In 1923, the Austrian philologist and archaeologist Julius J\u00fcthner (1866-1945), professor of Classical Philology at the University of Innsbruck, [known for his writings on Greek sports, especially for his two standard works, \u201cUeber antike Turngeraethe\u201d (\u201cOn the Ancient Gymnastics Equipment\u201d, 1896), and \u201cPhilostratos ueber Gymnastik\u201d, (\u201cPhilostratus on Gymnastics\u201d, 1909)] published the detailed study \u201cHellenen und Barbaren. Aus der Geschichte des Nationalbewusstseins\u201d (\u201cGreeks and Barbarians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the History of National Consciousness\u201d, Leipzig, 1923 with 165 pages and an eight-page introduction)]. This book, a subject of cultural history, was the eighth volume of the elaborate and important archaeological series \u201cDas Erbe der Alten\u201d (\u201cThe Legacy of the Ancients\u201d), edited by the keen Hellenist Joannes Heinrich Otto Immisch (1862-1936), professor of classical philology at the University of K\u00f6nigsberg (now \u2026..Kaliningrad).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The purpose of G\u00fcttner\u2019s wonderful book (which is divided into nine chapters and contains 342 critical notes, a brief bibliography and an excellent index) is to identify the ideas that correspond to the terms \u201cGreek\u201d and \u201cBarbarian\u201d throughout the centuries, from Homer to the twelfth century AD. The presentation of the most learned Greek writer was extremely concise and at the same time comprehensive, so that it is difficult to provide an adequate description of its content in a few words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The topic is introduced with a discussion of the origin of the word “Barbarian”. Dr. G\u00fctner follows in his approach most authorities in linguistics, considering the origin to be clearly Indo-European and connects the word with the Sanskrit word barbarah, balbala, the Latin word balbus, balbutio and the Slavic word blb, [see the \u201cDictionnaire \u00e9tymologique de la langue grecque\u201d \u2013 \u201cEtymological dictionary of the Greek language\u201d by the Belgian linguist Emile Boisacq (1865-1945), 114 and 111, as well as the \u201cGrundz\u00fcge der griechischen Etymologie\u201d \u2013 \u201cBasic principles of Greek etymology\u201d by the great German archaeologist and historian Ernst Curtius (1814-1896), 290 ff.], with its basic meaning \u201cstammering\u201d, \u201cstammering\u201d, \u201cunintelligible in speech\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Survivals of this early meaning also appear in later Greek literature to describe the inarticulate sounds of animals (e.g., in Aristophanes’s play “Birds”. Aristophanes says that barbarian birds are still learning human – that is, Greek – language (Birds 199\/200: “for I taught them the voice before them, being barbarians”). If someone wants to accuse someone, he regrets -he says- that he cannot understand his \u2026 barbarian language (Sophocles, “Aias” 1236: “for the barbarian language is not spoken”, 1289: “not the language of the barbarian mother”), etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As G\u00fctner describes in Chapter 2 of his book, during the fifth century BC and largely through Under the influence of Hecataeus, Hippocrates and especially Herodotus, the Greeks began to know foreign peoples in a real and extensive way. But the Sophists, starting from the natural similarity of all people, were the first to proclaim the \u201cgospel\u201d of \u201chuman equality\u201d and \u201cfreedom by nature\u201d, giving a rational basis to the concept of the \u201cBarbarian\u201d. However, their contemporary tragedians and the comedian Aristophanes continued to teach the superiority of the Greeks over the barbarians as based on natural law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As presented in Chapter 3 of the book, Plato, despite his brilliant philosophical vision, partly followed the example of the Sophists but selectively and hesitantly, because he considered only the foreigners who lived among the Greeks as non-barbarians. Plato\u2019s national spirit, so evident in the Greek ideal at the basis of the Republic, prevented him and prevented him from transferring the new subversive sophistic – equalizing idea to its logical consequences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Plato refers frequently and significantly to the Greek-Barbarian opposition. A characteristic example of his core understanding of this issue is found in his \u201cRepublic\u201d (E 470c): \u201cI think that the Greek race is itself native and related to itself, but to the barbarian race it is also alien\u2026 Greek, therefore we do not say that barbarians and barbarians fight against Greece\u201d \u2013 \u201cFor I say, thus native and related to each other are the Greeks, but to the barbarians they are strangers and aliens; when the Greeks fight the barbarians and the barbarians the Greeks, then this is indeed war”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sense of Greek superiority is absolute. Euripides writes (\u201cIphigenia at Aulis\u201d, 1400): \u201cThe Greeks are the first to be born of barbarians, but not of barbarians, the mother of Greeks; for the one is a slave, the other free.