Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - Creation: Part 2

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

A crossover episode with Trevor from The History of Persia from a couple years ago. We discuss historicity, Zoroastrianism, and well, creation!patreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

Yeah, we're now finally getting to what is sort of his his purpose of this book, which is to explore the the idea of creation. And Cyrus Patama, our main character, who is supposedly the mouthpiece of Zoroastrian thought, doesn't even have the level of explanation or detail that Zoroastrianism had at the time. There's this weird dancing around one of the ancient explanations. And it's not one that stuck around in modern Zoroastrianism because it is sort of a reformist idea from like the 300s AD. But one of the things that Cyrus Potama brings up repeatedly is that this idea of time of the long

dominion which is the current period of existence that Ahura Mazda and Ahriman and the material world exist in and how that was born out of endless time and And these are actual concepts in Avestan, but they're usually not translated. It's another one of those things where him translating the terminology kind of works against him. Because the word for time in Avestan is zervon. And if you've played Crusader Kings 2, one of the sub-sects of Zoroastrianism is Zervenism. And this is an actual movement that existed at some point in probably Parthian history, where they took this first concept of Zervon and made it a personified god of time,

who was boundless or endless or infinite, and without direction or shape, and then created or through the mixing, meshing flow of time, generated the existence of good and evil in the form of Ohura Mazda and Aramand. And what's really weird about this, and maybe it's just because I got back into Skyrim this past week, it's like word for word the lore of like the existence of the Elder Scrolls universe. It's like Michael Kirkbride just took this concept and planted it directly into his writing.

Down to, and I shit you not, Zervon is described as Akka, like Akatosh. There's infinite Zervon, which is the kind of the primordial soup that is personified in one version of Zoroastrianism, but is present in all of them. You know, present in all version of Zoroastrianism, but is present in all of them. You know, and it's present in all strains of Zoroastrian thought because it's in the Gathas.

And then in what Cyrus calls time of the long dominion is linear Zervin. It's linear time constrained by the flow of events. And there's all sorts of millenarian traditions and cosmology that goes into that that's not important here. But those concepts are in there, but he doesn't use them. They're just because he reduces this semi divine concept of Zervon to the time before and the time that is right now,

there's no agency to it. And there's no action to it. So you can't use it to explain anything. It's just a description. And just one of my favorite fun facts about Zervon is that the Chinvat bridge, that is the crossing from life to death in Zoroastrian tradition, is said to be built by Zervon. So the passage from life to death is built by time, which I just think like real on the nose. Again, subtext is for cowards. Exactly. But like that's one of those things where Zervon is an actor. You can use that to help explain creation. And he just doesn't.

Yeah. What we're getting at here is that. But of course, you can then work back to like, where did Zervon come from? But you say what we're getting at here is the fact that even though Vidal uses Zoroastrianism as the lens through which his main character debates other figures on creation, he at base is not doing justice to the explanations that Zoroastrianism itself offers to this question. Like the main character, essentially, Cyrus Potama never like stands up for himself

or his grandfather in these debates between with, you know, the Buddha or whoever. Like he doesn't even do himself and his own faith justice, because I think that's just a failing of the author. Vidal himself can't do his can't do Zoroastrianism justice. Yeah, and part of me wonders if in addition to the colonial baggage of making Zoroastrianism monotheistic if he might have felt like the actual Zoroastrian cosmogony was too sci-fi to put in his historical fiction novel. Because it is, it sounds like a very modern conception of non-linear time. Yeah.

So like, it does kind of stand out if you try to put it in an ancient context, which, again, is one of those things that's just like interesting to me about Zoroastrianism that like, they were just like, yeah, time. It's a big ball of timey wimey stuff. And then it's a whore Mazda stretched it out into a line and we're gonna live on that line until it ends and then it goes back to being a mess. Like, but like, that's not.

What people think of when they think of antiquity. I mean, it's that sort of thing that actually drew me to Zoroastrianism in the first place, that there are relatively. You know, again, what we'd feel like in context, modern interpretations of the universe and for me personally, you know, morality that you don't expect from something that was created, you know, before the Persian Empire. I'm rapidly skimming over an encyclopedia, Iranica article to see if there's anything that like I'm not thinking of that would explain this. And it really just seems to be like either he was married to the monotheistic angle

or he was married to the monotheistic angle or didn't like the framing of the actual cosmogony because that's the only that's the only story that's provided of where does a horror Mazda come from is nonlinear time is chaotic and just spawned the concepts of good and evil. But since that's the baseline that we as the audience and Cyrus as the protagonist are working off of, that is the baseline that he encounters Hinduism and Buddhism and Jainism and Confucianism and Daoism through and Greek philosophy, but it's mostly there to make fun of Greece. Yeah, he I don't know if that's simply Vidal committing to the bit of being a Persian noble, or if those are just actually his views, but he really leans into

or if those are just actually his views, but he really leans into dunking on the Greeks constantly. So I don't know if that's just a narrative choice for the story or if Vidal really does just hate Greece that much, but he goes all in. Now, I think it must be a narrative choice because he kind of fawns over Greco-Roman philosophy and Julian because he makes Julian the apostate. That's true. That's true.

