Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
What if a Persian had visited the Macedonian court? What would they have wanted to know? Instead of Plutarch's Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans, we had Parallel Lives of Persian and Assyrian kings?
Except we wouldn't. Because the ways people in the ancient near east thought about doing history was, if not completely different, substantially different enough that they just asked different questions. They also regarded texts different, as having power in themselves. So the elimination of someone's name from a statue or wall bas relief was like eliminating the person themselves.
They recorded the past...but in a very different way from Herodotus and what because western (Herodotean) history.
Or is it? Maybe there are more parallels than we might think.
But is that as different
What if a Persian had visited the Macedonian court? What would they have wanted to know? Instead of Plutarch's Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans, we had Parallel Lives of Persian and Assyrian kings?
Except we wouldn't. Because the ways people in the ancient near east thought about doing history was, if not completely different, substantially different enough that they just asked different questions. They also regarded texts different, as having power in themselves. So the elimination of someone's name from a statue or wall bas relief was like eliminating the person themselves.
They recorded the past...but in a very different way from Herodotus and what because western (Herodotean) history.
Or is it? Maybe there are more parallels than we might think.
But is that as different
