How Art Made the World

by Nigel Spivey

  His name was Darius, or more authentically Darayavaush, which means ‘holding firm the good’. Coming to power in 522 BC, Darius immediately encountered problems: usurpers to his throne, rebellions in the provinces, satraps seeking independence. It was an unruly situation, demanding harsh measures. But for Darius it was not enough simply to crush his opponents; all future disobedience must be deterred. It was necessary to broadcast the message that Darius was indeed holding firm the good, and that his subjects would be wise to have faith in his rule. But he ruled over millions of people across over 20 different nations.The Persian empire contained a multiplicity of ethnic groups and languages, with the potential for the sort of mutual incomprehension illustrated by the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). In a world without mass communication, how was Darius to impose his will over so many subjects?

  Sensitive to the multilingual situation, Darius had his proclamations routinely inscribed in old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian. But ultimately, he could not depend upon texts – still less upon the ability of people to read them. So his answer was art: the international language of images. At strategic sites around his empire, Darius set up conspicuous statements of his authority. So on a cliff-face by Bisitun (or Behistun), dominating a route crossing from the Persian heartlands westwards, a trilingual declaration about how Darius had suppressed the early threats to his regime was supplemented by a huge relief showing him in punitive triumph over his foes (Fig. 75). It was like a permanent political billboard. Its announcement was clear: cooperate with the rule of Darius or else face swift and severe retribution.

  Darius, however, did not intend to style himself as a tyrant who relied upon terror and depredation. Once he had secured his own position as Great King, he turned his attention to structuring a political system that would appear to be of obvious benefit to all its various members and supporters.We do not possess any biography of Darius, but his policy is made transparent on a number of surviving inscriptions. Echoing the judicious sentiments of Hammurabi’s Law Code, Darius repeatedly stresses an ideal of kingship that is not self-seeking; rather, a duty assigned to him by divine will. Like all the Achaemenid kings, he styled himself as simply the vicar or steward of cosmic order.The supreme deity was Ahuramazda, as revealed by the prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathustra). At Susa, where Darius sponsored a palace and a large apadana or reception hall, we find the following declaration:

  ‘Much that was badly done, I made beautiful. Countries were in disturbance. One man was striking another. So I acted by favour of Ahuramazda, that no one strikes another, and each is in his own place. My law, of which they are afraid, is that the stronger does not strike the weak one, nor destroy him.’

  Darius did not neglect the palace complex created for Cyrus at Pasargadae. But the ambition of installing himself as if at the hub rather than the apex of a great empire demanded new symbolic structures. Susa was one of these, but more grandiose, and better preserved, is the site known as Persepolis (Fig. 76).

  Although it was much elaborated by his successors (notably Xerxes and Artaxerxes, his son and grandson respectively), Persepolis reveals to us the political vision of Darius. Laid out on an eminent terrace commanding a broad, fertile expanse, it was neither a city nor a royal residence: few signs of permanent occupation have been discovered here. Instead, Persepolis functioned as a ceremonial showpiece, where subjects of the Persian empire were occasionally united, and made to feel that they were not so much subjects as beneficiaries. Annually, at the time of the Persian New Year – which is still a major celebration in modern Iran – Darius invited ambassadors from all the nations of the empire to join him for an audience.The staircases leading to the Great Hall, where such imperial receptions were held, bear reliefs conveying the harmonious and dignified spirit in which Darius issued this invitation.The ambassadors, representing 23 different ethnicities, are shown clad in their national costumes – Scythians with their pointed caps, Indians wearing the dhoti, and so on – and they appear to be forming a happy procession, some ushered along by Persian guards or courtiers, others turning around to talk among themselves. Nowhere is there any sign of coercion, nor the slightest indication that visitors were required to approach with grovelling self-abasement before the person of the Great King.True, on the Persepolis reliefs generally there is a marked presence of Persian archers and royal guards, and all of the foreign representatives are carrying some form of tribute to their host: a dromedary from the Arabians, a kudu from the Libyans, vases, cups and bracelets from the Lydians on the Ionian coast, and diverse gifts from other peoples according to their regional identities. But what is evoked here is an act of respectful homage, not terrible taxation.The programme of images at Persepolis was designed to reassure rather than intimidate its viewers (Fig. 77).

