Four. Inventing Nations: Postconquest Native Histories of Civilization’s Origins

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F O U RInventing Nations: Postconquest Native Histories of Civilization’s OriginsMighty deeds of Semiramis are celebrated among the Assyrians, and mighty deeds of Sesostris in Egypt, and the Phrygians, even to this day, call brilliant and marvelous exploits “manic” because Manes, one of their very early kings, proved himself a good man and exercised a vast influence among them.—Plutarch, Isis and OsirisEvery people is more familiar than others with their own forefa-thers, pedigrees, and accomplishments. With respect to every com-plex matter, one must have reference to those people who were (di-rectly) involved.—Tabarī, Ta’rīkhA century after the Arabs conquered the land of Iran, Iranians began writ-ing histories of their pre-Islamic Iranian kings in Arabic. In most of these his-tories, the first kings are depicted as inventors of the arts and sciences of civilization.Something similar happened after the Greek and Roman conquests of the Near East, when native elites wrote histories of their forefathers’ contributions to civilization in the language of the conqueror to instill a sense of national pride in past accomplishments after being conquered by a foreign power and to remind the conquerors of their cultural dependence on the conquered people.1 Such ac-counts did not necessarily imply a political program; indeed, these histories were usually intended to encourage foreign rulers to behave like native kings, not to drive them out.2 But their ambiguity meant that they could be appropri-ated to support revivalist kingdoms, at least in the case of tenth-century Iran.1Edwards, “Philo or Sanchuniathon?” 214. The first epigraph is from Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris in Moralia 5.360b, and the second is from Tabarī’s Ta’rīkh 1:326.2Although these histories sometimes treat the native origins of inventions commonly ascribed to the Greeks, such as rhetoric, law, philosophy, and the sciences, their primary concern is the origin of civilization as a whole. So, despite the norm of considering them together with native histories of Greek inventions, I will treat them separately (see the next chapter). In doing so, I hope to show that the function of the general histories of civilization is different from that of the histories of Greek scholarship and sciences. Whereas the latter is meant to ratify Greek learning, the former celebrates native civilization, placing it on par with or above the preconquest civilizations of the conquerors.

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F O U RInventing Nations: Postconquest Native Histories of Civilization’s OriginsMighty deeds of Semiramis are celebrated among the Assyrians, and mighty deeds of Sesostris in Egypt, and the Phrygians, even to this day, call brilliant and marvelous exploits “manic” because Manes, one of their very early kings, proved himself a good man and exercised a vast influence among them.—Plutarch, Isis and OsirisEvery people is more familiar than others with their own forefa-thers, pedigrees, and accomplishments. With respect to every com-plex matter, one must have reference to those people who were (di-rectly) involved.—Tabarī, Ta’rīkhA century after the Arabs conquered the land of Iran, Iranians began writ-ing histories of their pre-Islamic Iranian kings in Arabic. In most of these his-tories, the first kings are depicted as inventors of the arts and sciences of civilization.Something similar happened after the Greek and Roman conquests of the Near East, when native elites wrote histories of their forefathers’ contributions to civilization in the language of the conqueror to instill a sense of national pride in past accomplishments after being conquered by a foreign power and to remind the conquerors of their cultural dependence on the conquered people.1 Such ac-counts did not necessarily imply a political program; indeed, these histories were usually intended to encourage foreign rulers to behave like native kings, not to drive them out.2 But their ambiguity meant that they could be appropri-ated to support revivalist kingdoms, at least in the case of tenth-century Iran.1Edwards, “Philo or Sanchuniathon?” 214. The first epigraph is from Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris in Moralia 5.360b, and the second is from Tabarī’s Ta’rīkh 1:326.2Although these histories sometimes treat the native origins of inventions commonly ascribed to the Greeks, such as rhetoric, law, philosophy, and the sciences, their primary concern is the origin of civilization as a whole. So, despite the norm of considering them together with native histories of Greek inventions, I will treat them separately (see the next chapter). In doing so, I hope to show that the function of the general histories of civilization is different from that of the histories of Greek scholarship and sciences. Whereas the latter is meant to ratify Greek learning, the former celebrates native civilization, placing it on par with or above the preconquest civilizations of the conquerors.

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