Mohsen Jaafarnia (2023). Iranian influence on the West. The People Museum Journal , Volume 9, Issue 1,  ISSN 2588-6517

Iranian influence on the West

Mohsen Jaafarnia
Associate Professor, School of Design, Hunan University, China.

The general public in the west considers Greece as the cradle of civilization. This belief is so deeply rooted and colored by emotional attitudes that an impartial observer may well meet with many difficulties in his search for the truth and even be faced with hostility and resentment. It is certainly impossible to deny the great significance of the Greek contribution to world culture, but for the real situation to become clear it is necessary to consider the Greek masses apart from the Greek philosophers and artists, as in fact they were apart during, their own lifetime (Nasr, 1974, Forrest).

During the space of a few decades a small group of Greeks reached such a point in certain branches of philosophy, letters and the fine arts that for centuries the ultimate goal of the Europeans was simply to understand and imitate them. However, these philosophers, and scholars had little effect upon the condition of life, or the manner and mean of livelihood of the people of their own time. Many of them did not pay the slightest attention to the masses of their countrymen, and even showed themselves to be wearied and annoyed with them. In turn the common people attributed no value to the philosophers and scholars and moreover repeatedly accused them of being under the influence of Eastern and especially Iranian ideas, and of causing doubt among the youth about inherited customs and beliefs.

Although Aristotle considered poverty to be bad theoretically, in no place in his writings does he exhibit any sympathy for the plight of the poor or propose any measures for improving their lot (Russell, 1961). Plato disliked the people of Athens and their democracy intensely. He turned his back on existence and actual beings to create instead a world of abstract essences and “forms”. Only in that world, he explained, can be found real beauty and real goodness. A number of Sophists went as far as to proclaim that injustice is strength and justice weakness (Plato).

J. Ellul says in Greece “there was a conception of life which scorned material needs and the improvement of practical life, discredited manual Labor (because of the practice of slavery), held contemplation to be the goal of intellectual activity, refused the use of power , respected natural things …” (Ellul, 1967).

In General the Greeks accepted the world as it was and believed that one should not attempt to tamper with the order of nature. For this same reason, the scholastics, including St. Thomas Aquinas, generally respected and honored Aristotle and borrowed from him freely. They too maintained that tampering with the order of nature would destroy its harmony (Schubart, 1946). The difference was the scholastic philosophers taught complete submission to the will of God, who ruled over this order, whereas Greek philosophy had naturalistic and materialistic roots. Again it is probably for this very reason that Aristotle was appreciated by that group of Muslims who professed that acceptance of one's destiny forms a part of submission to the will of God. How many modern Westerners who assume themselves to be the successors of the ancient Greeks realize that at least in this basic respect their attitude is completely opposed to that of their adopted ancestors?

A. Michel says “If (the Greeks) were the first men of history to glance at the veritable nature of the material universe and the natural order that organizes it … if they are the first to understand the predominant and at the same time modest role of man in this enormous machine, we owe to them practically none of the great inventions made at their time.”

The Greeks, as related by Cicero and many other ancient writers, believed that the “essence of a true gentleman is his refusal to have anything to do with things of practical utility.” Periclean Athens is in fact noted for the anti-scientific inclination of its philosophers. The same inclination is shown by the famous Hellenistic engineer Archimedes (287 - 212 B.C.) who, according to Plutarch, repudiated ”as sordid and ignoble the whole trade of engineering, and every sort of art that lends itself to mere use and profit (Nasr, 1974).

The Greek philosophers did not develop an overall view to cover both the material and the spiritual needs of their compatriots. Therefore, in contrast to the political leaders and prophets of the sixth century B.C., they did not influence noticeably the thoughts and the way of life of their countrymen. In fact, during the so called Golden Age of Athens the Greek mob condemned Socrates and put him to death. Plato in fear of his enemies fled Athens and for seventeen  years remained in hiding in Africa and Asia. Aristotle fled Athens as soon as Alexander died, and very possibly took poison. Phidias, who created some of the masterpieces of the Acropolis, was put in jail. Anaxagoras was condemned to pay a heavy fine and leave Athens. Thucydides lived in hiding for twenty years.

