Gondor as Byzantine Empire and other parallels

I remain convinced that far more points away from the Byzantine Empire than points towards it, and I will only accept it as a "primary" inspiration of his for Gondor if a "confession" of his in writing is found.

I mentioned the possibility above that JRRT might have taken very varied sources for what he wrote, that in retrospect seem to "tick all the boxes" for the Byzantine Empire, while any of the possible sources would fail to do so. Aldarion considered that to be unlikely. Well, I've got news for you. Even if something is statistically improbable by 90% to 10% (or even in lottery ticket improbabilities going into three-digit millions), the 10% can still happen. As "intuitive statisticians", we humans are about the dumbest species in the world, even ants are better. And when we believe we have found a "causality" (something we seem to have a massively neurotic need for), we start taking notice only of what confirms this. There is perhaps nothing more daft that humans' "ability" to recognize "faces" where the similarity for "non-believers" tends towards zero. We're not nearly as smart as we think ourselves to be. We desperately search for "causality" and believe to find it far more often (by orders of magnitude!) than dispassionate observers would nod to. We are less hungry for "correlation", which seems to confuse many of us. And we just absolutely hate "coincidence", even though it is the 9000-pound gorilla of the three, dwarfing the other two.

I think, all Aldarion lacks is nothing but very very very accurate words...for too many fantasy authors seldom, and even never express their elements of inspiration, though they're obviously unnecessary for any account to guess. For instance. Bunches of Louis Cha Leung-yung's characters like Qiao Feng in Demi gods and Semi devils, even never mentioned his source, yet as a role with such obviously similar elements with some big guy in real history, it'd be a ultimate insult to the readers's judgement XDDDDDD

Back to business, I think according to all the elements that Gondor got, it's a piece of cake to guess who're the inspiration of it's source, such as standing armed forces, cross-road in the international commercial trade transport lines in a Medieval-Fantasy backgrounds...yeah, if it's not based on Byzantine mainly, I'd like to know...

My view on this topic has grown wider, thanks to the exchanges in this tread.

Comparisons are intellectually very interesting. They only go as far as they can go.

Alcuin, Olorgando and Aldarion correctly pointed out that there are many comparable aspects between Byzantium and Gondor, and yet also some contradictions.

My point here is that the existence of many comparable aspects does not justify the statement “Gondor=Byzantium”, meaning that igitur everything in Gondor is a mere Byzantine copy. Yet, this was noticed in a number of previous treads (the political structure, the government, the military tactics, the tax system, the administration, …). There have been exaggerations of this, repeatedly so. And then it becomes fanfic, IMHO.

In my possibly unhandy manner, that is what I tried to point out as my fundamental objection. It cannot be that everything JRRT has not said needs to be “explained” by the way it has supposedly been like in Byzantium.

The writings of JRRT: that is what matters at the end of the day.

Olorgando said:

I remain convinced that far more points away from the Byzantine Empire than points towards it, and I will only accept it as a "primary" inspiration of his for Gondor if a "confession" of his in writing is found.

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What exactly would you say points away from the Byzantine Empire, with particular focus on things within the text itself (meaning what we know and see of Gondor, as opposed to speculating on Tolkien's interests and knowledge of various areas)?

Olorgando said:

I mentioned the possibility above that JRRT might have taken very varied sources for what he wrote, that in retrospect seem to "tick all the boxes" for the Byzantine Empire, while any of the possible sources would fail to do so. Aldarion considered that to be unlikely. Well, I've got news for you. Even if something is statistically improbable by 90% to 10% (or even in lottery ticket improbabilities going into three-digit millions), the 10% can still happen. As "intuitive statisticians", we humans are about the dumbest species in the world, even ants are better. And when we believe we have found a "causality" (something we seem to have a massively neurotic need for), we start taking notice only of what confirms this. There is perhaps nothing more daft that humans' "ability" to recognize "faces" where the similarity for "non-believers" tends towards zero. We're not nearly as smart as we think ourselves to be. We desperately search for "causality" and believe to find it far more often (by orders of magnitude!) than dispassionate observers would nod to. We are less hungry for "correlation", which seems to confuse many of us. And we just absolutely hate "coincidence", even though it is the 9000-pound gorilla of the three, dwarfing the other two.

