to “ethnocentrism” or “proto‐racism.” This view, however, is questioned by Isaac (2004), who treats such antithetical othering as more of a fourth century BCE phenomenon.
Although Herodotus narrates the story of the Persian Wars, which were viewed by many Greeks as definite proof of their natural superiority over the Barbarian, he only rarely uses the word barbaros in a negative sense, for example when he calls Xerxes’ INSULTS towards the HELLESPONT “barbarous and presumptuous” (7.35.2). Shortly thereafter, following the greatest Greek triumph ever over the barbarians at PLATAEA, the Spartan regent PAUSANIAS refuses to impale the corpse of MARDONIUS in revenge for the outrage committed by Xerxes on the body of LEONIDAS at THERMOPYLAE and declares (in a direct speech) that “it’s a kind of deed we would expect from a barbarian, not a Greek” (9.79). MUTILATION and other acts of extreme VIOLENCE are indeed usually identified as non‐Greek practices in Herodotus.
However, the context in which the above comment appears makes the identification of extreme violence with barbarians alone in the Histories an untenable hypothesis. The suggestion for impaling Mardonius comes from an Aeginetan, a Greek, whose city had received the highest honors for valor at SALAMIS (8.93). Herodotus, in commenting on Xerxes’ act of violence against Leonidas’ corpse, asserts that the Persians are usually the last people in the world to treat men of valor with disrespect (7.238). In effect, the Greek Aeginetans are cast in a worse light than the Persians. Even among non‐Greeks, Pausanias comments, such behavior would be abhorrent. To add to the irony, this very Hellenic Pausanias would later be charged with turning traitor and adopting Persian habits (Thuc. 1.128–34).
Herodotus argues that the use of the term barbaros itself is not the exclusive prerogative of the Greeks. In his Egyptian logos, he notes that “the Egyptians call all men of other languages barbarians” (2.158.5). To the Egyptians, then, the Greeks are themselves barbaroi! Herodotus in fact suggests to the Greeks that their ethnocentrism is neither unique nor superior to that of others, and EGYPT is held up as an example of barbarian superiority vis‐à‐vis the Greeks. Throughout the Egyptian logos Herodotus consistently argues for the antiquity of Egyptian civilization and asserts that much of Greek religion is derived from Egypt (2.4, 43 etc.). As well as acknowledging the Greek debts to Egypt Herodotus also points out the various areas in which the Egyptians have surpassed the Greeks in KNOWLEDGE (the Egyptian system of months, for example: 2.4.1). Later he contrasts the unreliable Greek account of the TROJAN WAR with the more precise eyewitness accounts and reliable records of the same event supposedly preserved by the PRIESTS of Egypt (2.112–20). He even calls the Greek version silly (mataion, 2.118.1). Such comments as these later earned Herodotus the epithet philobarbaros, “barbarian‐lover” (coined by the indignant PLUTARCH, who used it to deride Herodotus in his Malice of Herodotus). As well as implicitly denying the absolute superiority of the Greeks over the barbaroi, Herodotus also frequently blurs the distinction between Greeks and non‐Greeks.
To a certain extent, however, Herodotus also accepts aspects of the classical Greek portrait of the Barbarian. What is more, to a certain degree, he continues to operate within the framework of the values and ideals that shaped his intellectual environment. One striking example can be found in his vehement denunciation of the custom of temple PROSTITUTION practiced in BABYLON, which in his words is “the most disgraceful custom” (1.199.1). Here we find his Greek religious scruples overriding his supposed relativism. Even his pluralism cannot tolerate certain customs which are condemned as aberrations. His rather ruthless and devastating assertion that the EUXINE (Black) Sea region is home to “the most ignorant peoples,” to whom it is completely implausible to “attribute cleverness” (4.46.1), shows that he has not completely abandoned Greek and more broadly eastern MEDITERRANEAN standards of evaluating the mental capacity of any given group of people, namely by their material culture and literary endeavors.
Noteworthy also is the extent to which Herodotus favors the non‐Greeks who reside within the eastern Mediterranean and the Near Eastern world over those outside it. Almost all the customs that Herodotus feels are worthy of adoption or emulation on the part of the Greeks either presently or in the past are Egyptian, Anatolian, or Near Eastern. The city most admired for its magnificence is Babylon; the culture most respected for its antiquity and wisdom is Egypt. Putative Greek ancestors are from either the Levant or Egypt. None derives from other regions and very rarely are their customs contemplated for admiration. Indeed the non‐Mediterranean barbaroi are almost always associated with the most bizarre customs in direct and obvious contrast with the more civilized eastern Mediterranean and Near Eastern world. The Egyptians, Lydians, Babylonians, and even Greeks may all possess their own eccentric behavioral patterns, but all adhere to what could be termed “civilized” Mediterranean norms. Rarely is extreme violence attributed to these groups, and their behavior is presented in ways that are intelligible to a Greek audience. The same cannot be said of strange “barbarians” such as the nomadic SCYTHIANS, or the eschatoi andrōn (“men living on the edges [of the known world]”), such as the ANDROPHAGI (Man‐eaters), “the most savage people in the world” (4.106).
SEE ALSO: Ethnography; Extremes; Geography; Language and Communication; nomos; Orientalism
REFERENCES
1 Hall, Edith. 1989. Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self‐definition through Tragedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2 Hall, Jonathan M. 2002. Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
3 Isaac, Benjamin. 2004. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
4 Skinner, Joseph E. 2012. The Invention of Greek Ethnography: From Homer to Herodotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5 Vlassopoulos, Kostas. 2013. Greeks and Barbarians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FURTHER READING
1 Gruen, Erich S. 2005. Cultural Borrowings and Ethnic Appropriations in Antiquity. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
2 Levy, E. 1992. “Hérodote Philobarbaros ou la vision du Barbare chez Hérodote.” In L’Étranger dans le monde grec II, edited by Raoul Lonis, 193–244. Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy.
3 Mitchell, Lynette G. 2007. Panhellenism and the Barbarian in Archaic and Classical Greece. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.
BARCA (Βάρκη, ἡ)
TYPHAINE HAZIZA
Université de Caen Normandie
Founded around 560 BCE by wealthy land‐owners of CYRENE, Barca seems of interest to Herodotus only through its connections—generally contentious—with its mother‐city. Barca was situated about 100 kilometers southwest of Cyrene (BA 38 B1), in a fertile plain with access to the SEA at the port of TAUCHEIRA, which it controlled, according to Herodotus (4.171).
The bulk of Herodotus’ information on Barca appears in the course of his Cyrenean LOGOS in Book 4. The city’s foundation was the result of a conflict between the fourth Battiad king of Cyrene, ARCESILAUS II, and his brothers. The anecdote (4.160) refers more certainly to an opposition between the Cyrenean royalty and the ARISTOCRACY of the city, who felt their interests had been hurt. The ambivalent relations between the two CITIES, much like the struggles for power between partisans of an aristocratic regime or a “tyranny,” clearly manifest themselves in the story of the reign of ARCESILAUS III (4.164–65). In conflict with the aristocrats of his city, Arcesilaus III found refuge with his father‐in‐law, ALAZIR king of Barca, where he was assassinated by “Barcaeans and some EXILES from