W. H. McNeill (1965) says “The ever widening intellectual gap between the educated classes and the majority of citizens reinforced the depressing psychological effect of the loss of polis independence ... the very success with which Greeks of the fifth and fourth centuries developed the culture they had inherited in rudimentary form their ancestors both expressed the weakening and hastened the final destruction of the social nexus that had stimulated and sustained their creatiiity.”

G. L. Dickinson (1967) says “The beauty, the singleness, and the freedom which attracts us in the consciousness of the Greek was the result of the poetical view of the world, which did but anticipate in imagination an ideal that was not realized in fact or in thought.”

Naturally the dichotomy of Greek society must not lead us to conclude that the environment of which the Greek masses were an important element had no effect on the development of Greek philo­sophy and art. But it is necessary to avoid the mistake of those histo­rians who limit that environment to the areas inhabited by the Greeks.

Greek civilization could not have developed and can not be explained unless the whole Middle East is included within the environment.

The Middle East was to Greece both a challenge and a guide. The power and prestige of the Achaemenian Empire was the chal­lenge that opened the Greek eyes to new possibilities, intensified their curiosity and stimulated their energies. As guide the Greek used the wealth of knowledge and art that had accumulated in the Middle East since the very beginning of civilization. Ionia in Asia Minor and not Greek’s mainland in Europe was the birthplace of Greek’s philosophy and science. To the end of the Persian Wars Athens “neither in art  nor in literature had produced any great man ( except Solon, who was primarily a lawgiver）” (Russell, 1945).

D. J. Contenau says “The more we learn to know the old Orient, the more the young Greece appears to us as its tributary; it is from Western Asia that at its beginning Greece took its first civilization.” (Contenea, 1922),  also  W.  Durant says “Greece did not begin civilization - it inherited far more civili­zation than it began, it was the spoiled heir of three millennia of arts and sciences brought to its cities from the Near East by the fortune of trade and war.” (Durant, 1954).

In another place E. R. Dodds says “Oriental background against which Greek culture rose and from which it was never completely isolated in the minds of classical scholars.” (Dodds)  also A. T. Olmstead (1963) says  “Greece had always been receptive to Oriental influences ...  logical thinking among the Greeks began in Ionia” which had the closest contact with the civilization of the Middle East. He says “The Phoenician Cadmus, the Easterner, brought to Greece (Cam­den Letters); the alphabet ... “

Thales of Miletus, the first Greek philosopher as “a subject of the Lydians ... was in the full current of oriental thought ... “

Anaxirnander  “introduced to the Greeks useful oriental inventions the sundial, the map of the earth, and the chart of the heavenly bodies ...”(Olmstead, 1963).

Pythagoras studied for a long period in Asia Minor and Babylonia and had contacts with followers of Zoroaster. Plato spent several years in Egypt and Phoenicia and some consider him to have been a follower of Zoroaster (Duchesne-Guillemin). Eudox traveled several times to the Middle East in order to collect information on medicine, mathematics, and astronomy. Xerxes appointed several Magian and Chaldean instructors to educate the children of the philosopher Protagoras. ”Democritus would probably not have worked out his atomic theory had he not been in contact with the BabyIonian scholars. “ (Ghirshman, 1959).

Solon, the famous Athenian lawmaker. studied for years in the Middle East and advised his fellowmen that “enlightenment would be found in the East.”( Lamb). Pisistratus too used to advise the youth of Athens, ”Take the ship to the East and school yourselves in the Eastland; then return to work for your city.”( Lamb; Nasr, 1974).