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I have never denied that Tolkien used very varied sources - as I pointed out, geography of Gondor appears to be based on British India. But as I also pointed out: if you have option of a) one main and few secondary inspirations which together tick all the boxes, b) several dozen minor inspirations which together tick all the boxes or c) just random happenstance, what option would you consider most likely? Personally, I would chose a).

Coincidence is actually very rare. What we call "coincidence" can mostly be translated to "inability to understand the relation" - which may be a direct causation, correlation, or a butterfly effect, but is very rarely actually a coincidence. It is just that relation is often so complex that we are incapable of understanding it and thus it is simpler to slap things with "coincidence".

Coincidence - "co incident", happening at the same time.
But I then checked my Oxford University Press E-G / G-E Dictionary both ways and found this.
While English "coincidence" is mainly translated as German "Zufall", the other way around German "Zufall" (noun) and "zufällig" (adjective) can have the meanings chance, coincidence, accident, and luck, also random and fluke (while the verb "zufallen" has more to do with the unprefixed "fallen", to fall). And I've done almost all my reading about "Zufall" in German (and also about one of its almost-synonyms "Glück", which besides luck can also mean happiness; some German words do "multiple duty" which can give a translator fits).

I think it is the randomness of occurrences that most people find hard to accept. One part of it has to do with our being, as mentioned above, absolutely lousy intuitive statisticians, apparently especially with the concept of the large numbers (10 flips of the coin will not necessarily give you 50-50 heads and tails, but 10,000 flips of the coin should get you very close). Unfortunately this makes people susceptible to nutty conspiracy theories, and all sorts of esoteric nonsense, especially perpetrated by charlatans. And coincidence as being random occurrences are very common, not rare. Perhaps you are thinking of Laplace's demon, the first published articulation of causal or scientific determinism. From what little I understand about it, Bohr and Heisenberg's postulated indeterminacy (IIRC one of the things that put Einstein off later quantum theory, even though one of his famous 1905 papers dealt with quantum theory) sent this "demon" off to pasture (perhaps again, as thermodynamics seems to have done so earlier). So if you say "What we call "coincidence" can mostly be translated to "inability to understand the relation"", I would retort that we try (sometimes almost desperately) to find a relation where there is none.

Aldarion said:

What exactly would you say points away from the Byzantine Empire, with particular focus on things within the text itself (meaning what we know and see of Gondor, as opposed to speculating on Tolkien's interests and knowledge of various areas)?

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Here I have the problem of minimum knowledge of the Byzantine Empire. But as to speculation, that would have to do with what JRRT might have done, reading mostly, in his spare, private time. What he did professionally is no speculation at all: Old and Middle English, with an added specialization on Old Norse (or Old Icelandic), for 17 years as a reader and then a professor (chairholder) at Leeds and Oxford. As to what he did in his spare time, we also know at least one thing: writing, revising, re-writing the Silmarillion, and working on his two invented Elven languages. So while JRRT probably spent a bit of time on other things, we know little of them. And he certainly had some knowledge of Byzantium Though hardly from his classical studies before switching to the English School in 1913. I just don't se Byzantium looming as large in his imagination as you assume it to do (and it certainly seems to loom in yours).

I'll put it this way: inspiration? Yes. Primary inspiration? A flat no.
(You may now imagine a stubborn mule braying in the background )

Olorgando said:

Here I have the problem of minimum knowledge of the Byzantine Empire. But as to speculation, that would have to do with what JRRT might have done, reading mostly, in his spare, private time. What he did professionally is no speculation at all: Old and Middle English, with an added specialization on Old Norse (or Old Icelandic), for 17 years as a reader and then a professor (chairholder) at Leeds and Oxford. As to what he did in his spare time, we also know at least one thing: writing, revising, re-writing the Silmarillion, and working on his two invented Elven languages. So while JRRT probably spent a bit of time on other things, we know little of them. And he certainly had some knowledge of Byzantium Though hardly from his classical studies before switching to the English School in 1913. I just don't se Byzantium looming as large in his imagination as you assume it to do (and it certainly seems to loom in yours).

