1 Excerpt from Ari Turunen's New Book Maailmanhistorian Kukoistavimmat

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excerpt from Ari Turunen’s new book Maailmanhistorian kukoistavimmat kaupungit. Translated by Jill G. Timbers with the support of FILI, the Finnish Literature Exchange. Translation copyright Jill G. Timbers. Strictly for marketing purposes. Use in publication requires written permission from Jill Timbers.

Where tolerance surpassed differences

Somewhere in the world at a certain point of time there was a city where great things were created. The city had an exceptionally open atmosphere. In the city people tolerated merchants speaking strange tongues and the foreign ways they brought with them. In the city new things were created, through which the residents acquired wealth. In the city there were means to fund art and beauty, which lured more talented people there. In this book I will present nine cities which, for a moment in time, ranked among the richest and most developed in the world, because in them people dared to inspire and be inspired by others’ ideas and influences.

In many large cities of today, statues have been erected not only to rulers but also to the city’s own artists, writers, inventers and scholars. But how many of those people fared well in those cities during their lifetimes?

In front of the Academy of Athens there is a statue of Socrates, with the philosopher seated in his chair, thinking. Although Socrates admitted to being an annoyance to the Athenians – a gadfly, as he put it – he clung to his conviction that the way to have

an opportunity to accomplish good was an open, curious approach and a willingness to try new things. Socrates irritated people so much that he was sentenced to death.

After Socrates’s death, young Plato fled Athens and possible persecution together with others of Socrates’s pupils. Plato’s pupil Aristotle also had to leave Athens to live in exile shortly before his death.

Outside London’s Royal Academy there is a statue of John Locke, bedecked in a cape. Philosopher John Locke’s revolutionary ideas about the right to question a ruler’s misconduct had a significant influence on the United States Declaration of

Independence. In 1683 Locke had to flee London. He wrote his book while in exile.

On St. Germain Boulevard in Paris there is a statue of an earnest-looking Denis

Diderot. Diderot fought constantly with censors while writing the world’s first encyclopedia, his Encyclopédie. In 1749 Diderot was locked up in a cell for three months for having written that knowledge was acquired through the senses rather than by divine revelation.

The schools of Plato and Aristotle, the Academy and the Lyceum (the Academy’s grove and the area of the temple of Lyceios) have remained in our language and our mind as places of culture and freedom. British liberalism and French enlightenment echo the same ideals of the light of reason and freedom of thought. Fine words.

Socrates, Locke and Diderot are today classics and heroes in Athens, London and

Paris. Exile, censorship and bonfires of books are, however, just as appropriate as freedom, culture and enlightenment for describing these cities. No place in the world has always been free and progressive, no matter the statues erected to honor cultural achievements.

There have always been people who believe they have an almost divine right to dictate what is good taste, what can be discussed and what can be done. One meets such people in institutions of learning, jobs, government, political parties and social media. They avoid contact with different and new people. To them, learning to know new people is an extra effort and burden, because there is the risk they may have to defend their own world view or confront something too exotic. There have, however, been places where encountering the new was seen as an opportunity for everyone. In the cities of this book, different people and those seeking something new have been able to live in peace, without persecution or limitations. The cities flourished because in them freedom of thought and deed was encouraged and foreign languages and cultures were understood. And if new influences were not always welcomed in these places, differentness was tolerated.

Of course one need not be excited about everything; it’s enough just to allow others their enthusiasm. When an environment permits freedom and foreign influences, the result is success in the economy, science and arts. At least for a short time. 3

MILETUS

MILETUS’S LOCATION AT THE INTERSECTION OF TRADE

ROUTES MADE THE CITY RIPE FOR FOREIGN INFLUENCES.

THUS IT BECAME ONE OF THE BUSIEST PORT CITIES OF THE

MEDITTERANEAN, AND A PLACE WHERE CREATIVITY

FLOURISHED.

On the Turkish coast, ten kilometers north of the town of Didim, extensive ruins spread out in the middle of a green plain. The stone steps of the great theater offer a good view of the surrounding mountains. In the adjacent stadium, a few columns still stand. The sun scorches and only the cicadas break the silence. It is hard to imagine that over 2500 years ago a splendid, vibrant, colorful city stood on this site, its narrow port streets peopled by travelers from all over the world.

Most of Miletus’s ruins remain from Hellenic and Roman times. They give no hint of how exceptional the place is. Although the name of the city may not be familiar to many, the intellectual legacy of Miletus lives on as strongly as that of ancient Athens.

