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Peace in the Ancient World

E-BookEPUB2 - DRM Adobe / EPUBE-Book
208 Seiten
Englisch
John Wiley & Sonserschienen am18.03.20161. Auflage
Peace in the Ancient World: Concepts and Theories conducts a comparative investigation of why certain ancient societies produced explicit concepts and theories of peace and others did not.
Explores the idea that concepts of peace in antiquity occurred only in periods that experienced exceptional rates of warfare
Utilizes case studies of civilizations in China, India, Egypt, and Greece
Complements the 2007 volume War and Peace in the Ancient World, drawing on ideas from that work and providing a more comprehensive examination
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KlappentextPeace in the Ancient World: Concepts and Theories conducts a comparative investigation of why certain ancient societies produced explicit concepts and theories of peace and others did not.
Explores the idea that concepts of peace in antiquity occurred only in periods that experienced exceptional rates of warfare
Utilizes case studies of civilizations in China, India, Egypt, and Greece
Complements the 2007 volume War and Peace in the Ancient World, drawing on ideas from that work and providing a more comprehensive examination
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9781118645147
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format Hinweis2 - DRM Adobe / EPUB
FormatFormat mit automatischem Seitenumbruch (reflowable)
Erscheinungsjahr2016
Erscheinungsdatum18.03.2016
Auflage1. Auflage
ReiheAncient World: Comparative Histories
Seiten208 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse428 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.3245211
Rubriken
Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe
Chapter 1
Abhorring War, Yearning for Peace: The Quest for Peace in the Ancient World1

Kurt A. Raaflaub
Prologue

The dramatic date of the Chinese film Hero (Ying xiong) is the end of the Warring State Period (403-221 BCE), in which seven kingdoms fought ruthlessly for supremacy, causing massive slaughter and suffering for the population.2 In the film, the king of Qin, determined to conquer all of China, has defeated most of his enemies. Over the years, however, he has been the target of many assassins. Three of these are still alive, Broken Sword, Flying Snow, and Sky. To anyone who defeats these three, the king promises great rewards: power, riches, and a private audience with himself. For ten years no one comes close to claiming the prize. Then an enigmatic person, Nameless, appears in the palace, bearing the legendary weapons of the slain assassins. His story is extraordinary: for ten years he has studied the arts of the sword, before defeating the mighty Sky in a furious fight and destroying the famed duo of Snow and Broken Sword, using a weapon far more devastating than his sword-their love for each other.

The king, however, replies with a different story: of a conspiracy between the four, in which Nameless victories were faked to enable him to come close to the king and kill him. Nameless indeed has a chance to achieve his goal. The king, exposed to his sword, tells him of his true aspiration: to conquer the warring states in order to overcome war and violence once and for all, to create a unified empire, and to establish lasting peace. Overcome by this vision, Nameless draws back his sword and walks out of the great hall-to die willingly under the arrows of the king s bowmen.

This is a powerful and beautiful film. Its message is exciting. It raises both hope and doubts: was there really an ancient ruler who pursued a true vision of peace-even if it could be realized only at the price of war and violence? Not unexpectedly, hopes prove illusionary. The film is based on a historical episode: the attempt of Jing Ke to assassinate the king of Qin in 227 BCE. But the film clearly does not intend merely to reconstruct history. The question of how to interpret it has raised intense debates; one interpretation sees it as an allegory for Mao Zedong and communism s unification of the world through global conquest, another, fueled by the Chinese government s approval, as advocating stability and security over human rights and liberty-although the film s director, Zhang Yimou, insisted that he did not pursue any political purpose. An any rate, the first emperor-he who displayed his army in a now world-famous terracotta replica near his necropolis-was no visionary of peace. Later Chinese historians did not even celebrate him as one of the greatest conquerors of all time, but rather castigated him as a cruel, arbitrary, impetuous, suspicious, and superstitious megalomaniac.3

Experts on war in the ancient world are numerous, those on peace harder to find; the bibliographies differ accordingly.4 The topic this chapter addresses is huge. My purpose is twofold: on the one hand, to offer a broad survey over the quest for peace in the ancient world and to stimulate discussion;5 on the other hand, to argue, at least in a preliminary way, for a thesis that will be tested in the subsequent chapters of this volume. To lay the ground for this thesis, I begin by presenting five brief case studies.
Five Cases and a Thesis

The first case is perhaps unexpected in this volume. It concerns a society that is not usually considered ancient, although it is certainly early and has roots that go back to ancient times. What I have in mind is the Iroquois League, founded by five (later six) Native American Nations in the north-east of today s United States. It is usually dated to around 1450 CE but strong arguments have been presented for the early twelfth century. The foundation of this League was marked by the acceptance of the Great Law of Peace. 6 Its purpose, achieved to a remarkable degree, was to restore and maintain general peace, unity, and order among its member nations and beyond.7 Depending on what founding date we accept, it lasted for three hundred or even six hundred years. Nothing like this ever came about in the ancient world, despite numerous attempts.

