fighting in the shade of 10,000 arrows (William Golding's Hot Gates)

So, not only did the son of a bitch bring home a concubine with him from Troy, but he had killed with his own hands their beloved daughter Iphigenia.

Really, what else could she have done-- what else would any woman do-- but murder him that night when he was in the bathtub. 

The Chorus, though, was not convinced. I mean, despite whatever marital issues they may have had, wasn't Agememnon--son of Atreus and brother of Menelaus-- a great and virtuous King? Had he not led the Greeks in their stunning victory over Troy?  

How could she do it?

The chorus, demanded an answer.

And, so in a series of speeches, which would be the envy of any Washington speech writer, the queen lays out her case. Her husband-- the King-- has killed their beloved daughter. That he had brought a concubine home with him from Troy and that she and her lover were already happily ruling the Kingdom ensconced in the castle were reasons as well. But Clytemnestra-- make no doubt about it-- is clear about her reasons: he killed their daughter and for that he must die.

So, she sets him up.

In what is one of the most famous homecoming scenes in all history-- Clytemnestra gives her husband Agamemnon the "red carpet treatment."

Laying out the family's priceless textiles, she urges him:

"Walk across, my Lord."

He tells her he will not. For that is the kind of arrogance that Persian Kings show-- believing themselves to be as all-mighty as the gods.

"We are democrats," he responds.

And when she continues begging him to glide across the sea of blood-red tapestries, he retorts:

"These are heirlooms, how can we soil our family heirlooms?"

In the end, exhausted perhaps from the trip, he allows himself to be persuaded and across he walks-- to his death. For it was this final show of arrogance that will become the all-important piece of evidence that Clytemnestra will require to persuade the chorus of the need she had to get rid of him. For most Greeks would have agreed that an all-powerful monarch in the style seen in Persia was something to be avoided at all costs.

And, so we see that this theme developed by Herodotus was already to be found in Aeschylus-- just waiting for him and his retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. 

**

I am re-reading William Golding's famous essay on Thermopylae, "Hot Gates." It is such a wonderfully written essay, harkening back to better days in travel writing, better days in essay writing too (with some exceptions, of course, essay writing seems to have become an almost lost art). Truly and with thankfully not a trace of any personal journey of self-discovery anywhere in the essay (Eat, Love, Puke), Golding sets out to walk the ancient battleground. What was at one time only a narrow sliver of land-- pressed up against the cliffs, the edge dropped straight down into the sea. Thermopylae. Between cliffs and the sea, it was here that Leonidas made his legendary last stand.

Μολών λαβέ (molon labe).

It is so famous, I hesitate to attempt to even describe the armies-- the myriad of tribes and peoples comprising the Persian army alone went on for pages and pages in Herodotus. Here is Golding: 

No man had ever seen anything like this army before. It was patently unstoppable. It came along the neck of the hills on the banks of the Asopus, from the heights of the mountain and along the coastal track from Alope and Phalara. Lengthening rivers of men—Persians in fish-scale armor, turbaned Cissians, bronze-clad Assyrians, trousered Scythians, Indian bowmen, Caspians, Sarangians in bright cloth and high-heeled boots—came down and spread in a flood that filled the plain. Soon there was nothing to see but rising clouds of white dust, pierced and speckled with the flicker of steel. If each of the seven thousand Greeks should kill his ten men, there would be more than enough to press forward—and this was only the vanguard.

The numbers alone are exhilarating-- the Persian army being said to have been comprised of a million men! Impossible, of course, but Herodotus' famous anecdote about the great Spartan warrior Dienekes is unforgettable:

Although extraordinary valor was displayed by the entire corps of Spartans and Thespians, yet bravest of all was declared the Spartan Dienekes. It is said that on the eve of battle, he was told by a native of Trachis that the Persian archers were so numerous that, their arrows would block out the sun. Dienekes, however, undaunted by this prospect, remarked with a laugh, 'Good. Then we will fight in the shade'

Μολών λαβέ (molon labe).

Truly one of the most exhilerating moments in history, when the Persians try and persuade them to lay down their weapons, Leonidas responds, "Come and get them."  Not that he thought for a minute that his Spartans could overcome numbers like that. But, he knew, there were some things worth dying for.