And obviously, like, that's a big Platonism guy. So I think I think part of that is just committing to the bit of Cyrus making fun of the Greeks constantly. It is fun. Which fair. Like it is fun. It is one of the the fun things I enjoy throughout the novel. Whenever he has to mention the Greeks, he's like, he's fucking Greeks. Anyway, India was cool.

I like one of the constant refrains is that the Greeks are fundamentally incapable of doing things right because they have to lie to make a living. Which is also just a dig at capitalism and I like I'm here for it. He very much makes them. Yeah, he's like, yeah, in the east, we all just like, we either own farms or work on farms and that works fine. What are all these markets for? He's like, what if we all just like made food and live together

are these duplicitous Greeks need to make money all the time? Like, okay, not even a thinly veiled capitalism might not be good for us type deal. No, just people who have to work in markets. You're like, OK, not even a thinly veiled capitalism might not be good for us type deal. No, just people who have to work in markets are inherently more evil because they lie all the time. That's not even what the lie all caps means in theology. And the book acknowledges that the rest of the time, but he uses it to make fun of Greece. So yeah like most of the stuff about the Greek philosophers especially Anaxagoras

and his meteor are just trolling basically. But when you get into the what is it? Darmic religions, which is massively inaccurate, but also broadly works for philosophical reasons. He keeps having Cyrus be massively irritated with how really these four big Chinese and Indian religions just don't care. Yeah, about the concept of creation. They simply don't care. It's not important. I like how he progresses that story though, because he starts by introducing Hindu characters. And obviously, or, or you know Vedic characters

and he actually does draw that distinction that I usually don't bother with because yeah obviously the Vedas and Zoroastrianism are very similar except the Vedas aren't as choosy about their gods so it's just a difference of theological opinion, like what is right practice. But then that's used as kind of a gateway into Buddhism and Jainism. And Cyrus is just constantly frustrated with why don't you people want to know the answer to my question? Why don't you care as much about answering this question as I do? Yeah. And I'm not an expert on Indian or Chinese religion or philosophy. So I'm not super well qualified to interrogate how accurate his portrayal of like Buddhist creation myths are.

But he does seem to be fairly accurate in that to Buddhism time is cyclic and that doesn't really matter because your goal is to get out. And to someone who is committed to a religious belief in linear time ruled by a deity, that way of thinking is just maddening. I think specifically with with the Buddha and his right hand man, whose name I don't remember off hand of of of like the. The. I tried to find it, but he's just called Cyrus's companion most of the time. Yeah, but like of just, Cyrus's companion most of the time. Yeah, but like of just, you know, of like the of him asking the Buddha a question and the Buddha just being like,

my answer is that I don't have an answer to that. It doesn't matter. And Cyrus is like, but it does matter. It does matter where it started and where it's going. And the the Buddha is just like, why would I care? I've already ascended beyond your whole concept of time and existence. So where it started and where it ends does not matter to me. You know, as the book says, he is the one who has come and gone.

Where it starts and ends is no longer important. And that is entirely frustrating for Cyrus Patama to try and deal with. Which I mean, to be fair, if you're very, like you said, you're very committed to the idea of linear, God controlled time, that could be a very frustrating non answer. Yeah, one of the things that Cyrus complains about the Buddhists in particular is that they're willing to just accept all of the gods. You know, they don't, they don't care if it's a Zoroastrian God or a Hindu

God or a Chinese God or a Scythian God. They're just like, yeah, sure. That one exists. And of course, like, regardless of how monotheistic you want to portray it, Zoroastrianism definitely does have a short list of gods you are not supposed to worship. And I somewhat ironically, the Buddha ended up on there eventually. But also, I mean, yeah, Boudi, who is worshipped in idols in India. I do think you could correct me.

I could be wrong about this, but I do think, though, that Zoroastrianism again, talking about real life versus the way it's portrayed by Vidal does, at least in the modern day, have more of a yeah, there are can could be other gods. You probably shouldn't worship them, but there are sort of deal. Then, you know, sort of this this righteousness that Vidal portrays Cyrus Potama is having. Yeah, it's not as open as Buddhism because the concept of divas does still exist

but like there are God's names mentioned in various parts of the Avesta with no context whatsoever some of them are the titles of the Yashas like I don't remember which one it's actually about. But one of the Yash is the Rama Yash. And it has like one line about a Yuzada named Rama, as in like the Ramayana in India. Like, it's like the same concept. But like, a being who in Hindu tradition is an incarnation of Shiva, or of Vishnu. And in some

sex, the ruler of the universe is just like a passing name in one Zoroastrian verse. So there's like a passing name in one Zoroastrian verse. So there's definitely an understanding that there's other gods who aren't named explicitly. You shouldn't go trying to find them in other religions so that you can bring them back because that's kind of the whole, antithetical to the whole point.

But like, that's definitely an idea. And certainly like there's the idea of the, the Fravashes, the kind of minor personal gods that are somewhere between like a guardian angel and a Roman household god. That are, you know, there's one of those for every person. Yeah. You know, near know, there's one of those for every person. Yeah. You know, near infinite, basically.

