Ultimately, it is not very useful, as was done in the recent ‘‘culture war’’ fought between Martin Bernal (1987-2006, 2001) and his opponents (e. g., Lefkowitz 1996; Lefkowitz and Rogers 1996; see also Marchand and Grafton 1997; Berlinerblau 1999), to focus on the question of whether Greek culture was independent or derivative: it was both. The issues that are vital here concern the process of culture transfer and exchange in the ancient world (Humphreys 1993). An influential trend in recent scholarship (represented especially by Burkert and West, mentioned above) not only tries to explain many Greek cultural achievements through influences from the ancient Near East but, to say it pointedly, imagines dissemination as a one-way road and integration as a construction project that uses foreign bricks to enhance the structures of the receiving culture. Yet we are dealing here with complex processes that cannot be grasped sufficiently through simplistic concepts such as ‘‘influence’’ or ‘‘import.’’
What looks on the surface like ‘‘foreign influence’’ can be explained in several ways (Raaflaub forthcoming a, with detailed references). Two of these seem relatively easy: direct borrowing (exemplified by the griffons, sirens, and sphinxes populating archaic Greek sites; e. g. Kreutz 2004) or indirect borrowing through a cultural koinl, that is, a pool of ideas and knowledge that emerged from intense interaction among various cultures in the eastern Mediterranean. Seybold and Ungern-Sternberg (1993 and in Burckhardt, Seybold, and Ungern-Sternberg 2007) use this model to explain analogies in the thoughts of Hesiod and the prophet Amos or in the reforms of Solon and King Josiah of Judah (see also Yamauchi 1980). Typological analogies can also result from independent parallel developments in the context of common social or cultural phenomena. An example is debt bondage, widespread in West Asia, Greece, and Rome (Finley 1982b: 150-66), and, like other statuses ‘‘between free and slave’’ (Finley 1982b: 116-49; O. Patterson 1991: 9-44; Weiler 2004), typical of many early societies. Social conflicts resulting from its abuse, the enactment ofpertinent reforms, and the justification of such measures by the need to protect the weak from the oppression of the strong - these were logical consequences, documented in many places, that can have occurred independently in various societies (DNP 11: 257-63 with bibliog.; Yaron 1993; Irani and Silver 1995). Furthermore, as we shall see, superficial analogies can prompt false assumptions ofexternal influence when tradition has falsified the objects ofcomparison, that is, when in the extant sources the description of both the supposed external model and the Greek ‘‘import’’ are shaped by the same Greek conceptions. In such cases, the model appears as such only because Greek thought has created or interpreted it to fit the assumption. Many of the Greek cultural imports from Egypt postulated by Herodotus (Lloyd 1975-88) and Diodorus (Burton 1972) fall into this category, even if scholars often accept them uncritically.
Furthermore, in assessing ‘‘foreign influences,’’ we need to consider the issues of interaction and integration. By interaction I mean that impulse and counterimpulse, import and export are interdependent even if they are not always balanced. It is thus important to ask how the Greeks ‘‘paid’’ for their cultural imports, both concretely and metaphorically, in the spheres of material culture and ideas, and who were the carriers of such interaction.3 Traders and itinerant specialists (deimiourgoi) were suitable intermediaries for certain types of cultural goods (Burkert 1992). When it came to social or political issues, I suggest, free farmers or elite leaders in emerging poleis might not have listened to socially low-ranking outsiders, while they may have taken seriously what fellow nobles had to tell who returned from long journeys or foreign service, covered with glory and wealth (Raaflaub 2004a). The other aspect, integration, has largely been neglected in recent research (exceptions include S. Morris 1992: 95; Hoffman 1997: 2 n5). Here too we need to differentiate: the more complex the foreign ‘‘object,’’ the more complex the process of integrating it into the receiving culture. It is especially likely that customs or institutions that affected the community as a whole would have been adapted and transformed thoroughly to fit the new conditions.
Assyriologists and Egyptologists, few in number and confronted with the daunting task of publishing and interpreting enormous quantities of primary sources, have been slow in developing an active interdisciplinary discourse and rarely taken the time to tackle broad issues of the type classicists with their much more limited and mostly well-published source base have long taken for granted. Specifically, partial exceptions notwithstanding,5 comprehensive discussions of Mesopotamian or Egyptian political thought simply do not exist.
The only effective way to tackle all these challenges is intensified and persistent collaboration across disciplinary boundaries. In this chapter, I use two opposed approaches. One focuses on cases of probable foreign impulses and examines the impact and transformation of such impulses in the process of their integration into Greek culture. As an example, I will discuss the monumental inscription of laws and legal texts. The other approach focuses on those themes that were important in early Greek political thought, and looks for analogies in Near Eastern cultures, expecting that a comparison will help answer the question of foreign influence. As examples, I will briefly consider the concepts of good order and freedom.
World History
