Protagoras of Abdera

Protagoras was a Greek Sophist who came from the city of Abdera (on northern coast of the Aegean Sea) and who lived between the years of 490-420 BC. I thought that I would write a short piece about his work because, even though I disagree with most of it, it is very seldom given the credit it deserves.

Protagoras had the misfortune of not having his works preserved so all that we know about him comes from some extremely loose collections of stories collected six or seven hundred years after his death or from the writings of those who vaguely knew him, but disagreed with him (Diogenes Laertius was the story collector and Plato was the opponent). So we have only hearsay and bias to work with. According to what can be gleaned from Diogenes' "Lives of the Philosophers" and Plato's Dialogues, Protagoras was the first Sophist.

Many Greek cities at the time were democracies (of sorts). These democracies had no parliaments. Anyone and everyone could stand up in the assemblies and shout a speech to the assembled voters. If they liked your speech they could vote on your proposal. Someone who had the confidence and delivery (and lung power) to make good speeches continually could effectively rule a city as large as Athens! Even in oligarchies, the ability to speak well was highly valued, as aristocratic councils could still be swayed by speeches. So, the ability to speak well gave power and was valued above almost anything else.

Protagoras claimed that for a large sum of money he would teach the young people to speak well. He would teach them ways of delivering a speech effectively while demolishing the arguments of their opponents. Few people believed his claims so, upon entering a city, Protagoras would stand in a public place and deliver a ridiculous speech, proving that black was white or some such, awing the locals with his verbal abilities and immediately landing contracts to be taught to speak like him. Those who claimed to teach this power of perfect speech became known as Sophists.

Naturally, this claim annoyed a lot of people. The traditional ruling families of cities saw their ancestral positions of status threatened. Defenders of traditional morality became very worried that these thinkers, who laughed at the old ways of doing things, would corrupt the youth and lastly, those who were convinced that things like "Truth" and "Courage" had specific meanings were deeply disturbed when someone claimed sufficient verbal ability to argue both sides of an argument and win. Central to the Sophist ideal (according to their enemies) was that there was no true answer to a question but that whatever position the speaker chose could be defended to the last.

Protagoras himself had two famous quotes, which are presented as follows taken from Diogenes Laertius' work Lives of the Philosophers, IX 50-56:

"Man is the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, and of things that are not that they are not."

"Concerning the gods, I am not in a position to know either that they exist or that they do not exist; for there are many obstacles in the way of such knowledge, notably the intrinsic obscurity of the subject and the shortness of human life."

It's hard to know if these were actually beliefs of Protagoras or if these were the catchy sentences that he would start his show arguments with. One of the later Sophists (Gorgias of Leontini) once stated that Being is impossible, that even if something existed that we could have no Knowledge of it and that even if we could know Being, we could never communicate this knowledge to anyone. You have to suspect he was showing off, so Protagoras may have been doing the same here. We are fairly sure that he was one of the first thinkers to study the structure of language for the purposes of argument, which must have made him formidable indeed.

In the year 399 BC an Athenian by the name of Socrates was put to death by the state on the of "corrupting the youth", while at his trial he was allegedly accused of "making the weaker argument appear the stronger". Socrates was put to death for doing the things that Protagoras started. But one of Socrates' students, a young man by the name of Plato, was convinced that his teacher had not been a Sophist but had tried to find truth, real truth, not the mere conventions of Athens, by challenging the Sophists at their own game. Maybe Plato was deluded about Socrates, we'll never truly know, but he wrote a series of books where Socrates is a heroic debater, struggling to understand reality and truth. Those who debate him are sometimes the arrogant and foolish city leaders who think they know the meanings of Courage or Piety, only to be shown up by the questioning of Socrates. But the serious debates that Plato describes are against thinkers like Critias or Gorgias or the leader of the Sophists Protagoras, where Socrates argues for a system where words have a fixed relation to reality and can truly be known by people, as opposed to the shifting, fluid belief systems of the Sophists.

Plato's anti-Sophistic quest led him to found the first Academy where the brightest minds of his day gathered and produced such thinkers as Aristotle (who invented the disciplines of Logic and Biology and wrote on every subject then known to man). It's hard to know what exactly Protagoras really believed; perhaps he was only trying to make money. But the unintended reaction to his ideas helped start the Greek Enlightenment, which continues to influence us today.

