Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
From the Walters Art Museum, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
When Porus, the Indian king, surrendered to Alexander the Great at Jhelum, he had only one request to make of him.
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© InfoGibraltar, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
In one of his ‘Cato Letters’, John Trenchard took issue with the view (popular in Westminster) that the public could not be left to make up their own minds.
By Nikolai Florianovitch Dobrovolskiy (1837-1900), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Peter the Great wanted Russia to join the nations of Western Europe, but the nations of Western Europe refused to make room for him.
© Nic McPhee, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
It began to look as if Abraham Thornton might go down for rape and murder, so his attorneys dug deep into their bag of legal tricks.
By Giuseppe Patania (1780-1852), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
The authors of the ‘Cato Letters’ recalled how Greek general Timoleon replied when the people he had saved from oppression turned and bit him.
By Alf van Beem, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Joseph Addison tells the legend of the great Greek poetess Sappho and the Lover’s Leap.