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As I have pointed out, we have no way of knowing what Tolkien will have done in his private time, which is the only time when he could have actually researched Byzantium. But personally I find this focus on Tolkien's professional interests and opportunities rather misses the point. After all, whole work on Middle Earth was, for him, a private project made out of passion - he never actually intended to publish it (had to be convinced to). So searching for his inspiration and influences solely in his professional acitivies as a professor of linguistics is rather illogical.

I have already pointed out that he had the opportunity (Byzantine Studies as a discipline started developing in 19th century, but have history going back to 16th century, when term "Byzantium" was in fact coined), the means and arguably the motive to be interested in Byzantium; but whether he did it is impossible to establish for certain. Disucssing inspiration is always speculation. Silmarillion certainly shows no influences (however arguable) from Byzantine history; it is only Gondor and Arnor which appear to me to be inspired/influenced by Byzantine and Frankish Empires, respectively (and to reinforce this, Haradrim do appear to be inspired by Saracens, using scimitars for their cavalry and conquering Umbar - which itself may have been inspired by Alexandria or, more likely, Carthage).

I mean, from my own education you would not imagine me to have any knowledge of Byzantium beyond its role in protecting Europe from Arab and later Turkish expansion - unless you managed to find out that my undergraduate thesis was on Byzantine strategy, or specifically, possibilities of its application to modern world. And the reason for that was a wholly private interest in Byzantine Empire developed, as far as memory serves me, largely by accident (or not exactly by accident, seeing how I did have previous interest in Roman Empire of Antiquity). So having had that experience, I really cannot assign that much importance to Tolkien's professional record and interests as his sources of inspiration. They were significant, yes, but there is no need to assume that his interests were limited to his job. His interest in Atlantis and inspiration it served for Numenor is fairly uncontested, I believe.

Whether Byzantium is primary inspiration for Gondor can be discussed further. But personally I have trouble finding anything which could be. Egypt was the only other inspiration for Gondor I am fairly certain about, but as significant as it is, it is hardly primary one (at least in terms of military, which is where my interest primarily lies; general culture and architecture could well have been inspired by Egypt, but somehow I always imagined Minas Tirith and Osgilliath both as being closer to Constantinople aesthetically. And "obsession with death", while it clearly has Egyptian elements - such as mumification, though mausoleums are a clearly Roman thing - was also present in Byzantine Empire).

Aldarion said:

( . . . ) After all, whole work on Middle Earth was, for him, a private project made out of passion - he never actually intended to publish it (had to be convinced to).

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Byzantine empire aside, can I ask what this part is based on?

🐾

Elthir said:

Byzantine empire aside, can I ask what this part is based on?

🐾

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As with so many other things, it is a tidbit of information I got in my brain that I am not sure how, when or where from it got there. It is just floating there. I did manage to find this:

"The unpayable debt that I owe to [Lewis] was not 'influence' as it is ordinarily understood but sheer encouragement," Tolkien wrote in a letter to Dick Plotz, "Thain" of the Tolkien Society of America, in 1965. "He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my 'stuff' could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The L. of the R. to a conclusion."

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So it might be that it is merely me misremembering the above. But either way, it is clear that whole Middle Earth work started out as a personal hobby, which was - in the beginning at least - not intended for publication.

Aldarion said:

After all, whole work on Middle Earth was, for him, a private project made out of passion - he never actually intended to publish it (had to be convinced to). So searching for his inspiration and influences solely in his professional activities as a professor of linguistics is rather illogical.

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Aldarion said:

But either way, it is clear that whole Middle Earth work started out as a personal hobby, which was - in the beginning at least - not intended for publication.

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(The mule trots back into the room 😁 )
Good thing about your second post. Though I have thought of one nag to it by now.