I will leave you with the following tale (almost certainly legendary, as the same story is told of Corax and Tisias) about Protagoras. The story goes that a poor pupil came to him and told him that he was desperate to learn rhetoric but could not afford the fees. Protagoras took pity on the young Euathlus and promised to teach him on the understanding that Euathlus would repay him once he had won his first lawsuit. Euathlus proved a brilliant pupil, but upon completing the training, Euathlus not only refused to pay but refused to plead cases before the courts. Protagoras did what every good teacher should do and took him to court. He reasoned that he couldn't lose his fee because "… if I win the case, I should get the fee because I have won it; If you win the case, I should get the fee because you have won it!"

The Tenth of October

I found myself stuck for a topic and decided to browse Wikipedia’s homepage to see what happened on this day.

I discovered that this day, the 10th of October, which I had previously thought to be a rather mundane day, has seen it’s fair share of historical interest (unlike my birthday, which is depressingly uneventful considering that history is long and there are only 365 days per average year).

Anyway, on this day in the year 680 AD, Husayn Ibn Ali took on the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate in a hopeless gesture where he and all his troops were killed. He is viewed as a martyr by the Shi'ite Muslims and revered as a great man by many Sunnis. The death of Husayn deepened the split of Islam between Sunni and Shia, sowing the seeds for future civil war in the Caliphate. The battle took place in Kerbala in present day Iraq and the city is a site of pilgrimage for Shiite Muslims, although the commemorations of the battle change days due to the lunar Islamic calendar. Al-Qaeda and their affiliates, who view Shiites as non-believers, have often attacked the commemoration festival of this battle.

On this day in 732 AD, the forces of the Frankish kingdom fought and eventually defeated the forces of the Ummayad Caliphate at Tours. The Franks were commanded by the interestingly named Charles Martel (meaning Charles the Hammer!) The armies of the Arab Caliphate had swept over Egypt, Northern Africa, through Spain and were pushing into southern France. The great historian Gibbon has this to say,

"A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet." 
Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 52

It sounds like a fairly dramatic scenario (see below for a much later romanticised picture of the battle that includes a Celtic Cross and a topless woman for reasons best known to the artist) but most historians now consider the attack to be a glorified raid. There was a rich church of St Martin’s at Tours and the Arab commander seems to have planned to raid it but it is highly unlikely that a conquest of all of Europe was actually planned.

On this day in 1938 the Munich Agreement came into effect (OK, it's not actually "ancient" history, but pretty intriguing all the same). It had been signed earlier but today was the day that the German troops actually occupied large sections of what is now the Czech Republic, neutralising their armies, taking most of their steel production and paving the way for a later takeover of the whole country, a Nazi-Soviet alliance and World War II.

For those of you who are whiskey lovers, we may take a moment to remember Jack Daniel, the founder of the Jack Daniels distillery who passed away on this day in the year 1911.Even if you aren't a fan of his actual whiskey, surely some appreciation can be had of a man who allegedly died of an infection caused by a broken toe, which in turn was caused by trying to kick open his own safe.

Enjoy the day!

2012 and the Mayans?

A double-headed jade serpent

"And such was the instruction they gave when all the Under-worlders had been finally defeated. And then the two boys ascended this way, here into the middle of the light, and they ascended straight on into the sky, and the sun belongs to one and the moon to the other. When it became light within the sky on the face of the earth, they were there in the sky. And then the Four Hundred Boys climbed up, the ones who were killed by Zipacna. And so they came to accompany the two of them, they became the sky's own stars."
From the end of the Third Part of the Popol Vuh, describing the destiny of the Hero Twins.

There are theories floating around presently about the end of the world that will supposedly happen in the year 2012, specifically, in or around the 20th of December of 2012. Is there anything to this or is it a misunderstanding? I should firstly say that the scientific community has been fairly sceptical of these claims. However, my vague interest in matters scientific do not qualify me to talk about this from a strong scientific perspective, but if I come across any good online resources I will post links to them. I can however deal briefly with some historical aspects of this prediction.