So it's not that there's not more gods, it's just that the Buddhists, and this is something that I kind of wish Vidal had interrogated more instead of just bringing up in passing, because I think it's really interesting, that in Buddhism, because the goal is to achieve nirvana and die and leave the cycle of reincarnation, you can be reincarnated as a god, but if you're reincarnated as a god, you become immortal. So even if you achieve nirvana, you can't die and you can't get out of the cycle. So one, the idea that all gods are potentially reincarnated mortals, I feel like would have caused Cyrus's head to explode.

And two, like, provides a really interesting contrast to the question about creation, which he only really interrogates as the like the cyclical nature of time. Yeah, you're right. He does only bring that up briefly. The fact that like the the Buddha or one of the other Buddhists mentions that like, you know, the other Hindu gods or whatever. Sure, they're there, whatever, but the Buddha is already above them because they can't actually achieve nirvana because they can't die. So they can't be reincarnated or do any better. So they just sort of are and are stuck as the way they are. Or like you said, are possibly reincarnated mortals who now are stuck up there. But that calls into question how a god could die and a bunch of other things that Vidal just doesn't interrogate at all in lieu of using his space to give us more stories about bath houses in Babylon.

Yeah. And in case anybody's wondering why we keep bringing the weird side tracks in Babylon up, it's because they're weird and kind of annoying. One of them is largely about Xerxes getting laid by a temple priestess, a practice that archaeologists no longer think existed, but again, 81. But like, there's no reason that needed to be a large part of the book. That's a section you could have given to Ezra. Come on. We could have been talking to Ezra instead of the second time we're in Babylon. The other side of the kind of Indian journey is when he's talking to the Jains. I pulled this quote because I think it's just very funny and kind of enlightening. Cyrus explains how there was nothing

and then there was God and then God created things and God created himself through sheer force of being a whoremasta. And the quote goes, how very complicated said Ananda. And so typical of those supreme deities. All that malice, all that silliness. After all, if he is supreme, why does he allow evil to exist? And Cyrus has the only good comeback to that question that could possibly exist and is

the reason I got interested in reading about Zoroastrianism in the first place so that each man can make his choice. It's the reason, it's the re one of the large reasons this is the the faith that I converted to is because in to me it is the only one that not only allows for but encourages the idea of free will and free choice in your actions. It's not even encourages, it is, this is a fundamental principle to the universe. It is part of the definition of being good is having free will. To be good, you yourself must make the choice to be good. You don't have to. No one is going to make you. But if you wish to be good, it is a thing that

you must choose for yourself, which, if we're getting personal again, is one of the things that spoke to me, you know, as a person and as, you know, someone of the who has the politics what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do.

And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do.

And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. And that's what I do. or what the academic word for it is. The study of the origin of evil is this whole big section of theological studies. And Zoroastrianism is, in my experience,

one of the only ones that has a clear and concise simple answer to it. Because Ahura Mazda makes creation, and Ahura Mazda says, here are the definite, you know, here's the bullet point list of things that are good and one of those things is free will. And you don't have, like, you don't have to carry

the argument on beyond that. And I think that's one of the reasons that this isn't a bigger theme in the book. So I feel like if you took any of the other religious communities, Cyrus meets with all of the religious leaders, but they also all have like a sidekick who does most of the talking for them. Which I which side note coming as the literary podcaster, I want to say that's a very clear, specific choice he made to not put too many words

directly in the mouths of famous, attested historical figures. He doesn't want to put too many words directly in the mouth of the Buddha or of Confucius. It's much safer to have like interpretations and debates happening with a second in command or a sidekick or a follower, because then there's like a it's sort of like making the main character Cyrus as opposed to Zoroaster. And I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. of the things that he actually puts into his mouth are quotes from literature, which I would guess are is true for the others as well.

I just am not as well versed in. From from what I've from what I've read and studied of Buddhism, a lot of the stuff that the Buddha says is if not a direct quote is very much like a this is a thing specifically elucidated by the Buddha, you know. Right. So, yeah, definitely a very safe choice. I think if you took any of those other sidekick characters and made them the one traveling the world, the origin of evil, like the role of evil in creation would have to be a much bigger

part of the theme. Because Cyrus is able to shut it down really easily every time it comes up. Because he has, like you said, an answer and not a complicated one. Honestly, that would that's another one where I'm like, I like I really wish there was a Judaism section because like it would be interesting because there's so much rabbinical literature trying to explain this that you could just quote directly into characters mouths. Again, talking about a group of people who were fanatical about having those conversations and writing them down, like rabbinical text is just rabbis reading

and writing notes about each other's interpretations back and forth for forever. Yeah, honestly, if it's something that you think is neat and you wanna kill a couple of hours, pick up some rabbinical literature and read through how people have tried to desperately stretch interpretations of the Torah to cover modern life. It's so good.

