Creating Barbarians III

Aeschylus (525-465 B.C.) is the first author in my examination from the Classical Era.  It is fitting, given this topic, that he is a veteran of the Persian Wars, particularly the culturally defining battles of Marathon in 490 and Salamis in 480 B.C.  It is also fitting in that he is one of the first Greek authors to present a picture of the Persians.  Indeed there is a paucity of reliable information in the sources regarding the Persian Empire until the time of the Ionian Revolt.[1] The sudden upset caused by the Greek victory over the Persians ignited a quest for answers on the part of the Greeks as to why they had won such a stunning victory against such incredible odds.[2] As Cartledge alerts us: “... by the time of Aeschylus’ Persians, produced at the Athenian Great Dionysia festival of 472, the process of ‘othering’ and indeed inventing ‘the barbarian’ as a homogenized stereotype was well underway in Greece ...”[3] What Aeschylus’ Persians represents, then, is an extension of the Greco/Barbarian dichotomy to the new genre of drama as an explanatory model for why the Greeks were able to defeat the mighty Persian Empire.

How that extension occurs will be couched in the images of Homer.  After all, Aeschylus’ most famous work, the Oresteia trilogy, put on in 458 B.C., takes up the plot threads of Homer and the Epic Cycles in following the cursed house of Atreus, and the author shows himself eminently capable of discoursing via and reconstructing Homeric themes.  As Pierre Judet de la Combe puts it:

The tragic text seemed to be the result of an endless dialogue with epic, and

its originality could not be determined by mere internal analysis, as if this text

could be seen as a closed semantic universe.  Instead, the way the Agamemnon

constitutes itself had to be conceived as a permanent shift from text to text, as

a perpetual interaction between different genres and works of art.[4]

I am not surprised at all, then, to find Aeschylus making free use of Homeric themes and motifs in his Persians.[5] If my thesis regarding the works of Homer holds true, then Aeschylus is not merely hijacking Homeric motifs and characters and reinvesting them with post-Marathon anti-Persian prejudices.  Rather, Aeschylus is deliberately choosing scenes from a culturally central literary work of negative depictions of the “other.”

The outset of the Persians is reminiscent of that of the Agamemnon, with the chorus of old men waiting for news of the Great King and his armies.  The first identifier follows almost immediately: the stereotype of the disordered Persian hordes: “... Persians, who left behind them the walled defense of Susa and Agbatana and Cissa’s ancient ramparts, and went forth, some on steeds, some in galleys, others on foot, with measured march presenting a dense array of war.”[6] The Chorus goes on to describe the many nations from which the Persian armies are drawn in a way reminiscent of Herodotus, who I will be examining later.  The overall impression is that of a vast and countless swarm of exotic Asiatics descending upon Greece.  It is the Iliad in reverse.  The united Greeks (read: Achaeans/West/ethnic unity) now stand in contrast to the Persians and their allies (read: Trojans and Trojan Allies/East/ethnic disunity).[7] 

The description of the battle itself, which Aeschylus participated in, is what makes the Persians valuable as an historical document.  Even in this quasi-historical account, however, we can see the contrast between the “free”, warrior Greeks and the cowardly, “slavish” Persians.  Aeschylus depicts the “free” Greeks as proper masters of themselves, unified in their common cause.  Their victory is an ethico-ideological one: “The victory was seen as an ideological one, Greek discipline overcoming eastern weakness, democracy defeating despotism, civilization triumphing over barbarity.”[8]  This stands in contrast to the clamor and discord of the Persian hordes:

... a mighty shout greeted our ears: “On, ye sons of Hellas!  Free your

native land, free your children, your wives, the fanes of your fathers’ gods.

and the tombs of your ancestors.  Now you battle for all.”  And now from

our side arose responsive the mingled clamor of Persian speech ...[9]

The motif is borrowed from Homer and updated to serve the current times.[10]  It is the picture of the Achaeans coming on in united discipline while the Trojans “clamor” in an unintelligible mix of exotic tongues.[11] The Persians have been “plugged in” to the spot of the Trojans and the plains of Troy exchanged for the sea between the straits of Salamis.

