Greek and Barbarian Polarity
The ancient habit of splitting the world in two — Greek-speakers on one side, 'barbarians' (everyone else) on the other.
The split between Hellene and barbaros (literally, those whose speech sounds like 'bar-bar') organized much of Greek ethnography and history, used to explain differing customs, freedoms, and the great East-West wars. Herodotus (5th c. BCE) builds his Histories around the clash of Greece and Persia, and after the Persian Wars the antithesis hardened into a cultural framework. It became a lasting lens — and stereotype — through which Greeks defined themselves against others.
How it traveled
- De RepublicaFormiae · -54explains
- Geographiae ChrestomathiaAmaseia · 24explains
- Orationes 13Smyrnaexplains
- Antiquitates RomanaeRomeexplains
- Historical LibrarySyracuse (Sicily)explains
- Praeparatio Evangelica—explains
- Orationes 46Smyrnaexplains
- OrationesPrusaexplains
- Declamatio de Atheniensium defensio (ad Libanii declamationem antilogia)—explains
- Against LeocratesAthensexplains
- Historia NovaConstantinople (Istanbul)explains
- De BellisConstantinople (Istanbul)explains
- Alexias—explains
- Stromata—explains
- Scholia in Euripidis Hecubam (scholia vetera et scholia recentiora Thomae Magistri, Triclinii, Moschopuli et anonyma)—explains
- Scholia in Iliadem—explains
- Contra Celsum—explains
- Strategemata—explains
- Scholia in Euripidis Orestem (scholia vetera et scholia recentiora Thomae Magistri, Triclinii, Moschopuli et anonyma)—explains
- Ars Rhetorica—explains
- Epistulae [attributed]—challenges
Key passages(20)
Geographiae Chrestomathia · Anonymous
Historical Library · Diodorus Siculus
Antiquitates Romanae · Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Ars Rhetorica · Pseudo-Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Ars Rhetorica · Pseudo-Dionysius of Halicarnassus
De Lysia · Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Declamatio de Atheniensium defensio (ad Libanii declamationem antilogia) · Gregory II, of Cyprus, Patriarch of Constantinople
Scholia in Euripidis Orestem (scholia vetera et scholia recentiora Thomae Magistri, Triclinii, Moschopuli et anonyma) · Scholia in Euripidem
Epistulae · Diogenes Sinopensis Epistulae
Praeparatio Evangelica · Eusebius of Caesarea