Because like, either you're a believer and it's ingenious or you're not, and it's just amusing. Like the way you have to reread and reinterpret things over time and bear in mind that they're not Christian. In Judaism and most other religions, including Zoroastrianism, it's perfectly valid to reinterpret exactly what the scripture says, and not be a

constitutional originalist. It is very, it is common and somewhat accepted to over time look back and go, I don't think that's what that meant. Or I need to find a meaning for this that actually applies to what's happening to me now. Which is something that, you know, you see sort of Christian fundamentalists, you know, you know, what you call them, originalists or whatever, like, not big fans of. Hasidic Jews not being allowed to use light switches on a Saturday is kind of silly. Yes, is it a You know, it does it stem from a very real interpretation of how incandescent light bulbs work and how that interplays with? Scripture also yes, like it's a you know, it is making

scripture a living document instead of an ancient text, which is something that I think American Christianity in particular has always really struggled with. But you know, we talked about like there's reform movement in Zoroastrianism. It's the same thing. It's saying like, okay, we have all of this stuff. Well, it's about people living in, as nomads in Central Asia. How does that apply to what we're doing now? And it's very interesting to read through some of that and see how people interact with religion in a way that isn't about reading it literally. Especially as someone, you know, raised in white Christian America. And I think partly because I kind of doubt either of us are super well versed in it to be very insightful is the Chinese section of creation. Yeah, I gotta be honest. It's very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very be very insightful is the Chinese section of creation. Yeah, I got to be honest. But it's actually a really long part of the book. Yeah, it is. But like you said, I got to be honest, I'm not super familiar

with sort of the, you know, the Confucian tradition of, you know, besides, you know, general principles in the day to day, like getting into, again, the big question creation. It's just not something that we, you know, come across in America very often and that's something we're well versed on. Now, I think if we tried a little harder, we probably could have come up with some Daoists, some people that are much more familiar with the Taoist way of conceiving of that sort of thing. But still, it's something you got to go out of your way to find in the US. Yeah. The part of the reason the Chinese section is so long is

also, it almost feels like a novella embedded inside the book, like he wanted to do a warring states period Chinese novel, and just didn't feel like he had the time or enough material or something. So it merged with creation. Because a large part of it is Cyrus getting caught up in the Chin Conquest of Northern China, which is interesting and you know, kind of acts as a parallel and a bookend with the Greek wars because they're actually kind of very similar places at the time. But he just kind of like runs into Confucius and Lao Tse while getting shuttled around between political conflicts.

But you're right. He's it sort of has this feel of like the novel would almost be while getting shuttled around between political conflicts. But you're right. He's it sort of has this feel of like the novel would almost be a little more well, bearable in length and more complete if he had simply gone to India and then like come back and then gone off to Athens to go, you know, for the Greek wars to end and for him to become an ambassador to Athens and stuff. Like the whole in Cathay part

feels like you said, like it was sort of inserted into the novel because he didn't know what else to do with it. You know, he even could have talked to Chinese philosophers and stuff, but even as he gets introduced, then you could have met some of them in India. Like they were there doing trade. So you didn't have to do the whole warring states interlude. Well, that's kind of the funny thing though, is that they weren't really partly because it was the warring states period and China

was busy at the time. But like, it's the most a historical part of the book, because there's not contact between China and, you know, really anything west of modern Xinjiang until the Parthian period. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, because what's now Xinjiang province, and the reason, and you know, still part, kind of part of the reason that Xinjiang is culturally very different from China, despite Ji Jinping's hopes and dreams, is that it's central, you know, it's Central Asia, and it's just inside China's borders now. It has been for a very long time but has always been more geographically and culturally alike to the places on the western side of the mountains than the eastern side of the mountains. Like the Chinese beat the Zhongnu, a great big steppe empire, kind of like Mongols 1.0. And the

Zhongnu turn around and beat these people called the Yuexi, who run to Central Asia. And around the same time that I want to say it's the Han dynasty is invading the Tarim Basin, which is most of modern Xinjiang. And they're like, well, where the hell did they go? So the first contact between Iranian peoples and China was the Chinese emperor sending someone to be like, where did all those people we were fighting run away to?

We didn't think there was anywhere for them to go over there. And that's how they discovered that Bactria exists. But there had been hostile nomadic cognates in between for so long that there wasn't contact. At least not directly, like we have we have Persian rugs in Siberia from trade, but. No direct personal accounts of any sort and not even like references to place names.

I could be wrong, but I feel like that is one thing Vidal does try to get across. A little bit is the fact that like, even though theoretically someone in Persia and someone in China were could be aware that the other place may exist. It was so functionally far beyond their world that for all they know, there might not be anything over there. And so the idea of the Chinese of the Han Dynasty sending out some back where those people go, we didn't think there was anything out here

for them to run away to kind of make sense and for them to get there and be like, huh, there's there's people here. I if you think about it from like the ancient Chinese perspective that centered on the yellow river, if you go north, it's desert and mountains and step. If you go west, it's mountains and step forever. If you go south, it's the Himalayas. Or the jungle of Southeast Asia.