The textbooks of history do not tell of rulers of Miletus, who with their armies would

have brought fame and respect to their residents. Founded by the Ionians, Miletus was not a military power, nor were its people interested in expeditions of conquest.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. In Miletus, instead of erecting statues, people traded, invented and grew rich.

THE ALPHABET AND THE ODYSSEY

When Miletus was at its peak in 7th and 6th century BCE, there was no pompous nobility or elite in the city. The people of Miletus were free to travel and chat in taverns without control by the rulers. Miletus was one of the first truly free cities.

Miletus belonged to a league along with other Ionian colonies. In the 11th century

BCE the Ionians established colonies along the coast of current Anatolia. The Ionian coastal strip was 40 kilometers wide and 160 kilometers long, from Miletus north to the town of Cyme, near today’s Nemrut. The islands of Kos and Samos also belonged to the twelve-member league. Miletus was located on a peninsula with four ports.

The heart of the city was the port near its baths. As in all successful port towns throughout history, in Miletus foreigners were not seen as a threat but rather as a commercial opportunity. Foreign merchants could move about and negotiate at will on the city’s lanes. For good reason Miletus was famous and became the

Mediterranean’s most important trading center. Miletus was the terminal point on the caravan route from Asia through Lydia. In Miletus the caravan drivers of Asia met 5

the seafarers of Greece. According to historian Hans Furuhagen, Miletus was a good place for well-traveled people to meet one another and compare experiences. There people would discuss how best to weigh and sail and forecast the weather. People in

Miletus sought rational explanations for natural phenomena. The Milesians absorbed new knowledge and influences from merchants who had traveled from Assyria, the

Hittite empire, Babylon, Syria, Aramea and Egypt.

Thanks to the trading, the people of Miletus also became familiar with Phoenician culture. The Phoenicians, who lived in the area of current-day Lebanon, ruled southern Mediterranean trade with their advanced merchant ships. They established trading centers such as Carthage along the Mediterranean coast. The Jews called the

Phoenicians “Canaanites” – the word means merchant. The great importance of the

Greek and Phoenician trade can be seen in the fact that the Greeks may have derived the term “Phoenician” from the prized purple dye that they sold, phoinos.

The best known and most significant invention of the Phoenicians can be seen in the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos from the 11th century BCE. The sarcophagus was discovered in the modern-day city of Jbeil in 1923 and is preserved in the

National Museum of Beirut.

The oldest known Phoenician texts are written in Phoenician letters on the sarcophagus. The Milesian people learned the Phoenician alphabet, from which the 6

Ionian alphabet developed after 750 BCE. Before this the Greeks had used linear-B writing, which has almost a hundred syllabograms. Its first four letters mean, in the

Semitic Phoenician language, ox (‘alef ’), house (‘beth’), camel (‘gimel’) and door

(‘dalet’). In Miletus they assumed the forms alpha, beta, gamma and delta.

In Miletus an important change was made to the alphabet: vowels were added.

Writing became less difficult, which gave a boost to the economy. It meant that trade agreements offered less room for interpretation. Eventually the 24-letter Greek alphabet developed from the form Miletus used, and later became the basis for both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. Seventy percent of the world’s population uses the

Latin alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet is used by over 250 million people in Eurasia.

The Milesian alphabet is still used in its original form in Greece. Milesian letters are used to indicate magnitudes and variables in scientific formulas in mathematics, physics and other branches of science. The alphabet initially grew from the need to record trade-related agreements. Interest quickly arose, however, in recording other things, as well. Narrative poems, epics that had passed orally from mouth to mouth were at last transformed into written masterpieces recorded for posterity, like, for example, The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Some scholars believe that Homer was a blind Ionian poet from the city of Smyrna.

It is not clear whether Homer was actually a historical person. Nor is it certain that

Homer wrote these works. The Iliad and The Odyssey are narratively different works. 7

The stories take place during the Trojan War at a time the Greek alphabet had not yet been invented. In any case someone, whether Homer or some “Homerian” poetry guild (the Homeridae), gathered and compiled the poems which became The Iliad and The Odyssey. It is also unclear whether Homer or the poetry guild dictated the poems to scribes or not. The oldest known texts written in Greek letters are from around 730 BCE. Some scholars believe the poems were recorded quickly after the invention of the Greek alphabet. At least some of the homeric texts were written down for use by professional bards, who rejected accompaniment by lyre and performed recitations in 7th century BCE. Homeric poems acquired their final form when scribes at the Library of Alexandria became the editors of the texts, beginning in third century BCE. Homer’s poetry had an influence on philosophical thought. The gods in his poems are human. They differ from people only in that they are eternal and have incomparable powers. People and gods are primarily directed by fate and destiny, the natural order of the universe.