The second identifier follows hard on the heels of the first.  The hellenized Lydians, who might be expected to show a little Greek machismo are described as soft and motivated by money:

In their train follows a throng of luxurious Lydians, and those who hold in

subjection all the people of the mainland, whom Metrogathes and brave

Arcteus, their kingly commanders, and Sardis rich in gold sped forth, riding

in many a chariot, in ranks with three and four steeds abreast, a spectacle

terrible to behold.[12]

The implication is that in falling under the Persian sway, the Lydians of hellenized Anatolia have become lovers of luxury and effete.  Indeed, they are the counterpart to the Trojan allies, zealous for glory and gold, even hailing from the same general region.  Remember the earlier examples of Pisander and Hippolochus, the two sons of Antimachus who beg for their lives: “... Sons they were of wise-hearted Antimachus, who above all others in hope to receive gold from Alexander, goodly gifts, would not suffer that Hellen be given back to fair-haired Menelaus.”[13]

If this is true, however, the initial description of the Persians that Aeschylus presents seems incongruous: “But none is there so proved in prowess as can make stand against a mighty flood of men and by strong barriers stem the resistless billows of the main; for Persia’s host is not to be withstood and valiant of heart are her men.”[14] It must be remember that these lines come as a prelude to Persia’s catastrophe.  It is all well and good for Persia, the least effeminate of the Asiatics, to rule over their kind but the gods themselves have set a sacred limit on Persia’s power.  They are to pursue their fame in Asia, remembering the “insidious guile of God”:

For by the will of the gods Fate hath held sway since ancient days, and hath

enjoined upon the Persians the pursuit of war that levels ramparts low, the

mealy of embattled steeds, and the storming of cities. ... Yet the insidious

guile of God- what mortal man shall escape it? ... For Delusion, with

semblance of fair intent, lureth man astray ... Wherefore my heart is shrouded

in gloom and is racked with fear (woe!) for our Persian armament, lest the

State learn that the mighty capitol of the Susan land is made desolate of its

sons ... For all the men-at-arms, they that urge on steeds and they that march

the plain, have left the city and gone forth, like bees in a swarm ... and have crossed the spur, projected into the sea and common to either continent, by

which both shores are bound by a yoke.[15]

Greece is not only a bridge too far, it is also a sin against the gods for the Persians to attempt to conquer it, the sin of overweening pride.[16] Just as the invasion of Greece is staged in Aeschylus as the Iliad in terms of the battle lines, so it is also portrayed in terms of transgression.  The Trojans of the Iliad abduct Hellen and bring her from Sparta to Troy.  The rape in this case is a matter of abduction, the transgression of the boundaries of marriage and hospitality and taking of Achaean “property” to Troy/Asia/East.  In Aeschylus, the Persians “rape” the Hellenes by crossing the boundary into Greece/Europe/West to take all the Hellenes.[17] The implication is that Persians are immoderate, incapable of controlling their passions or knowing their proper place, a collective horde of Paris-Alexanders.[18]

In a telling symbol of Persian impotence, the messenger that returns from the wreck of Salamis tells how the much vaunted Persian arrows were useless against the wooden hulls of the Greek ships: “Aye, for our bows stood us in no stead, and the whole host has perished, overwhelmed when ship charged on ship.”[19] To put it bluntly, Aeschylus seems to suggest that the over-confident Persians brought a knife to a gunfight.  One can also sense the implication here that the Persians fight at a distance like cowards.  They are the picture of that great effete eastern archer of Homeric fame, Paris-Alexander.  As Pierre Vidal-Naquet asserts, the bow in Homeric literature is the weapon of: “hunters, which is not in the Iliad a heroic activity ... on the side of traitors ... of bastards ... of inferior peoples ...”[20] The image again is of effete eastern archer/warriors coming to rape Greece.  Fattened on luxury and success, the Persians have become impious, a common theme in the works of Aeschylus.  For Aeschylus, their pride meets its check in the hardened warrior race of Greece.