Everytime I read it, it makes me breathless.

Golding's conclusion is rightly famous:

I came to myself in a great stillness, to find that I was standing by the little mound. This is the mound of Leonidas, with its dust and rank grass, its flowers and lizards, its stones, scruffy laurels and hot gusts of wind. I knew now that something real happened here. It is not just that the human spirit reacts directly and beyond all argument to a story of sacrifice and courage, as a wine glass must vibrate to the sound of a violin. It is also because, way back and at the hundredth remove, that company stood right in the line of history. A little of Leonidas lies in the fact that I can go where I like and write what I like. He contributed to set us free.

 

What is worth fighting for?

Thermopylae-- this battle which the Greeks lost after all-- will always stand as something greatly symbolic. Indeed, it formed so many of our Western notions of bravery in the face of great obstacles-- of a few who gladly gave up their lives to take a stand for freedom and the law. And, maybe it is even to suggest that to not have something you would die for is perhaps one of the saddest fates a person can have (ie, Kierkegaard).

There is this great speech given by Leonidas to his men in Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire: 

"Listen to me brothers. The Persian king is not a king as Kelomenes was to us or as I am to you now. He does not take his place with shield and spear amid the manslaughter, but looks on,safe, from a distance, atop a hill, upon a golden throne." Murmured jeers rose from the men's throats as Leonides spoke this. "His comrades are not Peers and Equals, free to speak their minds before him without fear, but slaves and chattel. Each man is not deemed an equal before God, but the King's property, counted no more than a goat or pig and driven into battle not by love of nation or liberty but by the lash of otehr slaves' whips."

For two thousand years, the West has held up freedom as personal liberty as the ultimate value to be prioritized. Never mind that Leonidas' own culture was itself based on slaves--some say some 50% of the Greek population was comprised of enslaved people. And, we see even in this speech above, the conflating of Democracy and Freedom with personal liberty (and negative freedoms).

It has been-- since the time of Herodotus-- presented as a great "clash" of values. 

But what values were the Persians holding up as the Greatest Good? Well, the same values that we see being held up in many East Asian societies: Order, stability and collective Good. This is what the Persians were offering and their own ideas of freedom were inherently tied up with these values. I think we really can find this in Confucian philosophy-- this idea of "Freedom to" as opposed to "freedom from."

Melvyn Bragg had a great In Our Times show on Thermopylae in which he and his guests trace the rhetoric of Orientalism back to Herodotus' version of the battle. One of the guests describes ancient Greek culture as being unique in its holding up of dialogue and competition, and that it was this dialectical predeliction in Greek thought which would pave the way for theorizing and for philosophy. In her explanation, she describes two lawyers arguing or philosophers debating; Clytemnestra persuaing the chorus... and that out of this acceptance-- indeed it was a preference-- for the dialectical that true theory and true philosophy came into being.

The narrative surrounding Theropylae is also constructed in this dialectical framework. And, without a doubt I think we can see that it has laid the foundation for certain ideological constructs that continue to influence the way the West views other cultures. From Theropylae to the Ottoman Empire to China. This was what was so interesting about the great emotion surrounding Daniel Bell's work about China, for example. Nothing he said was so shocking from a Japanese point of view. That is because, perhaps, Japan, like China and maybe like the Persia under Xerxes prioritizes values differently. Freedom is certainly not defined in the same terms. Neither is "philosophy"... And so, like with so much else, everything comes down to translation and interpretation. And one's comfort zones.

And, this Battle, which has been re-told for generations upon generations in the West, hardly even showed up as a blip in Persian history. 

For more, see Travels with Caesar (Battle of Vienna) and the Road to Oxiana (Battle of Talas)

 

Comments

[Jan Walls]

Well written, Leanne! In the past, I have characterized the "unacknowledged presuppositions" underlying traditional Asian values is the ideal of "dynamic stability" (an essentially stable society, with just enough dynamism added to resist entropy); modern Western values have the ideal of a "stabilized dynamo" (an essentially dynamic society with just enough stability added to resist chaos). When the right balance is achieved, the 180-degree difference in ideal starting points becomes an interesting subject for academic debate. The old "East is East and West is West" cultural distinction is really blurring now that "ICU" (Industrial-Commercial-Urban) societies are becoming, for better or for worse, a global phenomenon.