Those seem like the world is just,. I mean, and like, that's not that far you can sail around it and you know, it and it's just trees forever. Like, you know, you've got ocean and desert and mountains and they're the biggest mountains in the world. It really feels like the world's just trailing off. So when they finally get far enough west that they're in the part where they think the world's trailing off like away where people go We thought it was just endless grassland forever

They didn't know that there were big powerful kingdoms on the other side of the mountains because I like I think people really in a you know in a world where we have helicopters really don't get how impassable the mountains in southern Asia really are. Like they they thought the Greeks thought they were the end of the world while they were there at them and they were like, I don't think there's anything on the other side of those. I think that's it.

We can't get over there. And I don't think there's anything on the other side of those. I think that's it. We can't get over there. And I don't think we want to try. And, you know, the graveyard of empires line is a myth to make the Russians and the Americans feel better. But. Like, there's a reason that that is a hard place to be a military. Like, it is hard to get around. And, and really what all of this comes back to is, this would really have just been another place where you really should have had a Jewish section instead of

trying to like, do the entire warring states period in it as a subsection of your book. As you say, he could have had a Jewish section. He even could have had the Egyptian section. The Egyptian gods and theology had been around for a very long time at this point. And he doesn't he doesn't touch it at all. Like the Persians were very aware that the that the Egyptians had had their own gods in cosmology or whatever you want to call it for basically forever. And he just doesn't bother with it. Instead, he's like, we're going to go to the Yellow River, because it seems more exotic. All right, and you know, like there's actually like a reason for him to include Egypt to like there's rebellion as soon as Xerxes comes to power

like have Cyrus tag along he's their friends like Though I had to double check this because I kind of had a hunch that this was gonna be the case The ideal Egyptian character his tomb was discovered in 1980. Oh, so the person I immediately thought of and I was like, Oh, that would be perfect is Wedge O'Harez net who was this Egyptian priest and physician and Admiral who helped Ken Bices conquer Egypt and then worked for Darius for a long time. But they didn't know he existed until the book was already published.

And that would have been a perfect character for Cyrus to like sail around the first hours, but time to like hang out with and sail around. Right. Iranian or something. Honestly, I want to I would love to see a book about all of the foreign doctors who hung out at the came into court because there's some like there's a bunch of real interesting. I mean, Vidal does talk a lot about the one Greek doctor. Fuck, which is what's his name? Oh, yeah. Well, because democities is in there

because he does a. Stactomy. in there because he does Atasa's first documented case of breast cancer and surviving breast cancer all in one go. Well, I mean, if a Fidala is to be believed, it's because Atasa was a witch and a follower of Anahita. Yes, well, I think that's also if Atasa can be believed. And the book very much goes out of its way to have her present herself that way. I think that's also if a tossa can be believed

The book very much goes out of its way to have her present yourself that way and Anahita's the other religious thing that Grinds on me here because he makes it like oh, she's clinging to this old idol. Anahita was new Like they kind of made her up during the Achaemenid period. Like not that Anahita didn't exist before, but like she was an aspect of Aban or like a handmaiden to a different Yazada. But she was so similar to Ishtar

that she was really popular. But yeah, so I think that's the last thing to talk about here is a toss in the harem. I feel like we got to include that. Yeah, it is one of the last. I want to call sort of glaring historical inaccuracies of the novel, but it also comes with the caveat that we've been giving for a number of things. The fact that the book is so well written, it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so well written that it's so inaccuracies of the novel, but it also comes with the caveat that we've been giving for a number of things. The fact that the book sort of and the research reinventing how we view harems and the women of the Achaemenid period hadn't happened yet. Yeah.

And there's kind of two things to that. On one hand, Maria Brosius's debut absolutely essential reading really needs to be republished with translations of the German so that it can be accessible book that I have right here to read the title. Women in Ancient Persia 559 to 331 BC from Clarendon paperbacks, was published in 1996. It is the book on women in the Achaemenid period and did a lot to rewrite how we talk about and perceive them.

But it's not like this book came out of a vacuum either. Like, Broceus was just pulling together individual bits of research that had existed for decades. And that, so that only covers so much. Because Vidal goes hard on the harem. Like he just copies and pastes the Ottoman system directly into ancient Persia. Yeah, the whole women are completely locked away. No one can have contact with them except eunuchs. Like it's this back rooms of of conniving and backstabbing.

It's where power actually happens because the women in Unix secretly control everything. Sometimes men literally never see them ever. And just like you said, that's like an Ottoman thing, which is a whole other empire, a whole other time and a whole other religion. Yeah, it's, it is 2000 years later, it would be like someone trying to describe American sexual well may okay, that might be too close. Modern French sexual politics by comparing it to the Roman Empire. Like, they're not the same time and place and they're not similar. And, you know, you can excuse some of it because Broseus's book wasn't out yet. Um, she probably wasn't even in grad school yet, but A.T.

