By Susan Wise Bauer
If this upcoming election has you worried for the fate of America, read The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. It will encourage you.
American political squabbles seem like playground shoving matches compared to the bloodshed that accompanies the rise and fall of nations, especially Rome. Indeed, the history of the ancient world is a history of the slaughter of one’s enemies. Familial loyalties were rare. Fathers killed sons and sons killed fathers; wives poisoned their husbands and husbands banished their wives, all in an effort to climb a royal throne or to remain perched on it. For example:
Shang Dynasty: Nobleman suspected of disloyalty were forced to lie on a red-hot rack. Chou had one court official flayed, and another carved up into meat strops and hung to dry. (p. 293)
Assyria: Ashurnasirpal said, "I put up a pillar at the city gate and I skinned the chiefs who revolted against me, and covered the pillar with their skins. . . . some of them I impaled on stakes. As to others, "I cut of their members (noses, ears, fingers, gouged eyes. (p. 338)
Assyria: Ashurbanipal’s destruction of Babylon: “The rest of those living, I destroyed in the place where my grandfather Sennacherib was killed, and their carved-up bodies I fed to the dogs, to pigs, to wolves, to eagles, to birds of the heavens, to fish of the deep.”(p. 413)
Rome: In the nine years after Aurelian [270-275], six men were given the title of emperor, and each one was murdered." (p. 770)
Bauer's work is both delightful and intelligible. One may get lost in the names, relationships, dynasties, and geography but they won't get bored. Her "history-telling" is lively, interesting, and fun. Yes, fun! The author's sense of humor shines through. Her footnotes are enlightening, see for example her treatment of God's name at the bottom of page 128. The sourcing is outstanding as are accompanying timelines and illustrations.
The author will not settle for generalities. In fact, she will introduce you to more people and their stories than one can possibly retain, but then that is why we have histories. No worries, you'll find maps, illustrations, and be introduced to histories and historians of the ancient world. The author also has the historical chops to recognize when what is purported as history is actually brilliant propaganda as she does when commenting on Sennacherib's description of the destruction of Babylon. (p. 401).
I appreciate her explanation of history and how it stands over against other disciplines:
Any time the historian is forced to resort to hugely general statements about 'human behavior,' she has left her native land is speaking a foreign language... (p. xxiv)
Anthropologists can speculate about human behavior; archaeologists, about patterns of settlement; philosophers and theologians, about the motivation of 'humanity' as an undifferentiated mass. But the historian's tasks is different: to look for particular human lives that give flesh and spirit to abstract assertions about human behavior. (p. xxv)
Many students of the Bible will appreciate Susan Wise Bauer's approach to biblical accounts, which she treats using traditional dates. The reader meets Abraham (chapter 17), Paul, and an occasional prophet like Jonah
Ashurbanipal became king in 668. During the thirty-odd years of his reign, he destroyed Babylon, killed his own brother . . . and was annoyed by a Hebrew prophet named Jonah who insisted on bellowing that Nineveh, Ashurbanipal's capital, was doomed. Bu the time he died in 626, Ashurbanipal had also collected twenty-two thousand clay tablets into the world's first real library. Twelve of those tablets hold the Epic of Gilgamesh is more of less its current form." (p. 73)
She contextualizes the occasional biblical account, weaving it seamlessly into the historical record while treating it with respect. That said, this is not a history of the Biblical record. I was surprised, however, to see the scant attention she gave to Jesus of Nazareth, while devoting significant to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Rome. While Jesus made only a cameo appearance, Christianity, its uniqueness and its spread was clear.
The History of the Ancient World is just that so I guess one should not be surprised by learning the backgrounds of so many people and events: Sphinx (chapter 15); Canaan (chapter 17); Hammurabi (chapter 22, 38 laws); Hittites (chapter 26); Aegean Sea (mythology behind the name, chapter 31); King Tut (chapter 33); Nimrod (p. 269); King David (chapter 45); Iliad and the Odyssey (chapter 48); Samaritans (chapter 51); Shepherd = leader (p. 383); Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch (p. 540)
This is a great historical resource. Here are my takeaways:
1. Civilization: Civilization is what divides us from chaos. "As archaeologist Stuart Piggott explains . . . civilization is the result of a courageous discontent with the status quo: 'Sporadically . . . there have appeared peoples to whom innovation and change, rather than the adherence to tradition, gave satisfaction and release: these innovating societies are those which we can class as founders of civilization.'" (p. 7)
2. The Flood: "The historian cannot ignore the Great Flood; it is the closest thing to a universal story that the human race possesses. The Sumerians, Babylonians, and Hebrews provide accounts. She notes, "Three cultures, three stories: too much coincidence of detail to be dismissed." (p. 11-12)
3. War: "War was the most highly developed skill in the ancient world." Foot soldiers and leather shields, spears, axes, siege engines, battering rams. "From as early as 4000 BC, carved scenes show us spearmen, prisoners both alive and executed, gates broken down and walls besieged." (p. 37)
4. Gilgamesh: In Sumer, by 2600 BC, Gilgamesh as become a legend. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest epic tale we have. (p. 71)
5. Dynastic struggle: I appreciate the occasional summary observation she offers. About the outcome of the Egyptian dynasty under pharaoh: The pharaoh was undoubtedly still credited with a kind of divinity, but the struggles of the first two dynasties had made his human side very obvious. "When an idea begins to lose some of its original heart-stopping force, it becomes surrounded with ritual and structure, a supporting affirmation that wasn't necessary before. In this case, charismatic leadership gave way to a machinery of rule and succession." (p. 79)
6. Leaders in a basket: Sargon (2234-2279 BC) and Moses have similar "basket in the river stories." She speculates as to why in chapter 32.
