daivid wrote:I have been reading "The Greeks in Bactria and India" by W.W. Tarn.
He offers a very plausible reconstruction of events with Demetrius considering himself having a claim to the Mauran Empire due to marriage connection and relying on Apollodotus and Menander as his subordiantes to mount a pincer movement on what had been the Mauran Empire. His thesis collapses, however, if the alternative dating of Meander that places Meander significantly later is accepted.
In 'Civil Wars and Alliances in Bactria and North-Western India after the Usurpation of King Eucratides' François Widemann considers Tarn's thesis as so discredited to be barely worth arguing against. I am reluctant to take Widemann's word for it as this rejection seems mainly negative. That is to say that the alternative to Tarn seems to be an incoherent list of possible dates of reigns with not even a hint of the motivations behind that.
Scribo wrote:I forgot to answer this. Just wanted to say, this all seems interesting but I can't remember much about it. This end of the Hellenistic world sorely, sorely, needs more work but the evidence is scarce and difficult (I think you'd need Greek, Sanskrit, some Prakrits and Aramaic. Wow) and for some reason not popular. All I remember of Tarn's work is his untenable positions on Alexander, the brotherhood of man and all that tosh.
Scribo wrote:If you search for Menandros as "Milinda" you can find a Buddhist dialogue purported to be, but unlikely obviously, by him regarding all sorts of philosophical principles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milinda_Panha
Scribo wrote:Have you read Narain's work on the same topic btw? Its of a similar age to Tarn I believe.
daivid wrote:Scribo wrote:Have you read Narain's work on the same topic btw? Its of a similar age to Tarn I believe.
I shall look out for that, thanks.
mwh wrote:Oh, that Menander. Tarn notoriously pronounced Menander “the dreariest desert in literature.” The Athenian dramatist, that is. Certainly this one is a much more interesting character. It’s a truly fascinating period – and region! – but way beyond my competence to assess. Time for a rehabilitation of Tarn, perhaps, or is the chronology damning?
mwh wrote:Greek migration to central Asia in 2nd millennium? That sounds … interesting.
people might try to use that to explain Indo-Iranian words in the Mycenaean corpus (e.g relating to archery). Which remain a mystery.
Qimmik wrote:people might try to use that to explain Indo-Iranian words in the Mycenaean corpus (e.g relating to archery). Which remain a mystery.
I'm sure this explanation has been offered, and no doubt exploded, before, but what about Scythian contacts?
Scribo wrote:Hmm I wonder if there are early Indo-Iranian words NOT related to archery in the corpus? I know the Iranian word for rose (rhodos) is already present but...not much else comes to mind. Anyway, sorry, the question was how did these words get there. I guess when you suggested Scythians you meant in terms of roaming and conquering? It's possible. The evidence is so thin anything is possible. Usually words transfer via trade but it seems really odd to trade only for bows especially since the arrowheads we find tend to use local stones.
Could not the hiring of Scythian archers as mercenaries explain the transfer of archery related words?
Qimmik wrote:Could not the hiring of Scythian archers as mercenaries explain the transfer of archery related words?
The Mycenaean or pre-Mycenaean era seems a little early for that.
Qimmik wrote: It's possible that Iranic archery words entered the pre-Greek language before the Mycenaeans descended into Greece. Pre-Greek speaking populations might have come into contact with Iranic-speaking Eurasian nomads (i.e., Urskythen) skilled at archery (and what Eurasian nomads weren't skilled at archery?) in NE Greece/Macedonia/Bulgaria. Anyway, I would question whether the Scyths as a whole were actually a distinct group even in historical times, as opposed to a range of nomadic groups with different though mutually interacting Iranic languages or dialects. I don't think the breakup and dispersion of PIE-speaking populations in the second millenium is very well understood, and it probably never will be.
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Qimmik wrote:Could not the hiring of Scythian archers as mercenaries explain the transfer of archery related words?
The Mycenaean or pre-Mycenaean era seems a little early for that. It's possible that Iranic archery words entered the pre-Greek language before the Mycenaeans descended into Greece. Pre-Greek speaking populations might have come into contact with Iranic-speaking Eurasian nomads (i.e., Urskythen) skilled at archery (and what Eurasian nomads weren't skilled at archery?) in NE Greece/Macedonia/Bulgaria. Anyway, I would question whether the Scyths as a whole were actually a distinct group even in historical times, as opposed to a range of nomadic groups with different though mutually interacting Iranic languages or dialects. I don't think the breakup and dispersion of PIE-speaking populations in the second millenium is very well understood, and it probably never will be.