But as to inspiration by his professional activities: for JRRT, and I believe he stated this more than once, there was no real separation between "professional occupation" and "hobby", or, as you call it more precisely, "passion".
His passion was for languages. He was very fortunate (there may be relatively few similarly fortunate) to translate his passion for languages into his profession. The Classics turned out to be a detour, which he then mostly abandoned for the English School. The passion came first. After he had then managed to translate his passion into his profession, he than used his acquired professional skill in constructing his Elven languages. John Garth's "Tolkien and the Great War" is quite instructive about this, as it notes what work JRRT had completed either for what was to later become "The Book of Lost Tales" volumes 1 and 2, and extensive work, highly professional, on Quenya and Sindarin (as they were later called), at certain points. JRRT pursued his passion both professionally and privately, so separating them seems to me artificial.

JRRT's quote about Lewis's encouragement points to one of the former's flaws. Due to being a self-confessed niggler, he was also a notorious non-finisher, in his professional publishing life, too. He had to be pushed to bring The Hobbit into a polished publishable from (not complete it; this had been achieved in manuscript by very early1933 at the latest as per John D. Rateliff's "The History of The Hobbit". Carpenter's error was thinking that the early tpescript - which had not reached the end of the story yet - was the incomplete state of the whole story at that later time). Yes, he had to be pushed to complete LoTR. Nobody pushed him (at least not enough) to complete The Sil, until it was basically too late.

But there is the matter of what JRRT wrote to Milton Waldman in that famous huge letter from late 1951.
"Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story - the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths - which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country.
[Note: here follows the part about what was not inspiration that I had failed to locate for an earlier post!]
It should possess the tone and quality that I desired, somewhat cool and clear, be redolent of our 'air' ( the clime and soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the hither parts of Europe: not Italy or the Aegean, still less the East) ...
I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama {drama?!?}. Absurd."

I'm the first to concede that this statement has several weaknesses:
1. it is contained in a letter
2. the letter is written with a certain "slant" with view to publication
3. it is retrospective; if we include JRRT's version of "Kullervo", the writings are at least 37 years old, and all of them over 30, if the "Book of Lost Tales" material.

Could JRRT himself at this time have pinpointed, or at least given the year, when he became "of mind" to create this legend? Or when his crest began to fall? As he states "Once upon a time" it seems unlikely.

But if he had actually entertained any such notion as he described it to Waldman, especially that other minds and hands should fill in what he had only sketched - then this is impossible without publication. That he never got even remotely into hailing distance of a publication during during his lifetime ... is no surprise. But that he kept it so private (I exaggerate for the cause of reductio ad absurdum) as many people keep their diary (I'm thinking especially of teenagers keeping theirs away from their own parents; nowadays, in one of the most massive pandemics of discontinuous thinking, they nevertheless post at least some of this stuff on Facebook ... *massive headbanging noises*) can with high probability be negated - and no, I'm not suggesting that you think he kept it nearly that private.

(The mule brays and leaves the room again )

Aldarion said:

( . . . ) But either way, it is clear that whole Middle Earth work started out as a personal hobby, which was - in the beginning at least - not intended for publication.

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We know that Tolkien sent parts of his "Silmarillion" to Allen and Unwin after The Hobbit had been published, and that The Lord of the Rings was written with publication in mind, and that again, Tolkien wanted his Silmarillion published, this time along with The Lord of the Rings -- and he was even willing to leave A&U to do it.

With respect to the pre-Hobbit, or early "Silmarillions" days, I think JRRT's desire to create a mythology that he could dedicate to England (stated at one point anyway, see Gando's post above) included being published.

And without digging into the arguable/possible aims of certain TCBS members . . .

. . . JRRT had been published quite early, if not on a large "stage" at first (and despite his wishing Goblin Feet had not been published, for example), and from Hammond and Scull's Reader's Guide:

" . . . following the original "Council of London" Tolkien began to write poetry more prolifically and to circulate it to the others for comment and criticism ( . . . ) the other members gave Tolkien their honest opinions on his poems, and advice on trying to get
them published."

In my opinion, even early on, hopes of publication hovered in the back of Tolkien's mind, including with respect to The Book of Lost Tales.

Elthir said:

We know that Tolkien sent parts of his "Silmarillion" to Allen and Unwin after The Hobbit had been published, and that The Lord of the Rings was written with publication in mind, and that again, Tolkien wanted his Silmarillion published, this time along with The Lord of the Rings -- and he was even willing to leave A&U to do it.

