The Greek heroic ideal is one that is well known to us. What is not so well known is if there were voices of dissent, an opposing voice to or opposing ideal from the heroic view. I will argue that there were, and that they can still be heard in the voices of Greek writers of Classical times. Not just from the quarters of society that we would typically expect, but from all walks of life and across the whole of this period. As pervasive and practical as the heroic ideal was in their society the voices of dissent can still be heard.
For anyone, be they a casual reader of classical history, an historian of Ancient history, or even to some degree a fan of pop culture’s perspective of classical warfare, there is a recurrent theme that is inescapable: The cult of the Hero. Even in today’s world, cynical as some may say it has become, this ideal is understood. And to some degree what we learn from fiction books and movies is produced out of the echoes of our western cultural tradition. All cultures and their sub-cultures have their own ideal interpretation of the heroic ideal.[1] Most cultures, whether they be from our western tradition or some other part of the world, embody this heroic character in oral traditions, epic, and mythology.[2] This ideal embodied in a hero or heroine is a large part of every culture’s mythological narrative. [3] The hero is a recurring character and the hero mythology which is embodied by him is only second to the creation mythologies in importance throughout cultures around the world.[4]
Today this can be seen in our own culture through the movies we watch, books we read, the stories we tell our children. Witness the block buster movies such as ‘Star Wars’, ‘The Gladiator’, ‘The Last Samurai’, and ‘Braveheart’. Books such as Beowulf, the Iliad, Ivanhoe, King Arthur, are just a few of our classics. This is clearly an ideal we hold, this cult of the hero. But just like an echo is not a perfect reproduction of the original voice so to the fidelity of our modern cult to the heroic ideal of the Hellenic vision of the hero.
If we were to do a comparative analysis of the heroic ideals across cultures and time we would probably find much overlap and a common thread that would be most human. After all the human condition must be alike in some ways across times and cultures. Hence, “human nature”.[5] And I believe especially so when dealing with warfare and the hero, since warfare has been a part of this “human nature”, for better or worst, at least since humans have recoded their history[6], and probably much earlier than that[7]. As fascinating as this study would be, however, my task here is really a study of the heroic ideal, and more importantly, the dissenting voices in Greek History.
Since before one can discuss and analyze the opposing views to the heroic ideal in Classical Greece I should like to clearly define what the heroic ideal in this classical period was, as I understand it. To begin with, just as someone studying any one of our present cultural traits would have to look at the historical influences, so we must now look back to the Archaic[8] and pre-Archaic times. Here we will find the voices that inspired Classical period.
Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian war between Athens and its allies against Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies is a good place to start. I believe we must begin by putting some geographic context into our inquiry. In other words, facets of human cultures cannot be separated and understood out of the context of the overall cultural mix within a geographic location. In order that we may understand more fully how the over all cultural and environmental influences affect or help to create the heroic ideal, we should see if we can find something that will help put the hero into context for that culture and era. In this Thucydides might help. In his introductory chapter he gives a good account of what he perceives to be the history of the Hellenes before and during the Hellenic era. In book one of his history,[9] we begin to get a glimpse or to make out a shadow of the features that at least by his own time might give us some clues as to where the heroic ideology of the classical time period came from. It is fair to say that the whole region might have been very warlike. He gives us a hint of this:
“For in early times the Hellenes and the barbarians of the coast and islands, as communication by sea became more common, were tempted to turn pirates, under the conduct of their most powerful men; the motives being to serve their own greed and to support the needy. They would fall upon a town a town unprotected by walls, and plunder it; indeed, this came to be the main source of their livelihood, disgrace not being yet attached to such an achievement, but even some glory[10].”[11]
Again:
“The whole of Hellas used once to carry arms, their habitations being unprotected, and their communication with each other unsafe; indeed, to wear arms was as much a part of everyday life with them as with the barbarians.”[12]
One last example:
“What enabled Agamemnon to raise the armament was more, in my opinion, his superiority in strength, than the oaths of Tyndareus…”[13]
These examples[14] are illustrative, I believe, of the culture in the Hellenes that, do to its warlike nature, developed the heroic ideal for classical Hellas. There are many such examples, but these are enough to deduce the overarching element of life in the pre-Hellenic and Hellenic periods. This was a period fraught with danger for the average people of the area, which as shown here was one of warfare, destruction and uncertainty.