The Classic Mayan city of Tikal

The prediction is based on the Mayan Long Count Calendar. The Mayans were a people (politically organised in loose groupings of opposing city-states) whose civilisation flourished in Southern Mexico and Guatemala from around 200 AD to 1000 AD. After this date the major cities were abandoned for unknown reasons and new cities emerged. But the new cities were on a smaller scale. From the early 1500's onwards these remaining states were attacked by the newly arrived Spanish conquistadors and the last Mayan city was finally conquered in 1697.

The Mayans did not merely leave monumental architecture, but they also left writings. Many of their books were destroyed in the Spanish conquest, but some Spanish monks and friars preserved the books they could find. From these books we can see that the Mayan literate class were very concerned with the timing of events and had created multiple calendars to mark the passage of events.

One of these calendars (there were several others) involved having a 360-day year that would be counted in cycles of 20. These cycles were then also counted in cycles of 20 (usually 20, but sometimes 18 according to some scholars). This was known as a Bak'tun. When 13 Bak'tun's had passed the cycle would repeat and the calendar would revert back to the first Bak'tun. If there are any astronomers reading they'll be quite angry about the 360-day year, but what the Mayans did was to refer to each day using a number of terms, which would cycle over and allow them to keep track of deviations from the solar calendar until the cycle was complete. It was not the first system I would have devised but it was complex enough to use "zero" as a number (i.e. better than Greek or Roman maths in certain respects) and was of use in the keeping track of constellation movements as well, so it's an impressive enough piece of work.

The reader may wonder what this has to do with the end of the world. The date given in the theory for the day the world ends is simply the date that the 13th Bak'tun ends on. According to most theories the 1st cycle begins on the 11th of August, 3114 BC so we are approaching the date where the calendar rolls over so to speak. So did the Mayans feel that this was the date that the world ended on?

Well, the date picked for the beginning of the cycle appears somewhat arbitrary. It predates their civilisation and there are no known inscriptions for the first three thousand years of the system. It might have been borrowed from an earlier civilisation like the Olmecs, but this is speculative. So, if we have no idea why they chose to start their calendar at one point, it makes understanding the end point difficult. Some scholars believe that there are inscriptions that deal with orders higher than the Bak'tun or even thirteen Baktun's, which, if true, suggests that the Mayans did not view time as being contained within the cycle.

Scholars also speak of Long Calendar dates being spoken of after the turning of the cycle, suggesting that the Mayans didn't believe the world would end in 2012. It should be noted that the Mayans had no telescopes that we know of to predict anything about "galactic shifts" or discover hidden planets or anything. If they had some method of predicting the future it did not help their civilisation. Their civilisation went into chronic decline around 900 AD, suffered definite attacks from the Mexican city of Teotihuacan and a possible invasion from Tula before having their cities taken over completely by the Spanish. If the Mayan priests could really see the future then they were spectacularly bad at acting on their knowledge. This is a bit of a cheap shot at a culture that I greatly respect, but I am sick to death of hearing New-Age stuff about mystical Mayan knowledge.

Having a nice long calendar allowed them to place events in a framework that remained constant for centuries and allowed them to neatly predict both agricultural seasons and astronomical events. There are very few prophecies recorded from Classic Mayan sites.

Mayan culture does become rather prophetic later on, but I believe this to be a result of European influence. The Popol Vuh, the most famous of the Mayan books, was at least partially written after the Spanish had arrived. It gives a Mayan creation account that has a number of incomplete creations, each destroyed before a new creation, with the last destruction being by a great flood.

Now this could be seen as a series of catastrophes marking the completion of a separate Long Count cycle, meaning that the Mayans saw a catastrophe for the year 2012 even if the world didn't end. But by the time the Popol Vuh is written, the Long Count is no longer used and an equally sophisticated but different way of marking time is given. No dates are given for the creations or the catastrophes and, although far from unparalleled in world mythology, the universal flood wiping out an initial creation sounds suspiciously like the Popol Vuh has been influenced by Catholicism.

There are late Mayan texts called the Books of Chilam Balam specifically dedicated to prophecy. These are books ascribed to a legendary sage who prophesies the coming of the Spanish. But they are all written in the Colonial era and back-prophecies if you will, where a community deals with a catastrophe by inventing a text to cope with it and view it as part of a greater plan (see the prophecies of Myrddin Wyllt, even conspiracy theories could be viewed as community attempts to rationalise the irrational).

