Editing Minas Tirith (section)

== Identifications with historical or mythical cities ==

{{further|Tolkien and the classical world}}

[[File:Basilica di San Vitale dentro.jpg|thumb|upright|Minas Tirith's towering stone hall of Ecthelion has been compared to [[Ravenna]]'s 6th century [[Basilica of San Vitale]].<ref name="Ford 2005"/> ]]

Tolkien was [[Influences on J. R. R. Tolkien|influenced by many authors]] when constructing Middle-earth, including [[Tolkien and the classical world|several classical sources]]. Scholars, following various leads in Tolkien's fantasy and letters, have identified Minas Tirith with several different historical or mythical cities, including Troy, Rome, Ravenna, and Constantinople.<ref name="Livingston 2013"/><ref name=Libran-Moreno/><ref name="Swycaffer 1983"/>

=== Troy ===

In a letter, Tolkien stated that Minas Tirith, some "600 miles south [of the village of [[Hobbiton]] in the Shire], is at about the latitude of [[Florence]]. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir [in the south of Gondor] are at about the latitude of ancient [[Troy]]."<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#376 to Charlotte and Denis Plimmer, 8 February 1967 }}</ref> Michael Livingston comments in ''[[Mythlore]]'' that Minas Tirith resembled Troy in having "impregnable walls", and in being subjected to a [[siege]] that seemed to threaten civilisation.<ref name="Livingston 2013"/> 

Further, in Livingston's opinion, the Steward Denethor's two sons, [[Boromir]] and [[Faramir]], play the roles of [[Hector]] in [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'', "the heroic example of martial, mortal man", and of [[Paris (mythology)|Paris]], the younger brother "little loved by [his father]", in "asterisk" form, as they might have been.<ref name="Livingston 2013"/>  Livingston notes that Paris, like Faramir, is seriously wounded by a "deadly dart"; he is dragged back into Troy, just as Faramir is carried to Minas Tirith's Houses of Healing. Both men suffer burning fevers. Paris can't be saved; Faramir can. Paris's body is burned on a pyre; his abandoned wife Oenone burns herself to death with him. Denethor has himself burned alive on a pyre, and he tries to have Faramir burned with him, but is foiled in this.<ref name="Livingston 2013">{{cite journal |last=Livingston |first=Michael |year=2013 |title=Troy and the Rings: Tolkien and the Medieval Myth of England |journal=[[Mythlore]] |volume=32 |issue=1 |at=Article 6 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol32/iss1/6}}</ref>

=== Ravenna ===

Tolkien's map-notes for the illustrator [[Pauline Baynes]] indicate that Minas Tirith had the [[latitude]] of [[Ravenna]], an Italian city on the [[Adriatic Sea]], though it lay "900 miles east of Hobbiton more near [[Belgrade]]".<ref>{{cite news |last=Flood |first=Alison |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/23/jrr-tolkien-middle-earth-annotated-map-blackwells-lord-of-the-rings |title=Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered inside copy of Lord of the Rings |date=23 October 2015 |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Tolkien annotated map of Middle-earth acquired by Bodleian library |url=https://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/tolkien-annotated-map-of-middle-earth-acquired-by-bodleian-library/ |publisher=[[Exeter College, Oxford]] |access-date=9 April 2020 |date=9 May 2016}}</ref>
The Tolkien scholar Judy Ann Ford writes that there is an architectural connection with Ravenna in [[Pippin Took|Pippin]]'s description of the great hall of Denethor, which in her view suggests a Germanic myth of a restored Roman Empire.<ref name="Ford2005">{{cite journal |last=Ford |first=Judy Ann |title=The White City: The Lord of the Rings as an Early Medieval Myth of the Restoration of the Roman Empire |journal=[[Tolkien Studies]] |volume=2 |issue=1 |year=2005 |pages=53–73 |issn=1547-3163 |doi=10.1353/tks.2005.0016 |s2cid=170501240 }}</ref>

=== Ancient Rome ===

[[File:Aeneas' Flight from Troy by Federico Barocci.jpg|thumb|[[Aeneas]] escaped the ruin of [[Troy]] to become a hero of Rome, as [[Elendil]] escaped [[Númenor]] to found Minas Tirith.{{sfn|Straubhaar|2007|pp=248–249}} Painting by [[Federico Barocci]], 1598]]

[[Sandra Ballif Straubhaar]] states in ''[[The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia]]'' that "the most striking similarities" are with [[ancient Rome]]. She identifies several parallels: [[Aeneas]], from [[Troy]], and Elendil, from Númenor, both survive the destruction of their home countries; the brothers [[Romulus and Remus]] found Rome, while the brothers Isildur and Anárion found the Númenórean kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor in Middle-earth; and both Gondor and Rome experienced centuries of "[[Fall of the Western Roman Empire|decadence and decline]]".{{sfn|Straubhaar|2007|pp=248–249}}

