Early Greece

by Oswyn Murray

  Ionia was the homeland of epic, but in other respects her cultural development was slow. Oriental influences passed by, moving straight to Greece; east Greek pottery styles are late and derivative, as are the alphabet and hoplite warfare. The varied forms of lyric and elegiac poetry are better represented in the Aegean islands and Greece itself. Political developments also seem later in Ionia, perhaps because land there was relatively more plentiful; but by the end of the seventh century Ionian wealth from trade and colonization was well established: they were dominant in the Black Sea and Egypt, but Phocaea for instance also had western interests; and they were in general noted for their luxurious way of life. There is nothing in this picture, of a group of initially backward but ultimately prosperous agricultural and trading communities, to explain the emergence of a phenomenon which has with some justification been called ‘the Ionian Enlightenment’.

  Strictly this term is misleading, for the centre of the new development in intellectual thought was Miletus, a city in many respects untypical. During the sixth century Miletus combined economic prosperity with some of the most extreme civil conflicts of the archaic period; after the expulsion of the tyranny, two parties, the Wealthy (Ploutis) and the Manual Workers (Cheiromacha) fought for control; the Wealthy were also called the Perpetual Sailors (Aemautai) which suggests the source of their wealth (Plutarch Greek Questions 32). It seems to have been a conflict between new economic groups within the city; after a number of atrocities on both sides over two generations, arbitrators from Paros placed the government in the hands of the landowners (Herodotus 5.28). It is not obvious how such a political background is relevant to contemporary intellectual developments.

  The central phenomenon to be investigated is the emergence of abstract rational thought, of philosophy and scientific theory in a form still recognizable to modern practitioners. It is associated with three citizens of Miletus, Thales, Anaximandros and Anaximenes, whose activity falls within the first seventy years of the sixth century: Thales had astonished the Greek world by predicting an eclipse of the sun in the year 585; the other two thinkers are probably slightly later and seem to be to some extent dependent on the ideas of Thales.

  Thales was enrolled in the legendary body of the Seven Wise Men, and the stories told about him reflect the typical characteristics of that type of oral tradition, in which practical intelligence and political insight are the attributes of wisdom: he proposed the political union of Ionia (Herodotus 1.170), diverted the river Halys for King Croesus (1.75), and of course visited Egypt. He was considered the founder of Greek astronomy and geometry, and was credited with the first general theory of the nature of the universe. The ultimate constituent of matter was water: the universe rested on water, floating like a log, and water was the element from which was created all of nature. The principle here seems to be that mobility and the nourishment of life are both visible attributes of water; whatever moved was alive, and because they are created from water ‘all things are full of gods’. Most of Thales’ thought is uncertain, but it seems clear that his purpose was to present a systematic analysis of the nature of the physical universe by means of a single explanatory principle. It is the abstraction involved in these aims of system and of theoretical simplicity which make his theory recognizably philosophical or scientific; to this may be added two subsidiary characteristics, the absence of anthropomorphic explanatory models, and the obvious though incomplete appeal to observation of the external world.

  We know too little about Thales to be able to say how inadequate his system was as scientific theory within its own terms; but there is for instance no obvious way of explaining how water became other forms of matter, or why some forms are capable of growth and movement and some of neither, when water itself is capable only of movement. Anaximandros has already been mentioned (p. 21) as the author of the earliest known Greek written book or books in prose, on nature, geography and astronomy, and the creator of the earliest Greek maps of the world and the heavens. His physical theory clearly seeks to avoid difficulties recognized in the theory of Thales. It operated with the conception of ‘The Unbounded’ from which ‘opposites’ (hot:cold; wet:dry) separated out to form ‘ordered systems’ (kosmoi; the root meaning is that of order, the later sense is that of world order, and so of the universe). This seems an attempt to answer Thales’ problem of the generation of different forms of matter from a single form; the system reaches a higher level of abstraction in that it isolates the properties of physical matter (such as hot, cold, unbounded) instead of talking in terms of a known object; similarly Anaximandros appealed to the principle of symmetry rather than the properties of matter in order to explain why the world remained in its place – there was no reason why it should move either up or down. Again essential aspects are unclear: it is not known whether ‘the unbounded’ was conceived of as spatially unbounded, that is infinite, or as without internal distinctions, that is undifferentiated; it was however eternal and in eternal motion, and perhaps for these reasons, like Thales’ ultimate constituent, it is described as ‘divine’. On the other hand the kosmoi are not eternal, since they are the consequence of physical change resulting from the struggle of opposites. The only extant fragment of Anaximandros says of this process that creation and destruction happen ‘according to necessity; for they pay penalty and retribution to each other according to the assessment of Time’ (Frag. 1). The language is that of the legal system of arbitration.