The idea that the world will end is notably absent even in these most prophetic of all Mayan texts (although there are quite a lot of them and I haven't read them all so I may be wrong on this). So will the world end in 2012? Possibly, as we can never predict the future with total accuracy, but I'm betting that it won't (and giving good odds if anyone's interested). I'm also betting that the Mayans had less than no intention of predicting the end of the world when some of their priests decided to use a particular method of counting that started at an arbitrary date. Roll on 2013!

Edit: I am updating this blog in late 2019 and I can confidently confirm to readers that the world did not in fact end in 2012.

The Battle of Clontarf: Part Three

I have taken certain creative liberties in telling the story and I have omitted a great deal to make it even vaguely of blog post length, but I have tried to stick to the sources. There are four sources about the battle. Firstly there is a long document called the War between the Irish and Foreigners, which was probably written by Brian’s descendants with all the biases that this entails. Then there is the Icelandic saga about the Burning of Njal (Njal's Saga) that describes the battle and favours Brian, referring to him as "good King Brian" and describing him as a saint. Then there are the sagas of the Earls of Orkney, which contain a brief entry describing the battle in fairly neutral terms. Then there are the annals of the Irish monasteries that also contain records. None of these are particularly good sources, as they are either blatant propaganda or written about other subjects (or both), but this is history and we have to deal with the sources we have.

One thing that I think is clear is that the tale taught in Irish primary schools, that Brian Boru threw the Vikings out of Ireland, is not really useful in understanding events. The man who threw the Vikings out of Ireland was relying on the Vikings of Limerick in his own army and the Viking Ospak from the Isle of Man. The "Viking" army was led by the Irish king of Leinster with a large Irish army and the Irish army of Meath only joined when the battle was nearly won (and the Irish Ulster armies didn’t bother showing.) A simple "us vs. them" scenario is simply not accurate.

I think we may have bought into this legend because of later history, which can be seen as a struggle of Irish against foreign invaders (although that’s not an uncontested version by any means). The propaganda work written by Brian’s descendants also contains a lot of references to this theme, but when you consider that (like most of our sources for the battle) it was written possibly a century after the events and was written by people trying to bring all of Ireland under their rule, you have to take this account with a grain of salt and scepticism. The fact that the Icelandic source Njal’s Saga rejoices so wholeheartedly over the outcome of the Battle of Clontarf (probably because the Orkney Vikings were not liked) shows that a simple traditional interpretation is probably wrong.

The real motivations of the protagonists will never be known. Pride, status, dynastic marriage or advancement are all possible motivations for the players. But there is an intriguing entry in the Annals of Ulster (a monastic record) for the Battle of Clontarf (taken from a translation posted on Cork University website). It reads…

"Of the Irish moreover there fell in the counter-shock Brian son of Ceinnétig (Brian Boru), over-king of the Irish of Ireland, and of the foreigners and of the Britons, the Augustus of the whole of north-west Europe, and his son Murchad, and the latter's son, i.e. Tairdelbach son of Murchad,…"

The title given to him (Augustus of the whole of north-west Europe) is quite extraordinary and, although Celtic Studies scholars might correct me, seems to be unprecedented in the annals. This might suggest that those around Brian Boru and possibly Brian Boru himself, believed himself to be more than a High King but to be the founder of a real kingdom, an empire, that would control all of Ireland and possibly beyond. In and around 1000 AD Europe was undergoing a revival, there was a new Pope in Rome who was trying to reform the church, a new kingdom had been founded in Hungary. Rulers such as King Olaf Tryggvason in Norway or King Sweyn Forkbeard in Denmark were solidifying their kingdoms or forging empires abroad, while Hugh Capet in France and Otto III in Germany were strengthening their dynasties.

It is a possibility that Brian Boru had caught this European vision of state-building, of a unified monarchy of a country that transcended the minor rivalries of the tribe and clan. So the Battle of Clontarf was a terrible defeat for Brian's vision, as his son and grandson passed away and his armies were too depleted to carry on his plans after his death. In this scenario, Mael Morda of Leinster could be seen as fighting for the traditional rights of the independence of the small kingdoms. This interpretation probably stretches beyond what was actually thought back then but, as stated earlier, we can never really tell these things conclusively.