7. The first monotheist, Abram of Ur (2166 BC): Bauer devotes a few pages to Abram and more ink to the Hebrews time in Eqypt. In doing so, she includes interesting historical ties to the plagues (p. 236f).
8. Irony and intrigue: The ninth king of Isin, Erra-imitti, seeking to avert a personal disaster predicted by an oracle, planned to select a palace groundskeeper to be king-for-a-day, whom he would execute at days' end and thus circumvent the prophecy. The groundskeeper was crowned, the real king, Erra-imitti, went to sip a bowl of soup, "choked to death" (probably poisoned) and the groundskeeper remained on the throne for twenty-four years. (p. 159)
9. Human sacrifice: It was prevalent: Crete, 1720 B.C., p. 188; Carthaginians sacrificed as many as 500 at one time to assure a victory over an enemy (p. 588).
10. Eastern peoples: The author helps readers like me, born and educated in the West, by introducing me to the history of the East. Her treatment of India and China was particularly helpful as that side of the world is foreign indeed to me. (c.f 265)
11. Deportation: When Sargon wiped Israel from the map as a political state she comments on deportation: "Deportation was kind of genocide, murder not of persons, but of a nations' sense of itself." (p. 375) Alexander the Great despised Philip, his father. (p. 582)
12. Fathers and sons: This is a recurring pattern in history: "Sargon II died and left his throne to a son who hated him. In one of his inscriptions or annals does Sennacherib even acknowledge the existence of his father." (p. 382)
13. Historical patterns: One has to read history a lot to identify patterns as she does on several occasions. For example, when commenting on the Sicilian Agathocles who hired an army and took Syracuse by force “using the good old Merodach-balaan/Napoleon/Sargon II/Cyrus justification: ‘He declared that he was restoring the people their full autonomy,’ . . . a claim that rang a little hollow when he then went on to conquer most of the rest of Sicily." (p. 588) "The Romans [under Marcus Aurelius] had managed to figure out how to combine imperial rule with republican trappings." (p. 756) “Empire building, co-opting a religious tradition for political gain, family hostilities in the royal line, a professional army: northern India had joined the world to the west. 511
14. Other lessons: Communication: Poor communication is not the problem of any one era (c.f. 199); Idolatry: In the Erra Epic, a Babylonian poem, "the god Marduk complains that his statue is unpolished, his temple in disrepair, but he can't leave Babylon long enough to do anything about it, because anytime he departs the city, something horrendous happens to it. (p. 289). The idol's impotence in that it was unable to defend itself. The speed of communication was measured by how fast a runner could travel (p. 528). Transition: Xerxes had been taking notes on his father’s career. Like Darius, he first sent his army to put down the opportunist rebellions that always accompanied a change in the royal house (p. 530). Transition and the challenge of "the neutral zone." See also pages 614-15, "Remodeling an old and crumbling house is a nightmare compared with the ease of laying out new foundations on a virgin site. It is a task that requires relentless efficiency." gods vs God The treasurers and priestesses who remain on the acropolis guarding the property of the gods (p. 531). It's not that simple Alexander the Great's kingdom split between three generals. Well . . . not exactly! (p. 604).
On a final note, it occurred to me (on page 129) that we have minimal clarity with respect to ancient history prior to 4000 BC, yet, amazingly some historians and scientists speak with absolute certainty as to what occurred millions and even billions of years in the past. Perhaps, a bit more humility is in order. And, as Susan Wise Bauer notes, the philosopher asks, “How can men be whole, in a world constantly torn apart ?" (p. 567) History, as she shows, fails in providing an answer. It demonstrates war, pestilence, unrest, followed by more of the same, which is why that "wandering prophet names Jesus" to whom she gives scant attention deserves a much closer look.
Thanks Susan Wise Bauer for The History Of The Ancient World: From The Earliest Accounts To The Fall Of Rome. Such excellence!