Alternate History and the Classical Past: the Uchronic Impulse

Alternate History and the Classical Past: The Uchronic Impulse Pascal Lemaire © Pascal Lemaire, 2020 Abstract: Uchrony, the rewriting of history as it might have been (also known as “alternate history” or, somewhat abusively, “counter-factual history”), has grown increasingly popular during the course of the early 21st century with diverse professional and nonprofessional authors playing with world’s events to rewrite them in line with their fantasy writing. The ancient world has not been forgotten in those efforts, and a wide range of productions of diverse scope have altered the historical events of Ancient Egypt, Hebraic history, ancient China, India or Persia, as well as, of course, the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman periods. This article also attempts to demonstrate how rationalism and empiricism, as developed since Descartes, Bacon and Hume, impact our perception of the world in this genre of popular fiction. The deep internalization of those philosophical concepts by our Western societies have become such that most authors and readers do not even think about them when trying to depict the thoughts and actions of people not exposed to them. Keywords: uchronia (alternate history), classical antiquity, rationalism, empiricism, historical plausibility Introducing Uchronia ered by the philosopher Renouvier and where are relegated, like old moons, Herodotus asked himself what would events that might have happened but have happened to Greece had the Hel- didn’t” (Messac, 1934: 658). lenes not overcome the Persian onslaught Uchronia is born from a point of di- at Salamis (Herodotus, History, VII, 139). vergence with our reality, the PoD, also Livy imagined the fight that would have called sometimes the Nexus point taken place had Alexander, surviving (Hellekson, 2001: 5). This PoD can be as- Babylon, turned against Rome (Livy, Ab sociated with either a human intervention Urbe Condita, IX, 17-19). Since then, or a natural factor which the uchronia many have played with the flow of time, takes as a point of departure, creating a modifying it in a myriad of ways, either new narrative. Thus Caesar’s not going to as a game, a way to take revenge for the the Senate on the Ides of March, Marcus fate given to them or their ancestor by Aurelius’ not dying from sickness on the History, for nationalistic reasons, for the frontlines, the great Justinian plague be- philosophical seduction of the exercise or ing less severe are all PoDs playing on for its intellectual quality (see Gallagher, very different factors that lead to uchron- 2018). Called Alternate History (AH) in ic texts. Some of those PoDs have been English, and Uchronie in French, we used in counterfactual history (G. Tra- speak here of this “unknown land, next to iana’s Carrhes comes to mind), or in ama- ours or outside of the flow of time, discov- teur writings but not, as far as I know, in REVISTA HÉLICE: Volumen VI, n.º 2 12 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2020-2021 REFLEXIONES Alternate History and the Classical Past: The Uchronic Impulse published novels (Renouvier’s PoD in fact divergence making Alcibiades decide to is not Marcus Aurelius’ survival of sick- stay on the island, conquer Syracuse and ness but his having a much more agres- come back home in triumph as a proof of sive policy during his Danubian cam- his innocence in the Hermes sacrilege. paigns, which prevents the Germanic The PoD may also, sometimes, have no migrations our history has known). direct relationship with the intrigue. This Purists of the genre will exclude time second approach is illustrated by Turtle- travel and its sometimes paradoxical con- dove’s collection of short stories Agent of sequences, and will make a clear distinc- Byzantium (1987) in which the PoD is the tion with counterfactual history. In the survival of a stronger Byzantium thanks present article I will, however, look at the to a milder Justinianic plague,2 the plots reception of Classical history in all of its of the short novels being various investi- uchronic avatars taken in the broadest gations by a 14th century special agent, meaning, including time travel, in order Basil Argyros. In this case, information to make both comparisons of details and about the PoD is disseminated through- larger conclusions. My goal is to give a out the collection, and it is once more the general overview of the situation and ex- reader that must piece it together from plore how the depiction of the ancient the various clues left by the author. In world in alternate history may differ from those novels, Turtledove plays with his that found in more usual productions readers, throwing some jokes at them, such as traditional historical novels or such as the constant references to St Mu- movies. hamad, the patron saint of the investiga- Authors may introduce the PoD in tor. Those jokes have two roles, one