But who knows? Speculation is most fun when not constrained by facts.
daivid wrote:Qimmik wrote:Could not the hiring of Scythian archers as mercenaries explain the transfer of archery related words?
The Mycenaean or pre-Mycenaean era seems a little early for that.
As I understood it, the Linear B tablets are basic book keeping records. They record things like which peasant was given the use of which cow. It didn't record things like whether the king/ruling aristocrats took into his/their service a bunch of wandering nomads.
If it those records to record things like military service (and so make it possible to say whether mercenary service was practiced) then those records are more extensive than I had realized.
Is my current impression wrong and are the records more extensive?
Scribo wrote:Yes and no. I mean the problem with the mercenary hypothesis for the Mycenaeans is a lack of evidence and it doesn't fit in with Mycenean social structure. The records are reasonably extensive in their own right. I mean take a list of slave girls from Pylos. On one hand it tells us nothing, they had slaves...so what? Yet the slaves are accompanied with a series of local toponyms plus -de/-then so we know the laves are being moved around. We can often link them to other craftsman and even children. More importantly many slave "names" are ethnonyms e.g the Korinthian woman, the Lykian woman, the Aigyptian woman and so on and forth which suggest wide scale raiding and trading. So...it's unlocking the data via analysis that counts.
From Pylos we have extensive geographical information. Thebes and Mycenae are more limited but there is some seriously good info on trade networks. There's a lot of religious content too. As for warriors and stuff, well, yes! The entire Mycenaean corpus gives us extensive details about weaponry and, possibly, weapon production. From Knossos we have the so called charioteer tablets (the B series if you're interested) which list the names of warriors and what they need to be given to use their chariots. So the evidence isn't as dry as one might think. I mean it's no Herodotus, but still.
Scribo wrote:Alas no. Historical novels and research rarely go together at the best of times and a lot of this stuff is difficult to access and sometimes even contradictory. I gave the example of the charioteers at Knossos...but when I was researching and comparing military terminology in the Eastern Aegean I came across an article which claimed that those present weren't military personnel at all. It's unlikely...but not exceeding the realms of possibility. Which is the thing for a LOT of the bronze age stuff. We're seldom able to conclusive.
I think it could work if the novel would be reasonably light on details. Just enough to give flavour. I actually tried to do so once (much to shame, creative writing is not my forte). I wanted to set something in the late middle Helladic period about a mannerbund having to interact with the Mycenaean state machinery. Details and even characterisation came relatively easy for me but, alas, I had no plot.
I think we have the name of one King from Pylos. There's a tablet, PY Un 718 and the name e-ka-ra2-wo (so either Ekhelawos or Erkelawos e.g holding or urging the war host)which is thought to be the king because....he matches the profile of the guy listed explicitly as King in...PY Un 2 I think.
I think we have the name of one King from Pylos. There's a tablet, PY Un 718 and the name e-ka-ra2-wo (so either Ekhelawos or Erkelawos e.g holding or urging the war host)which is thought to be the king because....he matches the profile of the guy listed explicitly as King in...PY Un 2 I think.
Qimmik wrote:Daivid, if you haven't already read Chadwick's Decipherment of Linear B, you owe it to yourself to read it. It's a classic--much better than any historical novel.
Qimmik wrote:If you'd enjoy reading a historical novel in which a little-known ancient civilization is given life through the sheer imagination of a master of realistic fiction, you should read Flaubert's Salammbô, which is about a revolt of Greek mercenaries in Carthage and is based on a few sketchy chapters of Polybius.
That does look interesting. The emergence of a monotheist religion (very) roughly around the time of an almost-monotheist pharaoh (Akhenaten) does seem at the distance of 3000 years to be too much of a coincidence to be unrelated. Didn't Freud write a book on this? Of course the lack of evidence which is a problem for historians is merely an opportunity for the novelist.Qimmik wrote:You might also like Thomas Mann's Joseph cycle.
I had the impression that Flaubert was going for a very sensationalist story potraying Carthage as wallowing in decadence which I didn't find credible. Was my impression wrong?
Qimmik wrote:Daivid, if you haven't already read Chadwick's Decipherment of Linear B, you owe it to yourself to read it. It's a classic--much better than any historical novel.
Qimmik wrote:I had the impression that Flaubert was going for a very sensationalist story potraying Carthage as wallowing in decadence which I didn't find credible. Was my impression wrong?
The sensationalism comes in part from Polybius' account and in part from Flaubert's imagination.
Decadence? Wealthy, luxurious, greedy, cruel and indifferent to suffering--but those are normal human qualities.
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