So when 2014 comes around and we celebrate the thousand-year anniversary of this event, don’t think of a simple battle of Irish against the Vikings. It was more like an internal Irish war with extensive mercenary involvement. But, if one feels like drawing a moral from it one could choose to think of it as an epic struggle between the forces of unity and diversity. Just remember that no one really won.

Battle of Clontarf: Part I
Battle of Clontarf: Part II
Battle of Clontarf: Part III

The primary sources for the battle can be viewed by clicking on the links below:

The War of the Irish and the Foreigners
Njal’s Saga
The Orkneying Saga
Monastic Annals

The names used throughout the text are somewhat arbitrary. Some of the common variants of the names are given here in case anyone is interested.

Brian Boru: Brian Bóruma or Brian Bóroimhe,
Sitric: Sigtrygg II Silkbeard Olafsson
Mael Morda: Máel Mórda mac Murchada 
Olaf I of Norway: Óláfr Tryggvason
Earl Sigurd of Orkney: Sigurd Hlodvisson

The Battle of Clontarf: Part Two

On the 23rd of April in the year 1014 the Battle of Clontarf took place. Most of the Leinster and Dublin troops left from the city of Dublin and marched north a few miles to cross the Tolka River and join their Viking allies near Clontarf. This was presumably very near Brian’s camp and Brian’s army mustered for battle. Brian himself, who was very old, watched the battle from his camp. Tradition states that, as it was a holy day, that he spent time praying in his tent.

The Scandinavian troops were better equipped than the Irish soldiers. The Irish source “The War of the Irish and the and Foreigners” (also known as the Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib in Irish) describes the armies opposing Brian as having “…triple-plated, heavy, stout corslets of double refined iron, and of cool, uncorroding brass, for the protection of their bodies, and skin, and skulls, from sharp terrible arms and from all sorts of fearful weapons.” (This is a very old translation by the way)

By contrast the forces of Brian Boru are complimented on their tunics and their shields, suggesting that they generally lacked the body armour of the soldiers from the Orkneys and elsewhere. There was extremely heavy fighting in the centre of the field. Brian’s son and heir Murchad died fighting in the centre of the line, as did the King of Leinster, Mael Morda.

You may have wondered what happened to the magic flags? Which would prevail: Orkney or Cavan? (Did I mention I'm from Cavan? There may be some bias here.) Well according to the "War of the Irish and the Foreigners", the O’ Rourke contingent from Breifne suffered severe casualties and only around a hundred of them survived from a contingent that may have originally numbered near a thousand, however, the survivors had killed the chieftains of the forces that opposed them and these troops were merged with Brian’s Dalcassians, with the flag of Breifne the only of their standards that still flew.

At first the Vikings of Orkney were very successful and their heavier armour allowed them to smash into the armies of the High King, however, the prophecy about the raven flag was not simply that the army that carried it would win but also that whoever bore the flag would perish. Earl Sigurd was a tested military leader but he was a deeply unpopular man among his own people, probably because he imposed very high taxes on his people, but also possibly because he had acquiesced in the forced conversion of the Orkneys to Christianity by King Olaf I of Norway (also known as Olaf Tryggvason). So, as man after man was cut down bearing the raven flag, eventually his own troops refused to carry the standard. According to the sagas, he attempted to force Icelandic outlaws who did not know the flags reputation to carry it but his own troops warned the outlaws that the flag was death. With his standard foundered and the battle hanging in the balance, Earl Sigurd took the flag and was almost immediately killed. With the flag abandoned and their leader dead the Orkney Vikings began to crumble and, as the day wore on, the tide of battle turned towards the High King’s forces.

It is unclear what the King of Dublin, Sitric Silkbeard, was doing. Some sources place him in Dublin, while others have him fighting in the fray. We do know at some point that Sitric abandoned the battle. At a late stage in the battle Mael Sechnaill of Meath either had a change of heart or decided to join the winning side and decided to attack the failing Leinster armies. The armies of Dublin and Leinster broke and fled. The battle had lasted for the better part of the day and had seen high casualties but in antiquity, most casualties were inflicted upon a defeated army when they were in flight so the it was vital for the defeated to escape quickly before they were annihilated.

