Tom Holland: evaluation

Transcript context

…Are we likely to learn much more about the Persian Empire? And if so, how will that happen? Would it be archaeology, some other technique, recovering lost scrolls? We know a lot about Greece because Herodotus was Greek. He writes about the Persian Wars, and so, inevitably, we see the world through Greek eyes because Herodotus was Greek. However, one of the wonderful things about Herodotus — one of the many wonderful things — is that he does try to see the world through Persian eyes. He tells a remarkable story that I just think is astonishing. He imagines Darius the Great, who’s the Persian king who sends the expedition to Marathon, that gets defeated at Marathon. It’s a great enemy of the Athenians. Herodotus imagines himself in Darius’s high-heeled shoes, the high-heeled boots that the Persian kings are said to have worn. Darius summons Greeks and an Indian tribe, and these are the two people who exist on the western and eastern margins of his empire, respectively. He says to the Greeks, “What would I have to pay you to persuade you to eat your parents once they’ve died?” The Greeks, who burned their parents when they’ve died, throw their hands up in horror and say, “Nothing, we would never do that.” Then Darius turns to the Indian tribe, and these are a people who eat their parents when they’ve died as a mark of their utmost respect. Darius says to them, “What would I have to do to persuade you to burn your parents when they’re dead?” Likewise, the Indian tribesmen throw their hands up in horror. Herodotus says, “This shows to me that custom is king, that everybody believes that their own customs are best.” He understands that; he gets that. When he’s writing about the Persians, he is trying to do his best to portray them as they see themselves and not just to do them down. Of course, it doesn’t work. The problem with the Persians is that we don’t have a Persian Herodotus. Nor do we have, indeed, a Persian Isaiah. The Jews also write about the Persians. Our sense of the Persians has been mediated through the Bible and through the Greek historians hugely. What’s happened over the past few decades, however, is that scholars have basically teamed up to try and go beyond that, to try and go beyond the fact that we lack Persian accounts, to try and see beyond what the Greeks and the Jews wrote. This has required, basically, pooling every conceivable source of information that we have: such Persian inscriptions as we do have, archeology, the insights of areas of the Persian Empire that perhaps hadn’t previously been tapped, be that Egypt or Babylonia or wherever, where again there are sources trying to put the Persian Empire as it functioned in the sixth, the fifth, the fourth centuries BC into some understanding that is true to the functioning of the empire in that period, rather than, say, sources that were written much later. This is a really, really difficult, challenging, complicated process, and it’s been one of the great feats of the field of ancient history that all these scholars haven’t, I think, achieved that. They have, to a degree, performed an act of resurrectionism. ated process, and it’s been one of the great feats of the field of ancient history that all these scholars haven’t, I think, achieved that. They have, to a degree, performed an act of resurrectionism. They have brought us to an understanding of the Persian Empire that is better than anyone’s had since the collapse of the empire itself. [laughs]…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.