Now that we have briefly touched upon the possible reasons and causes of the development of this ideal, let us see what this ideal was that was handed down to the classical Hellenes. A good way to approach this is to see if the classic work of Homer can illuminate what this ideal was. As we understand it today, the account of Homer’s Trojan War is an epic and as such we should be careful not to treat it as an historic account of an actual event. Even thought it might have some historical foundations. It is however obvious that before the time of Thucydides and even after it was very much thought of as real history. As J. E. Lendon has argued that the Homeric poems have been called the Bible of the Greeks. He stresses that in fact the early Greeks used Homer as at least the foundation of their education.
At any rate, I believe that we can understand Classical Greek thought if we understand the values that are enshrined in Homer’s works. Homer’s Iliad is nothing if not the defining embodiment of heroic values of that time.
Lendon states[15] that there are ultimately two ways in which one earns glory (the legal tender of heroism). It is gained by attending to both. That is, on the one hand it is of the utmost import how one comports himself in battle and on the other the fame and renown of the person one defeats in battle. He also states that this was the driving force behind the hoplite and the phalanx of the time, albeit a competitive heroism that was born of historical necessity. The very period of this idyllic value system in heroic action we are discussing. Throughout the Iliad[16] one can find many examples of its achievement in the epic.[17]
It is important that we delve here a bit longer. This glory [kleos] is after all the defining principle or rather the tender that buys us heroic immortality. So we have to make clear what this is before we can discuss and analyze any dissenting voices to this ultimate form of expression of how one lives life.
This heroic ideal, was for males[18] at least, the grandest of all cultural ideals in Hellenic and Classical Greece. Beyond all others, including skill in any manual art form [Techne[19]] or even the accumulation of wealth though is some ways related. It would be helpful to also consider some things that to moderns might seem to be part of this value system, but were not in this era. Namely, today the hero is also noble and kind. This did not have anything to do with the Classical Greek ideal of the hero. As a matter of fact, he could be ruthless, non-empathetic, unsympathetic, and non-merciful. The only thing that counted was to be victorious over once enemy. We clearly see this in the behavior shown by Achillus after he kills Hektor. As Thucydides has the Athenians state when while condemning the Melians:
“since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”[20]
This was not a merciful society, it was one of might. And the hero was expected to comport himself the same, to vanquish his enemies harshly.
This was note an era of compassion. Ultimately the values embodied in the Classical Hellenes heroic glory [kleos] can be summed up by an oft mentioned refrain attributed to the Greeks. “Come home with your shield or on it!”
The question then arises, where there were any dissenting voices to this idyllic view of life and warfare? I will argue that there where, if only faint ones. Across times and cultures we tend to see opposing ideas to any ideal, and this period was no different. One question that would be interesting to look at is to see if the voices from this period where coming from one area of the population. Be it the poor, the aristocrats, women, the middle class, merchants or from across all stations in society. We know that this was a very hierarchical society. We will assume then that since it was ruled by the law of force that the powerful would have to believe in this heroic ideal. Typically, what we see in most historical writing is that it was written by the powerful. Another question we will try to discern is; was this opposing view evolved through time, or was just an amalgam throughout the whole period?
In order to see if there are some patterns to discern with respect to these questions, I am going to approach my argument in a chronological manner using mostly primary sources. I believe this will give us a better vantage point from which to view our subject matter. Then we may find that there was a development though time of this contra idyllic view. In so far as using there own voices, I hope we can get a clear view of which part of society is influencing this opposing view. In short, I will be using their own voices in the order in which they appeared onto the world’s stage.
In the beginning there are the gods. Or at least it seems that Homer tells us that glory is granted from the gods (i.e. Zeus). He grants both Hektor and Achilleus this. Hesiod also attests to the Fates and gods as being the cause of things. Good and bad.
