Hot Gates

It is often said, by those who do not understand history that “If the Persians had won their war against the Greeks history would have been changed forever.”

Really? How so? Back in the 19^th century there was what came to be called the “Hot Gates,” school of historiography (named after Thermopolis) which maintained that conquest by the Persians would have killed the so called “Greek miracle” but would it have? Let’s look at the facts.

First, an awful lot of the art, literature and philosophy that came out of the “Greek” world was actually from the Ionian cities under Persian control. Modern historians, freed from 19^th century prejudices, realize that most of the ideas that the Greeks popularized had their origins in the East in the first place. True the Greeks put their own special spin on them but that would have happened anyway regardless of who was in control. The Persians didn’t give a rat’s patooti what kind of government, art or philosophy you had so long as you paid your tribute on time. One big advantage that a Persian conquest would have brought with it would have been a greater mixing of ideas.

This is what happened when the conquest went the other way and Alexander took over the Persian Empire. In the market place of ideas the Greeks were Microsoft and the Persians were Atari. That is to say the Persians (meaning the whole “East” that they controlled including Palestine) had a whole bunch of original and interesting ideas but the Greeks packaged and sold them with ruthless efficiency. Once the two cultures were united the Greeks swarmed all over the East carrying their ideas with them. In Palestine, the mixing of Greek rationalism with Canaanite mysticism set off the whole Judeo-Christian-Muslim powder train which exploded into the ideological flowering of the three religions. Let’s not forget that a certain Galician carpenter, who has become rather well known in the West, came from the area known as the Decapolis, a ten city area in Northern Palestine noted for its mixing of Greek and "Eastern" philosophies.

There are historians who maintain that Judaism grew out of an intellectual reaction to Greek philosophy. One thing seems clear, contact with the Greeks caused the Jews to change their circumcision practice from a minor operation which only took “a little off the top” to the full Monty it has become today.

For better or worse what we laughingly call “Western Civilization” is a synthesis of Eastern and Western trends thrashed out in the market place of ideas. All that a Persian conquest would have done is open the market a little earlier.