"You kneel in worship to no human being as master but to the gods alone"
Proskynesis and freedom in Herodotus and Xenophon
The depiction of proskynesis as a social practice [by the Persians] is important, as Greek authors (and Herodotus, too) tend to show it only in relation to the King. The Greek aversion to this practice, which they associated with the worship of gods (and it was not common even in that practice), is already visible [in Herodotus].
The Landmark Herodotus. Christopher Tuplin, “Appendix M: Herodotus on Persia and the Persian Empire,” §3.
Tuplin defines proskynesis as “a gesture of obeisance, sometimes involving prostration, when approaching a superior,” and points the reader to four passages in Herodotus: 3.86.2, 7.13.3, 7.136.1, and 8.118.4.
(1) The first clearly illustrates the practice of proskynesis before the King. The Persian noblemen who overthrew the imposter Smerdis are planning to install one of themselves as king, and have agreed to choose the man whose horse makes the first sound at sunrise. Darius arranges a trick with his groom that will ensure that his stallion whinnies first.
As dawn began to break, the six men, as they had agreed, mounted their horses and rode out to the area just outside the city. Just as they approach the place where the mare had been tied the night before, Darius’s stallion ran up to the spot and whinnied. At the very same time, lightning appeared and thunder sounded out of the clear sky like a signal of agreement, which added a perfect conclusion to the decision for Darius. The other man immediately dismounted from their horses and prostrated [προσεκύνεον] themselves before Darius. (3.86.2)
Proskynesis, then, first appears to conclude an episode in which the Persian nobles have deliberated on the best form of government, decided on monarchy, entrusted the decision of who should be monarch to chance, and then interpreted the rigged outcome of the trial as a sign from the gods. Darius steps into the role of the gods and so, fittingly, is treated as a god by the men who, moments before, were his equals.
(2) The second example occurs in the context of Xerxes’s clumsy attempts to cultivate a free discussion to advise him on the invasion of Hellas. This attempt fails, due to the fear and flattery of his advisors and his own explosion of anger at the only man, his uncle Artabanos, who dares to voice a contrary opinion. But Xerxes vacillates; “in the quiet of the night” he comes around to Artabanos’s advice. A dream-vision warns him against this change of heart (7.12.2), but he ignores it. At daybreak, he assembles the Persians and announces his reversal.
“Persians, please pardon me for completely reversing my plans, for my mental faculties have not yet reached their prime. Those urging me to take that other course of action have not given me a moment’s peace, and when I heard the opinion of Artabanos, my youth boiled over, so that I blurted out words too unseemly to be addressed to an older man. But now I agree with him and shall follow his judgment. So since my new decision is not to march against Hellas, you may all relax.” Upon hearing this, the Persians rejoiced and prostrated themselves before him [προσεκύνεον]. (7.13.2–3)
Immediately after, Xerxes is revisited by a more terrifying dream-vision and must consult with Artabanos. This second appearance of proskynesis, then, is an expression of relief and gratitude by the Persian nobles at their King’s soon-to-be-reversed decision to call of the invasion.
(3) The third example drives home the distinction between the Spartans and the Persians. Sperthias and Boulis volunteer to surrender themselves to the Persians in atonement for the Spartan abuse of the Persian messengers, who came demanding earth and water (the sign of submission to the King) and were thrown into a well and told to gather earth and water there. Along their way, Sperthias and Boulis are interviewed by the Persian general Hydarnes, who asks them why they prefer to die for their city rather than submitting themselves to the King and gaining rule over their fellow Greeks in return. Sperthias and Boulis reply that Hydarnes cannot understand the Spartan way of life: “you know well how to be a slave but have not yet experienced freedom, nor have you felt whether it is sweet or not” (7.135.3).