With respect to the pre-Hobbit, or early "Silmarillions" days, I think JRRT's desire to create a mythology that he could dedicate to England (stated at one point anyway, see Gando's post above) included being published.

And without digging into the arguable/possible aims of certain TCBS members . . .

. . . JRRT had been published quite early, if not on a large "stage" at first (and despite his wishing Goblin Feet had not been published, for example), and from Hammond and Scull's Reader's Guide:

" . . . following the original "Council of London" Tolkien began to write poetry more prolifically and to circulate it to the others for comment and criticism ( . . . ) the other members gave Tolkien their honest opinions on his poems, and advice on trying to get
them published."

In my opinion, even early on, hopes of publication hovered in the back of Tolkien's mind, including with respect to The Book of Lost Tales.

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Problem is that we have a direct statement to the contrary:

"The unpayable debt that I owe to [Lewis] was not 'influence' as it is ordinarily understood but sheer encouragement," Tolkien wrote in a letter to Dick Plotz, "Thain" of the Tolkien Society of America, in 1965. "He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my 'stuff' could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The L. of the R. to a conclusion."

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Aldarion said:

Problem is that we have a direct statement to the contrary:

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As I interpret this, Tolkien is talking about encouragement, being uplifted in the hope that he "could" be published, and if so, thus his "hobby" would no longer be private -- which to me, does not necessarily mean that before Lewis, Tolkien never desired/intended to publish something he'd written.

"The unpayable debt that I owe to [Lewis] was not 'influence' as it is ordinarily understood but sheer encouragement. He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my 'stuff' could be more than a private hobby."

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Encouragement that Tolkien's stuff was good enough to be published -- but I'm not sure this is
the same as Tolkien saying he never intended to publish before Lewis came along, for example. In other words, one could say: I always wanted to publish X, always intended to, but only when I met Mr. Y was I encouraged enough to think it could come true.

As I say, we know JRRT desired to be a poet and sent out his work in hopes of publication -- a collection of poems The Trumpets of Faerie to Sidgwick and Jackson, for example (and according to John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War, Tolkien's three schoolfriends had urged him to publish before he was sent to battle), and JRRT was in fact published -- all before meeting Lewis.

Granted The Book of Lost Tales is a different animal compared to a collection of poems, but that said, when you write: "But either way, it is clear that whole Middle Earth work started out as a personal hobby, which was - in the beginning at least - not intended for publication."

I can't agree that Tolkien's early intent here is clear (at least so far), and I don't see the statement you're raising as (necessarily interpreted as) a direct contradiction to my opinion (an opinion that to my mind, falls in step with Tolkien's young hope of creating a Mytholgy for England).

Elthir said:

I'm not sure this constitutes a direct statement to the contrary of my opinion. As I interpret this, Tolkien is talking about encouragement, being uplifted in the hope that he "could" be published, and if so, thus his "hobby" would no longer be private -- which to me, does not necessarily mean that before Lewis, Tolkien never desired/intended to publish something he'd written.

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I say it is "clear" because "private hobby" to me is something you have no intent of publishing:

Only from him did I ever get the idea that my 'stuff' could be more than a private hobby."

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I don’t believe Tolkien initially intended ever to publish anything about Quenya or Sindarin. It seems to me these began as his private musings: how would languages evolve, and in what historical settings might they evolve? It is often said that his mythos was created to provide a home for his languages, and his mythos arose from his languages that were so heavily influenced by those languages and histories and mythologies he most loved: Finnish, Anglo-Saxon, Welsh, Old Norse, Latin, and (perhaps) Greek. When he found an audience for one of his tales, The Hobbit, and public demand for more, he initially strove to publish the tales of Silmarillion; but finding no appetite for such stories at the time, he focused on a new tale, one that concluded all the old ones, weaving together a great crescendo and finale, the end of a magnificent composition. But when he later returned to prepare the earlier themes and movements for publication, he found the task overwhelming, and left this work to his son and literary heir and executor, Christopher, who labored for forty-five years to bring to fuller light his father’s opus.

Aldarion said:

I say it is "clear" because "private hobby" to me is something you have no intent of publishing:
Only from him did I ever get the idea that my 'stuff' could be more than a private hobby.

