Memory and the Power of Culture
Published April 3, 2007
By Elias Altman
The rule of the democratic Athenian empire ended in 413 BC when their fleet, the world’s most powerful, sailed across the Adriatic Sea to conquer Sicily. Their leaders had persuaded them to invade a country that posed no immediate danger to them.
The Athenians were so exhausted in the final battle that as javelins and arrows rained down upon them, they drank from a stream that ran red with their own blood. The survivors were kept in quarries where the rotting dead could not be buried.
But their captors, the Syracusans, offered life to anyone who could teach them large passages from the tragedies of Euripides since they loved the playwright.
Many soldiers knew the Athenian-born playwright’s works by heart, even though they had only seen his plays a few times at festivals. The Athenian prisoners taught it to the Syracusans, and they eventually found their way back home.
This story struck me as remarkable on two levels. My first reaction was shock. I could not believe that an Athenian could casually memorize vast sections of a play after only a few viewings.
I inserted myself into the role of a prisoner. What writing do I know by heart? The Pledge of Allegiance – which I won’t allow to count – the opening of the Declaration of Independence, and two Shakespearean monologues. That’s it.
But the Greeks lived in a much more oral culture – I rationalize to myself – and they must have learned how to memorize at any early age. Regardless, the story signals an intimacy with art that we do not have anymore.
Nowadays the longest quotes you hear are lines from Zoolander or The Big Lebowski – maybe, there’s the one kid who can spit Samuel L. Jackson’s biblical rant from Pulp Fiction.
Aside from the miracle of memorization, I fixate upon what the story tells us about culture and empire. Athens had been the richest and most powerful city-state state for a long time and, in connection, it was also the most culturally productive.
Athens was the home of Socrates, democracy, Aristophanes, the Acropolis and Euripides. As their power and influence grew outward, so did their culture; it was exported just like olive oil and painted vases.
The story of the Athenian prisoners demonstrates the power of culture; their lives were spared because of their civilization’s art. This hints that on some level, good culture can redeem bad politics. Plutarch, a Greek historian, said that the Syracusans, in fact, loved Euripides even more than the Athenians did.
Thus, this story has elements of both comedy and tragedy. It is comic because of irony: the Athenians sang up the choruses of tragedies to their excited captors. Euripides’ sad verses became the cause for joy. In addition, we are left with a smile of astonishment as we contemplate their ability to memorize.
It is tragic because the Athenian people acted out a tragedy not even Euripides could have composed; the world’s truest democracy and home of western philosophy destroyed itself through imperialism. The city-state with the most beautiful ideas was also the city-state with the worst politics.
But their culture survived the failure of their foreign policy and Euripides is still performed to this day. And likewise the unscripted tragedy of Athens remains a drama that we can commit to memory.
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