The final identifier, the “Great Leader”, appears in the character of Xerxes. Of particular interest is the contrast between Xerxes, who watches from the safety of a nearby hill and the Greeks who fight together as commander and soldier.[21]  As his forces break, Xerxes ingloriously throws in the towel and runs:

Xerxes groaned aloud when he beheld the depth of the disaster; for he

occupied a seat commanding a clear view of all the armament--a lofty

eminence hard by the open sea.  Rending his robes and uttering a loud wail,

he forthwith gave orders to his force on land and dismissed them in

disordered flight.  Such, besides the one already told is the disaster thou

must bewail.[22]

The story that emerges will be repeated in Herodotus: the outnumbered but disciplined Greeks routing the numberless but undisciplined Persians.

However, we must also note a peculiar, Homeric sympathy Aeschylus has for Xerxes.  Like Hector, Xerxes is a character with which the audience can share a certain sympathy.  Significantly, there is no Achilles figure in the play against which Xerxes can be balanced: he is the focal character of the narrative.  This represents a reworking the Homeric motif in which the audience is invited to view the story from the “Barbarian” point of view in order to teach a moral lesson which he places into the mouth of Darius’ shade: that immoderation and pride lead ruin.  This is perhaps what Momigliano refers to as Aeschylus’ “high” view of the Persians: “In Aeschylus Darius thinks in universal terms and attributes the defeat, not to the superiority of the Greeks but to the transgression of the divine law...  However extravagant the Persians are made to look in Aeschylus, they are not thorough barbarians like the Egyptians of the Suppliants.”[23] Alexandra Villing, on the other hand, contends:

[The Persians] used to be seen primarily as an extraordinary display of

empathy for the Persian plight and an expression of common humanity even

with the enemy--and this is certainly one aspect of it.  But recent analysis

has shown that the play’s main emphasis is its highlighting, and relishing, of

the heroic Athenian victory and the devastation wrought on Persia.[24]

Whichever the case may be, it can be seen from the passages and imagery examined that this discourse is still framed within the context of “othering” scenes taken from the Iliad.  Indeed, I mark Aeschylus’ at least partially sympathetic portrayal of Xerxes as a sign of Homeric epic sympathy with the figures of Hector and Priam.  Homer gives us intimate and sympathetic portrayals of “Great Leaders” in the Iliad, such as Hector’s meeting with Andromache and his son, or Priam’s speech to Achilles.[25]  Xerxes joins their ranks as another in a long line of oriental “Great Leaders” who are portrayed sympathetically in order that they may prove worthy, if somewhat inferior, opponents for the Greeks; and for an oral epic and a play designed to entertain, interesting characters in the story.  After all, who doesn’t appreciate the moral and narrative complexities of a sympathetic villain?[26]   

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[1] Arnoldo Momigliano, Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization, op. cit., 126.  Alexandra Villing points out that what evidence we do have comes from Herodotus’ account of Croesus, an account that dates a generation later than Aeschylus’ Persians, and archeological remains in Persia, such as buildings, that show evidence of Greek styles in their craftsmanship, cf. Alexandra Villing, “Persia and Greece,” Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia, op. cit., 237.  Since the focus of this paper is explicitly Greek Literature, I have excluded an analysis of this evidence in the text of this work.  For a handling of the archeological evidence from the period of Cyrus the Great to the Ionian revolt the above collection, Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia, is an excellent source. 

[2] Ibid., 129.

[3] Paul Cartledge, The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others, op. cit., 54.

[4] Pierre Judet de la Combe, “Remarks on Aeschylus’ Homer,” Postwar French Thought Volume III: Antiquities, eds. Nicole Loraux et al., op. cit., 384.  Indeed, see this whole essay for an interesting look at how closely the Agamemnon is interwoven with material from the Homeric text and Homeric imagery.

