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Archaeologia Bulgarica XVIII, 3 (2014), 99-104
Kostas VLASSOPOULOS. Greeks and Barbarians. Cambridge University Press, 2013. The review of a book like this is difficult to start, not only because the theme is complicated to discuss, but also because the book itself and its context are so complex and many-sided that there are a lot of ideas and problems in it to talk about. I attempt, here, to present a review that addresses the Thracians and their Greek neighbors. The Introduction (Chapter 1) presents the scope of the book and the theoretical background of the concepts. The theme is the exchange of ideas and mutual interactions between Greeks and non-Greeks and this is investigated in four different, though interdependent areas: empires, the Panhellenic world, networks and the apoikiai. The result is a complicated structure and the model is explained as one of interaction and exchange, rather than polarity and conflict (p. 3). Three of these ‘worlds’ not only intermingle, but are actually mutually determined and overlapping. The world of apoikiai, for example, is dependent, on the one hand, on networks of trade (exchange of goods and innovations with the Empires and kingdoms or local tribes), and, on the other hand, these contacts among poleis and their metropoleis were the skeleton of the Panhellenic world. The analysis starts with the Panhellenic world in juxtaposition with the world of empires (Chapter 2), discussed in terms of the interactions between Greeks and Barbarians – an opposition that could be traced to the remotest past when the self-perception of society was constructed through opposition to that of foreigners, as seen in mythmaking. The distinction between Greeks and non-Greeks, however, had little importance during the Archaic (p. 35), as reflected in the Oriental borrowings in writing and religious practices, in images and even in myths (the ‘Orientalising revolution’ as Walter Burkert called it). These were among the foundations of Greekness that defined the Panhellenic world: a common language and literary culture, as the first level of Greek identity, and religion (shared cults and all-Greek sanctuaries), as the second. The third level, according to K. Vlassopoulos, was the common Persian enemy, but this could be defined as a political identity in the Greek-Barbarian conflict. Peaceful intercourse came to an end with the Persian Wars and in the early Classical period the coexistence turned to contradiction dependent upon a notion on cultural supremacy, cast as ‘civilization’ against ‘barbarians’. Conflict between Persia, the only empire at that time, and the expanding Greek world was inevitable, and this confrontation influenced the Greeks. The strongest poleis aspired to dominate the Greek world, and followed an imperial model, resulting in the Athenian empire and its war with Sparta, followed by Macedonian hegemony and the Eastern campaign. Actually the Greek world was a multitude of poleis, diverse in behavior and political ambitions. So, was this perceived polarity with barbarians a mere coincidence, corresponding to political consolidation during the major 5th century wars (the one with Persians and the next ‘Peloponnesian’, between the two centers of power and their allies), or was it motivated by the conflicts? The third chapter is a discussion of the worlds of networks and apoikiai. In it the Greek poleis abroad are understood as frontier soci-
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eties that experience constant ‘osmosis’ with foreign communities and cultures (p. 83), even while they were active parts of the Panhellenic world. This resulted in a cosmopolitan whole in constant struggle to preserve its Greekness; it was simultaneously Hellenocentric and universalist. Thus the main force was the process of Hellenization, but the adoption of elements of Greek culture by non-Greeks did not mean adoption of Greek identity or integration into the Panhellenic community. The discussion concentrates on two different tendencies in this context: the creation of frontier societies through interaction with various non-Greeks, and the creation of communities that stressed their Greek identity, thus modeling a canonical form of Greek culture (p. 15). The book deals with the vast ancient world and thus its study depends on selected cases that could hardly be examined in their full complexity. One example is the case study of Thrace (pp. 119-128) and it is only natural to stress that example here. First I think that the attempt to examine the relations between Greeks and Thracians in these four parallel ‘worlds’ is an interesting attempt, but that it does not offer a working model for investigation. For example I could hardly separate the apoikiai from the network of contacts (exchange of goods, or mobility of people) or from relations between Thracian kings and the Panhellenic world. The model of contacts through apoikiai that surrounded the Thracian littoral on Aegean, the Propontis and the Pontos, underwent a considerable change in the last decade. The archaeological research has proved that traveling merchants and craftsmen in the interior of Thrace had their own sites (emporia), and even fortified cities like the one near Vetren. Whether this was Pistiros, and whether the decree found there concerned the town on the Aegean coast of Thrace and the privileges granted to it by the Thracian king (p. 122) are difficult question. But the archaeological research proved this inhabited place to be very different from Thracian sites and this was due to the presence of Greek settlers, the emporitai that are known to have fought at the Haemus Pass alongside the Thracians and against Alexander during his march through Thrace in the spring of 335. This attests to Greek activity in the exchange of goods, starting from the Archaic period in the valley of Nestos near modern Koprivlen, and increasing in the 5th century in the upper Hebros Valley, at the sites at Vetren, Vasil Levski, Krastevich. Presumably, this activity was economically motivated on the part of the