“Pre-Socrates Greek thinkers were interested primarily in physical nature, its understanding substance and composition ... It was with Socrates that ... spiritual and cultural values came to prominence ... Socrates was interested to discover what constitutes beauty of the soul. This spiritual and cultural approach to the problem of being and becoming was his main contribution to Greek philosophy.” (Afnan). The change of direction which Socrates died for as well as some of the innovations of his students, Plato and Aristotle, bear the definite mark of Persian influence. Already before them Xenophanes, who, born in Ionia, was more directly under the Persian influence, had strongly advocated a religious reform and had criticized Homer and Hesiod for condoning ”theft, adultery and mutual deceit by representing their gods as actually practicing them.” (Afnan; Nasr, 1974).

J. L. Nehru says “There is a tradition recorded in some Greek books that some learned Indians visited Socrates and put questions to him. Pythagoras was particularly influenced by Indian philosophy, and Professor H. G. Rawlinson remarks that almost all the theories, religious philosophical and mathematical, taught by the Pythagorians were known in India in the sixth century B.C., ... A European classical scholar, Urwick, has based his interpretation of the Republic of Plato upon Indian thought. Gnosticism is supposed to be a definite attempt to fuse together Greek Platonian and Indian elements. The philosopher Appolonius of Tyana probably visited the university of Taxila in Northwest India about the beginning of the Christian era.”( Nehru, 1946).

“Dionysus, fat her of tragedy, is none but an Asian god who, passing by Phrygia and Samothrace, arrived at Eleusis, city of Demeter. The Orpheans, Pythagoreans, Heraclitus and Plato, the Neoplatonists could not be conceived without the oriental influence.”

Many Greek heroes and legends came from the Orient and Homer and Cyclic poets “wove stories of Oriental heroes” into their tale of the capture of Troy by the Mycenaean (Olmstead,  1963; Nasr, 1974).

The Greeks never advanced beyond the myths of their primitive days. Even in the age of Pericles and in Athens, the bride of the Greek cities, the people were immersed in superstitions, or rather, the superstitious beliefs of the Athenians during the Age of Pericles had become more intense than they had ever been before (Sprague de Camp, 1963).

Dickinson writes that the Greek myths did not include any of the principles or beliefs usually associated with the concept of religion. Neither did they effectively distinguish between good and evil nor pay any attention to life after death. The Greek gods were not only numerous but also, like the Greeks themselves, spent most of their time struggling and quarreling among themselves.

“The religion of the Greeks included no definite set of doctrines of a more or less metaphysical character, formulated in a creed and supported by an organization distinct from the state. The Mythology which we regard merely as a collection of fables was to the Greeks actually true ...”

The Greeks “were not conscious of a spiritual relation to God, of sin as an alienation from the divine power and repentance as the means of restoration to grace.”

《The gods ... who should surely at least attain to the human standard, not only are capable of every phase of passion, anger, fear, jealousy and, above all, love, but indulge them all with a verve and an abandonment that might make the boldest libertine pause.”

Nevertheless, “religion was so essential to the state, so bound up with the whole structure , in general and detail, that the very conception of a separation between the powers was impossible.” (Dickinson, 1967).

In political organization as in matters of religion the Greeks never reached the maturity which would allow them to unite together in a single unit or state. They shared certain games and sporting events, and on the intellectual level certain epics and myths, but the Greek cities remained as separate states, and they were ready to jump at each others' throats at the slightest provocation. The Greeks were so far away from forming a common government that even towards the end of their ancient history their most comprehensive thinker could not conceive of a state beyond an organization more complex than the city-state and believed that “ten men are too few for a city; a hundred thousand are too many” (Dickinson, 1967).

In architecture some prototype of Greek building of pre-Achae­menian period have been found in Iran. One is a steeply gabled build­ing, with large columns forming a portico, in Musasir, North-Western Iran which, according to Herzfeld is ”almost the exact picture of a Greek temple with all its essential details, long before there was anything like it in Greece” (Herzfeld, 1935).

