Historians From England

"Winckelmann] loved every aspect of his image of Greece, seeing its two dominant essences as liberty and youth. According to him Greece epitomized freedom, while Egyptian culture had been stunted by its monarchism and conservatism and was the symbol of rigid authority and stagnation — which also happened to be non-European. In his mind, the Greek city-states contained the liberty without which it was impossible to create great art. Winckelmann, and his followers, loved this liberty and youth for their freshness and vitality. Yet he insisted upon the soft gentleness of Greek art, and the ‘noble simplicity’ and ‘serene greatness’ of Greek culture as a whole, which he saw as the result of the equable Greek climate. Moreover, central to his love of Greece was his appreciation of Greek homosexuality. Winckelmann himself was homosexual, and the major homosexual strand which has persisted in modern Hellenism has continued to be associated with him."

"After the 1780s, the intensification of racism and the new belief in the central importance of ‘ethnicity’ as a principle of historical explanation became critical for perceptions of Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians were increasingly detached from the noble Caucasians, and their ‘black’ and African nature was more and more emphasized. Thus the idea that they were the cultural ancestors of the Greeks – the epitome and pure childhood of Europe – became unbearable. There was also a new crisis between Egyptian mythology and Christianity with the works of Dupuis, which represented the ideological or theological counterpart of the French Revolution’s attack on European social order. It is only with this background that one can make sense of the tormented career of Champollion during the years of reaction between 1815 and 1830. Although Champollion was an avowed revolutionary and an enthusiastic Bonapartist, one of his earliest discoveries discredited some of the theories of Dupuis’s supporters, and he and his decipherment were therefore welcomed by the Church and the Restoration nobility. On the other hand, his championing of Egypt over Greece combined with his political beliefs to infuriate Hellenist and Indianist scholars, who continued to do all they could to block his academic career."

"Most later historians, and some of his contemporaries, have regarded Müller as essentially Romantic in maintaining a categorical distinction between Greek and other cultures. In Orchomenos he denied the charge and, after apologizing for having treated Greek mythology as if it were all mythology, he claimed that Greece was part of the world, and that therefore Greek mythology had the same basis as that of the rest of mankind. What he objected to was the belief in colonial bonds and the wholesale borrowing of Greek religion and mythology from the East. He was convinced that he had shown these to be unhistorical, though illusions about them had led all previous research astray.In Prolegomena, Müller made an eloquent appeal for scholars to do what he had failed to do, and investigate all mythologies for insights into the Greek one. The ‘anthropological’ school of the Cambridge Classicists James Frazer and Jane Harrison, which flourished at the beginning of the 20th century, in no way overstepped these bounds. What Müller outlawed was any special relationship between Greek and Eastern myth. Indeed, as he put it, ‘the entire book is opposed to the theory which would make the majority of myths importations from the East.’"

"After Müller’s demolition of the Ancient Model, it was relatively easy to fill the vacuum with the model of Indo-European conquest from the north. In this case, unlike the destruction of the Ancient Model, there was a good internalist explanation for the change: the need to explain the Indo-European basis of Greek. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that German and English scholars were particularly attracted to ideas of northern invasion, which fitted so well with the prevailing racism and with Niebuhr’s scheme of ethnic history."

"The industry of Gervase was greater than his insight. He took a narrow and monastic view of current politics; he was seldom in touch with the leading statesmen of his day."

"The Greek War of Independence...united all Europeans against the traditional Islamic enemies from Asia and Africa.This War – and the philhellenic movement, which supported the struggle for independence – completed the already powerful image of Greece as the epitome of Europe. The Ancient Greeks were now seen as perfect, and as having transcended the laws of history and language. Thus it was now thought profane to study any aspect of their culture as one would the culture of other peoples. Moreover, with the rise of a passionate and systematic racism in the early 19th century, the ancient notion that Greece was a mixed culture that had been civilized by Africans and Semites became not only abominable but unscientific. Just as one had to discount the ‘credulous’ Greeks’ stories about sirens and centaurs, so one had to reject legends of their having been colonized by inferior races. Paradoxically, the more the 19th century admired the Greeks, the less it respected their writing of their own history."

