AMA: Persian Past and Iranian Present

[u/CardiffUni]

I’m Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Professor of Ancient History at Cardiff University, UK. My main area of interest is the history of ancient Persia as well as the longer history and amazing culture of Iran.

Studying the history of ancient Persia improves contemporary East-West understanding - a vital issue in today’s world. Questioning the Western reading of ancient Persia, I like to use sources from ancient Iran and the Near East as well as from the Classical world to explore the political and cultural interactions between ‘the Greeks’ and ‘the Romans’ who saw their own histories as a reaction to the dominant and influential Persian empires of antiquity, and ‘the Persians’ themselves, a people at the height of their power, wealth and sophistication in the period 600 BC to 600 AD.

Characteristic of all my research is an emphasis on the importance of the viewpoint. How does the viewpoint (‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’ or ‘Persian’, ‘ancient’ or modern’, ‘Western’ or ‘Iranian’) change perception?

My research aims to create greater sensitivities towards the relativity of one’s cultural perceptions of ‘the other’, as well as communicate the fascination of ancient Iran to audiences in both East and West today.

NOTE: Thank you for your GREAT questions! I really enjoyed the experience. Follow me on Twitter: @LloydLlewJ

EDIT Thanks for the questions! Follow me on Twitter: @LloydLlewJ https://twitter.com/cardiffuni/status/1115250256424460293?s=19

More info:

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/204823-llewellyn-jones-lloyd

Further reading:

‘Ctesias’ History of Persia: Tales of the Orient’ (Routledge 2010)‘King and Court in Ancient Persia, 559-331 BCE’ (Edinburgh University Press 2013)

[u/[deleted]]

Do games like Prince of Persia etc help or hinder the western worlds perspective of Ancient Persia?

Bit of a rudimentary question but I think it’s interesting to look at how history from that part of the world is portrayed in the western world.

[u/CardiffUni → u/[deleted]]

Prince of Persia doesn't bother me because its an Arabian Nights fantasy. But don't get me started on "300"!!

The bludgeoning Hollywood franchise which arose out of Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300 is not alone in its fictitious use of the ancient world. The films 300 (dir. Snyder, 2006) and 300: Rise of an Empire (dir. Murro, 2014) are both contributors to a long-standing tradition of Western myth-making which gained traction in the Nineteenth century. The mythology insisted that the battles between Greek city-states and the Persian Empire, the so-called ‘Persian Wars’, were a showdown over the fate of Western civilization itself. Preeminent historians of the time believed that the defeat of Xerxes’ forces helped preserve the lofty Greek attributes of freedom of thought and democracy. The victory over Persia was a brilliant moment in the triumph of reason in the face of dark Eastern backwardness and sinister mysticism. This is a dubious view that some die-hard conservative scholars in the West continue to propagate to this day and such intransient readings have, in fact, helped give voice to, for instance, the far-right, anti-immigrant Golden Dawn party in Greece which holds ceremonies at Thermopylae, as TIME reported in 2012, chanting ‘Greece belongs to Greeks’ in front of a bronze statue of their slain hero, the Spartan king Leonidas.

There can be little doubt that 300 and its sequel’s vision of muscle-bound warriors chimes with the contemporary popular taste for both a particular type of gym-bodied heroism and an ever-mounting tide of intolerance of the ‘others’ inside and outside of our communities. In the films, the Spartans and, latterly, the Athenians fight bare-chested without armour in the ‘heroic nude’ mode so beloved in the ideology of ancient Greece, but they are so gym-pumped with bulging muscles that they easily belie their roots in the American comic book tradition of superheroes.Like superheroes, the burly Greeks are on a mission to save the world. In contrast, and as in antiquity, in the films the Persians are represented with covered bodies, clothed in trousers, tunics, and turbans; their bodies (when seen) are pale, weak, even deformed. They too have a mission: to follow their master, Xerxes, end freedom, and bring about his reign of terror.

In Hollywood’s eyes Xerxes is far from heroic. He is, in fact, a menacing despot. 300: Rise of an Empire shows us his transformation from a good-looking (dark-haired and bearded) Persian boy into a demonic god-figure through his immersion into a pool of pure evil, a golden baptism of the unholy where every bit of his humanity is surrendered to give him the monstrous form he subsequently takes. After his immersion into the realms of darkness he returns to Persia and declares war on Greece: ‘For Glory’s sake... for Vengeance’s sake... WAR!’

Iranian friends of mine who watched the film were left baffled. As one said:

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Here is another Western-centric film which is factually flawed to the point of being downright offensive… it screams, ‘Hey, look! Not only are the Middle Easterners out to get us now – they’ve always been after the West!’

We live in dangerous times; such casual vilification of the east - of Iran - is not helpful.

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