ABSTRACT
This chapter explores five different historical eras, criss-crossing time and space, during which fundamental national or ideological interests and power were in play: the Middle Ages, the Ottoman Empire, Imperial China, Colonial America, and Modern Iraq and Afghanistan. It examines the critical function of translation when significant shifts in the socio-political order occurred, and where violence of various kinds took place involving translators or interpreters. Sometimes the violence was physical, with fatal consequences for translators or interpreters, other times the violence was more ‘symbolic’, and in some cases it involved a combination of the two. In the ancient Greek and Roman world it was not only ability with languages but also a deep knowledge of diplomacy, the law or commerce that distinguished the most respected translators. Their capacity to hold positions of responsibility in negotiations of many kinds rendered them not merely necessary but also invaluable.