  Anaximenes continued within the same intellectual tradition: his main contribution was to postulate air rather than water as the ultimate constituent of the universe, which changed by condensation into wind, cloud, water, earth and rock, and by rarefaction into fire. This seems an attempt to produce in the spirit of Thales a physical substance which would perform adequately the functions of change analysed theoretically by Anaximandros.

  The origins, social and intellectual, of this type of thinking have been much debated. Some have tried to explain the development of rational abstract thought and the attempt to isolate laws of nature by reference to Greek political institutions, with their application of rational principles in politics, free discussion and the development of the concept of law; this theory finds support in some of the analogies used by the Milesians (for instance Anaximandros’ Fragment 1), but it is curious that such political developments are less marked in Ionia than elsewhere in Greece. Others have pointed to non-Greek influences in for instance the notion of water as the original constituent of the universe (the idea is found in Babylonian thought: compare Genesis 1; but the immediate source is more probably Egyptian); but though such influences undoubtedly offered starting points, they scarcely explain the essential characteristic of Ionian thought, its search for rational system. Other commentators have tried indeed to minimize the extent of this difference between Milesian thought and religion, by asserting that much of our evidence comes from Aristotle and the philosophical tradition, which sought the origins of their own approach in earlier thinkers and so presented a distorted picture; Ionian thought is ‘the development of a reformed theology based on general principles’. This approach emphasizes the concept of the divinity of the ultimate constituent postulated, and hence of all parts of the physical world. But such abstract pantheism, even if accepted as the meaning of their words, is utterly different from the multiplicity of individual powers which is the central feature of both Greek and eastern religions; and it is probable that the word ‘divine’ was intended, not in the religious sense, but metaphorically, to emphasize certain characteristics of the ultimate constituent – its eternity, its infinity, its ubiquity and its function as the source of life. Similarly it is a commonplace to point to the differences between Ionian science and the European tradition of science from the seventeenth century onwards, in the Ionian lack of experiment and the primacy of theory over observation; yet observation and the physical properties of objects, if not experiment, are the starting point for the answers given. It is surely more important to recognize th
e two essential characteristics of the Milesian school, their concern for the coherence of theory and their development of new theories on the basis of a critical study of the work of their predecessors, establishing what we recognize as the spirit of free enquiry.

  To a large extent the answers given to the question of the origins of western rational thought reflect the private prejudices of the modern scholar and his reaction to his own environment; it is for instance no accident that the prevailing interpretation is religious; for the assertion that science began in religion helps to reconcile the two cultures of the modern world. The historian can most usefully point out that no answer will ever in itself be satisfactory, for we are faced with two phenomena, the great complexity of forces at work in contemporary Greek culture, and the human phenomenon of free will, whose power is more marked in intellectual history than in any other sphere. Karl Jaspers described the first millennium BC as ‘the axial age’, around which the intellectual history of man has revolved ever since: Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Isaiah, Anaximandros – man creates his own ideas, and must live with them.