Olmsted dismissed a lot of the popular harem mythology and sexual orientalism in 1948. And it's one of the most popular books about ancient Persia to this day. I guarantee he read it when he was writing, when he was researching for this novel. And just chose not to use it. In favor of the Greek. And on it, like he's even worse than the Greeks, actually. for this novel and just chose not to use it in favor of the Greek. And on it like he's even worse than the Greeks, actually, like the Greeks, at least occasionally give credit to the women for like going out in the world

and doing stuff. But if women are locked away. With the small children and only seen to have sex, like that's the only time it's ever implied, like formal gatherings and sexual encounters. And, you know, listeners of my podcast know that's not how it worked. Noble women had their own estates and traveled

and were sometimes the highest ranking royal official in Persepolis for major religious festivals and presided over them in the king's place. Like it's just not what this, like it's the most inaccurate thing in the book. Like I would say it's more inaccurate than completely rewriting the timeline of Zoroastrian history.

And I might be wrong about this, but I didn't, I don't remember Unix being nearly as big a deal in the Achaemenid court as Vidal makes them out to be. Or am I just misremembering that? So if your primary exposure to the Achaemenid period is me, you're not misremembering? That's partly because I don't emphasize them nearly as much as the source material does, because I'm kind of doubtful of how the Greeks use eunuchs. And I don't always mention when people are eunuchs in my narrative because it's not relevant. Like why the hell do I care whether or not the guy running a sub region of Armenia has balls.

The Greeks included because eunuchs are schemie schemie people who can't be trusted. To the Greeks. Yeah, to the Greeks. Yeah, to the Greeks. I like because fundamentally to the Persians, most of the eunuchs who show up are like royal advisors. Like, obviously, they're very trusted people. But the Greeks are like, I can't predict that he's gonna be easily manipulated by wanting to get laid. So must not be trustworthy, not overcome by sexual desire at the slightest moment. How can I trust this person? Which honestly, like if when you start reading about ancient Greek cultures, like, yeah, that checks out like that is an overriding factor of, of both Athens and Sparta all the time.

Have I put out the episode where, uh, what's his name is obsessed with his lovers. He misses the, he misses the, he misses his boys. Beautiful kisses. I, I, you might've put that out. I remember editing that one recently. Yeah. Like I, I know I've sent it to you, but I don't remember if I have it back or not. I, regardless, like, yeah, like the Greeks are just really horny all the time. And it's and therefore they don't trust the people who aren't. So yeah, I don't bring it up all the time. I'm going to do an episode where I talk about the role of Unix and the

role of people considered servants in general near the end, because I'm mostly because I need to like patch out time to give our deserts the fourth is fair share. But I mean, again, because like he actually only lives for like a day. But again, the idea of this like prevalence of scheming of like scheming eunuchs to me has the same stink of making of using the harem the way the of making the harem ottoman these like scheming court eunuchs that secretly run everything seems much more uh eastern roman empire and byzantine to me than it does seem persian oh the the whole thing is extremely Byzantine. Like that's the Ottomans just copied the Byzantine system.

I don't remember the Ottomans kind of did a Persian thing. The women's quarters took over and were like, what are the rules here? I'm just I'm just going to what are the rules here? We're just going to do those now. Yeah, the Anatolian Turks early on, like before the Ottoman Empire was a world power, kind of took like a Persian aesthetic and plastered it over a Roman system. And that's the genesis of modern Turkey. And only good things

have come since then. You know, no, no offense on that count to the to my Turkish listeners. If you exist, I have other things I'll offend you with some other time. But I would also wonder with the eunuchs, you know, there's their role in Greek literature, which is definitely a big influence. I'd also kind of wonder if it's the dolls, weird, gender and sexuality opinions could be being through, because there's always a non standard sexuality associated with unix, because they're kind of has to be. sexuality associated with eunuchs because they're kind of has to be

Sometimes it's that they occupy a kind of third gender role sometimes it's that Just that they can't reproduce and therefore Can't have reproductive motives there's always a separate sexual identity there and I kind of wonder if the dolls homophobia kind of influences how he wanted to use unix in the story. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. It's just, you know, a true instance of how he feels about that sort of thing just leaking through

and him try, you know, I think also finding precedent for it in like more of the stories of the of the Byzantines. And then again, laying that over onto an older empire that was actually unrelated. Yeah. And I I do want to stress that like I have definitely undersold the role of Unix in some of the stories. Though sometimes that's because like when Xerxes is assassinated, one version of the story has the assassin as a Unic and the other two versions he has sons.

So I'm going to guess he was fully functional. Um, so I just opt to go with the one, the two sources that agree instead of the one that doesn't, even though that one's more lascivious and therefore more popular also is probably more popular with the Greek historians at the time. But yeah, absolutely. Because look at these dirty, nasty Easterners. They, they cut off people's balls. Aren't they bad? The Greeks.

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go with a Vidal. I'm going to go with Vidal on this sort of thing and say that we should be shaming the ancient Greeks more often than we do. Hey, I mean, uh, according to Herodotus, trans women exist because the Scythians plundered the wrong temple of Ash-Starte in southern Palestine. And they were cursed. It does feel like a curse from time to time.