The Manx and Orkney Vikings presumably tried to flee to their longships but these had been left too near the scene of the battle to be safe from pursuers and the rising tide may put some ships out of reach, so the defeated fled southwards towards Dublin. But the Meath armies had taken the crossings and the shallow Tolka river, which had been in low tide when the armies had marched out in the morning was now at full tide, leaving the defeated armies to either be killed on the riverbanks or drown under the weight of their own armour. It seems that some foreign mercenaries may have been shown mercy, but by and large the victors took few prisoners.

In the confusion of the aftermath of battle, the Manx Viking (probably Viking; it’s hard to be sure) mercenary, the apostate Brodir roamed around the battlefield. Most of Brian’s forces had left the field in pursuit and Brodir, with a small guard, broke into Brian Boru’s camp. Finding the aged high king in his tent Brodir killed him with an axe blow to the head and immediately tried to proclaim the news and reverse the battle, but it was too late. Brian’s forces had won even though their leader was dead. If one wants to read the account of the battle in the Icelandic text Njal’s Saga one can read the gruesome description of the end that Brodir was allegedly put to once Brian’s forces returned to camp and captured him.

While, technically, it was a victory for Brian Boru, in actual fact the losses were pretty destructive. It’s extremely difficult to get real figures for the battle, but some estimates put the forces for both sides at around seven thousand men each. The losing Dublin, Leinster and Viking forces lost around six thousand men, nearly their entire army, as well as the leaders of their Manx, Orkney and Leinster forces. The winning side had lost over half their force, with around four thousand dead, as well as their king and his heir. Even allowing for slightly inaccurate figures, that puts the winning sides losses as proportionally far higher than Allied casualties in the Battle of the Somme and possibly higher absolute casualties than the Battle of Hastings, making it a costly victory indeed.

In the aftermath of the battle Mael Sechnaill of Meath took back the title of High King and ruled successfully from Meath. Sitric Silkbeard survived into old age and built the original Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin. Brian Boru’s dynasty survived and eventually retook the High Kingship but never controlled all of Ireland and never had a leader as successful as Brian Boru. The Viking kingdoms in the Orkneys and the Isle of Man survived but after 1066 when the Normans conquered England and set up a powerful state, the old Viking kingdoms declined. Ireland remained in a state of disunity and was eventually invaded by the Normans over a century after the Battle of Clontarf.

Battle of Clontarf: Part I
Battle of Clontarf: Part II
Battle of Clontarf: Part III

Economic Lessons from ancient China

I was unable to sleep recently and, to combat the boredom, picked a subject (Chinese emperors) on Wikipedia and hopped from article to article pursuing it. This failed to send me to sleep, but made for some interesting reading. Some time back I was fortunate enough to read a Penguin excerpted version of Sima Qian’s account of the First Emperor (not actually the first emperor per se, but an immensely influential ruler. His legacies include the reunification of China after the Warring States, building the one of the first versions of the Great Wall, leaving the Terracotta Army to guard his tomb and the nearly complete destruction of all books of learning in his empire.) I would highly recommend the book.

Anyway, as I was relatively familiar with the period of the First Emperor and the subsequent fall of his dynasty I skipped through to accounts of the rulers who followed him. After his dynasty, the Qin, collapsed in an extremely bloody civil war (that was serious enough to have possibly caused a significant drop in world population) the Chinese empire was taken over by the Han Dynasty. The empire was exhausted from the civil war and so the early Han emperors reigned with a light hand and refrained from the stupendously ambitious building projects that the Qin had attempted.

According to the article, Emperor Wen, the fifth emperor of the Han Dynasty, reduced taxes to miniscule levels. This may have been as a result of a leaning towards Taoism, which advocates doing as little as possible to allow cosmic harmony to be maintained, but may have had other motivations. The taxes were reduced to a rate of around 1.5% to 4%. Government expenditure was curtailed and the tax was a tax on property rather than an income tax. The Chinese government was able to control the prices of basic food commodities at a local and occasionally a national level, but by and large this taxation policy entailed practically no interference in trading whatsoever. It struck me that this deregulated state had similarities to some of the ideas of free-market theorists and that the Taoist ideal could have some similarities to the economic concept of the Invisible Hand. As a striking endorsement of the system the article speaks of overflowing warehouses of grain (although it should be noted that food production was not deregulated, meaning a surplus of agricultural products is not necessarily an example of laissez-faire and that the statement itself lacks citation).

