Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order

11. The Latinate Tradition as a Point of Reference

11 The Latinate Tradition as a Point of Reference joseph farrell INTRoDuCTIoN The history of Persian as an imperial language, as a vehicle of cultural continuities, and as a focus of communal identity, whether of an ethnic, religious, aesthetic, or intellectual nature, is one of the great sagas of civilization . As such, it demands comparison with similar stories if we are to understand the processes at work, both in their general similarities and in their specific differences. In this essay I will consider the cultural empire of Latin in comparison to that of Persian in an effort to determine to what extent these two remarkable traditions are able to illuminate one another and to state as clearly as possible those aspects that resist explanation. geNeRAL CoMPARISoN Let me begin by stating the obvious points of similarity and difference between these objects of inquiry. Both the Romans and the Achaemenians of Persia controlled important empires during antiquity. Both of these empires were later “revived” as the Carolingian and Sasanian Empires. The former quickly broke apart through dynastic squabbling; the latter lasted longer, but was then absorbed by the more powerful imperial force of Islam. In both cases, however, even in the absence of a single political center, Latin and Persian continued to exert enormous influence over the cultural life of Europe and the Islamic Caliphate during the late medieval and early The Latinate Tradition as a Point of Reference 361 modern periods. To this extent, the histories of Latin and Persian as imperial languages have been remarkably parallel. There are, of course, limits to this parallelism as well as some very pointed differences. In particular, the specific trajectories followed by the two languages differ considerably; for, if we divide the histories of Latin and Persian each into two broadly-defined periods, “antiquity” and “afterwards ,” we find that these histories move almost in opposite directions. History of Latinity Early Period (Antiquity), ca. 750 BC–AD 426 Throughout antiquity, Latin is the language of a very powerful and longlived political empire. The Roman state experienced an extended and virtually uninterrupted period of expansion and consolidation of power that began perhaps with the foundation of the city in the mid-8th century BC, or at any rate with the foundation of the Roman Republic in about 500 BC. By the late 3rd or certainly the mid-2nd century BC, this republic had developed into a de facto empire, although official reorganization of the state on the basis of this reality did not occur until more than another century had passed. The territory encompassed by this empire remained relatively stable until the end of the Severan dynasty in AD 235. Its fortunes waxed and mainly waned for another couple of centuries until the last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was executed in 476, after which time the Western empire ceased to exist. The eastern empire of course survived as the Byzantine state, but for many reasons it makes sense to consider this a distinct entity. Latin was the native language of the Romans, and it became the administrative language of the Roman Empire. In the course of Rome’s expansion to imperial proportions, the language, too, took on an imperial character. That is to say, it came to be more widely used not only in administration but for many purposes, from the most humble, quotidian exchanges to the most elevated forms of literary expression. In Italy and in most of the western provinces as well as in Dacia (Romania) in the east, it permanently replaced all the indigenous languages. It did not take hold to the same extent in Britain or in some areas of north-central Europe, but it did so in north Africa, where it held sway until the Arab conquest. Only in the eastern provinces did Greek and other languages, such as Aramaic, continue to be used 362 Joseph Farrell for non-administrative purposes.1 At its height, the Roman Empire covered an area of almost two million square miles and claimed, on a conservative estimate, about fifty-six million subjects.2 The east, however, was more populous than the west, so Latin was probably the primary language of no more than twenty-two million.3 Later Period (Medieval and Modern), AD 426–present By the end of antiquity, Rome’s empire had given way to incursions by alien forces that held localized political power in different regions across a disunified...