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Here I must object.
To deduce "no intent of publishing" from JRRT's statement is taking that statement more than just a bit too far.
I read it rather as JRRT (at whatever time he is talking about when Lewis's encouragement may have been decisive) had reluctantly come to the conclusion that "his stuff" (whatever he meant by this) was doomed to remain a private hobby with hardly any or no hope of publication, and was only encouraged to continue by Lewis. This "no hope" period may have been before the publication of "The Hobbit". JRRT might also have become doubtful of the "New Hobbit" while he was writing it, as it grown so large and changed so much in tone (and was taking so long) that it hardly fit the bill of a successor to TH, and certainly none as a children's book. But I cannot read "no intent" out of this statement in the least.

In this letter to Dick Plotz, he is also at pains to correct at least one misconception that had arisen by this time, at least in some minds. One was that "The Inklings", as far as being published these basically were JRRT, Lewis and Charles Williams, had "influenced" each other. At least for himself and Williams, he firmly denied this. Lewis was quite a different matter, and just before the line you quote is another frequent quote: "But Lewis was a very impressionable man."

The other misconception, as I just noticed, is only implicit if at all in the letter to Plotz. Here it is in a letter to his son Michael (no. 252, a draft, just after Lewis's death on 22 November 1963, overshadowed by the assassination of US President John F. "Jack" Kennedy on the same date):

"I am sorry that I have not answered your letters sooner; but Jack Lewis's death on the 22nd has preoccupied me. It is also involving me in some correspondence, as many people still regard me as one of his intimates. Alas! that ceased to be some ten years ago. We were separated first by the sudden apparition of Charles Williams, and then by his marriage (in 1956; Lewis had also been elected to, and accepted, a chair - professorship - at Cambridge in 1954). Of which he never even told me; I learned of it long after the event. But we owed each a great debt to the other, and that tie with the deep affection that it begot, remains."

Aldarion said:

I say it is "clear" because "private hobby" to me is something you have no intent of publishing:

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If that's your interpretation of the line in question, no problem. I have another, and it appears I'm not alone in thinking that more than one interpretation is possible here, considering intent.

I think Lewis had a profound impact upon Tolkien’s composition of Lord of the Rings. For one thing, he and Christopher seem to have been, from time to time, Tolkien’s only audience, and for most of World War II, Christopher was in South Africa. Hugo Dyson, another of the Inklings, was certainly no fan! The chapter “Voice of Saruman” was considerably revised at Lewis’ urging, and the whole story exists at least in part because Lewis bolstered Tolkien’s often flagging zeal to write it. Lewis published a glowing review of the books, and as himself an established popular writer and speaker (he spoke regularly over the BBC during the worst of the Nazi air raids; those notes were gathered together as the excellent little book Mere Christianity), he offset some of the more caustic critics that despised Tolkien and his work. Tolkien and Lewis collaborated on writing novels together, and though Tolkien’s three novels on time travel never materialized, Lewis’ three novels on space travel did; and the work Tolkien did fed his vision of Númenor and its fate.

Last but not least, I strongly suspect Lewis’ objection to the “Epilogue” of Lord of the Rings caused Tolkien to abandon it, so that the story ends abruptly:

Alcuin said:

​

[Sam] drew a deep breath. “Well, I’m back,” he said.​

​

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Three words that rate as one of the greatest endings to any book of any time.

And the best part of PJ's fanfic.

I've no doubt of Lewis' influence on Tolkien . . . once they'd met

I like the Epilogue: Sam with Elanor, the "book", the King's impending visit . . . I can see why it would be hard to give up, in any case.

Humphrey Carter says they met at an English faculty meeting at Merton College at Oxford on Tuesday 11 May 1926. At the time, a heated general strike had been underway in Britain for eight days in an effort to force the Government to back miners whose jobs and pay were cut. The strike ended the next day. Lewis and Tolkien did not immediately become friends, but that soon changed: in Letter 257, Tolkien describes him as “my closest friend from about 1927 to 1940.”

I love the Epilogue. I think it explains how Sam was able to remain in Middle-earth as long as Rose lived, and why he left after she died.