The influence of Achaemenian Iran in Greek art and architecture developed with the extension of contacts between Iran and Greece and especially after the so-called “Persian Wars”. H. Lamb says “The frst Penian seals to arrive in Greek hands revealed a shepherd, a crowned king astride his horse in combat with a wild animal. The skill of these canings, as well as the natural animals stirred Greek artists to emulate them.”  Also R. Ghirshman says “The reign of Artaxerxes, I witness an extension of cultural relations between Persia and Greece which explains certain changes in the art of this age. Greek historians and men of science travelled in Egypt, Babylonia and Iran, and acquired an increased knowledge of the history, religion and sciences of the East . . . The two worlds sought an exchange of knowledge, and Europe while standing in opposition to Asia, drew on the riches which the latter had accumulated during the centuries ..”( Ghirshman, 1959).

J. H. Iliffe (1953)  says “During the fifth century, after the Persian Wars, many Greeks visited the Persian court, i.e., at Susa (Persepolis was barely known to them by hearsay); there they must have been impressed by these enor­mous architectural sculptures, although to some extent the influence is likely to have been mutual, in view of the superior originality of the Greeks in artistic conception and execution. The influence of these Persian friezes may also, perhaps through the Sassanians, have affected Byzantine hieratic art, which is fond of similar processions especially in mosaics.” also A. T. Olmstead says “Greece had always been receptive to oriental influences. Minoan Crete had been in every sense a recognized member of the oriental world, and Mycenean Greeks had been in almost as close touch ... “ and “Conquest of Lydia brought the Ionian colonists into yet closer contact with oriental cultures. Their artists borrowed Lydian motifs, and their businessmen the art of coinage ... “ and” Other Greeks traded with Egypt,…they brought home from Egypt such souvenirs as statues, to be imitated by Greek sculpt ors in their archaic.  Apollos ... some served under Chaldean monarchs ... more than gold accompanied the wanderers back to Greece,…” (Olmstead, 1963).

The influence of Persepolis on Greek architecture was considerable although hardly a reference to that palace can be found in Greek writings.

De Angelis d’Ossat, (1971) Professor of architectural history at the University of Rome, states that after the wars between Iran and Greece, Iranian influence on Greek architecture increased measurably. Among the most important marks of this influence are the double colonnades supporting the porches surrounding buildings, the appearance of animal motifs on column capitals (such as those at the Temple of Delos), use of double portal entries, increase in the height of columns, the use of various capital styles in the same structure and the use of four-column modules in the interior of buildings. The temple of Apollo which was built at Phigalia in 420 B.C. shortly after the war between Iran and Greece, shows many traces of Achaemenian influence. Other examples of this influence are to be seen in the temple of Eleusis. In the opinion of this historian, at the time when Greek contact with Iran was increasing Greek architecture had begun to stagnate, previous works were repeated and architects were not able to display any skill except in the refinement of minor details. The changes alluded to above came about after the expansion of contacts with Iran. This Italian professor adds that the influence of Iran was not confined only to architecture, and as an example he points out the Persian word which entered the ancient Greek language (Nasr, 1974).

A. Malraux, who hates to spoil the traditional public image of Greek art as a spontaneous phenomenon by recognizing the debts it owes, as every important art does, to the legacy of other civilizations, refers nevertheless to the Achaemenians’ influence and cites as an example the head of Hipparchus on the Parthenon in the following terms:

«When we compare the head of Hipparchus with the Achaemenian heads, ... we are surprised, not at finding so much imitation in the Hipparchus, but ... at finding so little of it.”( Malraux, 1960), also W. Durant (1954) says “Architecturally there was but a step from Persepolis to Athens.”

