Ancient Greece

Lesson 1: Introduction

Popular Ideas

Realising that Ancient History is not exactly like Modern History is not the only psychological hurdle that you as a student of Classical Civilisation must overcome.

The study of Ancient Greece and Rome is further complicated by misconceptions that exist in the popular imagination.

There are two main sources of popular misconceptions that we need to address. These are:-

1. Ideas handed down by earlier historians

2. Popular ideas that we get from the mass media e.g. books, films etc.

The most important misconception about Classical Athens that we need to address is the idea that the ancient Athenians were ‘just like us’. This misconception originated among nineteenth century scholars and has yet to be done away with.

With the growth of modern archaeology, there has been a growing realisation that the ancient Greeks were inextricably linked with the great civilisations of the ancient Near East.

In other words, if we could somehow magically put a fifth-century Athenian in the same room as an Egyptian from the New Kingdom and a Victorian gentleman, the chances are that our Athenian would identify more closely with the Egyptian than with his fellow ‘westerner’.

Popular books and films are another source of misconceptions about the past.

A case in point is the 1956 blockbuster ‘The Ten Commandments’. In this film, Sir Cedric Hardwicke gives a masterly dramatic performance as Pharaoh Seti I.

Although there is little doubt that he must have been an excellent actor, Sir Cedric simply cannot avoid coming across more like an efficient colonial administrator rather than an ancient Egyptian pharaoh.

The real Seti was a ruthless autocrat who led his armies on several violent military campaigns. Watching the film however, we do not quite get this impression. Instead we seem to feel that this person was a ‘just ruler’ with a sensitive and caring side.

Of course this kind of portrayal would have been made for dramatic reasons. The film would probably not have been as popular if Seti had been portrayed as a typically brutal Near-eastern monarch, and if instead of Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Yul Brynner, a couple of unknown Egyptian actors had been cast in the roles of Seti and Ramesses II. This kind of inaccurate portrayal is very common and it seriously distorts the perceptions that many people have about ancient times.

Popular films like these reinforce the subconscious impression we have that the ancients must have thought and acted much like we do. In one scene, Yul Brynner’s Ramesses seeks out a rational scientific explanation as to why the waters of the Nile should have turned into blood. The ‘real’ Ramesses II would have been born into and lived all his life in an intensely superstitious society, in which magic and the supernatural were accepted as part of the nature of things. It is quite unlikely that he would have behaved in this way.

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