One of the things to notice about Aeschylus’ The Persians,
is the grandness of the language - its epic qualities. Its the oldest play we
have extant - and unusual because its not based in the semi-mythical world. It
contains very long Choral odes and very long monologues - two speaking parts at
most in most scenes. But even though its about a contemporary event - only
eight years after the Battle of Salamis it describes - it keeps that common
aspect of so much tragedy in that it focuses on the Other - on The Persians.
There are no Greeks in the play and none mentioned by name.
Those aspects of the play are very significant. Firstly, as
an early tragedy, with only the two speaking parts; it gives us insight into
how tragedy was developing in Athens. Remember that this is still only about 50
years after the Democracy has been established and theatre itself is a
relatively new art form. Later, when you look at Euripides or Sophocles – who use
three speaking parts in scenes and build up much more the relationships between
characters – it becomes obvious how different to modern theatre, or even later
Greek tragedy, Aeschylus is.
This focus on the Other is also important. Greek tragedies
are rarely set in Athens – even though that’s where the art form flourished.
The Athenians seem to want to keep their distance from the terrible crimes and
hubris of the characters they are observing in the tragedies. When tragedy does
come to Athens – in the Eumenidies that ends the Oresteia or in Sophocles’
Oedipus at Colonus – the terrible crimes have already been committed and Athens
acts as refuge and healer. The same is true in Euripides Medea; where Medea
makes her escape after killing her children, to the refuge of Athens. While The
Persians is about an event that the contemporary audience members participated
in; its set a long way away in the Persian court. No contemporary Greek is
mentioned by name. Aeschylus has his Greek audience observe the pain that war,
and defeat in war in particular brings by having them watch the impact of their
victory on their enemies. But we have to be careful – this is not glorifying
victory – though Aeschylus is proud of the heroic nature of the Athenians who
defended their city and his descriptions have the ring of Homeric epic. Tragedy
uses the Other because it is often too painful to see the crimes committed as
our own – to warn Athens against its own possible hubris; Aeschylus shows us
the hubris of the enemy. In other tragedies, tragedians achieve the same thing
by setting the stories in the semi-mythical past; in other cities or by
focusing on the Other for Athenian citizens – women, slaves and foreigners.
The Persians connection with the Histories is because of the
shared events - but more so the shared fear of hubris and the almost inevitable
results of Empire building. Neither Herodotus or Aeschylus have quite got to
the point of codifying this the way Thucydides *does maybe only a few years
after Herodotus is "published" - Thucydides explicitly states that
the problem with empire building is that once you have an empire, to hold on to
it you have to expand; but by expanding you risk over-reach and losing the
Empire altogether.
Its a sentiment which Herodotus is expressing in the proem
(the introduction in Book 1 – 1:1-5) - when he talks about the fact that small
nations were once large and large nations are likely to become small. Its an
understanding of the cyclic nature of existence which is common across
Presocratic philosophy and is a part of the Greek view of the world - but
Herodotus gives it a new and political form in The Histories. He moves it from
physis to nomos** - and Thucydides expands on this (though he'd never admit an
intellectual debt to Herodotus). In other words, Herodotus takes what seems to
be a law of nature – there are seasons and cycles and applies it to human
civilisation. And by so doing implies that there is a strong degree of human
agency in those cycles. It is our own acts of hubris; our refusal to read the
signs accurately; or to listen to wise advisers – which means our great cities
fall. Equally, its human agency which has built them in the first place.
Herodotus tells us in the proem that he is recording the great deeds of Greeks
and barbarians so that all may have their glory – he’s deeply interested in the
accomplishments of human thought and ingenuity and not just on the battlefield.
That’s why he tells us stories about sporting prowess as well as battle prowess
and is deeply interested in the political machinations among both the Persians
and the Greeks.
A key question is the extent to which Herodotus uses
Aeschylus’ text to create his own. There are certainly differences between them
and we can assume that Herodotus did his own researches – probably interviewing
people who had been there. Though if we are to believe that his Histories was “published”
around 420BCE and even if he had been conducting his research for many years
prior to this; men who fought at Marathon and Salamis would have been very elderly
when they spoke to him.
Nonetheless, Herodotus used all the sources available to him
– and there is likely to have been other accounts which are now lost to us. He
would have been familiar with Aeschylus’ play and may even have seen it
performed – though probably not at its original performance as he would have
still been relatively young and probably not in Athens.
This leads us to ask questions about why the accounts are
different, but also what the similarities mean. Presumably the two writers have
purposes, which are similar but not necessarily the same. Both are trying to
offer some kind of warning – Aeschylus in the early days of the creation of an
Athenian Empire; Herodotus by the time that Empire has found itself in a
devastating war with Sparta. Aeschylus is an Athenian – and proud of it. He
fought at Marathon and his brother died there. This brother is named by
Herodotus – “Cynegirus…the son of Euphorion.” (6:114) – and though Herodotus
doesn’t make the connection explicit himself, both he and his readers must have
understood this. It feels like a nod in the direction of Aeschylus and his
version of events in the later Battle at Salamis. Unlike Aeschylus though,
Herodotus comes from the edges of the Greek world – while he is likely to have
visited Athens – he was born in Halicarnassus – a city that fought on the side
of Xerxes at Salamis. Herodotus gives a lot of space in the account to the
warrior queen Artmesia – and he is clearly proud of her achievements.
This means we have two commentators on events coming from
very different perspectives – but in many ways arriving at the same conclusions
– hubris, over-reach – will lead to disaster. But also, that the heroic acts of
all people – Greek and barbarian alike are worth considering and glorifying.
____________________________________________________________________________
Notes
*- Thucydides is the author of The History of the Peloponnesian
War. He saw himself as being more objective than Herodotus and more focused on
the “facts” rather than storytelling. He was an Athenian general. His two key
ideas are the one above about empire building and the idea, borrowed from
Hippocratic medical philosophy, that like diseases social and political
problems (like war) can be diagnosed and that if the same “symptoms” are present,
the the same prognosis (result) can be expected. In other words – you can look
at a situation that has occurred in the past, see what happened and predict
that if that situation arises again and is dealt with the same way – the result
will be the same. He argues that wars like the Peloponnesian War will continue
as long as people ignore the “symptoms”. He may well have been right!
** - Nomos and physis are two key ideas in Greek thought –
they are difficult to translate into English. Nomos can be seen as culture or
the human element; whereas physis is more like nature. Sometimes they are
translated to mean the laws of a society and the laws of nature. Nomos is often
associated with the order created by life in the polis – in the city; whereas
physis has an element of the chaos of the natural world. You could also think
of it as the things that humans can control and the things they can’t.
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