Classics in Contemporary Culture

Persian Invasion Awareness

Out in hiatus-land, I missed (darn it!) the 2500th anniversary re-enactment of Pheidippides' "Marathon" run (although the "culmination" of the celebration, on 31 October, is still to come) [Reuters--thanks to rogueclassicism].  A humorous take on the event is offered by Mark Remy at Runners World Daily--and it even includes some Greek.  He first sets it up with some flippant skepticism:

As everyone knows, Pheidippides or Phidippides or "P. Dippy" (as he was briefly known) was the Greek who… um… ran 26 or 140 miles to Sparta or Athens or somewhere, and announced victory in the battle of Marathon or else asked for reinforcements or possibly something cold to drink and then dropped dead. Or didn't. Assuming that any version of this occurred at all, which it may not have.

Honestly, everything about this story is hard to pin down. It's like a riddle wrapped in an enigma shrouded in a toga. [sic]

..and then launches into Pheidippides' diary-style "race report"--here's an excerpt:

WOW! That's all I can say. Praise the gods, I finished my Marathon run in one piece. Hooray! Some blisters on my left foot, but nothing major. Not sure if I'll do it again, but it definitely was a Life Experience. At least now I can cross that off my Grecian urn List. Plus, I've raised almost 500 drachmas for Persian Invasion Awareness. Awesome!

Anyway. I was soooooo excited last night, I could barely sleep. I laid out my sandals and my Team Victory Over Persia tunic (see right; no, I didn't run with the sword!), and set my clepsydra for first sun. My room was okay, but a little Spartan.

Etc.

Coming Soon...Romans in Scotland

Slated for release in theatres in 2010 (at least in Russia? [imdb]), The Eagle of the Ninth (based on a 1954 novel) will tell the story of a young centurion who travels through Caledonia, "to confront its savage tribes, make peace with his father's memory, and retrieve the lost legion's golden emblem, the Eagle of the Ninth..."

Still shots available here...and painful-to-read story of an...er...intimate injury suffered by the leading man here...

An Ancient Osama?

Adrienne Mayor's new book is about the "terror" of the Roman world -- Mithradates VI of Pontus -- the focus and leader of anti-Roman sentiment in Asia Minor and beyond, the orchestrator of a massacre of 80,000 Romans and Italians, who struggled on and evaded capture or killing for quite a long time.  As is well known, "he died old..."  Mayor has a piece at HNN to give a brief account and connect Mithradates to the troubles of the present...Here's an excerpt:

The ensuing Mithradatic Wars dragged on for decades, with some of the biggest battles and highest casualties in all antiquity. A pioneer in asymmetrical, unconventional tactics, Mithradates’ fighting style perplexed the experienced Roman troops, luring them deeper into barren landscapes, and leading to mutinies, fragging, and desertions. Rome’s top generals won battle after battle, but failed to lay their hands on Mithradates. His uncanny ability to elude capture unnerved the Romans. Despite crushing defeats, Mithradates easily recruited new armies and allies. Today, US military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan dread this phenomenon, called the “Tet Offensive effect,” in which an enemy gains support and morale in spite of massive defeat. “Somehow,” exclaimed the Roman statesman Cicero, “Mithradates accomplished more by being defeated than if he had been victorious!”

After decimating Mithradates’ forces, the frustrated Romans saw their prey slip away, rescued by pirates, sheltered by his allies, hiding out in rugged terrain, escaping over secret mountain passes—and then surging back with new armies. Mithradates was never short of cash: even when losing battles he paid his soldiers in gold, in contrast to the Roman legionnaires who had to live on whatever they could loot.

In the First Mithradatic War, Sulla defeated Mithradates’ forces in Greece, then declared his mission accomplished, letting Mithradates off with a paltry fine. Taking advantage of his victory, Sulla rushed back to Rome, already in the throes of bloody civil war. Seizing power as Dictator, Sulla oversaw the dismantling of the Roman Republic.

Sulla’s failure to pursue Mithradates allowed Rome’s eastern Hannibal to come back even stronger. Mithradates’ smashing victory in the Second Mithradatic War gave him control of the seas, dominated by his pirate allies, who now manned a thousand swift ships.