Ionian culture had an enormous influence on Greek expression, both written and spoken. The Ionian dialect became the language of literature and the learned in the

Greek world. It developed into classical Greek.

Musical styles and scales from the neighboring lands of Lydia and Phrygia had an influence on lyric poetry. Lydian and Phrygian scales were still being used in medieval Gregorian church hymns. Everywhere in the Greek world, lyric poems were 8

sung to the accompaniment of the lyre or aulos, that is, double oboe. Woodwinds were an essential part of an elegy, the melancholy eulogy which required a player and a singer for its performance. The poems were usually love songs.

Mimnermus of Smyrna wrote poetry for drinking societies, but he is remembered for his love poems to a flute-playing girl named Nanno. Mimnermus drew from the erotic atmosphere of drinking celebrations for his inspiration.

An alphabet and literature turned Ionia into the leading civilization of the

Mediterranean. A writing system advanced legislation, because now vague laws could be written in more precise form. Laws were initially written in poetic form, so they could be memorized and easily recited publicly. The ability to write created a strong foundation for the establishment of city-states. Poleis, city-states with a constitution, began to appear in the Greek world in the 8th century BCE. A growth in population, the spread of agriculture to new colonies, especially Ionia, and the resultant increase in the number of land owners combined to lead to the birth of the new form of government. The polis became an independent society with a clear administrative border. At the same time, land-owning peasants acquired full rights of citizenship for the first time. The development of the polis, therefore, is directly connected to the Greeks’ extensive settlement and colonization of the coasts of the

Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

City-states were numerous and had different administrative forms, such as tyranny, 9

oligarchy, aristocracy or democracy. The government was usually composed of a citizen council and a body of civil servants. According to Bertrand Russell, in

Miletus political power belonged first to the aristocracy and then to the merchants, who relinquished their authority to a legally elected tyrant. The word “tyrant” initially signified the ruler of a city-state (tyrannos). The tyrant was elected by the people. In other words, tyrant did not initially mean something negative to the

Greeks. Rather, the Greek “tyranny” arose from the citizens’ fight against the aristocracy and kings. In city-states like Miletus, passing down power based on divine right or tradition was not accepted. Revolutions often ended with a tyrant being elevated to ruler. The rulers of Miletus, too, were kings at first, but the monarchy was overturned very early. In about 630 BCE tyranny developed into a form of government when the tyrant Thrasybulus rose to power. Aristoteles reports that tyranny in Miletus was overseen by a council of civic servants, the prytany, that met regularly.

Thrasybulus was a tyrant, but not a despot with unchecked power. According to

Gerard Naddaf, who has studied the origins of ancient Greek philosophy,

Thrasybulus wanted equal treatment before the law for all citizens of Miletus. Such

“isonomia” was already in use in the Milesian colonies where merchants held power.

Isonomia contained the idea that all parts of the population had their own spheres built around living together in harmony. Residents of different areas of Miletus tolerated one another and let everyone live their own way. 10

Writing about freedom and revolution, Hannah Arendt, one of the most important

Western scholars of power and totalitarianism, explains that the Ancient Greeks understood freedom as a space in which citizens lived together but were not governed per se. This is what isonomia meant. In an unequal world people needed an artificial institution, the polis, that was able to guarantee equal treatment. The concept of the free polis was rather isonomia than democracy, because democracy meant power to the majority, not to everyone. According to Arendt the concept of equality was the same as the concept of free thought. Though a tyrant ruled Miletus, in practical terms the city was an isonomia.

In Miletus, thus, people could live and think in peace, in spite of the tyranny. The tyrants could handle criticism. Miletus’s first known philosopher, Thales, wrote, for example, that the strangest thing one could see was an “aged tyrant”. By this he meant that tyrants could not live long because they did not have the support of the people. If Thrasybulus had been a ruthless ruler, philosophers like Thales would scarcely have been allowed to live in Miletus during his reign.

Gerard Naddaf considers Thrasybulus much more important than history credits him.

He appears to have been an enlightened, elected tyrant, who ruled like an autocrat but focused on foreign policy and diplomacy. In so doing he left the city residents alone.

Thus, in Miletus, diplomatic means helped establish a stable and secure framework for other intellectual and commercial activity, which was allowed to function without 11

interference.

