Hedonistic Manifesto

manifest hedonistisch?!
re: 19-3 & the
STory continues
...

AN EXTRAORDINARY
THING HAPPENED AT THIS TIME
........
{also}
...

The
bitterest rival
of Athens in Greece was Sparta,
but NOW Athens appealed to Sparta,
sending a herald,
a swift runner,
imploring the Spartans not to let Greeks
become slaves and
barbarians!
This runner
{the prototype of all "Marathon"-runners}
did over a hundred miles of broken country
less than two days ...
The Spartans responded promptly
and generously;
but when, in three days, the Spartan force reached Athens,
there was nothing for it to do
but to view the battlefield and the bodies
of the defeated Persian
soldiers ...
The Persian fleet
had returned to Asia!
SO ended the first Persian attack
on Greece ...

~!~

BUT the next
was much more impressive?
Darius died soon after the news of his defeat at Marathon reached him,
and for four years his son and successor,
Xerxes,
prepared a host to crush
the Greeks ...
For a time terror united
all the Greeks?!
The army of Xerxes
was certainly the greatest that had hitherto been assembled in the world .............
IT was a huge assembly
of discordant elements.
It crossed the Dardanelles, 480 B.C.,
by a bridge of boats {again};
and along the coast as it advanced
moved an equally miscellaneous fleet
carrying supplies ...
At the narrow pass of Thermopylae
a small force of 1,400 men under the Spartan Leonidas resisted this multitude,
and after a fight of unsurpassed heroism
was completely destroyed!
Every man was killed!
But the losses they inflicted upon the Persians
were enormous,
and the army of Xerxes poured on
to Thebes and Athens in
a chastened mood .................
Thebes surrendered and
made terms.
The Athenians abandoned their city
and it was burned.

~!~





Greece seemed in the hands
of the conqueror,
but again came victory against the odds and
all expectations?
The Greek fleet,
though not a third the size of the Persian,
assailed it in the bay of Salamis
and destroyed it.
Xerxes found himself
and his immense army cut off from supplies
and his heart failed him .............
He retreated to Asia
with one-half of his army,
leaving the rest to be defeated at Platea
in 479 B.C.
by which time the remnants of the Persian fleet
were hunted down by the Greeks and
destroyed at Mycale in
Asia Minor .............

~!~

The Persian danger
was at an end!
Most of the Greek cities in Asia
became free ...
ALL THIS IS TOLD IN GREAT DETAIL
and with much picturesqueness in the first of written histories,
the History of Herodotus.
This Herodotus was born about 484 B.C.
in the Ionian city of Halicarnassus
in Asia Minor, and he visited Babylon and Egypt
in his search for exact
particulars!
From Mycale onward
Persia sank into a confusion of dynastic troubles.
Xerxes was murdered in 465 B.C.
and rebellions in Egypt, Syria and Media
broke up the brief order of that
once mighty realm .............
The history
of Herodotus lays stress
on the weakness
of Persia.
This history is indeed what we would now call
propaganda -
propaganda for Greece to unite
and conquer
Persia!

~!~

Herodotus makes one character,
Aristagoras,
go to the Spartans with a map of the known world
and say to them:

"These BARBARIANS are not valiant in fight!
YOU on the other hand have now attained the utmost skill in war ...
NO OTHER NATIONS IN THE WORLD have what they possess:
gold, silver, bronze, embroidered garments, beasts and slaves!
ALL THIS YOU MIGHT HAVE FOR YOURSELVES,
IF YOU SO DESIRED?!"

{Which
sounds quite familiar
even nowadays out of the mouths
of Bushes and Saddamns
especially?!}
liefdesverdrietgemeenverwardgaap!bah!nahnahverdrietigverliefdcool!erg vrolijkknipoogvrolijk
liefdesverdrietverliefd
engel
03 jul 2004 - bewerkt op 10 jan 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 81 jaar
   
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