Further down the article I noted that Emperor Wen continued the practice of “heqin”. To the north of China were the Xiongnu, a powerful semi-nomadic state that was able to put capable armies in the field. Internal strife in China had allowed the Xiongnu to flourish and the Great Wall was originally intended to guard against these northern barbarians who could strike at China but whom the Chinese were unable to counterattack against. The Han Dynasty had disbanded the huge armies of the civil war and the emperors were unwilling to spend the amounts of money and manpower needed to maintain the northern fortifications. Instead they pursued a policy of diplomacy. “Heqin” was where the Chinese emperor would send a “princess” (not necessarily an actual daughter of the Emperor, but more often a concubine or distant relative) to be married to the Xiongnu chieftain. This policy, combined with tactful dowries, attempted to placate the northern hordes and protect China. Emperor Wen had to send four separate wedding delegations northwards throughout his reign to maintain peace. To send these delegations was a sign that the Xiongnu were to be treated as equals (possibly more than equals as the Xiongnu seldom returned the favour) and the process could be seen as a sign of military weakness.

Emperor Wen’s grandson, the notable Emperor Wu, grew unhappy with the policy of conciliation and the growth of power of the Xiongnu. While he initially was interested in diplomacy he eventually switched government policy to one of war and embarked on a series of massive military campaigns to deal with the clear and present danger of Xiongnu invasion. The war was a difficult one and Emperor Wu was probably more of a persistent military leader than an inspired one, but despite disasters for the Chinese military, the Xiongnu were forced onto the defensive and after the death of Wu were forced to accept Chinese dominance before settling on a policy of flight from their homeland. Emperor Wu’s reign was marked by military expansion on all fronts, which by and large were successful.

The interesting thing is that the tax policy had changed. The laissez-faire policies of his predecessors were exchanged for tax-burdens heavy enough to provoke frequent peasant revolts. This is interesting because in today’s economic climate many people in the US and around the world are favouring a return to laissez-faire economics and minimal government regulation on trade. This parallels the policies of Emperor Wen. But to make these policies work, the lessons from Chinese history would imply that the minimalist state must not only refrain from military action, but must behave in a conciliatory manner to more warlike states. If one switches to a policy of military action and regional dominance, taxes must be increased to retain solvency.

The current conservative approach to government in the US, with little regulation, low taxes and small government would, on the basis of this historical comparison, seem to be incompatible with large military spending and overseas campaigns.

In closing I have to specify that I am neither an expert on Chinese history nor on economics and I may well have misread the situation. I should also say that this blog will occasionally make comparisons from history to present day situations I really am more interested in history in and of itself. If you have any thoughts or ideas about this piece please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

The Battle of Clontarf: Part One

When 2014 rolls around it will be the anniversary of momentous events. It will be the centenary of the start of World War I and the thousand-year anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf. Accounts of this battle are still taught in primary schools in Ireland, the name of Brian Boru is known by most Irish people and the account of how he defeated the Vikings and saved Ireland is part of our national mythology. I think the reality of what happened is a bit more complex, so I’ll try and give a description of the events and a bit of fanciful analysis at the end.

In the late 900’s there were many Vikings in Ireland, but there was not a case of Viking domination or a threat of imminent Viking invasion. Viking simply means “someone on an expedition” and respectable men in Norway, Denmark and Iceland would go on “Viking” expeditions to raid and trade or serve as mercenaries. So Vikings were not an ethnic group per se, but as it is common usage I will use it to describe those of Scandinavian origin who lived in or fought for states ruled by those who were also of Scandinavian origin.

Many Scandinavians decided to settle in the lands they originally raided. They set up coastal cities and towns in Ireland in places like Dublin, Waterford and Limerick. The initial setting up of these kingdoms was done in a warlike fashion, as they subjugated the original inhabitants, but once the kingdoms were set up the new arrivals were quite happy to trade with the Irish inland kingdoms.