\u201d Aristotle, following Aeschylus (\u201cPersians\u201d) and Plato, concludes that (Politics, A 1.5): \u201cThe same nature is common to barbarians and slaves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But even in the classical era, the initial reference to the difference between Greeks and barbarians in language remains, always intense, when speech is not understood. Example: Clytemnestra hears about Cassandra’s “barbaric” language, i.e. unintelligible (Aeschylus “Agamemnon” 1050: “an unknown voice acquired by a barbarian”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And while the Sophists had taught that “free” and “slave” were simply the result of\u2026 custom, the great Aristotle continued to defend the national perception that the difference between them was natural and therefore, he argued that slavery was logical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Alexander the Great (Chapter IV) with his idea of \u200b\u200bmerging the Greeks and their Persian relatives could not follow the advice of his great teacher to be a friendly leader towards the one and a brutal despot towards the other. On this the great Alfred Rosenberg would later write in his monumental work \u201cThe Myth of the Twentieth Century\u201d (\u201cDer Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts\u201d \u2013 1930), in Chapter II \u201cLove and Honor\u201d: \u201c\u2026.Nevertheless, we must admit that the static nature of Greek life did not depend on character but on beauty, which, as mentioned, had as its fatal consequence political irresponsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through Alexander, a more disciplined idea of \u200b\u200blate Greek life, primarily aesthetic, which was also aware of racial differences, once again prevailed. Alexander did not unconditionally pursue the goal of a world monarchy and the mixing of peoples, but only wished to unite the Persians and Greeks, who were recognized as racially related, and to bring them under one rule, so as to avoid further wars. He recognized the driving ideas and values \u200b\u200bof the character of the Persian upper class as related to his own Macedonian idea of \u200b\u200bduty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For this reason, he placed only Macedonians or Persians in leading positions, while Semites, Babylonians and Syrians were deliberately excluded. After Alexander’s death, his successors made efforts to imitate his type of state in their countries and provinces. As a hero from antiquity, the one-eyed Antigonus stands out, who, at the age of eighty, fell on the battlefield against the \u201clegitimate\u201d heirs, when he was unable to achieve his goal of a unified kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u201cinternationalist\u201d ideal of the Sophists was first developed (Chapter 5), but in a narrow \u201cGreek manner and limits\u201d, by Isocrates and the Atticists, who taught that the term \u201cGreek\u201d was no longer a simple connotation of origin, but a connotation of culture. Of course, such an idea is far from internationalist cosmopolitanism, because it simply contrasted Greek with Attic Greek, and so, instead of extending the term \u201cGreek\u201d to include Barbarians with Greek \u201cculture\u201d, (as the great Plato did), the Atticists, in the end, were much stricter: They limited it to \u2026.. fewer Greeks than before, that is, only to those Greeks by origin who had, however, Attic education, Attic \u201cculture\u201d. At the same time, they extended the idea of \u200b\u200b\u201cBarbarian\u201d to include Greeks by origin without this \u201cculture\u201d!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Isocrates, a fanatical admirer of Attic education and culture, writes his infamous proposal (\u201cPanegyric\u201d, 50): \u201cOur city has so neglected the wisdom and speech of other people that these students of others have become teachers, and the name of Greeks has become a belief not of race but of intellect, and rather those who are called Greeks are those who have participated in our education or in the common nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A more corrosive and effective true cosmopolitanism began with the idealism of accepting foreigners, which emerged from Alexander\u2019s attempt to Hellenize Asia (Chapter VI). While the political ideal of Plato and Aristotle was based on the ancient Greek City, the followers of the Sophists \u2013 Cyrenaics, Skeptics, Cynics \u2013 proclaimed a World State in place of the City. Thus, Diogenes the Cynic called himself the \u201cfirst cosmopolitan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Stoics spread this idea of \u200b\u200ba World State, although their State was still the Greek world (the \u201cOikoumene\u201d), which since the time of Alexander had only reached the limits of the Greek language. Thus, while attempting to abolish the distinction between “Greeks” and “Barbarians,” the Stoics actually failed, because they selectively singled out only those barbarians who enjoyed Greek culture and observed Greek customs. But cosmopolitanism was no longer limited to cultured Greeks, extending to all people who were “cultured” in the Greek way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Chapter 7 of the book, the author traces and identifies the situation of the Romans with the old formula \u201cGreeks\u201d \u2013 \u201cBarbarians\u201d. He establishes that the word \u201cBarbarian\u201d had approximately the same development in Rome as it had in Greece, being applied for a long time (from the comedian Titus Macchio Plautus onwards) to the Romans themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Greeks began to differentiate the Romans from the Barbarians only after the Hellenization of Italy. But