Does Oliver Stone Know Achaemenid Iranians?

[Cyrus]

http://www.chn.ir/english/eshownews.asp?no=4602

[jona]

I think the artwork was okay, and a visit to the lovely Tehran would not have improved the movie. Yet I also think that Stone/Lane Fox were very careless in depicting the Achaemenid _people_. Darius is shown as a coward, fleeing from Gaugamela, although we know (since the publication of the Astronomical Diaries in 1975) that this is simply not true.Another aspect of western "Orientalism" is the picture of the harem (including a belly dancer) in Babylon. This is mentioned in our Greek sources, but there is no corroborating in the tens of thousands of cuneiform sources on ancient Babylonia. NOT A SINGLE piece of reliable evidence exists.It is a pity that Edward Said is dead. I would have loved his critique of the Stone movie.Jona

[S]

Greetings,I, too, as per my review, felt the ethnocentric steretyping and stereotypical "orientalist fantasies" were somewhat glaring.Interestingly, it was my comments on the etnocentric aspects of the movie that drew most anger on another discussion group.. I was questioned as to "WHAT stereotyping" and when I listed the offending scenes, I was told "that was only my opinion" as to whether it was a stereotype. So then we had to address the issue of the right of the person, group or culture portrayed to define what constituted a stereotype (sigh).The scenes mentioned were but two. I had hoped for better, since pre-movie publicity kept discussing the "immense research" Stone's crew had done to ensure "authenticity" in the movie. Pre-movie trailers already had me cringing; the movie itself proved those concerns to be accurate.Regards,
Sikander

[Halil]

Hello JonaI think you may have posted this before but I can't find the reference to it, or if you did not, can you give the source for the Babylonian account of the battle? I'm particularly interested in how Darius' escaped from the battlefield if he did not make a strategic withdrawal. If his army ran away and he did not, how is it explained that he was not killed or captured?Best regardsHalil

[jona]

Hi HalilHere's my very own article on the subject: http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/a ... 7.htmlJona

[Halil]

Thanks, Jona. I knew I had read this somewhere. Are the Babylonian diaries the only source for the interpretation you have put upon the events? Or are there some other texts?RegardsHalil

[jan]

Thanks Halil and Jona, I wondered about this too. I hope that Jona's book will be published in English someday also. I did read your link, and you referred the readers to a page in the book. It seems to me that you are saying that a battle did not really occur as the Persians were already demoralized by the omens and fled from the battle. How does that not make them appear as cowards?

[jona]

There are several arguments.(1) The Greek sources are mutually inconsistent: Diodorus says that during the battle, Darius fought until the end, the other sources say he fled. This would have been a puzzle in any case (cf. Granicus) and we must make a choice anyhow.(2) The account of the battle in Arrian etc. is inconsistent with the account of the events before the day itself. If Darius's preparations were as perfect as Arrian says, it is strange that he ran away, especially as we know from this very same Greek sources that he was not a coward.(3) The account of the battle in the Greek sources is impossible. You simply can not see what happens during a battle in the dust.(4) On the other hand, the Babylonian source is almost contemporary (written one week after the battle) and does not mention impossible things. The account of the battle, brief as it may be, is consistent with the events on the day before. Besides, it is corroborated by Diodorus, whose source was a man like the mercenary leader Patron, who witnessed the battle and the preparations.I hope this is a sufficient reply. I know there's more to be said.Jona

[jona]

Good point! Touch+¬. Yet, I believe that there is a difference between fleeing from a battlefield and evacuating a hopeless position. The first man is a coward, the second man is wise (even when his judgment of his position is based on an erroneous believe in astrology).Jona

[Halil]

Thanks, Jona, for the explanation of your reasoning. That leaves me with another question however, if the astrological interpretation of the events was well-known to everyone so that the army quit the field, shouldn't it have been as clear to Darius as it was to everyone else, so why did he have the battle at such an inauspicious time? Why did the army even bother lining up in the first place? Wasn't this just courting trouble? My problem with Darius' staying until the end of the battle with the rest of the army having left the field, as you say, is still how was it that he wasn't killed or captured? Bad visibility alone cannot account for this, because it would have been as bad for him and his army as for the Macedonians.Thanks, anyway for an interesting line of thought.Best regardsHalil

[jona]

As to the first question: QCR describes how Darius tried to encourage his soldiers with sacrifices and a speech.As to the second question: I guess Darius did at some time, when he saw that all was lost, did indeed leave the battlefield. But this was not the decisive moment, as it is presented by Arrian. The decision had already taken place.Jona

[Halil]

Just to clarify, what decision exactly? And who do you think made it?I can't help but think that whatever anyone else made of it, to Alexander, Darius' quitting the field *was* the decisive moment.CheersHalil

[jona]

I think the battle was decided at the moment, probably very early on the day, that the Asian soldiers started to run away. There may have been later incidents -Darius continuing to fight, Mazaeus breaking across the Macedonian lines- but they no longer mattered.Jona

[marcus]

Although even if you're 'wise' by evacuating a hopeless position, there are others who might still call you a coward - let's face it, British Imperial history, whatever its rights and wrongs, was based more than half the time on a steadfast refusal to quit when it was really sensible to do so! Any who did were thought of as being rather 'suspect' :-)All the bestMarcus

[jona]

There is an interesting parallel with Thermopylae here. However one looks at it, Leonidas "courage" was stupidity.As Julius Beloch observed long ago, there are only two possibilities: either Leonidas ignored his left flank too long and retreated too late, or he really was (as Herodotus claims) some sort of kamikaze who stayed where he was when there was no military need. In both cases, his death was a blessing to the Greeks, because now a more capable general, Pausanias, could take over command.Jona