"The Persian Way of War": A new essay by Tom Holland
DiscussieAncient History
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1Feicht
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/the-persian-way-of-war.php?page=1
Tom Holland is one of my favorite writers so I am a tad biased. Even so, this is an awesome essay effectively comparing the differences between how the Greeks and Persians viewed war itself (if they were so important, why did Herodotus practically invent history in order to tell the story of the Persian Wars, while the Persians never wrote anything about them?), and how, in the end, our culture may actually owe as much to the Persians as to the Greeks. Fascinating stuff.
Tom Holland is one of my favorite writers so I am a tad biased. Even so, this is an awesome essay effectively comparing the differences between how the Greeks and Persians viewed war itself (if they were so important, why did Herodotus practically invent history in order to tell the story of the Persian Wars, while the Persians never wrote anything about them?), and how, in the end, our culture may actually owe as much to the Persians as to the Greeks. Fascinating stuff.
2stellarexplorer
Beautiful
3jmnlman
Warning: those near California are alerted to the possible development of head explosions those near this location are advised to take cover.
So how long until we get a rant from VDH blasting this?
So how long until we get a rant from VDH blasting this?
4Feicht
Considering he'd probably also try his hardest to tie his rebuttal to modern US liberals being ignorant children, I can't say I care too much :-P
8Feicht
Yeah, whenever I read anything by Tom Holland, I always end up reflecting on how much better his writing is than most of humanity's. It's not just his style or vocabulary either... he always manages to weave a thread through the whole piece and then have a masterful callback where he smacks you across the head with the connections he's made.
When I'm writing, I feel more like I'm sort of wandering around in the woods with a thesaurus in hand trying to forge a path. Holland on the other hand is like the freaking Kwisatz Haderach or something... he's seen it all, and knows exactly where he's going :-P
When I'm writing, I feel more like I'm sort of wandering around in the woods with a thesaurus in hand trying to forge a path. Holland on the other hand is like the freaking Kwisatz Haderach or something... he's seen it all, and knows exactly where he's going :-P
9shikari
Pretty, the thing by Tom Holland. But weak. He simply argues from silence. How can you argue that the Persian court didn't chronicle military success or defeat when you don't have any Persian literature, when you have no idea of what the oral literature was like, when you don't have a single trace of the Aramaic records that doubtless formed a large archive in the palace at Persopolis nor, indeed, almost anything else of its Aramaic literature, when all you have left, in short are thousands of administrative and accounting records in Elamite and a few building dedications and a few royal inscriptions (the Darius ones being fairly good at describing campaigns as Holland concedes). OK, the Babylonian record too, I don't know anything about that. Can anyone say anything on it?
As for the Greeks, I think that if you ignored perishable Greek literature and relied on the epigraphic record, surely what you'd have recorded in Greece would be an extremely costly military alliance recorded for some eighty years after the wars in the tribute lists, but precious little on the Persian wars themselves (though admittedly the Greek - or rather largely Athenian - obsession with legal inscriptions would be what would really stand out). What you have, indeed, is a set of small states being driven by external pressure to gear its economy toward war. Persia, frankly, wasn't threatened by external enemies, and the military costs would be far less taxing to the Persians due to economies of scale. Can you really blame the Greeks for being obsessed with the military when they were being forced into the sort of military economy and subsequent civil conflict that has characterised Afghanistan post-1978. And Persia was suspected, rightly at times, of stoking the fires of division within the Greek world.
Finally he says: 'Yet “the Persian way of war,” despite its rebuffs at Marathon and Salamis, was destined to cast a no less momentous shadow over the succeeding millennia. Jihads and crusades, wars fought in defense of democracy, UN resolutions, even human rights; all, in the end, and however indirectly, owe something to it.'
Sententious bunkum.
As for the Greeks, I think that if you ignored perishable Greek literature and relied on the epigraphic record, surely what you'd have recorded in Greece would be an extremely costly military alliance recorded for some eighty years after the wars in the tribute lists, but precious little on the Persian wars themselves (though admittedly the Greek - or rather largely Athenian - obsession with legal inscriptions would be what would really stand out). What you have, indeed, is a set of small states being driven by external pressure to gear its economy toward war. Persia, frankly, wasn't threatened by external enemies, and the military costs would be far less taxing to the Persians due to economies of scale. Can you really blame the Greeks for being obsessed with the military when they were being forced into the sort of military economy and subsequent civil conflict that has characterised Afghanistan post-1978. And Persia was suspected, rightly at times, of stoking the fires of division within the Greek world.
Finally he says: 'Yet “the Persian way of war,” despite its rebuffs at Marathon and Salamis, was destined to cast a no less momentous shadow over the succeeding millennia. Jihads and crusades, wars fought in defense of democracy, UN resolutions, even human rights; all, in the end, and however indirectly, owe something to it.'
Sententious bunkum.
10AndreasJ
There's a brief account of Cyrus the Great's victories over the Medes, Urarteans, and Babylonians in the Babylonian "Nabonidus Chronicle". Later chronicles say a litte of Alexander and of the Seleucids, but I don't know if there's any known mentions of the doings of the intervening Persian kings.
I haven't read the Holland piece, but asking why the Persians didn't write history seems strange. Apart from administrative records, royal res gestae is almost the only thing we know the Persian elite wrote (or had their servants write).
I haven't read the Holland piece, but asking why the Persians didn't write history seems strange. Apart from administrative records, royal res gestae is almost the only thing we know the Persian elite wrote (or had their servants write).
11varielle
He was interviewed on NPR today about his new book about Mohammed. Be back in a mo when I remember the title...
Aha! In the Shadow of the Sword. Here's the link to the story. http://www.npr.org/books/titles/153988701/in-the-shadow-of-the-sword-the-birth-o...
I was concerned that some of the things he said might earn him Salman Rushdie type threats.
Aha! In the Shadow of the Sword. Here's the link to the story. http://www.npr.org/books/titles/153988701/in-the-shadow-of-the-sword-the-birth-o...
I was concerned that some of the things he said might earn him Salman Rushdie type threats.