"It is absurd to try to summarize this book in a dozen paragraphs, when even the previous hundreds of pages in which I have attempted to set out some of the complications of this vast and extraordinarily ramified theme can best be described by the Chinese expression ‘looking at flowers from horseback’."

"Why was Astour’s work considered so...offensive? First, it offended at a formal level, because it challenged the academic hierarchy; this was a reflection of the relative power of the two disciplines. Although Classicists had previously discussed Eastern parallels to Hellenic mythology, it was entirely different and unacceptable for Orientalists to pronounce on Greece.There were also fundamental objections to the content of Astour’s work. Scholars like Fontenrose and Walcot had made broad sweeps of world mythology – including India, Iran and so on – and they gave preference, if possible, to the less offensive sources. By contrast, Astour’s derivation of Greek names from Semitic not only poached on the sacred ground of language, but also made the connections between West Semites and Greeks disturbingly close and specific. Furthermore, two of the myth cycles he treated – those of Kadmos and Danaos – were concerned with Near Eastern colonization in Greece, and he made a plausible case for their having a historical kernel of truth. The fourth section of Hellenosemitica was even more provocative in that it went into the sociology of knowledge, and its sketch of the history and ideology of Classics and Classical archaeology has been the basis of all later writings on this subject, this volume included. In doing this Astour injected relativism into subjects that had previously been impervious to the forces of probabilism and uncertainty that have transformed other disciplines since the 1890s."

"The upholders of conventional wisdom have been...disconcerted by Hellenosemitica, a major work by...Michael Astour, which first appeared in 1967. Hellenosemitica, a series of studies of striking parallels between West Semitic and Greek mythology, showed connections of structure and nomenclature that were far too close to be explained away as similar manifestations of the human psyche. Apart from the challenge posed by this basic theme, Astour made three other fundamental attacks. First, the fact of his writing the book at all upset the academic status quo. While it was permissible for a Classicist, coming from the dominant discipline, to discuss the Middle East in its relation to Greece and Rome, the converse did not hold true. A Semitist was felt to have no right to write about Greece. Secondly, Astour questioned the absolute primacy of archaeology over all other sources of evidence about prehistory—myth, legend, language and names—thus threatening the ‘scientific’ status of ancient history. Thirdly, he sketched out a sociology of knowledge for Classics, indicating links between developments in scholarship and those in society. He even implied a connection between anti-Semitism and hostility to the Phoenicians and cast doubt on the notion of steady accumulative progress of learning. But the worst threat came from his basic message that the legends of Danaos and Kadmos contained a factual kernel."

"If the Lords Appellant are viewed as a group, there is a little doubt that they used tyrannical methods to bring an end to Richard’s tyranny. Their definition of treason, like Richard’s own, bore no resemblance to the articles of the Statute of Treason drawn up by Edward III. Their processes were based largely on military strength, not the law. Their judgement was in places arbitrary and often prejudiced."

"Very clearly, Henry cared more for God than for the Church, and more for the Church than for some of the men who exercised office within it."

"Richard’s very character was being distorted by those around him. The pressure on him was immense: he had been given near-absolute power, educated to believe that the correct application of that power was to force everyone in his kingdom to obey, and told by parliament that his accession was as longed for as the coming of Christ. After such an education, it would have been a miracle if he had developed as a fair-minded, level-headed king. By 1382 it was already becoming apparent that Richard was very far from the glorious youthful leader that parliament and the rest of the country had hoped for at his coronation."

"That he did not go on to be a great king does not detract from the courage, initiative and consideration of his actions in 1399. There is almost no sense in which his reign can be considered great; it was dogged by financial problems and rebellion, so that defeating or outlasting all his enemies is his sole claim to greatness as a ruler. But in terms of his stature as a man, those judgements do not apply. His rule may have been characterised by crisis and opposition, but he was one of the most courageous, conscientious, personally committed and energetic men ever to rule England. It is unfortunate that he has historically been judged solely as a king and not as a man."

"Most of all, he wanted so much to be a good king – attempting to please everyone all the time – that he inevitably displeased some."

