Time to Move On (Writing to Josephine Quinn)

A response to the article 'Time to Move On', published in the TLS in September 2018.

Dear Dr. Quinn,

Eleanor Robson referenced your TLS article of 18 September on her Twitter feed. I couldn't agree more with your argument, though I might quibble (minorly) with some of the details. The term 'classics' is long past its sell-by date.

 I studied classics myself, but because I was studying in London in the early 90s it was possible for me to study the languages, history and culture of ancient Mesopotamia at the same time. As a result I saw a different picture of the relationship between ancient Greece and Mesopotamian civilization than the one I was being taught. I've been studying that relationship ever since.

I self-published a book about that relationship in 2015 ('The Sacred History of Being'). Some classicists have read it, but most are disinclined, possibly because the argument seems to them to be too fantastic to be given serious consideration. Even the very idea of such an argument seems often to be beyond the pale.

It upends a number of constructs in our understanding of cultural development in antiquity, both east and west, which is a hard thing to swallow. But the evidence is there. The core argument of the book is that the same key ideas appear in the context of religion in Greece, Assyria, Babylonia, and also in Israel.

It is possible that Pythagoras brought these ideas back to Greece, after military service with the Persians (there is an account of this in existence). Which suggests that both abstract ideas and philosophical thought were not first developed by the Greeks. For most classicists of course, it is axiomatic that philosophical thought first began in Greece. The fact that Plato contradicted this, and said that philosophy was of a very great age, seems to cut no ice at all. Scholars (to generalise) are stuck in an episteme, which simply will not allow the idea into conversation, even if it is there in the text.

I've argued for a long time that the Greek Enlightenment of the 5th century B.C.E., is to a large extent a product of the European Enlightenment. And as you say, that is where 'classics' saw the light of day in the form we recognise. But the construct of classical civilization, as something aloof from other cultures around the Mediterranean, has been seen through a number of times during the past seventy years. Richard Broxton Onians saw through it, and knew the connections with Mesopotamia were there, and possessed a good understanding of their significance. I first read his book about thirty years ago, and I still think of it as one of the great unexploded bombs in scholarship.

Thanks very much for writing the article, and for your clarity of thought.

Best regards,

Thomas Yaeger

The original article, published in the TLS on September 18, 2018. A set of reviewer notes for The Sacred History of Being (with chapter listings) is available.