even in the time of Dio Cassius Cocceianus, Greek writers used a threefold division into Greeks, Romans, and Barbarians, which continued to a large extent until the Byzantine period, when ultimately \u201cBarbarians\u201d were only the peoples on the fringes of the Greco-Roman world, Gauls, Germans, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Originally, Christians were \u201cBarbarians,\u201d to both Greeks and Romans (Chapter 8), just as non-Jews were pagans to Jews. However, by the time of the Fourth Gospel, there were Jews, Christians, and pagans\u2014the latter including Greeks and Romans. The old concepts of “Greek” and “Barbarian” remained, the former, however, gradually designating the pagans. Thus, while before the time of Alexander the concepts of “Greek” and “Barbarian” denoted a national division, and under his successors a cultural division, under Christianity there were only Christians and pagans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most interesting chapter of the book is the last, “The Byzantine Era”, in which Dr. G\u00fcttner discusses the later history of the concepts of “Greek” and “Barbarian” together with other terms such as Hellenes, Italians, Greeks, Latins, and especially the complete change that occurred in the concept of “Romans” to designate the Greeks through it. From the time of Justinian the Empire rapidly became Hellenistic, with all traces of the previous Latin hegemony disappearing by the ninth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the names “Roman” and “Romans” continued to denote the Eastern Empire and its peoples. Thus, the term “Romans”, originally a political term limited to the Latin West and its peoples under the Emperors of the Autoratory which included both East and West, became in the Byzantine period an ethnic term encompassing the peoples of the East. Since these were mainly Greeks, the name – in its Greek form “Romans”, came to mean Greeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The captivating author reminds us that our habit of speaking of \u201cByzantines\u201d and \u201cByzantine Empire\u201d is a misnomer, as it is not based on the old linguistic usage, according to which the Byzantines were always the inhabitants of the capital, the Empire was known as Roman and its people as Romans. Survivals of these names still exist in the East, not only in the well-known designation of the modern Greek dialect as \u201cR\u00f4meiki\u201d, but also in the form Rum, the name of ancient Rome lives on in Turkish and Arabic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, the Turks still call the Greeks by this name, and the Arabs of Palestine and Syria, call the followers of the Orthodox Church by it without any reference to nationality, just as they call the Roman Catholics \u201cLatins\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the Turks were the heirs of the political power of the Eastern Empire, the old name in a political sense reached them. Thus, the Seljuk Empire at its foundation at Iconium in the eleventh century was called \u201cRum\u201d, and the name Rum-ili \/ Rumeli (land of the Rum \u2013 Rumilia) still occurs in European Turkey, while the Turkish Sultan continued to be \u201cR\u00fcm P\u00e4disch\u00e4hi\u201d \u2013 \u201cRoman Emperor\u201d, to his Asiatic subjects, and the Turkish subject inhabitants of Europe are Rum-milleti \u2013 \u201cRoman nation\u201d (see the work of Mystakidis, page 24).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. G\u00fctner gives as one of the last examples of the use of the word \u201cGreek\u201d a passage from the tenth-century treatise \u201cDe Administrando Imperio\u201d \u2013 \u201cOn the Administration of the Empire\u201d (\u201cTo His Own Son Roman\u201d) by Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, according to which the Maniates of Laconia, who, as the Emperor says, were descended from Greeks and not from slaves, were called \u201cGreeks\u201d because of their pagan practices, being baptized for the first time during the reign of Basil I (876-886). Thus this passage has much greater historical interest, as it is the last chronological example of a Greek community that converted to Christianity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In conclusion, it can be said without exaggeration that Professor G\u00fcttner has made every scholar of ancient life and culture deeply “accountable to the Truth” with this excellent and authoritative study of the long history of the concepts “Greek” and “Barbarian”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the cultivation of Greek values \u200b\u200band the opposition to foreigners and other races, who were deprived of these values, gave a strong ethno-racial character (in addition to cultural) to the Greek-Barbarian opposition, it was again the magnanimous Greeks who transcended the racial opposition, (as is also evident in the infamous saying of Isocrates.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The “subversive” Sophists and the distinction they supported between nature and conventionality, the anti-canonical Cynics and their subversive spirit, and finally the Stoics, contributed to this. These things happened when the Greek Spirit, through the conquests of Alexander, spread to the ends of the world and the Hellenized foreigners and those Hellenizing (the infamous “Hellenists”) did not differ substantially from the native Greeks, except sometimes racially.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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