Greek citizen, mainly from the Greek apoikiai in Thrace, but surely this was also part of a wider network of trade and contacts in the Mediterranean, supported by kings and dynasts, and resulting in certain profits – Sitalkes and Nymphodoros of Abdera (the brother of his wife), or Cotys and the Athenian Iphicrates (the husband of his daughter). All those trade connections concern the Thracian elite and we can trace them in the imported luxuries, present in the archaeological record from the 5th century, when the Odrysian aristocracy controlled the interior and was the necessary contractor that ensured exchange with Greek merchants. Greek inscriptions could not be proof for the production of precious metal tableware (p. 124) – the analysis of their forms and technique suggest that local craftsmen adapted them for the needs of the aristocratic symposia and adornments, just as Greek workshops did in the 5th century. This adaptation of Greek craftsmen to local taste
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and practice, and, at the same time the attempts of the aristocracy to adopt Greekness is what this book terms a ‘glocalisation’ of Greek culture. Can we also trace this relationship in Greek myth, namely in the Homeric figure of Rhesos, an enemy at Troy who was a necessary collaborator with natives in newly founded Amphipolis? In contrast the Thracians Diomedes and Tereus, broke the laws and acted like barbarians, and Eumolpos and the mysterious musicians like Orpheus and Thamyris were ‘Thracians’ in the political propaganda of the 5th century drama where Rhesos was late in his help for Trojans in the same way as Sitalkes was late as an ally to Athenians for the war in Potidaea. As part of the Greek ambition to identify Otherness in Thracian characters even Dionysos was believed to come from Thrace since the wildness of his drunkenness and orgia with marginal figures: half-human, half-animal, the drunken women and wild beasts, all were opposed to the symposia in the cultural space of the andreon. And as in the artifacts, the ‘Thracian’ origin of Greek mythical and religious personages may have resulted in the popularity of Greek gods in Thrace, obvious in the 4th century, and mostly in the Early Hellenistic period. This had its political foundation in Philipp’s conquest of Thrace in 341, and the dependence of later kings in the interior on Lysimachus could explain the rapid process of integration into the Hellenistic world. In the fourth chapter the aim was a structural definition of intercultural communication and infiltration of people and ideas, including guest-friendship, intermarriage, name-giving, diplomacy, commensality, travel (pilgrimage and tourism), and labour. Religion – the examples with Greeks that participated in foreign cults and foreigners in Greek cults – provides a clear illustration of reciprocal contacts, though a discussion of complex religious syncretism of diverse traditions is missing. This we could propose for many cults; the Great gods of Samothrace, with the different translations and interpretations of their names, are an obvious example. As regards cultural communication, the author’s task was to tease out the different media with quested distinction between oral and literary contacts, as well as the exchange of objects. The study of imagery involves discussion of Greek mythology as a communicative system and the question of how non-Greeks fit into that system: are some myths foreign in origin, incorporated into Greek legends, as K. Vlassopoulos proposed (p. 152), or are they Greek inventions about strangers and their religious behavior or morality, understood through reference to their ethnicity? In trying to examine such communication, the author discusses the patterns that modeled the attitude towards the Other (pp. 155-160). The first is polarity, which emphasizes difference in behavior; the second is shared universal values; third is the attempt to understand the Other and all his strangeness through Greek eyes – the translation of his customs by the use of Greek terms (interpretatio graeca), or the interpretation of Greek customs by a foreign culture; and the forth pattern is to explain the Otherness in the context of its own culture. Here comes, I think, the problem with understanding imported Greek artifacts and images when used by the barbarian foreigners: Who is doing the interpreting, and in what cultural context? For example, were images of Greek gods in Thracian context used in their Greek meaning as an interpretatio graeca of Thracian religion (a Greek
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activity and a sign of the Hellenization of the object’s possessors), or reused in an interpretatio thracica of Greek deities as a demonstration of Thracian ability to adapt (to) Greek culture? The next chapter (5.) deals with the Barbarian repertoire in Greek culture between the archaic openness and the classical polarity. Starting with the peculiar nature of Greek culture, it could be defined as a selfreferential model (p. 166) that could be explained firstly by myth, with its heroic focus, its occurrence in time and space, and its dominance in culture. Another peculiarity was the textualisation of the oral universe, created through intercultural communication and the development of new literary genres, especially the strong interest in ethnography, geography and history. Meanwhile, literature and visual arts depict barbarians in different clothing, engaging in different customs and morality, even as mythical beings, as marginal (geographically and sexually, like the Amazons) or liminal creatures (half-man, half-animal like Centaurs and satyrs). A careful look at 5th century Classical art reveals an interest in balanced-fight iconographies, usually indicating that the defeated personages are worthy opponents (p. 189). But here it is necessary to distinguish between victorious Amazons in vase painting and the Greeks that prevail in the marble reliefs that decorated temples and temple-like burial structures as a propaganda. The aliens were a moral antipode in popular beliefs