Throughout European pasts, the Ancient Mediterranean World has dealt with many interactions with foreign people that resulted in these foreign people being labeled as “others.” For different, distinct purposes, these “others” have been stereotyped into their own group.
Was this beneficial to these different countries/regions that forced these people into this group? Or did it cause problems that resulted in countless conflicts? Mediterranean groups identified foreign people as “others” in their own way, but they all tie in together to share some traits.
The word “others” may sound very familiar to many people, but the meaning behind this word has created so many different branches in societies and how people live. To create an “other” is to create a different.
Otherness is a noun that means, “the quality of fact of being different” (Google 2018). This is a way societies have established identities and different categories/rankings. It describes how minority groups and majority groups came about.
Othering is done in the comfort of one self’s feelings. It is to make a person feel more superior to another. It is as if that person has power over them, to make them feel different or out of place. This leads to conflict such as arguments or hate between people, or even war or rebellions between countries.
Power relationships that are unequal or asymmetrical is what creates this otherness; it’s what created all the issues we have in society today (Staszak 2008). By labeling foreign people as “others,” ideas like race, gender, identity, and segregation were created. For example, a person’s biological sex is not categorized as otherness, but as a matter of fact.
On the other hand, gender is categorized as otherness due to individual or group views and opinions. To try to fully understand how this all came about, we can go back and look at how the Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks interacted with foreign people, and how they went about stereotyping them into their own group.
The Tail of the Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Epic written by Imenŷas son Imena 2040-1782 BCE, is a story/fairytale of a shipwreck that leads to a sailor being stranded on an island. He meets with a serpent who was the Lord of Punt. The island is filled with treasures, and the sailor was offered all, but only wished to be home.
The concept of redemption plays a factor in this story with the cyclical nature of life – what dies returns again. To the Egyptians, whether it’s life or death, home is where the earthly treasure lies. This tale may have been written for entertainment, but it also reflects the Egyptians culture in any stage of development.
They didn’t like to leave their home which is why they fashioned their afterlife to reflect their homeland. Anyone that wasn’t and Egyptians was foreign to them. While the Egyptians didn’t go to war as the Greeks and Romans did, they cherished and praised their homeland and their lifestyle, and anyone that wasn’t a part of it was not welcomed.
Rather viewing people as foreigners, the Egyptians automatically viewed them as enemies. Foreigners equaled chaos. Pharaohs made offerings to the goddess Ma’at to keep order among Egypt, and to preserve justice and harmony (Arnold 2018).
Not only was there “othering” between cultures or populations, but within them also. The Egyptians society was based on class; some social classes are ranked higher than others, therefore being superior. Exclusion creates hierarchies of superiority and inferiority (Arnold 2018).
Those who were slaves, servants, and peasant farmers and workers were viewed as lower than skilled artisans, scribes, high priests, and nobles. We see social classes and the different rights people have in Ancient Egypt, and also later in the Greek and Roman worlds.
The Greeks felt that othering foreign people was the right thing, no matter who they were. The Histories, written by Herodotus of Halicarnassus, is a historical fiction. It is a fabrication, with elements added in to make it more of a story. Some people may think that it is a historical analysis, seeing as though it is the only source about the Persian Wars that exists.
Written in Athens, Greece around 450 BC is a good lesson in Greek identity. Herodotus expresses the origin of conflict between the Greeks and the barbarians (the Persians). It is a record of ancient traditions, geography, and cultures, as well as the colossal confrontation between the freedom-loving Greek-speaking people and the seemingly unstoppable forces of the Persians.
In this case, the barbarians were othered by the Greeks. “A barbarian was a person that did not speak Greek and thus had not mastered the logos (and was not familiar with democracy)” (Staszak 2008). The Greeks went to war with the Persians because they felt threatened and they wanted to protect their land from being taken over by the Persian Empire.
Persia was on a conquest for political power and territorial power. It’s interesting to incorporate the idea of “others” in this scenario because to the Greeks, the Persians were barbarians; they were foreigners and they classified them as different, but this was not a one-sided feeling. The Persians saw the Greeks as inferior to them.
They saw the Greeks as having less power and a target to invade and conquer. The Histories shows the fact that othering foreign people is not always one-sided, meaning it’s not always the superior that labels. The Greeks were others to the Persians, while the Persians were others to the Greeks.
Herodotus wrote The Histories to preserve the memory of the past. He wanted to show everyone the achievements of the Greeks and Persians, the conflict that arose between them, and the unlikely victory of the Geeks over the Persians. People could look at it as the underdogs finishing on top against a much stronger, superior country.
The first world empire had been defeated. Although the Persians claimed they were superior to the Greeks, that the Greeks just other foreign people, these “others” won the Persian Wars. No matter what your race is, what gender you identify, if you’re a minority or majority, you still have power, whether you feel like you do or not.
The Commentaries of the Gallic War, written by Julius Caesar, is a perfect example of showing foreign people being labeled as “others.” The Commentaries… shows the power that Julius Caesar and Rome had on Gaul and how they became superior over them.
This document was written in Rome, Italy C. 50 BCE for the educated Romans, military leaders, and people in the Roman government.
Caesar wanted his actions to be approved; it was important for him to impress the craftsmen and wage workers to which this document was also written for. Through this ethnographic digression of the habits and cultures of both the people of Gaul and Germany, the segregation of people is shown, along with the unbalanced power relationship.
Not only were the relationship and the cultural differences between the Gauls and the Germans that began to settle in Gaul were mentioned, but we can see the relationship between Gaul and the Roman Republic through this story; how Julius Caesar and the Roman Republic conquered Gaul.
The Commentaries… informed military activities and the reading audience in Rome about these cultures and how these people acted; to show that they are superior over the Gauls and how Caesar’s conquest was a defensive pre-emptive action. Othering in the sense that there is superiority and inferiority was expressed through Caesar’s conquest.
He showed the Roman Republic, the Gauls, and the Germans that he was superior and that he was going to be on top.
The customs and institutions between the Gauls and the Germans shared some similarities, but also had some differences. Caesar viewed and described both as violent people.
Both the Gauls and the Germans ended up with the same fate; they both were labeled inferior and assimilated into the Roman culture, being forced to learn Latin and adopt Christianity. Caesar “othered” the Gauls and Germans through this assimilation. He took charge and forced them into a specific identifying group.
Caesar wants to compare the customs and intuitions of the Gauls and the Germans. He wants people to be informed and to better understand why the Gallic Wars occurred. This also shows that by writing this, it is only adding to his fame of glory.
The pattern of othering recurs among these texts. The sailor did not take the treasures and all that was offered because it didn’t lie among the land of the Egyptians.
Herodotus states in the beginning of The Histories, “His Histories are here to set down to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements both our own and people as well as the barbarians; and more particularly, to show how they came into conflict” (Herodotus 450BCE).
Caesar proclaims, “At this point, it seems not inappropriate to give an account of the customs of the Gauls and the Germans and the differences between these people” (Caesar 50 BCE).
The difference between the othering of each group of people was the approach they took. The Egyptians handled foreign people by shutting them out, not taking what isn’t homemade. The Romans and the Greeks took it upon themselves to incorporate war into the equation in order to be superior.
The Gallic Wars and the Persian Wars express this othering. Today, there’s othering happening every day, among countries and among individuals. These three documents give us a little insight as to why things are the way they are today; why there are different social classes and rankings, stereotypes, gender identities, and segregation.
They give insight as to why their people label foreigners as “others,” and why there are conflicts between the interactions of people. History may be the study of past events, but what happened then relates to what happens now. The past has made a huge impact on the present.