"Justice was a much more complicated issue. Many people at that parliament wanted Richard to be put to death. Many more wanted those who had benefited from his reign to be punished as traitors. Part of the problem was that the very concept of treason had been greatly enlarged by Richard to encompass anyone who dared disagree with him: in Richard’s own words ‘he is a child of death who offends the king’."

"With this reputation and the rise of anti-Semitism in the 1880s, there was a sustained attack on the Phoenicians which was particularly fierce where it came to their legendary contacts with, and influence on, the Greeks—who had by now been given semi-divine status."

"The fact that much of the uniquely Spartan political vocabulary can be plausibly derived from Late Egyptian is linked to the tradition that the Spartan lawgiver Lykourgos visited the East and Egypt to study their institutions. Moreover, the notion of Egyptian cultural influence there in the 9th and 8th centuries is strengthened by the strikingly Egyptian appearance of early Spartan art. All these link up with the Spartan kings’ belief in their Heraklid—hence Egyptian or Hyksos—ancestry; and would thus explain such anomalies in the Aryan Model as the building of a pyramid at the Menelaion, the Spartan ‘national’ shrine, and the letter one of the last Spartan kings wrote to the High Priest in Jerusalem, claiming kinship with him."

"Most historians rely on timing and motive in deciding whether Henry was guilty of murder or not. This is unfortunate, for motive is not the same as evidence, and to pretend it is is to risk introducing modern prejudices into a historical argument."

"In the 1407 parliament Thomas Arundel listed the reasons why he thought the people should ‘honour the king’: because Henry had preserved the liberties of towns and religious institutions; because he had showed himself unstinting in his efforts to defend the realm; and because he had showed mercy to his adversaries. All of these were matters of maintaining the status quo; nothing here was a new development. This points to the very success of his conservative policy. If the revolution is to be wholly successful, all the counter-revolutions must be defeated. That Henry did so while showing mercy and preserving existing liberties is to his credit."

"The entire French royal family joined with Henry in attending a Mass to pray for his father’s soul. They pitied him, but they could hardly have comforted him. Their real interests lay in supporting Richard, the rightful king, whose queen was the daughter of the king of France. Justice had to take second place to political expediency."

"Unlike the Ancients, the proponents of the Aryan Model were firm believers in ‘progress.’ Victors were seen as more advanced, and hence ‘better’, than the vanquished. Thus, despite apparent and short-term anomalies, history—now seen as the biographies of races—consisted of the triumphs of strong and vital peoples over weak and feeble ones. ‘Races’, formed by the landscape and climates of their homelands, retained permanent essences, even though they took on new forms in every new age. For these scholars, in addition, it was self-evident that the greatest ‘race’ in world history was the European or Aryan one. It alone had, and always would have, the capacity to conquer all other peoples and to create advanced, dynamic civilizations—as opposed to the static societies ruled by Asians or Africans."

"While we may have some sympathy for Richard, his psychological problems had a disastrous effect on the political situation in England."

"And therein lies the explanation of 1399, one of the most momentous years in English history. Richard personally hated Henry.…Reflecting on their lives from their first meeting, it is obvious that their characters were totally conflicting: Henry was so dutiful, almost ploddingly obedient to his father, Richard so mercurial. Henry was so logical and self-disciplined, Richard so flighty. Henry was so physically confident, Richard so insecure, needing to cocoon himself within his royal self-righteousness. But beyond these reflections, we have to suspect that the very root of Richard’s active hatred (as opposed to passive dislike) was his own fear. He was afraid of Henry as the hero of the joust. He was afraid of his confidence, his affable nature, his logical mind and his strength. And he was afraid of his royalty, and the prophecies concerning the two of them."

"This pantheism could be traced back past Spinoza to Bruno and beyond, to the Neo-Platonists and Egypt itself. The first articulate rejection of the challenge of the Radical Enlightenment—and the earliest popularization of the Newtonian ‘Whig’ scheme in science, politics and religion—was made in 1693 by Richard Bentley, Newton’s friend and a great sceptical Classicist. One way in which Bentley attacked his and Newton’s enemies was to use Casaubon’s tactics. He employed his critical scholarship to undermine Greek sources on the antiquity and wisdom of the Egyptians. Thus throughout the 18th and 19th centuries we find a de facto alliance of Hellenism and textual criticism with the defence of Christianity. The ructions caused by occasional Hellenist atheists like Shelley and Swinburne were trivial compared to the threat of Aegypto-Masonry."

