Rewriting Victors' View of Persian History

NY Times ^ | September 14, 2005 | ALAN RIDING

[neverdem]

The Scythians had an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art(Met) when I needed to satisfy some core requirements for Art at the City College of New York. Almost needless to say, trips to the Met were required. Walking across Central Park on the Met's adjacent transverse road, I found functional art, a 10 inch, double end(headed), adjustable wrench.
I still got it, but it needs WD-40 after being waylaid.

[Servant of the 9]

So since someone can make a carving of a bull it means that their culture must not be corrupt or decadent?

No, but the Greeks were as bad.
There were some republics in Greece, for a small oligarchy of the population, but far more despotisms.
No people ever surpassed the Greek City States in treachery and backstabbing. Any given state was as likely to switch sides and join the Persians as to show up for a battle.

Don't forget that at that time Persia had not yet suffered under Arab or Mongolian invasion. It was essentially a European nation speaking an Indo-European language, and very little different from any part of Greece.

SO9

[Ciexyz]

Most beautiful pieces of artwork.

[Verginius Rufus]

The title of "the Great" wasn't applied to Alexander until long after his death. In his lifetime Greeks knew him as "Alexander son of Philip." The Athenians and many other Greeks had a pretty negative opinion of him. (Among other things he razed the city of Thebes.)

[Siena Dreaming]

in times of Alexander there was not much democracy in Greece

Alexander became more despotic as he went East.

However, he spread Greek culture. And Greece had far more democracy than any other great power of the day.

America got many of its ideas from ancient Greece. If they hadn't won over Persia, we may not be living with the freedom we have today.

[wtc911]

It was essentially a European nation speaking an Indo-European language,

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What could you possibly mean by that? Name three European 'nations' that existed at that time (not tribes - nations). Are you suggesting that Persians are racially European? What language roots does ancient Farsi share with European languages? What are you trying to say?

[SunkenCiv]

Another obvious reason to build 'em up is to emphasize the accomplishments of pre-Islamic Persia; the reason this gets a free pass from the worldwide wanker society is that it appears to be pro-Iranian propaganda. It will be used that way. It should be interesting to see what that does to that rickety alliance which supports Greek analogue to Anschluss on Cyprus and the islands of the Aegean.

[SunkenCiv]

Well said. Herodotus was excoriated by Plutarch precisely because he wasn't anti-Persian. Herodotus' travels took him into the Persian Empire, and he was able to gather the ancient POV from both sides of the Persian-Greek wars. As noted by others, there were Greek mercenaries fighting in the Persian army. One reason for Alexander's success was that he was conquering territory that had already been unified by earlier conquerors. Another was that the Persian army was drawn from all over the empire (as Herodotus noted in his description of the Persian invasion force). Still another was that the empire had a great deal of freedom of movement, as it had no internal political frontiers as might have been the case with a number of squabbling smaller states; geographically, it was the major crossroads of Asia. As happened in the Roman Empire, as well as the Persians' predecessors, the conquerors were a minority in their own empire.

The Histories
by Herodotus
Translated by George Rawlinson

It was the grandfather of the Artayctes, one Artembares by name, who suggested to the Persians a proposal which they readily embraced, and thus urged upon Cyrus: "Since Jove," they said, "has overthrown Astyages, and given the rule to the Persians, and to thee chiefly, O Cyrus! come now, let us quit this land wherein we dwell -- for it is a scant land and a rugged -- and let us choose ourselves some other better country. Many such lie around us, some nearer, some further off: if we take one of these, men will admire us far more than they do now. Who that had the power would not so act? And when shall we have a fairer time than now, when we are lords of so many nations, and rule all Asia?" Then Cyrus, who did not greatly esteem the counsel, told them, -- "they might do so, if they liked -- but he warned them not to expect in that case to continue rulers, but to prepare for being ruled by others -- soft countries gave birth to soft men -- there was no region which produced very delightful fruits, and at the same time men of a warlike spirit." So the Persians departed with altered minds, confessing that Cyrus was wiser than they; and chose rather to dwell in a churlish land, and exercise lordship, than to cultivate plains, and be the slaves of others.

[Ignatz]

...a nest of despotism and tyranny...

He must mean like most of the Mideast is currently.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Nation does not mean modern political state in most of its uses - it means an ethnic group. The nation-state was for the most part basically a 19th century invention. But that's neither here nor there. Persian is related to most of the currently spoken European languages:


Persian is a member of the Indo-European family of languages, and within that family, it belongs to the Indo-Iranian (Aryan) branch. Scholars believe the Iranian sub-branch consists of the following chronological linguistic path: Old Persian (Avestan and Achaemenids Persian) ==> Middle Persian (Pahlavi, Parthian, and Sassanids Persian) ==> Modern Persian (Dari, c. 900 to present.