“…Zeus, through whose will men
are exalted by the speech of others or remain unknown..[21]”
This then is a time when the gods are directly involved with individual lives. At least if we are to believe the key authors of their time, Homer and Hesiod.[22] There is however at least one distinction between the two, that is germane to this discussion at any rate. In Homer’s Iliad we see nothing if not the heroic ideal on display. In Hesiod I believe we begin to see the first musings, at least in written form, of a different way to see ones life.
In his work Works and Days, written c. 700 B.C.,[23] in which he gives a very different account of life in the Hellenes, than one of only war and heroic glory, he seem to be telling us that there are two ways to live. He starts right of by saying:
“And I will speak to Perses the naked truth: There was never one kind of Strife. Indeed on this earth two kinds exist. The one is praised by her friends, the other found blameworthy. These two are not of one mind. The one-so harsh-fosters evil war and the fray of battle. No man loves this oppressive Strife[24], but compulsion and divine will grant her a share of honor. The other…the son of Kronos…planted her in the roots of the earth and among men. She is much better, and she stirs even the shiftless on to work…This strife is good for mortals[25].”[26]
Already here we see that a life lived at home tending to one’s crops is one preferred and loved by man, no matter that war will get her share of honor. Throughout this work we see Hesiod arguing against the heroic ideal. He seems to prefer one of home and hearth. Also the attainment of wealth not through plunder, which is much a part of the heroic ideal, but through hard work and the market:
“Not much time for brawls and gatherings can be spared by the man in whose house the season’s plentiful harvest, Demeter’s grain, fruit of the earth, has not been stored.”[27]
Hesiods Works and Days then, although a poem in dactylic hexameter like the Iliad[28], is not an epic but an almost mundane view of a different form of life than the attainment of glory. One in which hard work, diligence, and practicality is esteemed over plunder, killing, and glory.
Now let’s listen to the voices that followed Hesiod. Is there anything they might be trying to tell us that would also go against the heroic ideal?
Archilochus, who lived between 680 and 640 B.C. and probably died at war,[29] has some excellent things to say:
“Some barbarian is waving my shield, since I was obliged to
leave that perfectly good piece of equipment behind
under a bush. But I got away, so what does it matter?
Let the shield go; I can buy another one equally good.”[30]
This almost comical poem really flies in the face of the ideal behavior in gaining glory. One is to bring back ones shield as in the refrain mentioned above. One way that Homer shows a man shamed is by the lost of his armament, even after death. There is much antagonism between the warring parties simply over this armament. Just remember the insult to Achilleus when his armor is taken off the dead body of his friend Patroklos and Hektor parades around in it. This is a way to be diminished in glory. To Archilochus, there is no glory ascribed to his armament, no shame at all. It’s just a practical matter. It would seem this is a drastic deviation from heroic honor. But the more we read of Archilochus the more we see that this is truly what he feels, and that war is just a means to gain his daily bread, no mention of glory here:
“By spear is kneaded the bread I eat, by spear my Isamric
wine is won, which I drink, leaning upon my spear”[31]
So here even in warfare the thought of glory seems to be gone. Now it is only a pragmatic form of livelihood. Again, in Homer we see this form of living as something much grander. You gain not your daily bread but fame and riches thought the use of your spear and plunder.
Lest we might start to think after these past examples, coming as they are from these great writers, that this counter culture has become the main stream thought of its time let me give an example of the heroic ideal being alive and well. There are several authors that would serve us well here but for brevity sake one will suffice.[32] Tyrtaeus of Sparta, who lived about the time of the second Messenian War[33], has written quite a bit about the heroic ideal. Two such poems are Courage: heros Mortuus: hores vivus and To the soldiers after defeat. These are nothing if not homage to the heroic ideal embodied in Homer. I believe this will suffice to give a good account of there tenor:
“I would not say anything for a man nor take account of him
for any speed of his feet or wrestling skill he might have,
not if he had a size of a Cyclops and strength to go with if,
not if he could outrun Boreas, the North Wind of Thrace,
not if he were more handsome and gracefully formed then Tithionos, ….or had the power of speech and persuasion Adrastos had, not if he had all splendors except for a fighting spirit.”
