BMCR 2009.07.73: Golden on Styka, Violence and Aggression in the Ancient World. Classica Cracoviensia, 10

Jerzy Styka (ed.), Violence and Aggression in the Ancient World.
Classica Cracoviensia, 10.  Krako/w:  Ksiegarnia Akademicka, 2006.  Pp.
227 (pb).  ISBN 978-83-7188-917-1.

Reviewed by Cheryl L. Golden, Newman University ([email protected])
Word count:  1704 words
-------------------------------
To read a print-formatted version of this review, see
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-07-73.html
To comment on this review, see
http://www.bmcreview.org/2009/07/20090773.html
-------------------------------

This collection of essays in English, French and German forms the 10th
volume of Classica Cracoviensia, featuring presentations from the 2005
international conference on Violence and Aggression in the Ancient
World.  The international conference chose this theme to examine the
issue of terrorism in the ancient world, clearly in response to the
current "grim experience of global terrorism...."  (p. 8). The essays
run the gamut from Homer to Vergil, from Egypt's Boukoloi to Rome's
Clodius Pulcher and from Plato to Lucan.  While some of the essays seem
to struggle to fit the editor's aim at investigating terrorism as a
theme, all address the issue of violence or aggression in its various
literary, historical and philosophical forms.  A few examples should
suffice to show the depth and breadth of the essays presented.

Several of the essays look to literary evidence for their analyses.
Krzysztof Bielawski's "Theology of Violence in Greek Tragedy" asks
whether one can use tragedy to study Greek "theology" and, further, if
it is "possible to reconcile theology and violence" in the tragedies
(p. 27). Bielawski looks to Plato for support of the term theology and
its use for this particular effort, relying on Plato's Republic,
2.379A.  Satisfied that Plato would support the term, the author then
proceeds to treat the plays as "theological" and religious sources and
the tragedians as serious "theological thinkers."   Such an approach
certainly pushes the limits of modern day theologians, but for
Bielawski's purposes we will allow it. The author contends that
violence in Greek tragedy is an important element in a god or gods'
revelation of themselves or their aims.  Bielawski continues, stating
that "the language of sacrifice is the language of violence" (p. 30).
The concepts that violence and revelation are in some fashion
complementary, and that worship and sacrifice involve violence, are
hardly new.   More interesting are Bielawski's assessments that
violence in tragedies is either allowed by a god or actually caused by
a god,  and further that violence permitted by a god is either a sign
of the god's supremacy, or relates to a situation in which the god
demands a transformation of an individual or of humanity as a whole.
Violence wrought by a god can come as a moral punishment (as often), or
as a means by which to reveal the true nature of the god.  Tying
violence to sacrifice, the author concludes that violence justified by
a god allows mortals to fully experience the divine and to engage in an
intimate form of worship of the god.

In comparison we have Joanna Komorowska's "The Tide of Violence:
Euripides' Phoenician Women."  Komorowska aims through her analysis of
Euripides' use of violence and retelling of myth to demonstrate the
duality of violence within the Theban royal household and within the
city of Thebes.  The author sees multiple levels of violence in the
play and hopes to "unravel the potential intent of the author, the
hypothetical philosophical reflection that influences the details of
the well-known myth shaping theme into a form that gives the play its
rhythm and maddening velocity...." (p. 98).

Komorowska's essay is well organized and quite convincing.  She offers
a useful diagram of the play as she discerns its organization and
themes as related to her thesis.  Particularly convincing is her
outline presented on page 107, breaking the play down into:
"civilisational violence and the monsters; acts explicitly ending in
death; non-fatal acts of violence; verbal violence/abuse; and pictorial
violence."

Her analysis of the role of Ares as supporting the violence and even
feeding on it recalls Bielawski's aims nicely.  Komorowska's own
writing style captures that same rapidly developing violence that
pushes and pulls Euripides' plot along.  A joy to read, the essay is
complex and compelling.

Jerzy Danielewicz presents an essay on "Verbal Abuse and Satire in
Early Greek Iambus," aiming to systematize the various forms of "iambic
aggression" found in Archilochus, Hipponax and others.  Danielewicz
carefully defines this often irreverent poetry as a form performed on
public occasions to lampoon public figures of power.  The words often
threaten physical aggression, lambasting "honorees" while invoking
sexual obscenities.  The author finds examples of overt verbal
aggression as well as veiled assaults.  Overall, Danielewicz concludes
that such performances were meant to entertain, to take advantage of an
opportunity to go against the social norm that would otherwise expect
the target of the invective to be treated with social respect.
Finally, although the words used might be interpreted as aggressive and
offensive, ultimately, Danielewicz contends, they are anything but--for
the aim of aggression is to harm the target, the aim of the iambic in
these cases is to honor the target.

