in government has beneficial impact not merely in one way, but in every
way: the Athenians, while ruled by tyrants, were no better in war than
any of the peoples living around them, but once they were rid of
tyrants, they became by far the best of all. Thus it is clear that they
were deliberately slack while repressed, since they were working for a
master, but that after they were freed, they became ardently devoted to
working hard so as to win achievements for themselves as individuals.
(5:78)

This
comparative lack of emphasis on leadership does not mean the ancients
were egalitarian levelers. All successful enterprises must be organized
hierarchically, because this is what allows men to coordinate their
efforts. The Greeks, in fact, made a proverb of a line from Homer’s Iliad:
“Lordship for many is no good thing; let there be one ruler.” Moreover,
they greatly honored men who performed leadership functions
successfully. 
Public
offices were, however, always distinguished from the particular men
holding them. They did not regard their magistrates as sacred, and none
ever claimed to be descended from Zeus. Aristotle defined political
freedom as “ruling and being ruled in turn.” In battle, Greek captains
fought in a corner of the phalanx beside their men; they could be
difficult for an enemy to distinguish.

What
allowed Greeks to combine effective organization with political
freedom? Herodotus suggests it was a kind of “rule of law.” As a Greek
advisor explains to Xerxes: 
Though they are free, they are not free in all respects, for they are actually ruled by a lord and master: law [nomos
is their master, and it is the law that they inwardly fear—much more so
than your men fear you. They do whatever it commands, which is always
the same: it forbids them to flee from battle, and no matter how many
men they are fighting, it orders them to remain in their rank and
either prevail or perish. (7:104)

In order to appreciate what is being said here, it is important to understand what is meant by law, or nomos.
If it were possible to make intelligible to Herodotus such modern legal
phenomena as executive orders, Supreme Court decrees, or annually
updated administrative regulations, it is more than doubtful whether he
would have considered them examples of nomos. These are
simply instruments of power, not much different from what existed in
the Persian Empire or any despotism. A “rule of law” in this
sense makes no particular contribution to freedom. In fact, much of the
West’s current predicament results from our traditional respect for law
being converted into a weapon against us, rendering us subject to a
regime of arbitrary commands disguised as “law” and concocted by an
irresponsible power elite hostile to our interests.
It is essential to nomos
that it be superpersonal. Often the word can be translated “custom,”
which helps one understand that it cannot be decreed by any man,
whether King or Hellenic magistrate. Freedom under nomos is not lack of a master, as Herodotus makes clear, but the capacity for self-mastery. In battle, it extends even to the point of demanding total self-sacrifice.

This
helps to explain why wealth is dangerous to freedom; the man who
becomes used to gratifying his desires comes to be ruled by desire and
loses his capacity for self-mastery and sacrifice. When an earlier King
of Persia is threatened by rebellion, Herodotus shows him being advised
as follows:

Prohibit
them from possessing weapons of war, order them to wear tunics under
their cloaks and soft boots, instruct them to play the lyre and the
harp, and tell them to educate their sons to be shopkeepers. If you do
this, sire, you will soon see that they will become women instead of
men and thus will pose no danger or threat to you of any future
rebellion. (1:155) The limitations of the Asiatic leadership principle become evident when an Asiatic army loses its leader. It is liable to cease being
an army—to become a rabble, a mob of individuals incapable of
organization or initiative. A famous episode from later Greek history
makes clear how the Greek way was different: In 401 BC, about a
generation after Herodotus’ death, an army of ten thousand Greek
mercenaries marched into the heart of the Persian Empire in support of
a rival candidate for the Imperial title. Their leader was killed in
battle and they were stranded hundreds of miles deep in hostile
territory. A Persian representative came to accept their surrender and
collect their weapons, and was flummoxed to learn the Greeks had no
intention of handing any weapons over. Instead, they simply met in
assembly and elected a new leader for themselves—exactly as they were
accustomed to do in the political assembles of their home cities. They
proceeded to fight their way back to Greece with most of them
surviving, and the entire might of the Persian Empire was insufficient
to stop them. It is safe to say that no Persian army could have equaled
the feat.
This
spirit of independence and self-reliance did not last forever. The
Greek cities wore out their strength through decades of fighting with
one another. In 338, they finally fell to Philip, King of Macedon. By
291, Athenians were celebrating the triumphal return of a Macedonian
general to their city in hymns describing him as a “living god.” He
used the Parthenon to house his harem. Economic historians tell us that
the overall Greek standard of living was higher in this later age,
however.

Today
we see a traitorous leadership consciously abandons our heritage of
freedom to a barbarism worse than Persian, buying us off with the bread
and circuses of television, shopping malls, and tax subsidies for
collaborators, punishing the few who offer even verbal resistance. The
reader who still has a mind to do something about this situation might
find some lessons in the pages of Herodotus. He would be well advised
to take a little time from our current plight to reacquaint himself
with what Western man has been. 
F. Roger Devlin, Ph.D., is an independent scholar and the author of Alexandre Kojève and the Outcome of Modern Thought (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2004).

2009-04-19