[5] Keep in mind the sheer weight of years, more than 400 of them, between Homer at circa 850 B.C. and Aeschylus at 458 B.C.  If there is a connection of motifs via transmission, then this constitutes a long and hallowed literary tradition.  However, one has only to look at the use of Shakespearean motifs in present day Anglo-American literature to see that such a weight of years in no way precludes or necessarily hampers transmission of motifs, plots, and themes.

[6] Aeschylus, Persians, ed. Loeb, trans. Herbert Weir Smyth, op. cit., lines 15-20.

[7] For a counter-reading that does not deny the essence of the Homeric metaphor, cf. Francois Hartog, Memories of Odysseus, trans. Janet Lloyd, op. cit., 79-82.

[8] Alexandra Villing, “Persia and Greece,” in Forgotten Empire, eds. John Curtis and Nigel Tallis (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 238.

[9] Aeschylus, Persians, ed. Loeb, trans. Herbert Weir Smyth, op. cit., lines 401-406.

[10] For a discussion of the differences between Homeric and hoplite warfare in regard to the element of discipline and its impact on the Greek mind, cf. Jean-Pierre Vernant, Origins of Greek Thought, op. cit., 62-63.  For more on the doctrine of moderation in Greek thought and its post-Homeric evolution, cf. Ibid., 91.

[11] Remembering our discussion of Homer, cf. Homer, Iliad, ed. Loeb, trans. A. T. Murray, op. cit., III.1-9, IV. 422-438.

[12] Aeschylus, Persians, ed. Loeb, trans. Herbert Weir Smyth., op. cit., lines 40-48.

[13] Homer, Iliad, ed. Loeb, trans. A. T. Murray, op. cit., XI.121-135.

[14] Aeschylus, Persians, ed. Loeb, trans. Herbert Weir Smyth, op. cit., lines 87-92.

[15] Ibid., lines 93-132.

[16] For a discussion of transgressing frontiers as an impiety, cf. Francois Hartog, “Frontiers and Otherness,” Postwar French Thought Volume III: Antiquities, Nicole Loraux et al. eds., op. cit., 143-157.

[17] Indeed, remember the link between “wife” as property and “land” as property embodied in the Greek marriage ceremony: “I give this woman to you for the plowing of legitimate children.”  The transgression of land boundaries becomes analogous to the transgression of marital boundaries.  For a related examination dealing with the supposed “barbarian” inability to avoid transgression discoursed via the metaphor of a rape in the story of Candaules and Gyges, cf. Francois Hartog, Memories of Odysseus, trans. Janet Llyod, op. cit., 86.  For the account of Candaules and Gyges, cf. Herodotus, The Persian Wars, trans. George Rawlinson, op. cit., 1.8-14.

[18] This calls to mind Herodotus’ conceptualization of the conflict between Persia and Greece as stemming from a series of rapes, cf. Herodotus, The Persian Wars, trans. George Rawlinson, op. cit., 1.1-4.

[19] Aeschylus, Persians, ed. Loeb, trans. Herbert Weir Smyth, op. cit., lines 278-279.

[20] Pierre Vidal-Naquet, “The Black Hunter Revisited,” Postwar French Thought Volume III: Antiquities, Nicole Loraux et al. eds., op. cit., 87-88.

[21] Aeschylus, Persians, ed. Loeb, trans. Philip Herbert Weir Smyth, op. cit., lines 447-471.

[22] Ibid., lines 465-471.

[23] Arnaldo Momigliano, Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization, op. cit., 130.

[24] Alexandra Villing, “Persia and Greece,” Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia, eds. John Curtis and Nigel Tallis, op. cit., 238-239. 

[25] Homer, Iliad, ed. Loeb, trans. A. T. Murray, op. cit., VI, XXIV.

[26] This is, of course, an interesting question to ask.  Think of Mario Puzo’s Godfather, Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost, Star Wars’ Darth Vader, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Moriarty, and the impact that they have on the audience as “anti-heroes”.