  By 609 the Babylonians and the Medes had divided the Assyrian empire between them; in 559 Cyrus came to the throne of the Median frontier vassal kingdom of Persis. Ten years later under 550/49 the Babylonian priestly chronicle recorded:

  [Sixth year (of Nabonidus): . . . . . King Ishtumegu (Astyages)] called up his troops and marched against Cyrus, king of Anshan, in order to me[et him in battle]. The army of Ishtumegu revolted against him and in fetters they de[livered] him to Cyrus. Cyrus (marched) against the country Agamtanu; the royal residence (he seized); silver, gold, (other) valuables …. of the country Agamtanu he took as booty and brought (them) to Anshan.

  (Nabonidus Chronicle in Ancient Near Eastern Texts p. 305)

  Media had fallen. Croesus of Lydia sought to defend himself against this new threat or to extend his kingdom across the Halys into Median territory: he met Cyrus in an indecisive battle in 547, and returned to winter at Sardis, disbanding his mercenaries (surely Greeks and Carians: Herodotus 1.77), with instructions to his allies to reassemble for a campaign in the spring. But Cyrus did not wait; the same season he followed Croesus to Sardis, defeated him in battle and stormed the city. The Babylonian chronicle records:

  Ninth year:. . . .In the month of Nisanu, Cyrus, king of Persia, called up his army and crossed the Tigris below the town Arbela. In the month Aiaru he marched against the country Lydia … killed its king, took his possessions, put (there) a garrison of his own. Afterwards, his garrison as well as the king remained there.

  Cyrus had ordered the Greek cities of the coast to abandon Croesus, but of course they could not; after a brief Lydian rebellion they were dealt with. Miletus was separated from the rest by being offered the same advantageous terms as before; the Phocaeans found that their new wall, paid for by the king of Tartessus, was no protection against Persian siege mounds; they fled west to Alalia, and finally to Elea in south Italy (p. 110). The other Ionians debated whether to follow, and the suggestion was made that they should seize Corsica. But in the event only the Teians moved, north to Abdera; the remainder succumbed to the Persians.

  In 539 it was the turn of Babylon; the priests with characteristic insight attributed the result to the unorthodoxy of the king of Babylon, Nabonidus, and expressed their enthusiasm for the new conqueror:

  In the month of Arahshamnu, the third day, Cyrus entered Babylon, green twigs were spread in front of him – the state of Peace was imposed upon the city. Cyrus sent greetings to all Babylon.

  (p. 306)

  In 530 Cyrus died fighting on the north-eastern frontier against the Massagetae, a nomadic steppe people. His son Cambyses (530–22) conquered Egypt in 525, winning a hard-fought battle against the Greek mercenaries; nearly a century later Herodotus visited the battlefield and saw the bones of the dead unburied (3.12). In the space of one generation the political geography of the near east had been transformed; the Greeks had become a troublesome people on the frontiers of the greatest empire the world had yet seen.

  There have been many attempts to invest the Persians with a native culture appropriate to the fact that they spoke a language which is the earliest and purest representative of the western branch of Indo-European; an Aryan language demands an Aryan culture. It seems rather that the Persians came as a primitive almost nomadic people into the world of high civilizations, and, like the Vikings, adapted the cultures that they met. The great imperial buildings at Pasargadae, Susa and Persepolis are based on Assyrian and Babylonian traditions; art, imperial rituals and legends take up the themes of earlier cultures. One obvious example is the legend of the birth and upbringing of Cyrus the Great, mentioned already in connection with the Kypselos legend (p. 149): the Cyrus story is ultimately merely one of a number of variants of the legend of Sargon of Akkad, found among many peoples who came into contact with the Mesopotamian world; but it was accepted as the official version of the origins of the dynasty and was incorporated into the royal coronation ceremony. The king underwent at the old capital of Pasargadae the ritual of putting on the clothes of Cyrus the Great before he became king, and ate a symbolic shepherd’s meal: in so doing, he relived the upbringing of Cyrus as an outcast foundling among the people (Plutarch, Artaxerxes 3).