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Ultimately, betrayed by one of his sons, Mithradates, lost his kingdom and his life, in 63 BCE. But the Romans also lost something precious—government by “the Senate and the People (SPQR).” The Republic never recovered from the Mithradatic Wars.

Thucydides Revisited

John Timpane, of the Philadelphia Enquirer, reviews Donald Kagan's Thucydides:  The Reinvention of History -- in a nutshell, he agrees with the characterization of Thucydides but not with that of the Peloponnesian War, partly with a view to the lessons we should not be learning from history...  He takes issue primarily with the idea that the Athenians were 

But now hear the real reason Kagan dislikes Pericles' strategy: it "ran directly against the grain of Greek tradition, in which willingness to fight, bravery, and steadfastness in battle were essential characteristics of the free man and the citizen." Fight, if ye be men! Only when Athens got good and tough, he writes, did it hold on and "almost" achieve victory.

I don't buy that "almost" at all, which brings up another weak point. The real reason Athens lost everything, the real reason Pericles' strategy didn't work, is that it could never have worked. Nothing could. As Kagan shows, the 1,000 or so independent city-states of the ancient Greek world made up a massive, quivering, unstable network of contrariwise alliances - think the Cold War multiplied by 100. Even at best, Athens and Sparta both were occupied in mopping up rebellions, betrayals, troop requests from faraway cities. It's as if the United States had not one Vietnam but 30.

Pericles died of the plague in 429, two years into the wars. And as Kagan himself writes:

By summer 427, most of the conditions that would make possible an Athenian defeat more than twenty years later were already at hand: Athens was short of money, part of its empire was in revolt, the undefended coastal cities of Asia Minor were ready to rebel, and Persia stood poised to join the war against Athens.

Quite. Athens could never have won, not even "almost," in a world like that, and it didn't, collapsing in 407. Sparta didn't last too much longer, fading from supremacy by 362. These wars sapped both victor and loser.

Most of all, I lament Kagan's too-credulous celebration of the Athenian democracy. Rightly do we value Athens as distant grandparent of our democratic experiment, and Kagan is right: Athens was the boldest, strongest, most inclusive, most successful democracy in early history. Much to be admired.

But much more than 2,400 years separates us from the Athenian voters. As J.W. Mackail once wrote, ancient Greece is "rather a witch-goddess, only half-human, but also half-divine." Athens was both unlike its era and like, combining the heights of human aspiration and plain, flat savagery.

Interestingly, there seems to be evidence of ongoing editing...In the review as picked up by some other papers, the second paragraph above contains a funny solecism: "...As Kagan shows, the 1,000 or so poloi of the ancient Greek world made up a massive, quivering, unstable network of contrariwise alliances - think the Cold War multiplied by 100." This was corrected at the main paper, but not before other papers had received it...On the other hand, "Myteline" was not fixed...

Graveyard of Empires...Or Cauldron of Civilizations?

It's a little late for the "fact-check" on this one, but it's always been slightly irritating that when the perils of Western military involvement in Afghanistan are being discussed, Alexander the Great is usually cited as the earliest example for the ungovernability and instability of the region...the earliest instance of Afghanistan as the "graveyard of empires"...True, Alexander's empire did not long survive the conqueror's death, but then again, that does not really say anything about Bactria's resistance to foreign occupation.  One might as well take the same time period as a lesson about the resistance of Greeks to foreign conquest, or the resistance of glory-seeking military commanders to being governed by other glory-seeking military commanders...

A recent article in Victoria's Times-Colonist [thanks to rogueclassicism] provides a somewhat more detailed account of the efforts of colonization that continued past Alexander's death:

...Alexander established or re-established cities bearing his name across the lands through which he marched. One of those Alexandrias we know today as Kandahar.

...

Some of his Greek warriors settled there, and established theatres and wine-houses. Greek-style democracy, with its freedoms, took hold in some cities where peace could be assured and the honour of defeated enemies could be trusted....

(Along with some bizarre statements that betray a lack of understanding of history, especially considering that the focus is supposed to be Afghanistan here:  "Alexander's order, of course, didn't survive long after his death. His empire was broken up; Greek-style democracy where it existed was stamped out eventually by Roman conquerors"--and some material that could provide grist for a discussion of "glory" vs. "honor" in ancient and modern times:  "It wasn't honour that forced George W. Bush as commander-in-chief to send American troops to Afghanistan, and it's not honour that has forced Barack Obama to reinforce them. Terror started this enterprise; fear keeps it going.")