"In the Timaios, ... Plato admitted an ancient ‘genetic’ relationship between Egypt and Greece, in general; and Athens and Sais, the major city at the north-western edge of the Delta, in particular. But, rather implausibly, he claimed priority for Athens. Like some other Greeks, Aischylos and Plato appear to have been offended by the legends of colonization because they put Hellenic culture in an inferior position to that of the Egyptians and Phoenicians, towards whom most Greeks of this time appear to have felt an acute ambivalence. The Egyptians and Phoenicians were despised and feared, but at the same time deeply respected for their antiquity and well-preserved ancient religion and philosophy. The fact that so many Greeks overcame their antipathies and transmitted these ‘traditions [of colonization] so little accommodating to national prejudice’ greatly impressed the 18th-century historian William Mitford, who used it to maintain that ‘for their essential circumstances they seem unquestionable.’ Before Mitford no one questioned the Ancient Model, so there was no need to articulate a defence of it. Such motives of ‘national prejudice’ would help explain Thucydides’ failure to mention these legends, of which he was certainly aware."

"These paradigms of ‘race’ and ‘progress’ and their corollaries of ‘racial purity’, and the notion that the only beneficial conquests were those of ‘master races’ over subject ones, could not tolerate the Ancient Model. Thus Müller’s refutations of the legends of Egyptian colonization in Greece were quickly accepted. The Aryan Model—which followed his success—was constructed within the new paradigms. It was encouraged by a number of factors: the discovery of the Indo-European language family with the Indo-Europeans or Aryans soon seen as a ‘race’, the plausible postulation of an original Indo-European homeland in central Asia, and the need to explain that Greek was fundamentally an Indo-European language. Moreover at precisely the same period, the early 19th century, there was intense historical concern with the Germanic overwhelming of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, and the Aryan conquests in India in the 2nd millennium BC. The application of the model of northern conquest to Greece was thus obvious and very attractive: vigorous conquerors were supposed to have come from a suitably stimulating homeland to the north of Greece, while the ‘Pre-Hellenic’ aborigines had been softened by the undemanding nature of their homeland. And although the large number of non-Indo-European elements in Greek culture could not be reconciled with the ideal of complete Aryan Hellenic purity, the notion of a northern conquest did make the inevitable ‘racial’ mixing as painless as possible. Naturally the purer and more northern Hellenes were the conquerors, as befitted a master race. The Pre- Hellenic Aegean populations, for their part, were sometimes seen as marginally European, and always as Caucasian; in this way, even the natives were untainted by African and Semitic ‘blood’."

"Such a mercurial ruler could hardly be an inspiration to his people. Wise men do not follow leaders whom they suspect might later reproach them for their loyalty."

"The king was purposefully creating the maximum amount of fear. In Richard’s mind, the fear of his subjects equated to his own sense of power."

"Newton had merely tried to demote Egypt in relation to Christianity; he did not try to raise Greece. By the middle of the 18th century, however, a number of Christian apologists were using the emerging paradigm of progress’, with its presupposition that ‘later is better’, to promote the Greeks at the expense of the Egyptians. These strands of thought soon merged with two others that were becoming dominant at the same time: racism and Romanticism."

"The paradigm of ‘races’ that were intrinsically unequal in physical and mental endowment was applied to all human studies, but especially to history. It was now considered undesirable, if not disastrous, for races to mix. To be creative, a civilization needed to be ‘racially pure’. Thus it became increasingly intolerable that Greece—which was seen by the Romantics not merely as the epitome of Europe but also as its pure childhood—could be the result of the mixture of native Europeans and colonizing Africans and Semites."

"A man who grows up believing he is the heir to the throne is unlikely ever to be able to let go of such an idea."