Which is different from, I want to say, Ovid, who says it's because they drank horse urine. Which actually might be true. I mean, look, you got to get you. So you got to get you got to get your estrogen from somewhere. Yeah, because I like some temporary modern like estrogen supplement treatments are still derived from pregnant. Yeah, yeah. So.

Good job, Ovid, on being sort of right about something once. So there might actually be something to that one. But now I just I can't help but think that like some of the unix in the story are just Vidal's own sexual politics bleeding into it. Yeah. And I just I get like rampant misogyny, I guess, from somebody along the line, like, I don't know if it's the doll, but like, the hair, the scheming harem women who are shuttered away from society, like, I don't know where his personal takes and where, you know, 1000 years of literature run into one another

there. But like I said, that's just not what the system became and it's had looked like. All those women had their own had their own fiefdoms. Like they had land that they controlled, that like they were in charge of. Xerxes granddaughter controlled like large swaths of Mesopotamia, like in her own name, like hundreds of miles of of river. Land. I think we need to point out that again, in most systems, being rich and powerful is more important than specifically the gender roles of your given society.

No, I was going to say, so like I one, I think it was obviously not nearly so restrictive as Vidal portrays it. And two, whether you like it or not, these women were royals. They were the daughters and wives of the king of kings. They were going to be doing stuff. Yeah, there is an element of like, rich people tried very hard not to be seen by the masses. But that it's not the same thing as being forced away. Like, the men were doing it too.

Because if nobody ever saw you, that meant you weren't a day laborer. And the king and the generals had to compromise a bit And the king and the, the generals had to compromise a bit, because they needed to inspire loyalty from the people around them. So they had to go out and be seen in public. But like, if you could avoid it, you were you wanted to be as isolated as possible because that meant you were rich as hell. I mean, that's also an expression of, of power that is a change you can see across the history of the Roman Empire during the Empire period, where the Emperor goes from being like a like the first among citizens to becoming more and more sequestered from the public to the point where you can't even see them. public to the point where you can't even see them, even if you're a dignitary, you might be able to see them behind a curtain or something, because removing yourself from the public sort of increases the air of speciality about you. So like late Roman emperors were significantly more removed from the public. Yeah, exactly. Which actually triggered a whole weird transition in the Greek language where they didn't have a direct equivalent for the new Latin title. So they started calling the emperor the Vasileus, which was the word for king. But obviously Roman emperors can't be kings

because otherwise anybody can just go up and stab them. So they started using, they took the word Rex from Latin and put it into Greek because the emperor wasn't allowed to be a Rex. Totally different. It was that word that he's not allowed to be. Love history. But yeah, just bizarre.

The one thing I want to tag on at the end of the harem section is just the extremely funny to me bit where they go to Meletus and Mardonius is freaking infatuated with Artemisia. Like Artemisia, the ship captain, cousin of Herodotus, who was the only intelligent person at the Battle of Salome. And Mardonius has this giant crush on her, because she's this powerful, strong, independent woman. But Mardonius's reaction is like,

I want her so bad, so that I can lock her up in my house and never let her leave. And I'm like, is this the writing of a quote unquote bisexual person who never had a serious relationship with a woman. Because I want this story point makes sense. He's attracted to her. So he wants to destroy everything about her that's attractive. And it's not presented as a conflict. Like it's just presented as the obvious natural way of things in the Persian empire. She's strong and independent. I can't wait to take all of those things away from her.

Yeah, he he falls for her because she's this Amazon and he's like, and I want to make her a housewife. It's like Mardonius. Do you hear yourself? Because Cyrus clearly doesn't because he doesn't comment on it. No, do the normal thing. You know, you're an after an Amazonian woman who's going to pick you up and throw you over her shoulder. And she's going to take you home. OK. It is that plot line is a kind of funny inversion of the Atassa wanted Darius to invade Greece so she could get Greek servants To Mardonius wanted to become satrap of Greece so that he could be closer to Artemisia all the time

Which is a fun twist on the same basic premise of the Persians invading Greece for personal reasons the same basic premise of the Persians invading Greece for personal reasons. But like the book, to be clear, also covers the politics of it just fine, of like, there were lots of political maneuvering going on and Greece was this big distraction and very irritating to Darius and Xerxes for a long time. Though it does also act as the source for my least favorite book of the years claim that the Ionian revolt prevented the Persian conquest of India, because this is the only place in the world where that is presented as a fact. Clearly, call back to my review of Lloyd Llewellyn Jones's book

Clearly for the Greeks all of northern India would have all of northern India would have been Persian To be fair, I think Cyrus Potama there wasn't a giant empire to be fair though I think Cyrus Potama in the creation would make the exact same argument. Oh, yeah Because the Greeks are liars. Make money. Whereas the Indians are fellow Aryans who want to have more cows. And really, which one of these is the more noble calling? Remember, it's more cows. And yes, and cows.

Darius dreams of cows. Yeah, right. They, they have more cows and the the sequence where like they chase a horse out of the city is a real thing from the Vedas. But yes, Darius dreams of cows. And so does Bimbisara, all of all of the great Iranian and Indian kings are dreaming of having more cows. I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a All the time. Yeah, but I don't know.