THE BIRTH OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES

At its peak there were 100,000 residents living in Miletus. Nowhere else in the Greek world had the economic and intellectual wealth of 7th century Miletus. Studying was encouraged and many schools were established. This resulted in a culture that left a significant impression on Western thinking.

In Miletus people believed fervently in a philosophy that had self-criticism as an essential component. G. E . R. Lloyd, scholar of ancient philosophy and science, stresses that the Greeks had a direct way of relating to others’ thoughts. Written sources show that, compared to Chinese thinking, the Greeks had a more competitive attitude about knowledge and started their sentences much more often with “I”. At the same time, their mood was relaxed and even playful compared to that in China.

Thinkers were people. Sometimes they were egocentric, but often they were also the first to admit their mistakes. Thinkers openly discussed their uncertainty and the limits of their knowledge and critiqued themselves as well as others. Recognizing and revealing one’s own limits, what one knows and does not know, is true knowledge, not superficial consulting talk. If we nowadays were able to talk about not only the strengths of what we know but also the deficiencies, many a project would advance more swiftly. 12

Playwrights were also allowed to laugh at the expense of these thinkers. For instance, philosopher Thales was comically portrayed as an absent-minded scientist who nearly fell into a pit while studying the stars. The tale is repeated in a number of sources, such as Plato’s Theaetetus dialog. “Thales: wise man, calculates the movement of the stars but can’t see his own feet”.

Bertrand Russell believes that Western philosophy begins with Thales. Thales did not turn to myths to explain natural phenomena. Instead he studied the world rationally.

He claimed that all of life comes from water, not the whims of gods. Posterity remembers Thales as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece and the “father of science”.

Interested in geometry and astronomy, Thales believed that the world operated according to rules. He saw the universe as an organized structure. It was called

“cosmos”, or “order”. Combining this with the belief that every small part of the universe has its own purpose, a beginning and an end, led to the theory of teleology, goal orientation, by which an occurrence is explained by its end result. Classical

Greek science began to take form from these thoughts. The word episteme meant knowledge and was translated into Latin as scientia.

Thales also influenced the basic concepts of the natural sciences when he spoke about 13

the elements of all matter. To Thales it was water, but his ideas opened the way to critiquing, which became one of the starting points of science. Thales’s pupil

Anaximander did not take his master’s lessons as given, but argued against them.

Who else could have known better the gaps in his master’s thinking than his pupil?

Anaximander thought water could not be the basic element of everything, because there was no material opposite to wetness. Because dryness is not matter, water cannot have an opposite. Anaximander also based his thinking on natural laws in which he did not see divine influence. Anaximander thought our world was just one among many. He claimed, moreover, that people had developed out of a mutation of some animal. Some consider the thinking of Anaximander as the earliest appearance of evolution theory.

Anaximander is known for his claim that: “Where creatures have their origin, they return again, as is ordained, for they give to one another justice and recompense for their injustice, according to the disposition of time.” With this somewhat convoluted statement, Anaximander means that there exists something inevitable, the law of nature, that strives subliminally for equilibrium. Defined limits cannot thus be surmounted eternally. Anaximander’s pupil Anaximenes, for his part, believed the universe was composed of air. Anaximenes based his belief on condensation. When air is condensed it produces mist and rain. But water evaporates into the air.

Anaximenes addressed natural phenomena while also studying opposing aspects of a single material, such as dry and wet and hot and cold. Anaximenes understood that 14

lightning was linked to differences in clouds and their separation from one another, and that a rainbow was produced by sunrays penetrating dense air.

According to the historian of science David Lindberg, these examples show that

Anaximenes, like other Milesian philosophers, studied nature from a broad perspective. The philosophers of Miletus sought common denominators to explain occurrences rather than examining natural phenomena as individual instances or explaining them as divine or supernatural events.

Anaximander may also have taught about Pythagoras. Pythagoras was convinced that the world was built on numbers. It is reported that he understood this when he realized that musical pitch from which whole tones are produced is in direct proportion to the length of an instrument’s string. This was the foundation of mathematical physics.

According to philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright, the birth of Greek natural science and philosophy was closely connected to the disappearance of the culture of nobility and the emergence of the constitutional city-state. For instance, around 600

BCE a group of lawgivers are mentioned who left written notes about laws and written suggestions for the constitution. Among them were Lycurgus of Sparta and the Athenians Draco and Solon.

Freedom had an impact on everyone and everything everywhere. Milesian natural philosophy also influenced the modern Western concept of justice among men, justice that should be based on equal treatment. A person’s worth is not determined by his or her origin.