Baebler, 'Birth of the European Identity: The Europe-Asia Contrast in Greek Thought 490-322 B.C.', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9508
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9508-baebler-birth
@@@@95.9.12, Khan, ed., Birth of the European Identity
Khan, H.A., ed., The Birth of the European Identity: The
Europe-Asia Contrast in Greek Thought 490-322 B.C..
Nottingham Classical Literature Studies, Volume 2, 1993.
Nottingham: University of Nottingham, 1994. Pp. 161. ISBN
0-904857-07-7 (pb).
Reviewed Balbina Baebler -- University of Bern
send e-mail to nesselrath@kps.unibe.ch
NCLS 2 contains eight papers delivered at the Second Symposium
held by the Nottingham Classics Department on 26 May 1993 (four
main papers, each accompanied by a response) and an additional
contribution by L. Canfora who was not present in person.
1. John E. Ziolkowski, National and Other Contrasts in the
Athenian Funeral Orations (p. 1-35). The author is well aware
that group loyalties (family, village, polis etc.) were always
overriding 'national' patriotism in Ancient Greece; thus he uses
the term 'national' in the title "guardedly but in the
non-technical sense" of Diogenes Laertius'[[1]] distinction
between Greeks and non-Greeks, as he states at the beginning of
his paper.
He then considers the six surviving Greek funeral
orations[[2]] as a corpus of material, a quite promising
approach,[[3]] and develops his argument by discussing several
charts: Chart I (p. 3) shows the frequency of the words 'Asia',
'Europe', 'Hellas + Hellenes' and 'Barbaroi' in these orations;
its examination (p. 4-6) leads him to conclude that "the terms
'Europe-Asia' are usually equivalent to 'Hellene-Barbarian' and
'Europe' is basically the same as 'Hellas', reserved primarily
for occasions when 'Asia' is chosen to emphasize the great
numbers of the invaders" (p. 7).[[4]] Surprisingly, there are few
or no references to the barbarians as inferior, effeminate, cruel
etc.; the term 'barbarian' in the funeral orations has either the
historical meaning of Persians or the generic one of non-Greeks
(p. 7). Chart II deals with the names of individuals in the
funeral orations (p. 9-10); like N. Loraux,[[5]] Z. believes the
reason why Athenian heroes don't appear in this context is that
"the tradition substitutes the demos for the hero" (p. 10). Chart
III lists all the names, including forms of Barbaros and the
other terms from charts I and II; Z. states that these names
occur almost always in the epainos section of the speech. More
interesting is chart IV ('Names That Occur in More Than One
Speech', p. 12f.), for it shows how funeral orations reflect
changes in the political circumstances; there is a clear
correspondence between Lysias and Plato; Demosthenes and
Hypereides had much more specialised programs than the speakers
earlier in the fourth century.
Part 2 of Z.'s paper examines the events mentioned in the
speeches (p. 14-20): while neither Thukydides nor Gorgias refers
specifically to historical events, the others give surveys of
Athenian historical exploits and familiar myths; more or less the
same "events" are found in all orations (see p. 17, 19), but with
different individual emphasis (p. 18, 20). There is a stress on
going to war for Dike or against Hybris; the Trojan War seems to
have lost propagandistic appeal in the fourth century.
Part 3 (p. 20-26) deals with rhetorical antitheses and
contrasting expressions as such (Athenian/other, Greek/Barbarian
etc.), carefully taking into account the actual circumstances
(e.g. the problem of Greek cities on the continent of Asia).[[6]]
There is obviously a great variety of types of contrast in the
speeches: "In their changed attitude towards the Barbarians and
the breakdown of the Europe-Asia contrast, the later speeches in
fact show a transition to the cosmopolitan and synchretic
tendencies of the Hellenistic age" (p. 26). This conclusion is
particularly interesting because it contradicts the communis
opinio that in funeral orations traditional themes and examples
were recited with little or no changes year after year; it shows
that funeral orators though following a familiar tradition
reflect the political and historical circumstances of their own
epoch.