  75 (top) The lofty relief of a triumphant Darius at Bisitun, c.500 BC.

  76 (above) Persepolis today – in fertile territory near Shiraz (Iran).

  Darius did not conceal the fact that his palaces were put together almost entirely by foreign expertise. On the contrary, he was evidently proud of his power to command artisans, building materials and ornaments from faraway places within his cosmopolitan empire. A tablet known as Susa’s ‘Foundation Charter’ itemizes that cedarwood was brought from Lebanon, teak from India, gold from Bactria, silver and ebony from Egypt, ivory from Ethiopia, and so on; and that the stonecutters were Ionian (Greeks, most likely, from Persian-conquered cities and islands along the Asia Minor coastline), the goldsmiths Egyptian, and the brick-bakers Babylonian.

  Of course, all these specialist craftsmen worked to Persian requirements, and at Persepolis the result can seem ordered to a fault. Hence the notorious reaction of one young Englishman, George Curzon, in the late nineteenth century:

  ‘No one can wander over the Persepolis platform, from storied stairway to stairway to stairway, from sculptured doorway to graven pier, no one can contemplate the 1200 human figures that still move in solemn reduplication upon the stone, without being struck by a sense of monotony and fatigue. It is all the same, and the same again, and yet again.’

  Curzon, like most Westerners, was educated in a Classical tradition that demonized the Persians as ruthless tyrants, the would-be invaders of Europe, whose huge armies had been so heroically opposed by the Greeks at battles such as Marathon and Thermopylae. Compared to the art of fifth-century BC Greece – in Athens the Parthenon was erected as a thank-offering to mark the end of hostilities with Persia – the decoration of Persepolis seems subservient to restrictions of perspective, stylized detail and gestural range. Precisely ten formulaic ways of defining kingship have been counted: these include the king enthroned, the king carried aloft by his subjects, the king surveying vanquished enemies, the king at an altar, the king receiving tribute, and the king shaded by servants holding a parasol. Many hundreds of archers are sculpted on the exterior walls of the apadana at Persepolis: their poses, hairstyles and attributes are almost identical throughout.There is no narrative of the king’s deeds, no mythography of his birth or of his divine rapport with Ahuramazda. However, to complain of monotony here is to miss the cumulative visual impact intended by Persepolis. As Lord Curzon himself conceded, ‘everything is directed, with unashamed repetition, to … the delineation of majesty in its most imperial guise, the pomp and panoply of him who was well styled the Great King.’

  And if visitors to Persepolis found the whole place overwhelming, then Darius and his successors considerately provided a posthumous affirmation of Achaemenid majesty emblazoned large upon their tombs. Several of these were cut into sheer cliffs at the nearby site known as Naqsh-i-Rustam.They are all very similar in scheme, and the text inscribed by the tomb of Darius declares somewhat predictable royal characteristics:

  ‘By the favour of Ahuramazda I am that sort of man who is the friend of right … It is not my desire that the weak man should have wrong done to him by the strong … I am not the friend of the deceitful man. I am not quick-tempered: those thing
s which happen in my anger I firmly hold in control by my reason … ’

  The associated images, carved in deep relief for all below to see, show the king’s throne being supported – again happily – by the many nations of the empire.The king himself is represented with a bow in his hand, symbolizing not just his usefulness on the battlefield, but his qualities of balance and control – qualities central to the ideal of kingship as framed by Darius.

  77 A stairway frieze at Persepolis showing a procession of Median visitors carrying lotus flowers, c.500–450 BC.

  And as if to deploy this symbol as a political logo, Darius had the image of himself as an archer stamped on small pieces of metal.This was a stroke of genius. For the first time ever, a leader was represented upon a coin. Small, portable and distinctive, this medium for self-promotion reached parts of his empire as no other method could.

