March 26, 2009
Babylon exhibition: rethinking fashionable anti-Hellenism
The current Babylon show is big, but what does it say about ancient Mesopotamia?
One wonders about the motives behind the exhibition itself. Topically, they plainly had to do with current events in Iraq and at the Baghdad Museum -- a concluding chapter in the British Museum's English-language catalogue says as much. But they also go deeper than that. For much of the past 30 years admirers of classical Greece have been on the defensive, while easternizing admirers of Mesopotamia -- which includes the Assyrians, the 6th century BC Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Persians who took over under Cyrus in 539 BC -- have been on the attack. Darius and Co. have been talked up; Pericles and Herodotus and Co. have been talked down.But if it is a good thing to step back and take a look at both sides, it is no improvement to simply exchange one prejudice for its inverse. When all is said and done, Hellas and Mesopotamia were radically different -- and with all romantic idealization set aside, there can be little doubt about where our civilization comes from. Full article here.That distinguished and venerable classicist Peter Green apologised for having been too keen for freedom in his 1970 book Xerxes at Salamis. Revising it in 1996 under the new title The Greco-Persian Wars, he regretted embracing so enthusiastically "the fundamental Herodotean concept of freedom-under-law (eleutheria, isonomia) making its great and impassioned stand against Oriental Despotism." What he called "the insistent lessons of multiculturalism" had forced all classical scholars "to take a long hard look at Greek 'anti-barbarian' propaganda, beginning with Aeschylus's Persians and the whole thrust of Herodotus's Histories."
Posted by David on March 26, 2009 9:44 AM
freedom-under-law...
Well there are laws, and then there are laws, a distinction famously attributed to Hammurabi[sp?].
And those in power who insist on them may be disconnoded [sorry, just had a flash of a chamber pot being yanked from under....] by them. Spotted earlier today via another blogger -
http://blog.beliefnet.com//cityofbrass/2009/03/sharia-versus-the-taleban-in-s.html
Seems that insisting on rule-of-law has backfired in some ways. Though I might question the auto's conclusion "Once Law is established as the authority, it can be changed, and the trend in history has always been for Law to grow more and more liberal, especially as information technology and trade open a region to influences beyond its domestic sphere." Largely true, perhaps, but a far cry from always.
Posted by: John A on March 26, 2009 3:50 PM
What are "the insistent lessons of multiculturalism" anyway? Cultural relativism? Persian civilization is entitled to an unbiased evaluation by Western historians, however let's keep some perspective,we(citizens of modern democracies) should be thankful to whatever deities we choose that the Greeks won.
Posted by: Russell on March 29, 2009 3:09 AM
Russell is certainly correct; it is good for us that the Greek view dominated. Our view of time and space, and certainly a different "science" would be very different and I suspect a case could be made that "the other path" would clearly be less technological and we would not be communicating here.
Posted by: Donald Wolberg on April 2, 2009 9:11 AM
Sandell's article unfortunately is written from a standpoint of anti-multi-culti disdain that's become the political correctness of many rightwingers. We get no hint of the magnficence of the Ishtar Gate, or that the Gilgamesh Epic meditates on the human condition every bit as profoundly as Sophocles did.
We also manage never to hear that, as far as anyone knows, writing BEGAN in Mesopotamia, as did written law (and indeed the rule of law), and that the post-Mycenaean Greeks got their writing from the Phoenicians, who (most likely) got the idea for writing from either Mesopotamia or Egypt.
In other words: if there had been no civilized Middle East, there would have been no Greek miracle.
A good corrective to this article would be almost anything written by Henry Saggs, who never minimized the importance of the Greeks. By the way, thinking of that distinguished scholar reminds me that Saggs was, and George Cawkwell (whom Sandell makes a whipping boy) is, a man of the political right. It's good to know that some scholars at least can have rightish opinions and not be reduced to idiocy.
Incidentally, my training is in Classics (Ph.D. Brown 1987). I'm just an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to Mespotamia, Egypt, & Persia.
Posted by: Aaron Baker on April 3, 2009 11:21 AM
"Sandall," not "Sandell"; my apologies.
Posted by: Aaron Baker on April 3, 2009 12:46 PM
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