2. Edith Hall, Drowning by Nomes: The Greeks, Swimming, and
Timotheus' Persians (p. 44-80). Since early times, H. states,
swimming and diving were "implicated in the construction of
ethnic and national identities"; "the ability to swim well" was
usually--except for knightly heroes of the Middle Ages--a "reason
for ethnic pride and the image of drowning enemies recurs in ...
celebrations of victory ..." (p. 44). Heroic swimming feats can
be found in Roman history and myth,[[7]] and powerful swimmers
like Julius Caesar are felt to be particularly manly (Suet. 1,
64; Vit. Caes. 49, 3-4), while weak and effeminate men
like Antony (Plut. Vit. Ant. 29) or Caligula (Suet.
Cal. 54) are either bad or absolute non-swimmers (p. 47).
In an interesting excursus (p. 47-49) H. shows how in the
nineteenth and twentieth century swimming became connected with
racist and nationalist discourses.[[8]]
After this introduction H. convincingly shows that "such an
implication of swimming in ethnic identity and ethnic pride was
already clearly discernible in the archaic and classical periods
of Ancient Greece" (p. 47). Plato, Nomoi 3. 689d3 and the
explanation of the proverb MH/TE NEI=N (Suda s. v.) attest that
saying of someone he "doesn't know swimming" means "he is totally
ignorant". Maritime warfare made the knowledge of swimming
necessary for Athenians.[[9]] In spite of that, Greek literature
says very little about swimming as such, surely because--as H.
suggests--it was in Ancient Greece no formal competitive sport
performed at public games (p. 52). However, the literary evidence
carefully put together by H. (p. 49-54) shows that from Homeric
times onwards abilities of swimming are "regarded as necessary
and admirable accoutrements of Greek manhood" (p. 53); they
belong "to the panhellenic self-definitions constituted by the
corpus of heroic literature and art". It is not surprising, then,
that barbarian males lack this ability, as far as we can judge
from Hdt. 8, 89, Thuk. 7, 29.
These conclusions enable H. to throw new light on a
fascinating text, the Persians of Timotheos of Miletus (p.
57). The last third of this poem is preserved in a papyrus of the
4th century B. C. discovered in 1902 near Abusir and edited in
1903 by U. v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (PBerol 9865). One result
of the great excitement the papyrus caused was that its content
was more or less overlooked (p. 58). Other fragments of the poem
are quoted in ancient authors; H. first discusses three fragments
cited by Plutarch in contexts of Hellenic freedom and
independence.[[10]] The papyrus seems to begin during the
narrative section, which relates four episodes of the battle of
Salamis in an patriotic and even "triumphalist" tone (p. 61). H.
notes that T.'s barbarians are dying with typical 'barbarian'
grief and lamentation (111-13, 151); they show servility against
their king but also towards the victorious Greeks (166) and take
up abject physical positions of supplication (157-8, 189) (p. 62
f.). A chorus-like group of barbarians (including Mysians and
Lydians) laments, "sitting on shores, naked, freezing and
weeping", while an inhabitant of Kelainai delivers (at the knees
of a Greek holding him by the hair) a speech that is a rather
humorous linguistic caricature; at last Xerxes laments the fate
of his men and land (p. 63-65). H. then gives an excellent
analysis of the "first barbarian voice", a 56 line episode of a
Persian drowning; she shows that the motives of barbarians dying
in the water and corpses being battered against the coastline is
a profoundly Aischylean motif (p. 67), while giving the victim
direct speech is an invention of Timotheos, who moreover
concentrates on the barbarian's physical struggle in the water
and relates with gruesome details his desperate fight for breath
(p. 67-69). Thus T. gives us an impressive antitype to the
swimming Greek (p. 71); as H. convincingly shows, the Greek
cultural pride in their prowess in the water (which proved itself
e. g. in the Persian sea-battles) lies also behind Timotheos'
drowning barbarian.