  The chief distinguishing mark of the Persians was their religion. There may be signs of an early stage of polytheism, in which Mithras was an important deity: he and his sacred animal are the protagonists in the rationalized story of Cyrus brought up by a shepherd called Mitradates and his wife Spako (which according to Herodotus 1.110 means ‘bitch’ in Median) – just as the various forms of the Romulus legend emphasize the role of the protecting god Mars, and his animal the wolf. But signs of polytheism in Persia may merely reflect the influence of Median religion on the Persians at various periods (it is not easy to distinguish between Persian and Median culture, partly because the Greeks themselves did not bother to differentiate between the two peoples). The problem is compounded by uncertainty over the date of Zoroaster, the historical originator of developed Persian religion: he may be earlier or later than our earliest evidence, which is the religious language of the imperial inscriptions of King Darius. These exhibit an undoctrinaire monotheism, in which Ahuramazda is the one god of the Persians, protecting their king against the forces of the Lie. It is the dualism of the fight between good and evil on earth, Truth and the Lie, which is central to Zoroaster, and which ultimately profoundly influenced the Christian conception of the struggle between God and Satan. It was a religion which impressed the Greeks by its emphasis on ethical behaviour, and the absence of temples or complex rituals (Herodotus 1. 131–40)—one of the great nomadic monotheisms which have so profoundly influenced the history of the world.

  One consequence of this absence of culture is that the Persians sought to disturb the existing systems as little as possible. They adopted the administrative practices of each area, and governed in the local language and through local officials. In Egypt the king was ‘servant of Amun-Re’ and bore all the titles of the Pharaohs; in Babylon he worshipped Marduk and proclaimed:

  I am Cyrus, king of the world, great king, legitimate king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four rims (of the earth), son of Cambyses, great king, king of Anshan, grandson of Cyrus, great king, king of Anshan, descendant of Teispes, great king, king of Anshan, of a family (which) always (exercised) kingship; whose rule Bel and Nebo love, whom they want as king to please their hearts.

  (Ancient Near Eastern Texts p. 316)

  In Persia itself he was king ‘by the favour of Ahuramazda’:

  A great god is Ahuramazda, who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Darius king, one king of many, one lord of many. I am Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Ary
an lineage.

  (Darius’ Naqs-i-Rustam inscription in R. G. Kent

  Old Persian p. 138)

  The language is the traditional language of oriental despotism, of the great centrally directed palace cultures; the king claims his power from the god, and obedience is due to him as to the representative of the god.

  One minority people benefited enormously from the Persian conquest: for the Jews it meant liberation from their captivity in Babylon since 586. Ezra preserves the edict of Cyrus, written in Aramaic, the language of the western part of the empire:

  This is the word of Cyrus king of Persia: the Lord the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he himself has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah. To every man of his people now among you I say, God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord God of Israel, the God whose city is Jerusalem.

  (Ezra 1.2–4, NEB trans.)

  The Jews returned under Zerubbabel, and established a temple-state under Nehemiah and Ezra: the dominance of the priesthood in Judaism, and the creation of the Old Testament as the story of the Jewish nation in its relation to God, are a product of the Persian restoration. For the Jews therefore Cyrus was ‘the Lord’s anointed’ (Deutero-Isaiah 45).

  The Greeks were treated no differently; they too had a god who must be honoured. A second century AD inscription preserves in Greek translation a letter of Darius to his satrap:

  The king of kings Darius son of Hystaspes to Gadatas his slave speaks thus: I understand that you are not completely obedient to my commands. Because you are cultivating my land, transplanting fruits from beyond Euphrates to the parts of western Asia, I commend your diligence; and therefore great favour shall lie for you in the house of the king. But because you bring to nothing my work for the gods, I shall give you, if you do not change, proof of my anger when I am wronged. For you have levied tribute on the sacred gardeners of Apollo and you have ordered them to till profane land, disregarding the will of my ancestors towards the god, who has spoken all truthfulness towards the Persians, and ….