"The language of the charges against Richard is certainly legalistic but the message overall was clearly Henry’s. On many matters of justice, Richard had acted in a selfish and arbitrary way, like a spoilt child. After thirty-three counts of tyranny, perjury, misappropriation of funds, murder, harassment, maintenance, toleration of violence and rape committed by his Cheshire archers, deception, dishonesty, theft, wrongful imprisonment (contrary to the terms of Magna Carta) and the removal from office and exile of the archbishop of Canterbury without trial – nearly all of which are supported by damning evidence extant today – there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the man they were removing was one of the worst rulers England had ever known."

"Müller urged scholars to study Greek mythology in relation to human culture as a whole, but was adamantly opposed to recognizing any specific borrowings from the East. When it comes to higher culture, there has been an even greater reluctance to see any precise parallels."

"These elements of Henry’s kingship – the determination to rule in conjunction with the great men of the realm, taxation only in wartime, religious orthodoxy, and the establishment of a chivalric order – are all reminiscent of Edward III’s kingship. Even the language in which he made his speeches – English – harks back to Edward III’s use of English to stir up nationalist sentiment. These parallels between Henry in October 1399 and Edward III are not a coincidence. By 1399, Edward III’s reign had come to be seen as a golden age, being peaceful at home and glorious abroad: everything which Richard II’s reign was not."

"The most important element of Henry’s kingship was his intention to end his cousin’s experiment in autocratic rule."

"Knowing that he had no respect for opponents who held high office in the Church allows us to contextualise his piety and see a direct link between his God and himself, thereby largely circumventing the role of the clergy. His attitude towards the prelates he executed was that they deserved no special treatment if they stood in the way of God’s will that Henry should rule England. Hence the apparent contradiction of a pious king who executed an archbishop is explained, and a much fuller picture of his religious conscience obtained."

"K. O. Müller, writing in the 1820s, had denied that the Phoenicians had had any influence on Greece, but he was extreme in his Romanticism and ahead of his time in the intensity of his racialism and anti-Semitism. In some ways, therefore, the Phoenicians even profited from the fall of the Egyptians, since legends of Egyptian colonization could now be explained as having referred to them. Consciously or unconsciously, all European thinkers saw the Phoenicians as the Jews of Antiquity—as clever ‘Semitic’ traders. The predominant mid-19th-century view of world history was one of a dialogue between Aryan and Semite. The Semite had created religion and poetry; the Aryan conquest, science, philosophy, freedom and everything else worth having."

"Modern scholars now see Richard as essentially narcissistic, convinced of his own perfection, and yet deeply insecure. We might elaborate on this slightly and see that he was exceptionally self-conscious: so much so that his own identity, royal percentage, ideas, rivalries and feelings formed not only the core but the limit of his entire world."

"Both sides of the parliamentary lobby thus gained from the reign. That is hardly surprising, but if Henry can be credited with these developments it is only on account of his successful management of change. As stated at the outset, most of the developments in parliament were in spite of his involvement, not because of it."

"Few men confront the basic tenets of the society in which they live and try to change them. Very few of those are successful. And even fewer survive to reflect on their success. Henry IV was one of these very few."

"Prophecies were searched out in old chronicles and reinterpreted to show that it was God’s will that Henry should put an end to Richard’s rule. He was universally regarded as the champion of the Church and the people, a rescuer of good government and a promise of better times to come. Yet Henry’s position was far from safe. He had not faced the king, and thus the kingdom had not yet had to choose between the good government he promised and the legitimate government represented by Richard….Which path would the kingdom choose: tyranny in the name of loyalty? Or treason in the name of justice?"

"I was staggered to discover that what I began to call the ‘Ancient Model’ had not been overthrown until the early 19th century, and that the version of Greek history which I had been taught—far from being as old as the Greeks themselves—had been developed only in the 1840s and 50s. Astour had taught me that attitudes towards the Phoenicians in historiography were profoundly affected by anti-Semitism; it was therefore easy for me to make a connection between the dismissal of the Egyptians and the explosion of Northern European racism in the 19th century."

