Iran’s Portrait in Hellenistic and Parthian Periods in Greek and Roman Eyes: Establishment of the Western Perceptions and Depictions of the East

By the fall of the Achaemenids, Greek cultural heirs came to power. However, rather than Hellenistic antithesis for the Achaemenid thesis, we are confronted with an Eastern-Western synthesis. This article deals with a very new concept in the context of the post-Alexandrian period called Persianism or Achaemenidism. Cruel oriental despotism, legendary luxury, excessive sexual pleasure and the enjoyment of innumerable pleasures are repetitions of the old stereotypes we see in the Roman image of the Iranians. The Romans’ perception of the east, especially during the empire, seems to be more deliberate and ideological than imaginative. At that time, it was necessary for the writers to rewrite the glorious history of the Greeks and Greek dialectic between Hellenism and eastern barbarism. Cicero, the foremost Roman thinker, first put forward the idea of the separation of the East and West and called it the will of the gods. He is to be considered the father of the metaphors of oriental and occidental in the history of the mentalities. Using the stereotypes of Augustus, the propagandist machine evolved its discriminatory view of the “Oecumenes” (civilized world) and introduced “Orbis Alius” (the alien world) to the humble Orbis Romanus (Roman Empire).