M. Hose's response (p. 81-89) deals above all with the date
and audience of Timotheos' poem; he argues for a date after 412
and for performance in a place belonging to the Peloponnesian
league.
3. Juan Antonio Lopez Ferez, Los escritos hipocraticos y el
nacimiento de la identidad europea (p. 90-123). L. F.
examines a well-known though puzzling text: the Hippocratic
treatise De aeribus, aquis, locis, a work that falls
outside many categories but is in itself a coherent whole,
dealing with the central theme of the dependence of man's nature
on his geographic surroundings. L. F. analyses the chap. 12-24,
which discuss the differences between Asia and Europe. The theme
of these differences (diaphorai) was popular since the
first historiographers; here, however (chap. 12), they are for
the first time located in the nature of the earth and its
products (p. 93). This links the treatise with the aetiological
literature of Democritus and his school (p. 95). In chap. 13 the
sea of Maeotis is designed as the border between Europe and Asia;
chap. 14 deals with the different nature and manners of peoples,
including a paragraph about the Macrocephali. Chap. 16 informs us
that the Asians are less industrious than the Europeans and have
a more placid (even cowardly) character because of the uniform,
temperate and equable climate of their country (p. 99). Chap.
17-22 describe the peoples of the extreme border of Europe; the
inhabitants of this region are like each other, living in intense
coldness, while the other peoples of Europe are different from
one another because of the frequent changes of climate. With
regard to the political institutions, the treatise in a
generalizing manner opposes Asia, ruled by despots, to Europe,
where peoples have no kings.
On the grounds of these reflections, L. F. suggests as date of
composition of the treatise the years 425-420, but Vivian Nutton
in his response (p. 124-130) points out that this is far from
certain (p. 124). Nutton thinks that the perspective of the
treatise is that of the author's own travels, and probably a
perspective of the North Aegean (p. 127). The treatise, which in
Antiquity didn't attract much attention (even among
Hippocratics), became famous only in the sixteeenth century (p.
128 f.).
4. Stephen Usher, Isocrates: Paideia, Kingship and the
Barbarians (p. 131-145). This article deals with "elitist"
(p. 131) Isocrates, whose authoritarian paideia is "attuned to
autocracy" (p. 132). The decline of the polis in Isocrates' day
made him prefer a political system which would not allow ordinary
people to "choose badly", and encourage powerful individuals to
use their position up to the logical limits of autocracy (134
f.). Persian monarchy as a model may lack a moral dimension;
Isocrates, however, can still find use in this model even without
that dimension: it exhibits continuity, absence of rivalry and
dissension and hence decisiveness (Ad Nicocl. 19; p. 137).
For Isocrates, a single leadership is essential in war, and with
this idea he addresses Philip of Macedon,[[11]] whom he hopes
will lead a Panhellenic expedition against Persia. As to the war
on the 'Persian barbarians', U. argues that Isocrates' opinion is
"conventionally anti-barbarian, but ... he did not think all of
them irredeemable, in spite of major disabilities (Antid.
293-4)" (p. 143). According to Isocrates, barbarians are inferior
to Greeks because of their lack of paideia, but with Athens--i.
e. Isocrates himself--providing this education, the Asian
archetype of monarchy would become an ideal rule for both Greece
and Asia (p. 144 f.).
U.'s view that the Egyptians had a special position in Greek
eyes, because neither Herodotus nor Isocrates calls them
barbarians, is rightly contradicted in the response of Paul
Cartledge (p. 146-153), who points to Herodotus' catalogue of
eighteen ways in which the manners and customs of the Egyptians
are the "exact converse of ... those of the Greeks"; Herodotus
therefore could not have been Isocrates' mentor (p. 150 f.). Like
Cartledge I rather doubt that "Isocrates, despite his
Athenocentrism retained the capacity for a more enlightened
approach to the Barbarian in general and/or to particular
barbarians" (p. 149). Cartledge convincingly points out that
Isocrates' cultural Athenocentrism would have strongly
encouraged, if not predetermined, a polarised and negative view
of the barbarian Other (p. 149 ff.).