Of course our job here is to show the dissent from this heroic view. So whom better to get us back on track than the renowned reformer Solon (630 – 650 B.C.)[34]. In his poem Prayer to the Muses he says:
“…Each keeps his own personal notion within until he suffers. Then he cries out, but all until such time we take our idiot beguilement in light-weight hopes, and one who is stricken and worn out in lingering sickness has taken measures and thinks he will grow healthy and one who is a coward expects to turn into a warlike hero[35]. Another, ugly, thinks of the day when his looks will charm…”[36]
He finds fault in man’s romantic hopes and aspirations, not shying away from the hero cult.
As for Pindar who lived from 518 B.C. unit 446 B.C. the historian Lattimore in his book Greek Lyrics tells us about the few known fragments found:
“…These fragments show many flashes of original thought, of humanity and generosity, which are sometimes thought to be wanting in the victory odes.”[37]
One such example could be taken to go against the booty gained in looting, much a part of the heroic ideal of the times:
“What is near home, city and hearth and kinship, this gives a man something to stay and love, and the passion for what is far away belongs to vain fools.”
Women cannot be discounted even in a male-dominated society for they can have great influence indirectly though the intimacies of motherhood, marriage and friendships. And in Sappho’s case she did it directly thought her prolific writing. Sappho who was the first woman writer of her times, lived in the second half or the 7th century B.C.[38]. Her writing, mostly love poetry, casts a light on another opposing voice. For she is not solely the voice of women of her times, but casts an opposition to warfare through her examples of a life well lived thought love. Let us see an example of this:
“A handsome man now looks handsome.
A good man will soon take on beauty”[39]
This is a direct assault on another one of the heroic elements. That of physical beauty being ascribed innately to the hero. Here she clearly degrades the beautiful as being an indication of a man’s glorious character. Once again let’s listen:[40]
“Some say cavalry and others claim
infantry or a fleet of long oars
is the supreme sight on the black earth.
I say it is
the one you love. And easily proved.
did not Helen, who was queen of mortal
beauty, choose as first among mankind
The very scourge
of Trojan honor? Haunted by Love
she forgot kinsmen, her own dear child,
and wandered off to a remote country.
Weak and fitful”
woman bending Before any man!
So Anaktoria, although you are
far, do not forget your loving friends.
And I for one
would rather listen to your soft step
and see your radiant face – that watch
all the dazzling chariots and armored
Hoplites of Lydia.”[41]
I think this is clearly a dissenting voice to the supremacy of the heroic ideal. After reading much of her poetry we see that she does not in anyway promote the heroic ideal. In fact, as in the poem above, she clearly refutes it as being as important as love. You really do get the since that she is much more interested in the internal personal life of a person than the external adulation that glory brings. Her overall ideal could be summed up as one of love not war. Aside from the intense love Achilleus has for Patroklos we really see noting of the internal dialog or person in any of the characters. This must have not been an important part of the heroic ideal.[42]
There are many more examples that could be given from these and other authors. Still, we can begin to see that there were many opposing voices to the Greek heroic ideal. How influential where these writers on there contemporaries might be hard to tell, but the fact that we are still reading them today and that they where known to there contemporaries is a clue. I believe that the influence that these ideas and voices had can be seen in Thucydides’ words as he describes Pericles’ Funeral Oration:
“We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; Wealth we employ more for use that for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it.”[43]
It seem to me that by this time, at least in Athens being a good citizen, with all of its responsibilities was becoming more idyllic that being just a hero. Warfare is still a great part of Athens and other Greek poleis. But in this same speech you hear how war is to be fought for the polis, and not simply for glory. It seems, in Athens anyhow, the idea of a man being a good citizen is overtaking the idea of a man being a hero. Not something you hear in Homer at all.