and myths, but at the same time wisdom could be obtained and ‘imported’ from the outside: the alphabet from the Phoenicians, stone sculpture from the Egyptians, and architectural constructions. And the Greek genius was to make it something new and functional in a Greek manner. So, in the late 6th – early 5th century they could fashion Thracian clothes, even while their prejudice towards northern neighbours was personalized on the stage in the illiterate Triballoi, the cruel Tereus, or the Odomantes that smell of garlic. The sixth chapter is a discussion of the globalization and glocalisation of culture, the adoption of foreign achievements and the adaptation of alien elements. The history is discussed as a process of globalization of ancient societies and the attempts to interpret such phenomena locally – i.e. the glocalisation of new tendencies and fashions. Thus the system of writing is used to illustrate the Greek glocalisation of the Phoenician alphabet, which was a step to its globalization in the ancient world. The same process was traced in the minting of coins and in the construction of monumental stone statues and cult architecture. An interesting discussion on the patterns of glocalisation (6.2.) starts with the example of a complete adoption of a Greek cultural practice in its original form. But the occurrence of such artifacts in foreign environments remains, I think, difficult to interpret: are natives adopting the Greek fashion wholesale, or do such artifacts belong to Greeks living abroad? Are they a result of gift-exchange, theft, or spoils of war? Much clearer are other examples – artifacts that imply barbarian commission – though they also raise questions: are these an initiative of merchants (in conformity with the local market), travelling craftsmen in service of local tastes, or do they belong to an active customer in direct contact with the workshops? This answer we can trace in the different function of artifacts or in their decoration, but I would stress that local artists imitated the imported Greek products in the reverse of the first process. A third pattern of glocalisation is
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hybridity – the creation of new forms that involve two or even more cultural traditions. Thus different kinds of globalization are discussed to explain the phenomenon of the strong influence of Greek culture and the way of life in diverse Hellenic societies. So the question about the essence of ‘Greek miracle’ (6.6) had its explanation in the colonization of the Mediterranean, presumably its eastern part, thus modeling a different organization of society that consisted of hundreds of independent cities. This presents the Greeks as mediators in the ancient world, an extroverted society transmitting goods, technologies and knowledge, fashions, and producing universal ideas. The last chapter (7.) concerns the Hellenistic world in a separate discussion on the epoch after the death of Alexander the Great. The emphasis is on the nature of cultural changes and interactions provoked by the political and social processes, and it is mainly concerned with the results – either a unified world with dominant Greek culture, or a world consisting of different native cultures that adopt Greek fashions, or adapt to a Greek way of life. This new age with numerous new towns far in the East, could be compared to earlier colonization with the foundation of apoikiai. But the political background is totally different, since the initiative was on behalf of the new empires and the Macedonian ruling class. So this new global society could be delineated according to some principal activities. The first is the common language – the Greek koine as a popular means of communication, in the same way that, I would stress, Greek imagery (the mimesis) served popular taste and propaganda. The second was the model of the polis as a principal way to organize communal life and the urban culture. And this was the basis for interaction through shared practices as athletic competitions and Panhellenic festivals. The interesting question is about Panhellenic community and its opposition to Barbarians outside it, as, for instance, in the appearance of the Celts in the first half of the 3rd century that is reflected in the decorative program of the altar to Zeus in Pergamum. The twin processes – the one of globalization of Greek culture, the other of Hellenisation of non-Greeks – could hardly be separated from one another, since the borders between cultures are so thin and intermingled in the late Hellenistic period and it is difficult to distinguish Greek style globalization with or without Hellenisation. K. Vlassopoulos has listed the criteria to study the processes; they include the use of Greek in public communication, minting of Greek style coins, royal courts in Hellenistic manners, the use of polis model, and dedication and participation in Panhellenic sanctuaries and festivals. But the explicit reason to discuss Hellenicity and Hellenisation was dependent on maintaining identity in light of examples like the Jews, Romans, Etruscans. ‘Greek’ could be viewed as a cultural marker, not an ethnic one, and thus the adoption of Greek culture by different social groups would be perceived as means of social advancement and this process was deepest in areas where it started in the Archaic period, especially in Asia Minor. A review of such a book could not be a story about its contents, but a discussion about the ideas in an attempt to motivate the curiosity of readers to find their own experience through the pages… and I hope it will prove to be a good idea to read it. Because it is a really interesting,
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balanced discussion, and, aside from any modern comparison, it offers a thorough analysis of the many-faceted past reality and a comprehensive study of the complex and dynamic relations that constructed it. Prof. Dr. Kostadin Rabadjiev St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia Department of Archaeology 15 Tzar Osvoboditel Bld. BG-1504 Sofia
[email protected]
