excepter | "kill people" | debt dept. | 2008
look at the facts themselves, yielding my words–euripides of salamis, bellerophon (c. 430 bc)
no undue credence; for i say that tyrants
kill, rob, break oaths, lay cities waste by fraud,
and doing thus are happier than those
who live calm pious lives day after day
“you should remember,” says thucydides’ cleon to the assembly (427 bc), “that your empire is a despotism exercised over unwilling subjects who are always conspiring against you; they do not obey in return for any kindness which you do them to your own injury, but only in so far as you are their master; they have no love for you, but they are held down by force.” the inherent contradiction between the worship of liberty and the despotism of empire co-operated with the individualism of the greek states to end the golden age.–will durrant, the life of greece (1939)
watch this.
