Posted on 09/13/2005 11:55:04 PM PDT by neverdem
LONDON, Sept. 11 - An early reference to Alexander of Macedon is the first hint of where the British Museum is heading in its new exhibition, "Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia." After all, to Persians then and Iranians now, there was nothing great about the Alexander who crushed the largest empire the world had yet known. Indeed, his burning of Persepolis in 331 B.C. was considered an act of vandalism.
But the show, which runs through Jan. 8, goes further, challenging the version of history that ancient Greece, starting with Herodotus, bequeathed to the West. Put simply, in that version Greece heroically resisted the marauding barbarians from the east during the Persian wars of 490 B.C. to 479 B.C. Then, by defeating the Achaemenid empire, as it was also known, the "West" scored its first important victory over the "East."
It is this victors' account, then, that the British Museum has set out to "correct." By presenting some 450 ancient objects, from stone reliefs and lapis lazuli heads to gold statuettes and jewelry, it aims to blur the political fault lines that have long separated East and West and give ancient Persia its proper place - between Assyria and Babylon on the one hand and Greece and Rome on the other - in the chronology of early civilizations.
In that sense, "Forgotten Empire" is also highly topical.
In a foreword to its catalog, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, wrote that "the exhibition clearly gives the lie to the common Western perception that the Achaemenid empire was a nest of despotism and tyranny that was swept away by Alexander."
John Curtis, the show's curator and keeper of the museum's ancient Near East department, added in a statement: "It may also be important at this time of difficult..."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
National Museum of Iran
Parts of a lion sculpture, made from lapis lazuli.
National Museum of Iran
A fragment of a stone column from Persepolis.
National Museum of Iran
A polished black limestone statue of a large mastiff.
National Museum of Iran
A detail of a stone bull from Persepolis.
ping
So since someone can make a carving of a bull it means that their culture must not be corrupt or decadent?
It's art. To which culture do you refer?
"But the premise of this show - that the ancient Persians were not tyrants - rests most firmly on the Cyrus Cylinder. A stone cylinder covered with cuneiform writing, it describes Cyrus's conquest of Babylon in 539 B.C. and his order that all religious cults be tolerated and that deported peoples be freed. According to the Book of Ezra, this included the captive Jews in Babylon who were allowed to return to Jerusalem."
Bully for Cyrus, who died close to 200 years before Alexander came along.
The Persian Empire was utterly decadent by Alexander's time, as can be seen by their complete inability to deal militarily with the Macedonians or even the squabbling Greek city states before them. It was in the process of falling apart in wars over the succession in the same way just about every oriental empire before or since has. Doesn't mean they couldn't produce great art.
This is most famously seen in the march of the 10,000 as told by Xenophon. Any country that allows an enemy army, after losing all its leaders, to fight its way out from the center of its empire isn't in very good shape.
Cyrus the Great, huh? That's the New York Times for ya. They've run out of tyrants' boots to lick, and now they're exhuming old tyrants so that they can lick their sandals.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
The Greeks had individualism and democracy; the Persians were ruled by dictators. Thus the fact that the West was more enlightened.
Yet, they want to relegate Alexander to "Not So Great"... More historical revisionism... Yawn...
the infowarrior
What little I have red in Herodotus was very non-judgemental about the Persians. Certainly he was pro-Greek but he did try to tell history from the way he thought it happened.
After all, to Persians then and Iranians now, there was nothing great about the Alexander
Alexander was a Macedonian, not Greek. The Greek cities still had a form of democracy for local issues.
They're revising all the history books - most of the revision has long since been finished.
But Cyrus did a good thing: he rebuilt Jerusalem and for that God granted that throne to exist until modern times, when the Shah of Iran died in the United States.
You can rely on that history because it's written in the King James Version of The Bible by God who doesn't lie, not the revised versions written by men who do..
"The Persian Empire was utterly decadent by Alexander's time, as can be seen by their complete inability to deal militarily with the Macedonians or even the squabbling Greek city states before them. It was in the process of falling apart in wars over the succession in the same way just about every oriental empire before or since has. Doesn't mean they couldn't produce great art."
We're falling apart, corrupt, and decadent, but Hollywood makes a decent film once in a while, just like a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. :p
Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, wrote that "the exhibition clearly gives the lie to the common Western perception that the Achaemenid empire was a nest of despotism and tyranny that was swept away by Alexander.Alexander, like his father Philip, was influenced by Isocrates, and Alexander had Aristotle as a teacher. Both were monarchists. However, the idea that the Persian Empire, with its living god kings was anything but despotism is just foolish, and MacGregor should be fired and blackballed.
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Somehow or other, in my study of history, I never thought of the Persian empire as barbarian...I don't know why one should have that impression.
The Scythians, on the other hand...
Alexander ripped them to pieces. If they were great, that just makes his feat all the more impressive.
I think it also says that Greek heavy infantry was superior in confronting any other style formation that the Persians could put in the field. Persian archers & horseman could harrass the Greeks, but they couldn't stop their march. That would have required a similar body of heavy, armored infantry.
In an earlier era, the Persians that tried to force the gap at Thermopylae were largely unarmored spear carriers. Sending them straight at the armored Spartans who had secure flanks was butchery.
The Persians probably would not have replicated the Phalanx even if they could, despite it's demonstrable superiority on the battlefield. Implicit in the Greek tactics was the fact that the King had to share the risks of battle with the average hoplite. The Persian king was a god, more or less, so that kind of equality in the ranks just wouldn't do for the Persian social order. Much easier to just hire Greeks and watch them closely.
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