But don't let ideas like mine dampen your enthusiasm for dealing with complex comparisons and contrasts. I love the way you wrap your mind around so many beautiful details, aesthetic and political, both East and West. Keep up the good work/play....... Jan

[Peony]

Hi Jan,

Thank you so much! Although I used Persia and China as my illustrations, this was really about Japan, which is Industrial, commercial and urban and yet retains its own economic model and culturally-specific prioritizing of certain values over others. But specifically I was really thinking of the very historically situated manner in which the media presents such differences in priorities--whether that be variations on capitalist models and economic openness or whether than be in the concept of harmony or continuity. Japan is a global society but it in many interesting areas does not take on the monoculture. I am not so sure about other places...China having many many shared values with American ones for example (with Japan or Europe standing closer in a lot of areas from food to social welfare?), and it is really hard to see where India would fit in in that east is east thing. But how things are viewed via the Western media, I do think is a lot like this.... anyway, Golding's Essay was fabulous. You probably read it already but no matter how many times I read it, I just fall in love with it again.

[Jan Walls]

Some Chinese friends have been circulating this example of differences in societies dominated by Chinese people:

香港：一切准许，除非法律禁止。
Hong Kong: Everything is allowed, except what is prohibited by law.
新加坡：一切禁止，除非法律准许。
Singapore: Everything is prohibited, except what is allowed by law.
台湾：一切准许，包括法律禁止。
Taiwan: Everything is allowed, including legal prohibition.
中国大陆 ：一切禁止，包括法律准许。
Mainland China: Everything is prohibited, including what is allowed by law.

[Peony]

That is very hard to even imagine..... But in one sense it does speak to something I didn't really want to talk about but... yes different attitudes to the Rule of Law.

Japanese conceptions of the Law certainly have different priorities and the gray areas (for example in divorce laws) point to a differing idea of what the rule of Law should be based on or set up to accomplish... is Law based on protection of individual liberties or is it set up to gurantantee stability.... and look at Singpaore, if that doesn't shut someone up, I don't know what will..!!

I have on several ocassions in Japan heard mention of the law 法 versus 道 where one focuses on the universal application of codes and the other focuses on embodied know how.... from music to tea, teachers have recommended I work within the latter not the former in my study

I wrote this on Lady Rokujo and seem to recall there was some interesting talk...

[David]

I love this: " . . . not a trace of any personal journey of self-discovery anywhere in the essay (Eat, Love, Puke? . . . ."

Thank you.

And you may want to check out any of Guy Davenport's essay collections. He is one of the modern masters of the form.

[Poor Jeremiah]

"Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι."
"Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
that here, obedient to their laws, we lie."

There are fewer pieces of poetry more powerful than that.

Ever since I first got really interested in history (Antique history as a high schooler), I've had a fascination with the idea of that event: "The Last Stand," and what drives people or armies or nations to do it (or turn away! Josephus vs. Masada).

I think one of the most important things about them is that there's always a sense that "death is not the worst of evils." That there are some fates that are so damaging to the soul that the death of the body is preferable to them. (And now that I think about it, there might be a connection between that eternally optimistic Leftist phrase "No Pasaran!" and their disbelief in eternal judgment.)

[peony]

Dear PJ, I really loved your comment. Thank you so much. I think a lot about Martin Luther King Jr's phrase, "To have nothing to die for is to have nothing to live for." In a way, this one concept has been really fundamental to me for a long time. I really thought it also came from Martin Luther (supposed, "here I can stand because I can do know other.") Kierkegaard also did so much with this in terms of his defining commitment. It is kind of connected to our other discussion about drones, don't you think? Today was a really long day and so I am afraid I am not making much sense, but I was hoping to get hear from you. I wanted to pass this along to you. I am only halfway throughout but like it a lot. Hope all is well there. Wishing you every blessing. (I wrote this comment two days ago but forgot to post it!!) http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/SandisTaleb.pdf