as el- many different ways, with them being ements that emphasize the feeling of sometimes described early on in the novel difference with our reality, another as or with its disclosure being more discreet, part of building complicity between read- as the author plays with the readers forc- er and writer, which constitute what ing them to discover the nature of the his- Henriet calls “le clin d’oeil au lecteur” torical change. Thus in Harry Turtle- (2003: 41). dove’s The Daimon (2002) we find no The authors of alternate history seem explicit mention of the PoD; it falls to the to come from various backgrounds, alt- reader to discover that the presence of hough most are men3 of European or Socrates in Sicily with Alcibiades1 is the ————— ————— Xenophon or Plutarch, and in a number of lat- 1 Alcibiades (450 - 404 BCE), Athenian er works of art and letters general and politician, educated by his uncle 2 The plague of Justinian was the first rec- Pericles and follower of Socrates. He pushed orded plague caused in Europe and the Medi- Athens to launch in 416 BCE an expedition terranean area by the bacterium Yersinia pes- against Sicily of which he was granted com- tis, which also caused later the Black Death. It mand before political intrigue led to his recall ravaged the Eastern Roman Empire between home, which ultimately led to the expedition’s 541 and 549 AD, killing millions, and the destruction. Alcibiades would then spend a Eastern Roman Empire’s emperor Justinian decade helping the Spartans, the Persians and himself caught it in 542 (although he did sur- the Athenians until his death in exile a few vive). months after the final defeat of Athens by 3 There are very few women in this field, Sparta. He appears in a number of ancient especially in the English-speaking world. The texts by, among others, Thucydides, Plato, only exception I can think of is the participa- REVISTA HÉLICE: Volumen VI, n.º 2 13 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2020-2021 REFLEXIONES Alternate History and the Classical Past: The Uchronic Impulse North-American origin, maybe because of 2003). Unlike fiction, counterfactual his- the West’s particular relationship with tory, which is conceived as a scientific ap- the past. Amongst the best-known au- proach, was defined by Jeremy Black and thors we find trained historians: Eric Donald MacRaild as “the idea of conjec- Flint, author of, amongst others, 1632 (a turing on what did not happen, or what collaborative series set in the 17th centu- might have happened, in order to under- ry), pursued formal training in history stand what did happen” (2007: 125). The (even starting a PhD on early colonial emphasis is laid on the study of the “true” South African history, before his political timeline, playing with its parameters to activism led him to leave Academia, see see what changes this would cause, as a Flint, 2012), as did Harry Turtledove, chemist playing with his compounds who has a PhD in Byzantine history, would do in his lab. The divergence is which explains the rare depth to some of thus used to put into light the role of the his texts such as the Basil Argyros sto- parameter in our history. In contrast, the ries. However it appears most authors did literary uchrony/alternate history puts not pursue any formal training in the dis- the emphasis on the world that appears cipline, which may help explain in part after this change of parametre. why some points of divergence come more often to the fore. While trained historians may play with more obscure periods or Classics in Alternate History and Al- historical characters those without such ternate Realia4 training will stick mostly to the best- known historical characters. Incidental- There is probably no need to evoke here ly, Turtledove’s Basil Argyros collection of the long shadow of the ancient world on short stories, Agent of Byzantium, was in- later arts and literature, names such as troduced by Isaac Asimov, a man also those of Joachim Du Bellay, William passionate about History. Most texts clas- Shakespeare, Jean Racine, Marivaux or sified under the “alternate history” head- Alexandre Dumas being but a few exam- er are indeed associated with science- ples of artists with a great interest in it fiction, even when they do not imply time- for the centuries following its rediscovery travelling. This categorization might ex- in the early Renaissance. Yet it is useful plain why the genre was not really taken to look in some depth at the various artis- seriously by professional historians, at tic productions of the 20th century to de- least not until the 1990s and the popular- fine some of the main characteristics of ization of formal counterfactual history by the representation of the ancient world in Niall Ferguson in his volume Alternatives order to compare them with the represen- and Counterfactuals (1999) (see Kreisler, tations found in uchronia.

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