Old Persian, the main language of the Achaemenid inscriptions, should not be confused with the non-Indo-European Elamite language (see Behistun inscription). Over this period, the morphology of the language was simplified from the complex conjugation and declension system of Old Persian to the almost completely regularized morphology and rigid syntax of modern Persian, in a manner often described as paralleling the development of English. Additionally, many words were introduced from neighboring languages, including Aramaic and Greek in earlier times, and later Arabic and to a lesser extent Turkish. In more recent times, some Western European words have entered the language (notably from French and English.)

The language itself has greatly developed during the centuries. Due to technological developments new words and idioms are created and enter into Persian like any other language. In Iran the Academy of Persian Language and Literature is a center that evaluates the new words in order to initiate and advise its Persian equivalent. In Afghanistan, the Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan does the same for Afghan Persian (among other languages).

__
The various subgroups of the Indo-European family include (in historical order of their first attestation):

* Anatolian languages — earliest attested branch, from the 18th century BC; extinct, most notable was the language of the Hittites.
* Indo-Iranian languages, descending from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian
o Indo-Aryan, including Sanskrit, attested from the 2nd millennium BC
o Iranian languages, attested from roughy 1000 BC, including Avestan and Persian.
* Greek language — fragmentary records in Mycenaean from the 14th century BC; Homer dates to the 8th century BC. See History of the Greek language.
* Italic languages — including Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages, attested from the 1st millennium BC.
* Celtic languages — Gaulish inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Old Irish texts from the 6th century AD.
* Germanic languages (including English) — earliest testimonies in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century.
* Armenian language — attested from the 5th century.
* Tocharian languages — extinct tongues of the Tocharians, extant in two dialects, attested from roughly the 6th century.
* Balto-Slavic languages, believed by many Indo-Europeanists to derive from a common proto-language later than Proto-Indo-European, while others are sceptical and think that Baltic and Slavic are no more closely related than any other two branches of Indo-European.
o Slavic languages — attested from the 9th century, earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic.
o Baltic languages — attested from the 14th century, and, for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features attributed to Proto-Indo-European.
* Albanian language — attested from the 16th century; relations with Illyrian, Dacian, or Thracian proposed.

In addition to the classical ten branches listed above, there are several extinct languages, about which very little is known:

* Illyrian languages — probably related to Messapian; relation to Albanian also proposed.
* Venetic language — close to Italic.
* Messapian — not conclusively deciphered.
* Phrygian language — language of ancient Phrygia, possibly close to Greek, Thracian, or Armenian.
* Paionian language — extinct language once spoken north of Macedon.
* Thracian language — possibly close to Dacian.
* Dacian language — possibly close to Thracian and Albanian.
* Ancient Macedonian language — probably related to Greek, others propose relation to Ilyrian, Thracian or Phrygian.
* Ligurian language — possibly not Indo-European; possibly close to or part of Celtic

There were no doubt other Indo-European languages which are now lost without a trace. The fragmentary Etruscan and Rhaetian languages cannot be classified with any certainty, although they are probably non-Indo-European.

[MattinNJ]

Excellent point. Maybe the next time we'll fight on the side of the Serbs.

[SunkenCiv]

Language tree map time. ;')

[SunkenCiv]

ping.

[SunkenCiv]

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The Battle of Salamis: the Naval Encounter That Saved Greece -- and Western Civilization by Barry Strauss

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[SunkenCiv]

my current reading:

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The Death of Alexander the Great: What - or - Who Really Killed the Young Conqueror of the Known World? by Paul Doherty

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[wtc911]

I remember my studies too, perhaps I should have acknowledged that ancient farsi (just like sanskrit and hindi) is categorized as Indo-European but the post to which I replied was clearly trying to paint Cyrus' Persia as a 'European' nation at a time when, in spite of your redefinition of nation as an ethnic group (tribe) as opposed to the far more common usage (United Nations does not mean United Ethnic Groups), no such thing existed.

As to your assertion that "Persian is related to most of the currently spoken European languages", I could use a little help beyond a linguistic map of the ancient world that connects all languages used from Ireland in the West to India in the East. How specifically is Persian related to, let's say, Dutch? What words are in common? What verb tense patterns are common? Are adverb and adjective use structures the same?

[GSlob]

Alexander was quite as despotic when he destroyed Thebes. But the individualistic Greek culture - that's the point I was trying to make. One could argue that from it springs democracy, and not the other way around - i.e. that democracy is possible [not necessary, for it does not happen all the time] only among individualists, and not among clans or tribes as constituent units.

[SunkenCiv]