Boran Taki, votary of Isis, tells the narrator:
"'You know the world well, Ro Esbernsson...'" (p. 81)
Later, Boran's father is horrified when the Irishman that has joined their company is able to joke and laugh after being directly involved in violence and bloodshed. Ro tells him:
"'It is nothing uncommon, you know...
"'Few lives are like yours. Today you have glimpsed the world as it is.'" (p. 96)
The father is a scholar. But scholarship should involve knowing the world as it is! I grew up in an ivory tower, completely cut off from "the world as it is." There is way too big a gap between academic life and the rest of life. I now realize that we should at least understand the way the world works even if we want no part of some of it.
The legion of world views in this alternative timeline is evident in some of the dialogue:
"'The gods be with you,' he sighed. 'Or, in my philosophy, may you gain by the principles of righteousness.'
"'Mithras be with us both,' I said, and left." (p. 93)
11 comments:
It's partly economics.
The degree to which the scholar has led a sheltered life is simply not possible in a preindustrial economy such as the world has in the story.
Exposure to violence and to various unpleasant forms of death is inevitable in that setting.
I spent a fair chunk of time in my early adolescence in a setting in which you saw starving people, leprous beggars and occasionally victims of lethal violence.
It definitely had an effect on the development of my personality, one I noticed immediately when I returned to North America.
(Frankly, what I noticed was that most people seemed to be, by my standards, grotesquely wimpy and easily shocked.)
Correction for the above: I meant to say something like "is simply not possible -for many people-- in a preindustrial economy.
It is possible for a -few- people. In our society, it's possible for many more.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, given a pre-industrial world, as seen in the House of Sorrows, only a very very few would escape having their noses rubbed in how harsh the world is.
I fear I would be one of those sheltered, wimpy, easily shocked types! (Smiles wryly)
Ad astra! Sean
I just re-read "In the House of Sorrows".
Herod in that story is very like Pum in "Ivory, & Apes & Peacocks", except with a shorter & sadder life.
I see the turning point between our history and the timeline of the story is the Assyrian seige of Jerusalem 701 BC. In our history something took the Assyrian army away before they could sack the city. In the story's timeline the Assyrians succeeded.
See
http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/2022/1/17/episode-85-the-siege-that-changed-all-of-history
for a detailed discussion.
When the Assyrians sacked a city they tended to do it -very thoroughly-.
To quote an Assyrian king -- and these are their public (illustrated) boasts, not enemy propaganda:
I built a pillar at the city gate and I flayed all the chief men who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins; some I walled up inside the pillar, some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes."
"Like the onset of a terrible hurricane I overwhelmed Elam in its entirety. I cut off the head of Teumann, their king, – the haughty one, who plotted evil. Countless of his warriors I slew. Alive, with my hands, I seized his fighters. With their corpses I filled the plain about Susa as with baltu and ashagu.[e] Their blood I let run down the Ulai; its water I dyed red like wool"
“With their blood I dyed the mountain red like red wool, [and] the rest of them the ravines [and] torrents of the mountain swallowed. I carried off captives [and] possessions from them. I cut off the heads of their fighters [and] built [therewith] a tower before their city. I burnt their adolescent boys [and] girls.” †
“In strife and conflict I besieged [and] conquered the city. I felled 3,000 of their fighting men with the sword … I captured many troops alive: I cut off of some their arms [and] hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears, [and] extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops. I made one pile of the living [and] one of heads. I hung their heads on trees around the city.”
etc., etc.
I would rather be tortured by conscience than not have a conscience. But I say that as someone with a conscience.
Paul: oh, Ashurbanipal probably had a conscience. He just had different concepts of right and wrong!
You can see why Assyrians weren't really very popular with their neighbors, though.
"Woe unto Nineveh, the bloody city..."
Yes. He might have felt guilty about not killing enough people.
Kaor, Jim and Mr. Stirling!
Jim: I checked "The House of Sorrows," and you were right. Anderson chose to select the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem around 701 BC as the turning point in that timeline--with Sennacherib capturing rather than mysteriously departing Judah. I was wrong in thinking he chose the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 as that turning point.
Mr. Stirling: The Book of Nahum gives us an example of the fierce exultation felt by the enemies of Assyria at the fall and destruction of Nineveh in 612. The cruelty and tyranny of Assyria had made her the most hated and feared nation of the ancient Near East. A more successful evil empire than even the USSR!
Jerry Pournelle quoted some of the savage boasting of Sennacherib in one of the books he edited, and compared it to the vastly milder words of the Persian Darius the Great, who talked about restoring order, bringing peace to his empire, and preventing the strong from oppressing the weak.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: he probably believed that the God Asshur wanted him to kill anyone anyone who opposed Assyria, in fact. He didn't boast about killing -Assyrians-.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True, but Sennacherib was still murdered by two of his own sons in 681 BC. But that was for political reasons, because of how they resented the king selecting Esarhaddon as his heir.
Ad astra! Sean
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