As a final illustration I’d like to present an anonymous source. If humans today are in anyway indicative of those that came before, then picture a modern bar. And with this I mean a real pub, say in England for example. If on was to observe common behavior one would see that after the men get a bit drunk, they usually let there inhibitions down and really sing from the heart. Be they happy songs, sad songs, or a number of other choices. We could imagine a gathering of men in Greece back in time and try and listen to their songs. In fact we have a good one written down in the form of an anonymous drinking song:
“Oh that it were given to us to open
up the heart of every man, and to read his
mind within, and then to close it,
and thus, never deceive, be assured of a friend”
We might conclude that friendship here is king, and not glory [kleos].
In a time such as this, with all its violence and warfare, it is not hard to understand the importance of the heroic ideal[44]. A people, a culture would be hard pressed to survive without one. It would be hard to imagine a strong heroic culture not arising in a time and place as this. Even so, I think it is clear that there was a strong cultural current of dissent by Classical times in Greece. However, it is hard to tell within the confines of this limited study if this dissent was something that developed over time on not. It certainly seems to have been there all along and only seems to have become more mainstream in Athens, as the writing of Thucydides hints at. As the polis developed into a more complex society, and in Athens democracy flourished, this might have been the case. We can imagine that a society like Athens based as it was on its reliance on tribute from its allies could begin to have a more complex society, one in which there would be more specialization in its population. We still see a city of citizen soldiers, but warring against their neighbors is becoming less of an interest. Keeping their allies is more important strategically for them than finding new conquests or fighting there neighbors.[45] I believe ultimately the effects of the Peloponnesian war on Athens, as well as the other poleis, probably invigorated the dissenting voices against war and its ideals.
As to the question of whether or not this opposition to the heroic ideal was limited to just a section of society in Classical Greece or was prevalent across all stations, I believe it can be argued as we have seen by the multitude of examples above that it was more than likely prevalent across all sections of society: Archilochus son of a slave woman who earned his keep thought mercenary work; Pericles, practically a head of state; Sappho the lovely poet and a great woman of her times; Solon the reformer; Hesiod man of means and lover of fields; The drunken sailors and soldier; and Pindar the accomplished poet. All from different walks of life, representing both the female and male, and spread throughout the Hellenes. These are the voices that across time have illuminated and preserved for us, to examine another way of life, the voice of dissent to the heroic ideal.
[1] Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973)
[2] There is a large body of written cultural traditions known to us that embody some or other heroic ideal. Some of my favorite examples are: The Kalevala and Beowulf from the Nordic regions; The Tain from the Irish Celtic region; The King Arthur stories from the British Isles. The history and mythology embodied in the Japanese Samurai; The Jaguar and Eagle warrior cults of the Mexica peoples (Aztecs).
[3] Campbell, Hero
[4] Marie-Louise Von Franz, Creation Myths: Revised Edition (Boston: Shambhala, 1995) 1 ; Here, she asserts that the creation myths are of central importance above all other myths, such as hero myths and fairytales.
[5] Although the idea of human nature is in and of itself a fairly common idea in current times there are some very interesting ideas about the fallacy of this proposition. On such argument is expressed rather well and in detail in Paul R. Ehrlich’s book, Human Natures (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000). In this he purports to explain that there is really no such thing as a universal human nature, but there are as many human natures as there are humans since everyone has there own genetic makeup. But for the current argument I am assuming that the term “human nature” will be sufficient to explain a common human action to external conditions, and I am using the colloquial understanding of this term, not the scientific.
[6] One only has to look at the number of books published every year about warfare, or read any account of any past civilization or culture to see account of warfare described in them. I could list an assortment of them here, but suffice it to say that there is a raging debate in Science as to whether warfare is a genetically innate part of our character.
[7] This is attested to by several Neolithic finds in the last 100 years. Along with Jane Goodall’s, as well as others, discovery of warfare in chimps our closest biological relatives suggest that warfare has been with us for a long time.
[8] The Archaic period is defined as 900 – 509 B.C.