Is there anything else in this book you wanted to talk about? We know most of the box. I just. I do want to make clear that I think the premise is interesting. A lot of the writing is good. A lot of the stories are sort of vignettes in this are are like fun and interesting to read. I think they just end up separated by a lot of filler that doesn't need to be there. vignettes in this are like fun and interesting to read. I think they just end up separated by a lot of filler

that doesn't need to be there. And I do think the sort of theological debates genuinely would have been better if Vidal had let Zoroastrian belief actually stand up for itself, as opposed to making Cyrus Petama a nominally Zoroastrian but functionally agnostic questioner. You know what I mean?

If it's if he had actually let the Zoroastrian faith beliefs actually be debated with these other ones, I think you could have had a slightly more robust conversation. But I mean, generally, it was still fun most of the time. Thanks, Crusader Kings three for teaching me where where where my God is. Yeah, I mean, like that is why I suggested we do this is because it's a cool book. It's you know, it is broadly speaking, historically accurate, or at least historically accurate, as you could understand it when Vidal sat down to write it in 1979. Like, if you picked up a history book from the same period,

completely nonfiction, it would have a lot of the same flaws. So, you know, I struggled to take points off in any real way for some of that. But I, yeah, I think we kind of come to this conclusion that a different interpretation of Zoroastrianism would have made the core theme that he was going for a lot stronger because there would be more to talk about. Because as we said, Zervonism, sort of the belief in, in, you know, an independent Armon or even the stuff that I think you put in the notes as being sort of the proto inklings of what would become sort of Mazdaqism, all present a much more robust ideas than, you know, Cyrus Sputoma

does. But. I don't know if you're going to be able to track down some of this information, but I don't know. I wasn't around in. Yeah. And I'm glad I'm not because I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I wasn't around in 1980. Really wanted to. And I'm glad I'm not, because I would not be able to do a podcast. Yeah, no kidding. Glad I wasn't around then either. But no, nothing. I got nothing else.

Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. I did. I did, honestly, earnestly, even with my complaints, enjoy reading a book where I got nothing else. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. I did. I did honestly, earnestly, even with my complaints, enjoy reading a book where I got to hear people actually reference, you know, the wise lord a lot. That's kind of nice. You don't often get that in the fiction I read ever, whether it's perfectly accurate or accurately represented or not. So, you know. Yeah.

I'm you know, it was cool to be able to have you on for this because that is a perspective that you don't get from a lot of people and one of the reasons I might want to have you back to do a fake behind the bastards on a topic that is way too small for them to ever bother with because Like they still haven't covered George Bush. Is the bastard gonna be the specific high priests that killed Mazdaq?

Is that gonna be our bastard? I mean, eventually I will get to King Kuzra the first on a Shirvan, but no, no, no, I want to talk about this dickhead priest in the 1700s. There's a lot going on in there. Oh, yeah. We got a little who. Yeah. But- I'll be happy to come back to that, don't you worry. But thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. Yeah. In the spirit of said podcast that I want to rip off, you want to give your pluggables.

Oh, boy. Oh, pluggables. As we said, I'm one of the two hosts of the podcast, Sword, Sorcery and Socialism. We sort of do the politics and themes inside of genre fiction. So typically sci fi and fantasy going back and forth. We're actually right now in the middle of cyberpunk month. We had a about to put out an episode on Neuromancer by William Gibson. We're going to follow that up with Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shiro.

And then we'll finish the month with Snow Crash. So we are trying to go through themes and then talk about fiction or sci-fi books that sort of follow those themes. You can follow the podcast if you would like on Twitter at swords the letter N sock pod or if you really want to follow me on Twitter you can at her bow underscore anarchist but you should follow my pod it's fun if you like fiction books Trevor's been on multiple times yeah what two or three now I think I think three I think I think three, I think three, if you count the the Q&A. The anniversary episode. Yeah. Well, I guess the Witcher was actually three episodes on the same. Oh, Jesus Christ.

Which if you all love the Witcher, you should listen to our three part series on the Witcher, which opens with Trevor talking about whether unicorns, why unicorns make terrible slaves because they don't have thumbs. It's true. Yeah. The Witcher, which opens with Trevor talking about whether unicorns, why unicorns make terrible slaves because they don't have thumbs. It's true. The innate ability to time travel probably doesn't hurt either, but people should have considered this. But no, thank you for

having me on. It's been a lot of fun. And also, I edit this podcast. So you know, if you like the editing is good. You should let me know. Because I like to know that I'm doing okay. Yeah, as of what like Episode 80 or something like that. Yes, Asha is my editor. And depending on how time works and strange corporate bullshit, you will hear this either before or after I do an announcement episode because I am in the process of changing a whole bunch of stuff behind the scenes. But in the meantime, find me at history of Persia on Twitter, and all of the new Twitter post Musk websites, it's the history of Persia. I just don't use them yet. And

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Patreon podcast for Cyberpunk Month was on Akira. And it's very good. Uh, I thought it was very funny, but I am in on more of the jokes, so I may not be a representative sample. All right, that's enough This recording is too damn long Goodbye everybody