"The ‘Ancient Model’ was the conventional view among Greeks in the Classical and Hellenistic ages. According to it, Greek culture had arisen as the result of colonization, around 1500 BC, by Egyptians and Phoenicians who had civilized the native inhabitants. Furthermore, Greeks had continued to borrow heavily from Near Eastern cultures."

"The natural confusion between the rams and goats seems to have been compounded by the fact that the oracular cult at the Delta city—known to the Greeks as Mendēs—was associated with a well-endowed species of ram that—rather embarrassingly for a symbol of fertility—became extinct. In later centuries this was represented in a way that led Herodotos, at least, to describe it alternately as a goat and a ram."

"Most people are surprised to learn that the Aryan Model, which most of us have been brought up to believe, developed only during the first half of the 19th century. In its earlier or ‘Broad’ form, the new model denied the truth of the Egyptian settlements and questioned those of the Phoenicians. What I call the ‘Extreme’ Aryan Model, which flourished during the twin peaks of anti-Semitism in the 1890s and again in the 1920s and 30s, denied even the Phoenician cultural influence."

"It seems to have been...the belief expressed by Herodotos that the ancestry of the Spartan kings went up to the Hyksos colonists – that, sometime around 300 BC, Areios King of Sparta wrote to Jerusalem beginning: "To Onias High Priest, greeting. A document has come to light which shows that the Spartans and Jews are kinsmen descended alike from Abraham.""

"There have been...persistent attempts to diminish the Egyptian aspects of the play [the Suppliants of Aischylos], which in later times became so important a prop for the Ancient Model. For instance, while Io is seen as coming from Argos, most sources agree that she was only the distant ancestor of Aigyptos and Danaos. Thus the brothers and their children were Egyptianized, if not purely Egyptian, and the Danaids are explicitly described as ‘black’. The mainstream of German scholarship, however, has preferred the one scholiast who can dubiously be construed to say that the twins were the children of Io herself. The same scholiast also maintains that the whole action of the trilogy took place in Argos. This version has been preferred to all the other sources, some of which held that all the events were situated in Egypt, and all of which...had the Danaids arriving from Egypt."

"I hope to demonstrate that Herodotos’ views on the Egyptian and Phoenician settlements, though treated with condescension and scorn by most modern Classicists and ancient historians, were conventional not only in his own times but also throughout Archaic, Classical and later Antiquity."

"This view of Egyptian religion played a central role in the two major ‘novels’ of the 2nd century AD, Heliodoros’ Aithiopika and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass. In his morally elevating and romantic story with a beautiful and virtuous Ethiopian – but not black – heroine, Heliodoros expressed great admiration for the Ethiopians and their gymnosophists (naked philosophers or gurus), but Aithiopika is focused on Egypt and the moral superiority of its religion. It also stresses the passionate interest taken in it by Greek priests, who saw it as the key to their own cults. When talking about the priests of Delphi bombarding a visiting Egyptian with questions, the author wrote: "In short, they forgot none of the interesting features of Egypt, for there is no country in the world which Greeks prefer to hear about.""

"I...became convinced that anything up to a quarter of the Greek vocabulary could be traced to Semitic origins. This, together with 40–50 per cent that seem to be Indo-European, still left a quarter to a third of the Greek vocabulary unexplained. I hesitated between seeing this irreducible fraction conventionally as ‘Pre-Hellenic’ or of postulating a third outside language, either from Anatolian or—as I preferred—Hurrian. When I looked into these languages, however, they provided virtually no promising material. It was only in 1979, when I was glancing through a copy of Černy’s Coptic Etymological Dictionary, that I was able to get some sense of Late Ancient Egyptian. Almost immediately, I realized that this was the third outside language. Within a few months I became convinced that one could find plausible etymologies for a further 20–25 per cent of the Greek vocabulary from Egyptian, as well as the names for most Greek gods and many place names. Putting the Indo-European, Semitic and Egyptian roots together, I now believed that—with further research—one could provide plausible explanations for 80–90 per cent of the Greek vocabulary, which is as high a proportion as one can hope for in any language. Thus there was now no need for the ‘Pre-Hellenic’ element at all."