  Darius died in 486 BC.A few years later his son, Xerxes, accomplished what Darius had failed to do: a raid on the Greeks to punish them for burning down the cedar forests around the Persian province of Sardis on the Anatolian coast. Xerxes occupied the Acropolis of Athens, and by way of reprisal set fire to the precious olive groves of Attica. This was a humiliation the Greeks vowed to avenge. But the Greeks, divided into many small city-states – some democratic, others not – would have to wait over a century until a king appeared among them who was strong enough to exact vengeance.This saviour of the Greeks would not only have to match the Persians in military strength, but also learn from Darius invaluable lessons about the overwhelming power of images.

  ALEXANDER THE GREAT, ‘A GOD AMONG MEN’

  Persepolis was put to flames in 330 BC.Whether that was a deliberate action, or mischief resulting from some drunken revel, we do not know. In either case, responsibility is laid at the feet of the Macedonian monarch traditionally saluted as Alexander the Great, who, in just 12 or 13 years of command, led his armies across the entire reach of the Persian empire and beyond.

  Alexander’s genius as a military strategist was honoured in antiquity, and has hardly been questioned since. And even sources hostile to him do not deny that he was an extraordinarily inspirational figure, whose own reckless presence as a commander greatly contributed to the success of his campaigns. For centuries, the story of Alexander’s achievement was the romance of a dashing, heroic soldier who led from the front.This is the story that still suits Hollywood. Of late, however, historians and archaeologists have begun to revise the script.The daring young general is still there, but in two important respects the Alexander myth is now subject to modification. First, it has become clear that the aim of seizing the Asian empire created by the Achaemenids was not originally Alexander’s, but came from his father, so from an early age Alexander was ‘programmed’ to implement an existing foreign policy. Second, while not discounting the value of Alexander’s own force as a personality, we have become more aware of the extent to which his success depended upon the fabrication and diffusion of his image. The phenomenon of Alexander ‘the Great’ then translates into a study not of the art of power, but rather, the power of art.

  So how did he do it? The search for an answer to that question begins in his birthplace, Macedonia, where recent excavations have radically altered our view of the region’s ancient history.

  Now part of modern Greece, Macedonia in Alexander’s time was a small, independent and aggressively expanding kingdom. Alexander’s father, Philip II, belonged to a dynasty claiming descent from the deified hero Herakles. It was Philip who waged war upon the Greek city-states to the south of Macedonia, including Athens and Sparta; and Philip, too, who was proud to be listed as a victor in the all-Greek Olympic Games, and who entrusted his son’s education to Aristotle, the most formidable Greek philosopher of the age.

  The site identified as Aristotle’s Macedonian academy, established c. 350 BC, is a little-visited, immediately pleasing place – the so-called Nymphaion at Isvoria, near the wine-producing centre of Naoussa. Cascades gush down through a terraced hillside, with walkways and colonnades set amid groves of shady oaks and walnut trees.The tranquillity seems timeless; it is hard to imagine that the young prince Alexander was here so fiercely drilled by his teacher, as evoked in the lines of W.B.Yeats: ‘Aristotle played a taws/Upon the bottom of a king of kings’. In fact, we can only speculate what Alexander learnt from the eminent philosopher, other than going through the text of Homer’s Iliad with him. But it seems likely that Aristotle, with one eye on precepts laid down by his own mentor, Plato, sought to impress upon Alexander the importance of demonstrating his personal superiority over the rest of mankind. Plato, in his dialogue known as The Republic, had advocated the ‘philosopher king’ as a political ideal. Aristotle, to judge from his tract entitled The Politics, was more realistic. He suspected that democracy would one day prevail as the least offensive system of government, but if monarchy were to succeed, it was imperative that the monarch appear to be ‘a god among men’.The successful king must be transparently outstanding: he must leave his subjects in no doubt as to his own excellence.

