[lit-ideas] Curtius on Xerxes and the impending invasion
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:07:29 -0800
Some years ago I acquired the 5 volume History of Greece by Ernst Curtius
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Curtius ) It was written by Curtius
between 1857 and 1867. The translation I have is copyrighted 1871 and
published in 1883. I sent for a history of the battle of Thermopylae but
in the meantime I thought I would see what Curtius had to say about Xerxes,
the Spartans, Leonidas and the Battle of Thermopylae.
In 300 Xerxes is presented as an effeminate giant. Curtius in Vol 2, page
273 writes "Xerxes, a man born in the purple, of great personal beauty and
innate dignity of demeanor. It had not been his fate to pass through the
same discipline as his father, who had raised himself to the throne by his
own exertions. Xerxes had grown up among the luxuries of palace life; nor
was it any love of war on his own part that tempted him to quit the gardens
of Susa.
"He had, however, a deep sense of the dignity of the empire, and was not
willing to allow it to suffer in his hands. Moreover, he was impelled by
the influence of his mother, whose influence was more dominant than ever in
the palace; and by the ambition of individual commanders - particularly of
Mardonius, who had yet by no means relinquished the favorite idea of his
youth, the scheme of founding a Perso-Greek satrapy beyond the sea."
Since pacifism, surrender, and "better red than dead," are all derived from
modern negative philosophies and are now considered the norm such that if
you don't accept them you are clearly brainwashed, we should pause here to
ask how awful would it be to surrender to Xerxes before he invaded? It
seems that the Thessalanians were not at all one with the Spartans: The
Aleuadae, one of the great families of Thessaly were ambitions. "of an
unconditioned and hereditary sway over the country; and they therefore
entered into negotiations with the Persians, in order with the help of the
latter to carry out their schemes. Thus it came to pass that Torax, the son
of Aleuas and the friend of Pindar, was the first among all the Hellenes to
offer voluntary homage to Xerxes: and he offered it in the name of the
Thessalian people, though wholly unauthorized by the latter. He promised to
afford all possible aid to the king if he would carry out the plans of
Mardonius; and thus before Xerxes had taken a single step himself, he found
the largest country of Greece prostrate at his feet." Here we have some
incipient moderns. The Aleuadae, however, clearly didn't expect to be sent
off to Auswitz to be burned or to become Dhimmis in the land of Persia. I
doubt that they even anticipated having to be collaborators in the Vichy
sense. I imagine they expected the Persian armies to withdraw once they
had provided Xerxes with earth and water.
p. 275: "In vain more moderate men raised a voice of warning, pointing out
how the strength of an army was only up to a certain point increased with
its numbers, and how a measureless armament in the end endangered success.
It was precisely the idea of the measureless in which Xerxes delighted; a
host was to be assembled such as the world had never before beheld; and his
plan, moreover, went far beyond the limits of Hellas. The chief attraction
in the eyes of this vain prince was the prospect of finding himself as the
fairest and noblest in the midst of so many thousands.
[to be continued - probably]
Lawrence
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