Judy Ann Ford adds in ''[[Tolkien Studies]]'' that Minas Tirith was entirely built of stone, and "the only culture within [the Anglo-Saxons'] historical memory that had made places like Minas Tirith was the Roman Empire."<ref name="Ford 2005">{{cite journal |last=Ford |first=Judy Ann |title=The White City: The Lord of the Rings as an Early Medieval Myth of the Restoration of the Roman Empire |journal=[[Tolkien Studies]] |volume=2 |issue=1 |year=2005 |doi=10.1353/tks.2005.0016 |pages=53–73 |s2cid=170501240 }}</ref> Tolkien intended to create [[a mythology for England]], so that while the [[Third Age]] is ostensibly many thousands of years ago, much of the setting is [[Tolkien and the medieval|medieval]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Fimi |first=Dimitra |author-link=Dimitra Fimi |title=Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits |title-link=Tolkien, Race and Cultural History |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |year=2010 |orig-year=2008 |isbn=978-0-230-21951-9 |oclc=222251097 |pages=50–62}}</ref> She comments that Tolkien's account echoes the decline and [[fall of Rome]], but "with a happy ending", as it "somehow withstood the onslaught of armies from the east, and ... was restored to glory."<ref name="Ford 2005"/> She finds multiple likenesses between Minas Tirith and Rome.<ref name="Ford 2005"/>

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto;"
|+ Judy Ann Ford's reasons for identifying Minas Tirith with Rome<ref name="Ford 2005"/> 
|-
! Story element !! [[Ancient Rome]] !! [[Gondor]]
|-
| Capital moved under threat || From Rome to [[Ravenna]] in 402 AD || From [[Osgiliath]] to Minas Tirith
|-
| Layout of the city || Walled city, built of stone || Seven walls of indomitable stone
|-
| Architecture || Ravenna's tall [[Basilica of San Vitale]] || The towering stone Hall of Ecthelion
|- 
| Southern rivals who use war-elephants || [[Carthaginians]] || [[Haradrim]]
|- 
| Devastating disease outbreak || [[Antonine Plague]] || Great Plague
|- 
| Language becomes a [[lingua franca]] || [[Latin]] || [[Westron]]
|}

=== Constantinople === 

[[File:Constantinople 1453.jpg|thumb|upright|Tolkien called Minas Tirith a "[[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] City":<br/>that empire's capital was [[Constantinople]] (shown).<ref name="Hammond Scull p570"/>]]

In a 1951 letter, Tolkien wrote of "the Byzantine City of Minas Tirith", thus associating Gondor's capital with [[Constantinople]], the capital of the [[Byzantine Empire]].<ref name="Hammond Scull p570">{{harvnb|Hammond|Scull|2005|p=570}}</ref> The classical scholar Miryam Librán-Moreno writes that Tolkien drew heavily on the history of the Byzantine Empire, and its struggle with the [[Goths]] and [[Langobards]].<ref name="Libran-Moreno">{{cite book |title=Tolkien and the Study of his Sources |last=Librán-Moreno |first=Miryam |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-7864-6482-1 |editor-last=Fisher |editor-first=Jason |editor-link=Jason Fisher |pages=84–116 |chapter='Byzantium, New Rome!' Goths, Langobards and Byzantium in ''The Lord of the Rings'' |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=98VQ3gHsVsMC&q=Gondor+Byzance&pg=PA98}}</ref> The Byzantine Empire and Gondor were both, in Librán-Moreno's view, only echoes of older states (the [[Roman Empire]] and the unified kingdom of Elendil), yet each proved to be stronger than their sister-kingdoms (the [[Western Roman Empire]] and Arnor, respectively). Both realms were threatened by powerful eastern and southern enemies: the Byzantines by the [[Sassanid Empire|Sassanid Persians]] and the Muslim armies of the Arabs and the Turks, as well as the Langobards and Goths; Gondor by the Easterlings, the Haradrim, and the hordes of Sauron. Both realms, as commentators including Librán-Moreno and Jefferson P. Swycaffer have observed, were in decline at the time of a final, all-out siege from the East; however, Minas Tirith survived the siege whereas [[Fall of Constantinople|Constantinople did not]].<ref name=Libran-Moreno/><ref name="Swycaffer 1983">{{cite journal |last=Swycaffer |first=Jefferson P. |year=1983 |title=Historical Motivations for the Siege of Minas Tirith |journal=[[Mythlore]] |volume=10 |issue=1 |at=Article 14 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol10/iss1/14}}</ref> Swycaffer adds that Constantinople was famed for the strength of its defences, with its concentric walls.<ref name="Swycaffer 1983"/> 

{| class="wikitable" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: none;"
|+ Miryam Librán-Moreno's reasons for identifying Minas Tirith with [[Constantinople]]<ref name=Libran-Moreno/>
|-
! Situation             !! [[Byzantine Empire]]!! Gondor                    
|-
| Older state echoed     || [[Roman Empire]]|| [[Elendil]]'s unified kingdom of Gondor and Arnor
|-
| Weaker sister kingdom  || [[Western Roman Empire]] || [[Arnor (Middle-earth)|Arnor]], the Northern kingdom
|-
| Powerful enemies<br/>to East and South|| Persians,<br/>Arabs,<br/>[[Ottoman Turks]] || Easterlings,<br/>[[Haradrim]],<br/>[[Mordor]] 
|-
| Final [[siege]] from the East || [[Fall of Constantinople|Constantinople falls]] || [[Battle of the Pelennor Fields]] is won
|}