But the real "sticks-in-the-craw" misunderstanding is that no one ever seems to know about the Greco-Bactrian kingdom that existed long after Alexander himself...even though material about it is freely available on the internet:

When the dust of revolt settled in 312 BCE, Bactria was part of the Hellenistic empire belonging to one of Alexander's generals by the name of Seleucus. Though part of the Seleucid Empire, Bactria experienced some degree of sovereignty with its own governor and it had a strong economy of its own, even minting local coins.

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As more cities were founded, the Greek population of Bactria grew. Waves of immigration from the Mediterranean filled the new urban centres, which closely resembled those of Greece proper. Though a frontier, Afghanistan was not wilderness.

...

The strong local economy of Bactria eventually allowed a local governor, Diodotus, to take the power of rule. He proclaimed himself king of Bactria circa 250 BCE, though it is uncertain if he did so by buying himself an army of revolutionaries or by simply controlling enough wealth that the descendents of Seleucus did not wish to anger him by protesting.

Out of unstable conditions and the ambitions of powerful men emerged thus the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. And in that state of flux the kingdom remained for its entire century of existence.

Thus, certainly a region that enjoyed and prized local autonomy, but not one that was simply a place where Greek / Macedonian imperialistic efforts were doomed to failure.  For more, see F. L. Holt, Thundering Zeus:  the Making of Hellenistic Bactria (1999)--from which a few sentences are particularly apt:

Yet this state came to rival in size and significance all others of its day, including Antigonid Macedonia, Ptolemaic Egypt, and Attalid Pergamon...The thought of great Greek cities in those sandy wastes boggles the modern mind, but in antiquity this diverse land yielded through irrigation a myriad of grains, grapes, pistachios, and other products...Through bitter winters and blazing summers, generations of adventurous Greeks won their living from this land...Bactria therefore exemplifies fully the character and achievement of the Hellenistic Age, that remarkable but risky legacy of Alexander's last breath at Babylon.

But that's less of a cautionary tale, I guess...

Chimera, Chimeric, Chimerian, Chimerical

...are all real words.  In a New York Times op-ed from this past Sunday, however, Niall Ferguson and Moritz Schularick cite their own coinage, Chimerica, and speculate about its potential demise:

A FEW years ago we came up with the term “Chimerica” to describe the combination of the Chinese and American economies, which together had become the key driver of the global economy. With a combined 13 percent of the world’s land surface and around a quarter of its population, Chimerica nevertheless accounted for a third of global economic output and two-fifths of worldwide growth from 1998 to 2007.

We called it Chimerica for a reason: we believed this relationship was a chimera — a monstrous hybrid like the part-lion, part-goat, part-snake of legend. Now we may be witnessing the death throes of the monster. The question President Obama must consider as he flies to Asia this week is whether to slay it or to try to keep it alive.

The cartoon art accompanying the column, however, seems to be a hybrid of King Kong and Polyphemus, not lion, goat and snake...But of course the scientific use of the term Chimera is also attested; in fact it's in yesterday's Times:

A geep is not actually an offspring of the sexual mating of one sheep and one goat; rather, it is an animal resulting from the physical mingling of very early embryos of the two species and thus has four parents — two sheep and two goats. The scientific term for an animal with mingled cells from two species is chimera.

Yet another kind of Chimera?  Just look at the Oct. 30 edition:

If history is a guide, then the recent suicide bombings in Baghdad show that the insurgency in Iraq is far from over.

Contrary to much of what is written and said, victory is not near and the notion that the “surge” of troops was some great, decisive military action that set the stage for political reconciliation is a chimera.

It was a chimera for the French in Algeria that their bloody counterinsurgency there defeated Algerian nationalists.

After the war, which lasted from 1954 to 1962, a myth started to build in the French Army and then found its way into American Army thinking, where it lives on today, that the French military operations defeated the insurgents.

Not true. In fact, the Algerian insurgents chose to lay low while the French Army and people impaled themselves on the political problems of colonial rule. In the end, President Charles de Gaulle ordered the French Army out of Algeria in 1961 and Algeria got its independence.