[9] Robert B. Strassler , Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide To The Peloponnesian War (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1998)
[10] Italics are mine.
[11] Strassler, Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide To The Peloponnesian War. 6.
[12] Strassler, Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide To The Peloponnesian War. 7.
[13] Strassler, Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide To The Peloponnesian War. 7 .
[14] There are many good examples in Thucydides history of The Peloponnesian War which I could have given, but I wanted to give just a sample and not to be to redundant in making the point.
[15] Lendon, Soldiers & Ghost
[16] Richmond Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961)
[17] Lattimore reminds us in his introduction to his translation of Homer’s Iliad that “So the Iliad is the story of Achilleus.” A tragic one at that. But of course it is much more that that. And he alludes to that when he says “It is a story of a great man who through a fault in an otherwise noble character (and even the fault is knowable) “. By great I assert that this is great as seen thought the lens of the heroic ideal of those times. He is the embodiment of glory as seen through this idyllic view. This is why I believe it is important, because this I believe is what Classical Greek also believed as the ideal.
[18] I say this because there was no viable way for women of the period to participate in war and to attain this glory. A woman, as we hear Pericles say (as recoded by Thucydides) in the funerary eulogy he gives after Athens buries the first fallen in the Peloponnesian war, is best not talked about and must go and replace the fallen by having more children. I assume males of course.
[19] As Professor Melissa Dowling has stated, and I am paraphrasing here, “that Techne was look down upon at this period of history”.
[20] Strassler, Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide To The Peloponnesian War. 352.
[21] Apostolos N. Athanassakis, Hesiod : Theogony, Works and Days, Shield (Baltimore : The John Hopkins University Press, 1993) 67
[22] We know that they were not contemporary, Hesiod being the latter. But we can think of them as contemporary none the less.
[23] T. Walter Wallbank et al, Civilization : Past & Present volume, 1 – to 1774, Eighth Edition (NY : Harper Collins College Publishers, 1996) 40
[24] My emphasis.
[25] Again, my emphasis.
[26] Athanassakis, Hesiod. 67.
[27] Athanassakis, Hesiod. 68 I believe this is a very important insight for this study. In that even thought war, alluded to as “brawls and gatherings” is mentioned as something you still do, here he has actually placed them in the order in which he sees them. That is, harvesting and home life being more important in a man’s life. War is something that is unavoidable, but not primary in the way one lives his life.
[28] Athanassakis, Hesiod. 59.
[29] Richmond Lattimore, Greek Lyrics (Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 1970) iii
[30] Lattimore, Greek Lyrics, 2.
[31] Lattimore, Greek Lyrics, 1
[32] Callinus writing, a Contemporary of Archilochus, would have also made for a good example.
[33] Lattimore, Greek Lyrics, 13. The best information I can gather for the actual dates of this second war is from Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary : Third Edition Revised (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2003) 964, which states that the first Messenian war was fought in c. 700 B.C. and the last one in 464 B.C. . So we must assume the second being somewhere in between.
[34] Lattimore, Greek Lyrics, 18.
[35] Italics are mine.
[36] Lattimore, Greek Lyrics, 19.
[37] Lattimore, Greek Lyrics, 57.
[38] Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary : Third Edition Revised (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2003) 1355
[39] Willis Barnstone, SAPPHO: Lyrics in the original Greek with translations by Willis Barnstone (New York: Anchor Books, 1965) 69.
[40] I could not bear to edit this in any way, even if a bit long for this work, for it would be a crime as beautiful as this is. I also feel it being most illustrating to our theme.
[41] Barnstone, SAPPHO. 7.
[42] There is the wonderful description of Hephaistos shield being made. Here he really tell us what he thinks of war and you see ‘his’ inner feelings. It might even be argued that that in itself is a dissenting voice to the heroic ideal.
[43] Strassler, Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide To The Peloponnesian War. 113.
[44] One could argue the same of today, but the average person in modern American, is not as intimate with violence and warfare as the Greeks where then.
[45] This did not stop completely however.
No comments:
Post a Comment