Are we really Persia?

[SeattleUte]

Ever since the Roman republic Western nations have identified themselves with the overmatched Greeks in the Histories, Herodotus' epic tale of confrontation between East and West. But read Daniel Mendolsohn's brilliant double entendre as he winds up the linked article with a synopsis of Herodotus' story:

"A great power sets its sights on a smaller, strange, and faraway land—an easy target, or so it would seem. Led first by a father and then, a decade later, by his son, this great power invades the lesser country twice. The father, so people say, is a bland and bureaucratic man, far more temperate than the son; and, indeed, it is the second invasion that will seize the imagination of history for many years to come. For although it is far larger and more aggressive than the first, it leads to unexpected disaster. Many commentators ascribe this disaster to the flawed decisions of the son: a man whose bluster competes with, or perhaps covers for, a certain hollowness at the center; a leader who is at once hobbled by personal demons (among which, it seems, is an Oedipal conflict) and given to grandiose gestures, who at best seems incapable of comprehending, and at worst is simply incurious about, how different or foreign his enemy really is. Although he himself is unscathed by the disaster he has wreaked, the fortunes and the reputation of the country he rules are seriously damaged. A great power has stumbled badly, against all expectations."

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...printable=true

As Mendelsohn describes, it was the Persians' act of aggression, of straying beyond their natural God-given boundaries and therefore violating a kind of natural law, that Herodotus believed more than anything gave the Greeks the moral high ground.

[SeattleUte]

I can't believe I've thrown an airball here. I'm going to take the non-response to mean that Tex and Arcaea agree we're Persia. Of course I knew that all along about Maake and KiteRider and Waters.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I can't believe I've thrown an airball here. I'm going to take the non-response to mean that Tex and Arcaea agree we're Persia. Of course I knew that all along about Maake and KiteRider and Waters.

I'm reading Herodotus, but it takes me a lot of time, and I'm not familiar with any then contemporary Persian historians. I'll probably never advance within Farsi to read such historians.

[landpoke]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I can't believe I've thrown an airball here. I'm going to take the non-response to mean that Tex and Arcaea agree we're Persia. Of course I knew that all along about Maake and KiteRider and Waters.

If they're anything like me they're still coming to terms with the horrific image of Barbara Bush and George W. Bush "making it."