  So Alexander was primed from his youth to become ‘Alexander the Great’. His ancient biographers tell us how he was trained to lead armies, and how he was instilled with dauntless courage (even if it had to be fuelled by hard drinking).We learn that of all Homer’s heroes, Alexander’s favourite was Achilles, the most violent and moody; and that Alexander thought of himself as a second Herakles, whose mythological curriculum vitae bulged with proofs of monster-slaying bravado. But even a leader with Alexander’s reputed stamina could not be everywhere at once, appearing as ‘god among men’ to all his subjects at home while fighting full time abroad. How could he create a divine presence while he himself was absent?

  A marble head at Pella plausibly gives us Alexander as crown prince (Fig. 78). Bright-eyed, with tousled hair, he has the eager features of adolescence, yet there is no way of telling if this ‘portrait’ was done in Alexander’s lifetime, or produced – like most others – after his death.This is a recurrent problem that confronts anyone following the trail of Alexander’s images: he was such a posthumous cult figure in the ancient world that portrayals of him multiplied. However, in 1977, excavations in Macedonia finally proved that a distinctive image or ‘look’ had indeed been formulated for Alexander before he assumed his full commanding role.

  The find occurred at Vergina, near the modern town of Veroia, to the northwest of Thessaloniki.Thanks largely to the passionate patience of one archaeologist, Manolis Andronikos, structural remains at Vergina have been identified as Aigai, the ceremonial capital of ancient Macedon. It was also the site of the royal cemetery. Andronikos and his team knew they were unlikely to find the grave of Alexander here – ancient sources suggested a hero’s burial in Egypt, though its location remains elusive – but a number of tumuli (burial mounds) at Vergina did prove to contain within them elaborate chamber-tombs.These were built like chapels, with pillars and pediments and painted walls. Earth had been heaped over them in order to prevent desecration and robbery, but to the disappointment of the modern excavators, most had been looted long ago. Then came the discovery for which Andronikos had hoped – the undisturbed resting place of a great Macedonian king.

  Andronikos himself was first to prise open the keystone of the tomb’s vaulted roof. What met his eyes was an array of objects within: disintegrating timbers, patinated bronze, blackened silver – and glittering gold. Inside one golden casket, bearing on its lid the star burst emblem of Macedonian royalty, a set of charred human bones was neatly stacked. Andronikos fingered them with awe, already wondering if these might be the mortal relics of Alexander’s father, Philip.

  Amid the first excitement of the find, it was forgivable to overlook some small fragments of carved ivory scattered on the floor.They belonged to what had once been a kline or ornate couch, normally reserved for banquets or formal drinking parties. Decorated in an exquisitely miniaturist style of relief, a number of the carved heads and bodies were per
ceived to be, on closer inspection, part of a lively hunting scene along one side of the couch. Small as they were, and despite a marked family likeness among them, these heads were nonetheless very individualized – and at least one of the young hunters on horseback had to be Alexander. An arched brow, an upward, ‘melting’ gaze, the neck distinctly tilted (Fig. 79): these were unmistakable characteristics of the man as described by ancient writers and captured by ancient artists.

  78 Head of Alexander from Yannitsa, near the Macedonian city of Pella, c.300–270 BC.

  79 (top) Ivory fragments from Vergina, thought to be of the young Alexander, c.336 BC.

  80 (above) A coin with the head of Alexander, c.300 BC.

  Visitors to Vergina today will see these piecemeal ivory carvings within a museum space that dazzles with dense wreaths of finely worked gold, and perhaps underestimate the historical importance of the tiny Alexander portrait.What is most significant about the piece is its date of production. Philip was assassinated at Vergina in 336 BC, so the magnificent array of objects and regalia deposited in his tomb is of that year or earlier. Philip – bearded, hook-nosed and clearly bearing the scar of a siege incident, when an arrow had pierced his right eye – also figured in the same hunting scene on the couch. Thus described, it seems a realistic likeness.The face of young Alexander may be equally true to life. And yet it constitutes a certain look – striking an attitude, holding a pose. This was the image that would serve Alexander throughout his brief life, and forever after.