Luciano Canfora, L'idea di Asia in Isocrate e Demostene
(p. 156-161). C. compares the view of Persia which the two
orators exhibit in their speeches with the political reality of
the Persian empire in the second half of the 4th century B.C.
Demosthenes' attitude can best be seen in the Fourth
Philippica (32 ff.): The orator, who according to
Plutarch[[12]] sent letters to the Great King asking for money
and help against Macedonia, clearly saw that Persia liked to play
the Greeks off one against the other, but he thought that Athens
might actually profit from this policy. For him, it was most
important that the 'barbarian', the 'common enemy', stayed far
away at Susa or Ecbatana and presented no danger, while the real
threat, Macedonia, was at Greece's doors (32 ff.; p. 156 f.).
Isocrates, on the other hand, already in the final part of his
Panegyricus (138 ff.) insisted that Asia was much weaker
than the Greeks imagined and that the Persian empire was
vulnerable, thereby exploiting a theme that seemed politically
useful in 380 B.C. According to C., Isocrates was therefore
politically much more advanced than Demosthenes who in 341/40
still believed that Persia played a decisive role in Greek
politics; Isocrates was also more far-sighted than Xenophon who,
although having seen the weakness of the Persian empire himself,
continued to idealize it in his Cyropaedia. From this
point of view C. sees Isocrates as an important forerunner of a
new political climate.
Among these papers the one of E. Hall is clearly outstanding;
it provides an intense analysis of Timotheos and pursues an
interesting phenomenon far beyond Antiquity. A lot of material is
also covered by the paper of Ziolkowski and by the interesting
responses of Nutton and Cartledge. On the other hand, I don't see
much that is new in Usher's contribution; more than one third of
his paper simply consists of Greek text. Is it really necessary
to cite the texts one is dealing with at such length (compare the
other papers), when everyone who has to deal with a book of this
kind probably has an appropriate library at hand?
NOTES
[[1]] Diog. Laert., Lives of Eminent Philosophers 1.33.
[[2]] Thuk. II 35-46 (Pericles' speech of 431 B.C.); Gorgias fr.
DK 82 B 6 (perhaps right after the Peace of Nicias in 421);
Lysias or. 2 (during the Corinthian War 394-387 B.C.); Plato's
Menexenus (after the Peace of Antalcidas 387); Demosth.
or. 60 (after the battle of Chaironeia 338 B.C.); Hypereides or.
6 (after the Athenian defeat in the Lamian War 322 B. C.).
[[3]] See also the response by J. Roy 36 ff.
[[4]] When Macedonia became the principal threat to Greece, the
Hellene-Barbarian antithesis "was restricted to historical
allusions to the fifth-century situation, when Barbarians usually
meant the Persians" (p. 7).
[[5]] N. Loraux, The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration
in the Classical City (1986) 66.
[[6]] Roy in his response (p. 36-42) points out that the
epitaphios is a specifically Athenian institution, so that the
comparisons discussed by Ziolkowski may not have had the same
meaning for other Greeks.
[[7]] H. refers to Virgil, Aen. 603-4; 9, 815-18; 11, 565;
Livy 2, 10; 2, 13).
[[8]] E. g. in the Nazi propagandist L. Riefenstahl's 1936 film
'Olympiad', where the 'Aryan swimmer' is drawn from imaginary
Spartans.
[[9]] H. cites the anonymous commentary on Aphthonius'
Progymnasmata in C. Waltz, Rhetores Graeci ii
[1835] 44f.
[[10]] Life of Philopoimen 1,11; Life of Agesilaus
14, 2; How Young Men Should Listen to Poetry 11.
[[11]] Whose Greekness he proves with what U. calls the
"Heracles-connection", Letter to Philip II 40 (p. 40).
[[12]] Life of Demosthenes 20, 4-5: A whole
'documentation' of Demosthenes' anti-Macedonian actions is said
to have been found by Alexander in Susa.