After giving that answer to Hydarnes, they traveled inland to Susa and gained an audience with the King. At first the King’s bodyguards ordered them and actually tried to force them to prostrate themselves [προσκυνέειν] before the King; but they refused to do so, saying they would never do that, even if the bodyguards should try to push them down to the ground headfirst, since it was not their custom to prostrate themselves before any human being [οὔτε γὰρ σφίσι ἐν νόμῳ εἶναι ἄνθρωπον προσκυνέειν]. (7.136.1)
Here the Spartans trace their refusal to offer proskynesis to a mortal to their nomoi, the authoritative laws and customs of their city. Their intention is to atone for the sins of their city, and they are willing to give their lives for that atonement. To prostrate themselves before the Persian King as they surrender themselves to him would be to repudiate the very basis for their decision to surrendering themselves to him. As Demaratos had explained to Xerxes a few pages earlier,
Though [the Lacedaemonians] are free, they are not free in all respects, for they are actually ruled by a lord and master: law is their master [ἔπεστι γάρ σφι δεσπότης νόμος], and it is the law that they inwardly fear—much more so than your men fear you. (7.104.4)
Law is the master (“despot”) of the Spartans, freeing them from any merely human master. If the Spartans ever saw their Law incarnate, they would bow down to it. The actions of Sperthias and Boulis are a bowing down to their Law, and to their Law alone.
(4) The fourth example of proskynesis in Herodotus shows a Persian echo of this Spartan self-sacrifice, but it is offered for the purpose of the King himself, not for the good of the community. According to one version, Xerxes returns to Asia aboard a Phoenician ship but is overtaken by a storm.
As the storm grew more violent and the ship became endangered, as it was heavily laden with the many Persians who were traveling with Xerxes and who were now on deck, the King fell into a panic and shouted to the helmsman, asking if there was any way they could be saved. The helmsman replied, “My lord, there is none, unless we rid ourselves of these many men on board.” Upon hearing this, Xerxes said, “Men of Persia, it is now time for you to prove your care for your king. For in you, it seems, lies my safety.” After he said this, his men prostrated themselves [προσκυνέοντας], leapt out into the sea, and the now lightened ship sailed safely to Asia. As soon as Xerxes stepped onto shore, he gave the helmsman a gift of a golden crown in return for saving his life, but then, because he had been responsible for the death of many Persians, he had his head cut off. (8.118.2–4)
Herodotus doubts the authenticity of this story. But his first reason for doubting it—his conviction that Xerxes would have ordered the Phoenicians to jump overboard rather than his own Persians (8.119)—assumes that Xerxes would have kept his cool under pressure, something that Xerxes struggles to do throughout the Histories. The story not only seems plausible, given Xerxes’s character; it also echoes Artabanos’s initial warning against the invasion, that the very magnitude of the expeditionary force would be its undoing. Whether or not Xerxes ordered the Persians to sacrifice themselves, the episode rings true, and reinforcing the impression that Persian proskynesis before the King signifies Persian slavishness, that is, their failure to deliberate together for the common advantage.
While proskynesis before a fickle man wielding absolute power signifies slavishness, proskynesis before the gods—or, for Spartans, before the Law which the godlike Lycurgus instituted—signifies freedom.
(X) Writing some 60 years after Herodotus, about events which occur 80 years after Xerxes’s invasion, Xenophon in the Anabasis rallies the Ten Thousand by recalling their ancestors’s victories over the Persians at Marathon, Plataea, and Salamis.
Our ancestors were victorious over the ancestors of these people both on land and at sea. Seeing the trophies they put up [as memorials of their victory] provides evidence of this, but the greatest proof is the freedom of the cities in which you were born and brought up, for you kneel in worship to no human being as master but to the gods alone [οὐδένα γὰρ ἄνθρωπον δεσπότην ἀλλὰ τοὺς θεοὺς προσκυνεῖτε.]. Such are your ancestors. (3.2.13–14)
Shortly before this passage, Xenophon had exhorted the Greeks to resist the Persians by arms so that, if the gods were willing, they would have a hope for deliverance (σωτηρία). Just when he had said this, he was interrupted by a soldier’s sneeze, which prompted all the Greeks to perform immediate proskynesis to Zeus (3.2.8–9). Xenophon comments that the sneeze was a sign from Zeus the Savior (τοῦ Διὸς τοῦ σωτῆρος), and proposes to the assembled soldiers—who, being Greeks, constitute themselves like a political assembly, hearing speeches and voting for or against resolutions—to offer sacrifices to Zeus and the other gods.
Whether or not Xenophon the author had Herodotus’s Histories in mind, Xenophon the soldier’s memorable formulation—that the “greatest proof” of Greek valor is “the freedom of the cities,” and that a sign of freedom is that citizens bow down “to no human being as master but to the gods alone”—recapitulates the distinction between Hellenic liberty and Persian slavishness that was indicated by Herodotus’s uses of proskynesis.