The Barbarians In The Classiical Works Before The Hellenistic Age

Ethnic and cultural identity has become a hot issue concerned by academic circles inrecent years. Ethnic consciousness has exerted significant impact on politics, culture andnational relations of ancient society; Greek-Barbarian relations therefore attracted muchattention.Similar to Yi Di in Ancient China, the legend of Barbarians in Ancient Greek, as thebirthplace of western civilization, is widely come down."Barbaroi"was used by AncientGreeks to name Barbarians originally to make a mock of the latter's language occasionally.With the changes of history,"Barbaroi"became a concept opposed to"Greek"and aderogatory term for all non-Greeks along with gradually stronger national consciousness andethnocentrism of Greeks, a synonym for being lack of reason and political liberty, savage,cruelty and innate servility.There was no distinct difference between Greeks and non-Greeks in Homeric Age. In theearlier 5th century BC, especially after Greece-Persia War, Greek ethnic and cultural identitywas developed while depicting the image of Barbarians, thus the Barbarian-against-Greekthought generated thereof. After Peloponnesian War, the discrimination tendency of Greeksover Barbarians reached a historical high whereas the deepening national crisis and roaringvoice of conquering Persia. However, as long as Alexander's Anabasis, the spreading of Greekclassical civilization brought about that the sense of hostility between Greeks and Barbarianswas replaced by Universal Ideas that emphasize equality, and all turned to cooperate.The author will analyze the connotation of"Barbaroi"from etymological point of view,and then break down Greeks'changing attitudes towards Barbarians herein by referring toclassical works in different historical periods. It should be pointed out that there might bemany defects in this thesis for the sake of insufficient collection of related document literature,limited available material and knowledge of Greek, French and etc. Hence, it needs to beimproved.