Classical History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Classical History’
God alone can save civilisation, said Socrates, when clever campaign strategists teach aspiring politicians how to play on the public’s hopes and fears.
Socrates has been telling Adeimantus (Plato’s brother) that it is almost impossible for a young man not to run with the crowd, because peer pressure is made even stronger by ‘sophists’ — educators and opinion-formers who work democratic assemblies as an lion-tamer works his cats, and who resort to ‘the gentle force of attainder, confiscation or death’ when words are not enough.
Alexander, who had just taken the bath intended for his vanquished enemy Darius of Persia and was now eating Darius’s supper, was interrupted by a commotion in the camp.
It is November 5th, 333 BC. Aided by his fast friend Hephaestion, the young King Alexander of Macedon in northern Greece has just defeated Darius III, King of Persia, at the Battle of Issus on the modern-day Turkish-Syrian border. The first thing he did after taking possession of the enemy camp was to go to the hot bath prepared for Darius. ‘So this’ he laughed as slaves poured in fragrant salts ‘is what it is to be a king!’
Agricola, tasked with subduing the people of Britain to Roman colonial government, persuaded them to wear servitude as a badge of refinement.
Gnaeus Julius Agricola took over as Roman Governor of Britannia in 78, and remained there for six very successful years. Having applied the stick, so his son-in-law Cornelius Tacitus tells us, he was eager to offer carrots: taxes were cut, corrupt officials were weeded out, and investment was poured in. The coddled and cozened tribal leaders thought they had got a fine bargain for their liberties.
In one of the world’s most popular legends, bold hero St George rides to the rescue of a maiden in distress.
St George was a real person, a Roman soldier martyred in 303, but the story of the Dragon is a myth. The dragon symbolises the devil, a serpent with honey on his forked tongue, whose angels (St Paul tells us) are the real rulers behind the darkness of this world. George is the Christian, who puts on the whole armour of God and stands up to them armed with unceasing prayer.
In 480 BC Leonidas, King of Sparta, frustrated the advance of Xerxes the Persian just long enough to change the course of the war — and history.
In 480 BC, the Persian King Xerxes (r. 486-465 BC) led a campaign to punish the sovereign city-states of Greece for their refusal to join his vast and dictatorial empire. An enormous Persian army recruited from all over Asia reached the eastern mainland late in August, only to find four thousand preening Greeks barring the way.
After the kingdoms of Great Britain were absorbed into the Roman Empire, the promises of prosperity and civilisation came only to a favoured few.
When the kingdoms of Britain joined the Roman Empire – some willingly, some not – their peoples found that it brought great benefits. Unfortunately, most never got to experience them. City-dwellers fared well and lived comfortably, if they were good Romans, but everyone else existed for their convenience.