R. Payne (1952) says “But even here (In the Parthenon) the Persians have left their influence. The Erechtheion which hangs on a cliff edge under the shadow of the Parthenon ... has a faintly Persian air. It is two small temples ... and (one) has a huge portal: Around the portal, exquisite­ly carved, are the same sunflowers we had seen at Persepolis, and they were placed at the same distance from one another ... Persian flowers had come by obscure roads to decorate a sacred place of Greece.”

On the whole the Greeks led a hard but simple life. Herodotus writes that after the Iranian general was killed at Plataea, the Greek commander entered his tent. There he saw gold and silver utensils, carpets, curtains, beds and other luxurious furnishings. When he was brought a meal similar to that of the Iranian commander, he turned to the other Greek officers and said, “witness the stupidy of the Per­sians. Living in such luxury they came to steal the black soup of the Greeks.”( Herodotus, 1936; Nasr, 1974).

Numerous Greek statesmen complain about their compatriots moral decay and consider this to be the main reason for their country’s falling in the hands of the Macedonians, for instance.

Thucydides, Greek philosopher and historian of the fifth century B.C. writes:

“There was no word binding enough, no oath terrible enough to reconcile enemies. Each man was strong only in the conviction that nothing was secure. There was every crime which man might be sup­posed to perpetrate in revenge, who had been governed not wisely, but tyrannically, and now had the oppressor at his mercy. They were car­ried away by this blind rage into the extremes of pitiless cruelty. Re­venge was dearer than self preservation. Every form of death was to be seen. The father slew the son, the suppliants were torn from the temples and slain.”(Herodotus, 1936).

Cyrus the Great abhorred the lying of the Greeks, and to him Herodotus attributes the following sentence：”I never fear the kind of men who have a place set apart in the middle of the city in which they get together, and tell one another lies under oath.”( Parkinson, 1965).

“The Greeks were not naturally cruel, but they never acquired sufficient political sense to overcome the corroding influence of fac­tion.”(Herodotus, 1936). With their weaker allies they acted with brutality and with slaves they were cruel. Aristotle considered slaves to be living tools and Plato speaks of them without any trace of compassion. It was common for the Greeks to abandon babies to die, especially female children and those without a strong physical constitution. Even Plato recommended infanticide to prevent over-population (Russell, 1961). The Greek considered women incapable of purity, long-haired and dim-witted animals good only for satisfying the sexual instincts of men. It is too funny and bitter irony now that US presents itself as Iran women supporter as one can cataloged a list of some of the United States' violations against Iran, including its levying of oppressive and vicious sanctions, which have led to some irreparable [adverse] effects, especially on women and children. The US accounted for a third of the world’s female prisoners (Mehrnews, 2022).

1. One-third of women prisoners worldwide are incarcerated in the US,

2. At least 250 women have been killed by US police, on the streets, and without trial, since 2015. Leonna Hale, a 26-year-old pregnant woman, is one of them (Koulouris, 2022).

3. The US pushed for Iran’s termination in the Commission on the Status of Women.

Figure1. Leonna Hale pregnant black woman suspected of carjacking shot 5 times by Kansas City, Missouri police. Images via social media.

References

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De Angelis d’Ossat,  G. (1971). in Tehran Journal, 27 Feb.

Dickinson, G.L. (1967). The Greek view of Life, Collier Books, N.Y. P. 22. P. 52.

Dickinson, N.J. (1967).The Greek view of Life, Collier Books, N.Y.,  PP. 16, 37 and 38.

Dodds, E.R. as Quoted by J. Nehru, Discovery of India.

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Koulouris, Christopher (2022). Unarmed pregnant black woman suspected of carjacking shot 5 times by cops. https://scallywagandvagabond.com/2022/05/leonna-hale-kansas-city-missouri-pregnant-black-woman-suspected-carjacking-shot-5-times-by-cops/

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Mehrnews (2022). Bitter irony that US presents itself as Iran women supporter. https://en.mehrnews.com/news/194965/Bitter-irony-that-US-presents-itself-as-Iran-women-supporter

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