Wow...imaginary monsters, coupled with references to myth and self-impalement!  That's why they call it the paper of record.

Final question:  Which of these meanings was the "Chimera Investment Corporation" thinking of?  One hopes it's not a place where, with Jonathan Swift, one might say, "Rise by merit to promotion; Alas! a mere chimeric notion." [Thanks to OED for that one.]

Greek Things from Asbury Park, NJ

For Memorial Day, an editorial in the Asbury Park Press cites historical antecedents...

This heartfelt desire on the part of the living to remember those who gave what Lincoln called "the last full measure of devotion" is not new. Pericles called the Athenians to remember their fallen sons in his magnificent funeral oration: ". . . on the battlefield their feet stood fast, and in an instant, at the height of their fortune, they passed away from the scene, not of their fear, but of their glory."

Here's a translation of the whole oration...

Imperia Sine Fine

Paul Walton, writing about the "Empire Days"celebration in Nanaimo, BC (he would rather rename it "Heritage Days"), runs through some of the history of empires, to compare the British Empire with earlier ones...strangely neglecting Persia, Assyria, etc. (working back from his "first" - the Athenian):

The veneer that the British were not as bad as other European empires, such as the Belgians under King Leopold II, stands up, though rather thinly. In his book, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, Adam Hochschild documents not only how the king of the Belgians slaughtered millions in Africa as he sought to create his own empire, but the curious British response.

Toward the end of Leopold's efforts to make his own empire, also well documented in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a movement sprang up in England opposing Leopold's slavery and extreme brutality. But the British movement said nothing about racism or domination by foreign powers, only opposing slavery and the genocidal methods in doing so.

That's not a judgment upon Victorian England. They could see their own racist tendencies about as easily as the Romans, another great empire, could question the morality of slavery. Among all known Roman writing, no discussion has ever been found in which the morality of slavery was questioned.

The first great empire the world saw was that of the nation-state of ancient Athens. The "thesis" of the great Greek historian Thucydides was that all states must either seek to dominate or be part of an empire that dominates. Some argue that the British took that mantle, as handed down from the Athenians to the Romans the Holy Roman Church, and through European conquerors.

One of the problems with those who fail to see the dark side of the empire is that they compare the less brutal methods of the British to more violent ways of achieving compliance. The British, like the Romans, realized that extreme violence and terror only bred revolution. Instead they used bribery, both using force only if they could neither corrupt nor convince local powers.

Those who recall the glory of the British Empire, and it was certainly glorious to those in Britain, recall only a very small piece of history...

Hmm...a number of things seem half-right rather than right...

Xerxes and the Bomb

Oh, the irony!  Oh, the agony!  In a column about how we should all keep in mind the lessons of the past (or we may be destined to repeat them...), suspicion of Iran's nuclear ambitions seems to be grounded in a knowledge of the past.  Read carefully...

Is Persia, now known as Iran, interested in nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, or do they want The Bomb? A look at history reveals Persian wars going back at least to 480 B.C., when a small Greek army defeated the mighty Persian army of Xerxes. Three hundred stalwart, fearless Spartan soldiers, employing brilliant military maneuvers, fought to the death to win the historic battle of Thermopylae, thereby saving Greek democracy.

Furtive Philosophical Messages...

As a navy ship was dedicated in memory of the late James Stockdale, perhaps best known as Ross Perot's running-mate in 1992, Steve Chawkins' commemorative story (LATimes) especially focuses on his philosophical response to imprisonment by the North Vietnamese. 

By all accounts, he was brilliant. A Naval Academy graduate who studied philosophy at Stanford, he was an avid follower of the Stoics, ancient Greeks who taught that free will enables people to rise over the most adverse circumstances. It was an ethos that proved invaluable in prison, where his shoulders were wrenched from their sockets, his knee was broken twice, he was forced to wear leg irons for two years, and he was tortured at least 15 times.

Charlie Plumb, a former prisoner of war who helped organize the ceremony, said in an interview that Stockdale encouraged others by spreading the ideas of the philosopher Epictetus, secretly disseminating them on sheets of toilet paper in an ink he made from brick dust. Plumb said the effort helped men overcome their shame for buckling under torture.