Tag: Sparta

Xerxes I of Persia and his wife, Queen Amestris

2,744 words

Part 4 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 5 here)

In our previous installment, Socrates has convinced Alcibiades that he is ignorant of justice. Therefore, he should not go into politics until he is educated. But Socrates undermines his argument by pointing out that none of the other eminent Athenians, even Pericles himself, knows what justice is. From this, Alcibiades concludes that if his rivals for power are equally ignorant, he has no need to waste time on education, because he is confident that he can beat them based on his superior nature. (more…)

Joos van Craesbeeck, The Temptation of St. Anthony (1650)

3,082 words

The New York Times quoted French social critic Jacques Barzun when they defined decadence as the “economic stagnation, institutional decay and cultural and intellectual exhaustion at a high level of material prosperity and technological development,” in a 2020 article entitled “The Age of Decadence.” (more…)

Xenophon in front of the Austrian parliament.

5,446 words

Wolfgang Will
Der Zug der 10 000: Die unglaubliche Geschichte eines antiken Söldnerheeres
Munich: C. H. Beck, 2022
314 pages

The merit of Der Zug der 10 000 (The March of the 10,000: The Incredible Story of an Ancient Mercenary Army) lies in the story itself, not in the wooden and pedestrian manner in which it is retold by Wolfgang Will. The march of the 10,000 was a remarkable event in ancient history. (more…)

President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg, two leading figureheads of the globalist elite. Photo credit: Jeff Chiu/AP

2,287 words

One of the redeeming features of imperialism is that it makes for great adventure stories. The works of H. Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling and the literature of the American West from James Fenimore Cooper to Louis L’Amour would not have been possible without the empires and imperial problems that provide the setting for their tales. The reason for the relationship ought to be fairly obvious.

Empires offer all the standard fare of blood, guts, intrigue, romance, and action: villains plotting to overthrow civilization, heroes striving to protect it; (more…)

1,246 words

Joseph Kosinski’s primeval masterpiece Only the Brave made me think of a lot of things. It’s based on the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a team of Arizona firefighters dedicated to battling the raging wildfires which quite often threaten civilization in the American West. So the intricacies and nuances of firefighting occupied my mind for a while. But what stuck with me the most in the days after watching the film was being reminded of a great passage in Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield’s magnificent novel of Thermopylae. (more…)

2,457 words

English original here

Умеренность & гуманность

Хотя монарх и обладает властью, но подобно отцу, он должен эту власть заслужить. Фридрих беспристрастно отмечает, что Попликола, один из основателей Римской республики узаконил тираноубийство. (more…)

2,521 words

English original here

Возможно, самая впечатляющая западная традиция государственного строительства, по крайней мере в Новое время, принадлежит Пруссии. Разумеется, либерально-демократическая традиция, начатая Соединенными Штатами и Францией крепка, и она недаром сегодня господствует в нашем мире. (more…)

2,925 words

Part 2 of 2; Russian translation here

Moderation & Humaneness

The sovereign has authority but, as with the father, this must be deserved. Frederick notes dispassionately that Publicola, one of the founders of the Roman Republic, had legalized tyrannicide. The laws must be fair and appropriate to the nation concerned, (more…)

2,887 words

Frederick the Great

Russian translation here

Perhaps the most impressive Western tradition of statecraft, at least in the modern era, is that of Prussia. To be sure, the liberal-democratic tradition launched by the United States and France is formidable, and it is not without reason that it today dominates our world. But the greatness of America and France also relied upon a prosaic factor: sheer demographic and geographic size. (more…)

1,707 words

Nigel Rodgers
The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece
Lorenz Books, 2014

“Western civilization” is certainly not fashionable in mainstream academia these days. Nonetheless, the ancient Greek and Roman heritage remains quietly revered in the more thoughtful and earnest circles. Quite simply, virtually all of our social and political organization, to the extent these are thought out, ultimately go back to Greek forms, (more…)

3,651 words

English original here

“E Teopompo, quando um estranho continuou a dizer, conforme ele lhe demonstrou gentileza, que em sua própria cidade ele era considerado amante de Esparta, disse: ‘Meu bom senhor, melhor seria para ti ser chamado amante de tua própria cidade’.” – Plutarco [1]

Assim como Mussolini olhava para a Roma Antiga por um modelo de uma sociedade sadia e orgânica, os antigos romanos olhavam para Esparta. (more…)

3,758 words

Portuguese translation here

“And Theompopus, when a stranger kept saying, as he showed him kindness, that in his own city he was called a lover of Sparta, remarked: ‘My good sir, it were better for thee to be called a lover of thine own city.’” – Plutarch[1]

Just as Mussolini looked to Ancient Rome for the model of a healthy, organic society, the Ancient Romans looked to Sparta. (more…)

4,408 words

The Persian rider edged his horse cautiously forward. Just ahead the coastal plain dwindled to a narrow passage between the mountains and the sea, scarcely wider than a carriage track. (more…)