What interests here is the reason for the League s foundation. According to oral traditions preserved among the nations involved, it emerged in reaction to strife and warfare that had become excessive, uncontrollable, and fratricidal:

Everywhere there was peril and everywhere mourning. Men were ragged with sacrifice and the women scarred with flints, so everywhere there was misery. Feuds with outer nations, feuds with brother nations, feuds of sister towns and feuds of families and of clans made every warrior a stealthy man who liked to kill⦠A man s life was valued as nothing. For any slight offence a man or woman was killed by his enemy and in this manner feuds started between families and clans. At night none dared leave their doorways lest they be struck down by an enemy s war club. Such was the condition when there was no Great Law.8

Dekanawidah, the Great Peacemaker, a figure raised to superhuman status in some legends, was able to convince the warriors and their chiefs to bury the hatchet, conclude peace, accept a code of law (the Great Law of Peace), and set up an organization that would guarantee its maintenance. Symbolically, a large tree (the Tree of the Great Peace ) was uprooted, weapons were buried in the hole, and the tree planted again.9 The politicial system adopted by the League, involving representation and equal vote (and thus elements characteristic of democracy), as well as a reassessment of the Law and the League s rationale in regular intervals, was known to the American Founders; whether and to what extent it influenced the constitution of the United States remains debated.10

The second case leads us to China in the Warring State Period (475-221 BCE, mentioned above). It received its name because of the endless wars for power and primacy that were based on two interrelated developments, among others: advances in technology made it much cheaper to produce individual weapons and equip large armies, thus encouraging the transition from aristocracy-dominated contests to mass fighting. States with larger resources were thus at an advantage, and this was crucial in propelling the ongoing consolidation of power among a shrinking number of an initial multitude of rivaling petty states, down to only seven among which the kingdom of Qin emerged victorious, creating the First Empire. Wars in this period were brutal and relentless, causing profound and widespread misery that was increasingly resented and could not easily be overlooked. Not least for this reason, this was also a period of great intellectual ferment and social as well as political innovation, one of the most productive in Chinese history: it laid the foundations of thought patterns, structures, and developments for centuries to come. Among other intellectual advances, political thought and philosophy, represented most conspicuously by Confucius and his disciples and successors reached unprecedented heights, and their thoughts focused, typically, on two major issues, among others: how to help their patrons among the kings of the contending states to gain and secure victory and power, and how to overcome the chaos and misery caused by constant war and establish lasting peace. Substantive thinking about peace thus grew at least indirectly out of intolerable experiences of war.11

The third case takes us to Athens. Its history in the first half of the fifth century BCE was marked by its decisive contributions to victories over invading Persian armies in 490 and 480/79, its swift rise to power at the head of a widespread alliance system that was soon turned into a centralized naval empire, and, in close interaction with war and empire, its development of the most advanced democracy that was imaginable under the conditions of the ancient world. Although for different reasons than Sparta, Athens too became a somewhat militarized society. Between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars (431-404 BCE between Athens and Sparta) Athens was involved in some kind of war in two out of three years, and its collective or national character was defined by aggressive activism, a propensity for expansionist and interventionist policies. This tendency got Athens involved twice in serious conflicts with Sparta; the long and bitter Peloponnesian War ended with total defeat, the loss of empire, fleet, and fortifications, and almost with the city s annihilation.

The emergence of naval warfare and imperialism completely changed the face of war in the Greek world: it became permanent, ubiquitous, destructive, and total, involving most of Greece and affecting every sphere of life. In particular, as Thucydides demonstrates in memorable chapters, external war often went hand in hand with civil strife or even war (stasis) that prompted unprecedented excesses of cruelty and moral depravation.12 Yet, at the same time, and again not accidentally, Athens in the fifth century was the center of an unparalleled cultural upswing...
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