Often they went to war, but the Irish kingdoms (and pretty much every other European kingdom at the time) fought each other perpetually, so the Viking raids were normal. Monasteries were attacked by the Vikings for plunder, but monasteries were also attacked by the Irish on a much more frequent basis and were occasionally burned down by the armed forces of other monasteries. So Ireland was not in the thrall of the Vikings. The danger caused by the Dublin Vikings had been crushed thirty-four years before the Battle of Clontarf by the High King Mael Sechnaill in the Battle of Tara. Many of the Vikings had in fact learned to speak Irish and are more correctly referred to as Hiberno-Norse.

At the time Ireland was not a single state and was divided up into a number of kingdoms, as illustrated by the picture displayed that is blatantly ripped from Wikipedia. Brian Boru came from a small tribe called the Dalcassians. These had a power base around Clare and through good alliances and tactics came to assume a dominant position in Connaught and Munster by controlling the city of Limerick (a Viking town) and controlling the southern reaches of the Shannon River. In the year 1002 AD Brian Boru outmaneuvered the King of Meath, Mael Sechnaill, who was abandoned by his Ulster allies, and forced him to acknowledge Brian as High King instead of himself. Brian Boru now set about consolidating his reign.

He fought an inconclusive campaign in Ulster (the northern part of Ireland) that saw him use a navy extensively. He had earlier made an important dynastic marriage to the King of Leinster’s sister, Gormflaith and married his daughter to the king of Dublin Sitric Silkbeard. To complicate matters Gormflaith was also Sitric’s mother.

According to our sources a dispute arose between Brian and the King of Leinster, Mael Morda. Gormflaith had divorced Brian Boru and now was one of his enemies as well as the mother of one of his sons. Attempts to resolve the dispute failed and Brian mustered his armies. The forces of Munster and Connaught rallied to his call along with the Limerick Vikings. The armies of Meath under the previous High King (who understandably held a grudge against Brian) arrived, but stayed firmly under the control of their own commander. The Ulster kings refused the summons.

Mael Morda, King of Leinster, rallied his own armies and the armies of his Dublin allies but they did not have sufficient troops to face the High King. So they sent a summons abroad desperately looking for troops. To sweeten the deal Sitric and Mael Morda offered the hand of Gormflaith in marriage to any kings or lords who answered the call.

Mercenaries and Viking adventurers from abroad gathered at Dublin on Easter Sunday including the renowned Earl Sigurd of the Orkney Islands. Earl Sigurd’s forces were strengthened by the arrival of Icelandic outlaws and they held a supposedly magic banner of a raven that reputedly gave victory to any army that would carry it. Two mercenary Viking brothers, Brodir and Ospak and their armies were also hired from the Isle of Man. The story goes that Brodir had converted to Christianity but had recently reconverted to paganism, whereas his brother Ospak was a pagan shaman.

Brian’s armies advanced on Dublin, which was an urban centre and had to be held, whereas an attack the province of Leinster would have had no target that would force the enemy to fight. The armies of Munster and Connaught burned Howth and were within striking distance of Dublin but the mercenary reinforcements for the city had begun to arrive and Brian no longer had superiority. To make matters worse, Mael Sechnaill, the disgruntled ex-High King had withdrawn his sizeable forces from the camp and refused to fight. Without the reinforcements from Ulster the armies of the High King looked to be in trouble.

But at the last minute it appears that Ospak, the pagan shaman, abandoned his brother and his cause, converted to Christianity and brought his troops over to Brian’s side. The armies of Breifne (a kingdom that was roughly centred in the west of Cavan) arrived on the eve of battle and, according to some Irish sources; they brought with them a magic banner of their own that Brian's armies hoped would defeat the banner of the Orkneys.

Both armies now had around seven thousand men each, heavily armed, but under commanders with extremely varying motivations. The armies of Leinster, Dublin and the Orkneys advanced against the High King’s forces on Good Friday on the 23rd of April in the year 1014.

The Battle of Clontarf Part I
The Battle of Clontarf Part II
The Battle of Clontarf Part III