Taking us in a different direction than the above literary analyses,
several essays in the collection analyze evidence for political and
social acts of violence and aggression.  Stanislaw Stabryla's essay on
"P. Clodius Pulcher: Politician or Terrorist" asks whether Clodius was
an "original yet unscrupulous" politician or simply a terrorist.
Clodius' use of collegia to stir up violence and chaos in the urban
center of the empire has received tremendous attention in scholarship
of the Republic.  Stabryla finds that his use of such tactics may have
begun in the winter of 68/67 while stationed in Mesopotamia.  While
serving there, Clodius took up the cause of rebellious soldiers under
Lucullus.  The soldiers rebelled against undertaking a winter campaign
against Mithridates.  Our author concludes that this example serves as
something of a blueprint for Clodius' later actions in that here in the
east, he took advantage of "simple soldiers" by behaving as a "defender
of the most aggrieved or exploited social classes..." (p. 205).

It may be the translation and word choice, but at times the author
seems to take our especially hostile sources (Cicero, Plutarch) rather
literally in his analysis (pp. 204-207).  For example, Stabryla seems
to fully accept Cicero's condemnation of Clodius as a murderer,
embezzler, poisoner, cheat, blinded by hatred and a general sociopath.
Perhaps Clodius was all these things; more support for such
descriptions is wanted in this area given the other fine analysis in
the essay.  One other point for criticism comes with Stabryla's list of
terroristic activities conducted by Clodius (p. 211).  While arson,
hiring slaves, gladiators and the odd thug to threaten and intimidate
with street violence all  seem to fit the bill, stealing "valuable
objects" from Cicero's home and constructing a portico connecting
Clodius' property to Cicero's hardly seem worth the appellation.

In the end, the author sees many of Clodius' actions as symptomatic of
the times: bribery, political opportunism, demagoguery.  Still,
Clodius' extraordinary use of arson, murder and gang violence created
chaos contributing to a terroristic element in an already volatile
city. Such politics and tactics at Rome would abide certainly
throughout the first century B.C. if not beyond.

Two essays deal with social and political violence in Roman Egypt.
Adam Lukaszewicz addresses the archaeological evidence from Kom
el-Dikka in the city center of ancient Alexandria, offering that the
evidence supports the existence of a 6th century "learning institution"
connected with the Roman theatre identified there.  While the
identification of the "classrooms" there may be far from secure, when
coupled with the graffiti indicating rival circus "youths,"  the Blues
and Greens, Lukaszewicz begins to bring together a vision of Alexandria
replete with competitive street violence, near a "university" of sorts
in a city congested with peoples from a variety of cultural, religious
and political backgrounds.  His work adds to the image we often have of
ancient overpopulated cities as emporia for world trade, as well as
dangerous living. Lukaszewicz' Alexandria recalls the similar volatile
elements present in the Rome of  Stabryla's Clodius, above.

Lukaszewicz  argues convincingly--through the evidence of
graffiti--that the site at Kom el-Dikka may also have associations with
Athanasius and the religious violence of Alexandria in the 3rd century
A.D.  Less secure but no less intriguing is his suggestion that the
"learning institution" may have been the location of Hypatia's teaching
and violent end in the early 5th c. A.D.

Tomasz Polanski's "The Boukoloi Uprising, or how the Greek
intellectuals falsified Oriental History"  works to understand the
evidence supplied by Cassius Dio regarding a 2nd century A.D. story of
the Boukoloi, their leader Isadorus, and their attempt to wrest
Alexandria from Roman control.  Avidius Cassius was sent by Rome to
restore order in A.D. 171/2.

Polanski reviews the literary evidence for the Boukoloi, describing
them  as cannibalistic bandits living on boats along the Nile, hiding
in marshes amongst the reeds, maintaining a tribal organization with a
self-proclaimed king.  The sources suggest they are barbarians with a
barbarian language and barbarous religious practices.  They are, in a
word, uncivilized.  Polanski provides evidence to assert that these
people did exist, most likely spoke an Egyptian dialect and that their
religious rites did not include cannibalism.

Polanski then offers an historiographical analysis to support that the
Boukoloi were not merely shepherd bandits or pirates but rather a
distinct group living in Egypt under Roman control.  The event of their
"rebellion" of the 3rd century A.D. ought to be viewed alongside a long
list of rebellions against foreign rule in Egypt.

The remainder of Polanski's essay aims to place the Boukoloi event into
a context associated with more modern times and insurgents rebelling
against foreign occupation.  While the writing and analysis in this
section are intriguing, with examples of the Christeros war in Mexico
of the 1920's, the Polish Guerilla War of 1942-47 and hints at the US
occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, they may push us beyond what the
evidence can support.

This volume of essays provides an eclectic overview of the theme of
violence in antiquity from the perspectives of politics, society,
religion and art.  Some of the essays may be hard pressed to find
terrorism as defined in the modern context, negating the editor's
claims that we are looking to terrorism or terroristic evidence from
antiquity.  That is not to say that the theme of violence and
aggression does not make a fine topic for analysis.  Despite our
distance in time from the peoples studied in this collection, human
nature's tendency toward violence in our relationships with one
another, in our aspirations and ambitions to know the divine, continue
to reflect our propensity for violence.