Thucydides 460 BC – c. 395 BC

                                      


Thucydides [thoo-sid-i-deez] was a Greek historian who was born in Alimos between the years 460 and 455 B.C and died between 411 and 400 B.C. He is known for his book The History of the Peloponnesian War which details the war between Sparta and Athens in the 5th Century. As with many authors of that time much of the information we know about him comes from this, his sole work, where we gain our views of his personality and his thoughts on the leaders of Athens.

Thucydides was an Athenian aristocrat who it is believed was in his late twenties or early thirties when the war first broke out in 431 B.C. Thucydides famously describes to us the plague of Athens in 430 B.C, which killed nearly a third of the Athenian population and also Athens leader Pericles. Thucydides gives us a detailed account of the plague and the hardship it caused the Athenians

".Externally the body was not very hot to the touch, nor pale in its appearance, but reddish, livid, and breaking out into small pustules and ulcers. But internally it burned so that the patient could not bear to have on him clothing or linen even of the very lightest description; or indeed to be otherwise than stark naked. What they would have liked best would have been to throw themselves into cold water; as indeed was done by some of the neglected sick, who plunged into the rain tanks in their agonies of unquenchable thirst; though it made no difference whether they drank little or much.
Though many lay unburied, birds and beasts would not touch them, or died after tasting them¹".

It is also known that he was an Athenian general (Strategos) in 424 B.C and was in command of 7 ships which were stationed at Thasos and was subsequently to blame for the capture of Amphipolis.

"It was also my fate to be an exile from my country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; and being present with both parties, and more especially with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe affairs somewhat particularly²".

This led to him being condemned to death and fleeing to his Thracian estate. Thucydides did not return to Athens for another 20 years. It was because of this that he decided to write The History of the Peloponnesian Wars. Having been exiled from Athens Thucydides was able to travel among Peloponnesian allies, giving detailed accounts from both sides. Using interviews, researching records, providing giving eye witness accounts and his own take on events provides an insightful look at the war from both sides.

The date of his death is also the subject of much debate as some argue that because of the abrupt ending of his narrative in the middle of 411 B.C., he may have died around that time. However, it is also stated by Pausanias that a law was passed which allowed Thucydides to return to Athens in 404 B.C. but he was murdered on the way home. Therefore as is evident there is room for much debate on when he actually died but it would be fair to assume that he died between 411-404 B.C.

¹ Thuc 2.47.1-55.1
² Thuc 5.26.5

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli 1469 – 1527

                                            

Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy (1469). He grew up at an extremely unstable period of Italian history. Italy wasn't even a country at the time, but just a collection of city-states that were constantly at war with each other. By the time he was 30, Machiavelli became the secretary to Florence's governing council, which meant he was the most influential bureaucrat in the city.

But at the height of Machiavelli's career, the influential Medici family took power in Florence, overthrowing the elected city council and purging the government of enemies, including Machiavelli. He lost his government position, and then the authorities arrested him and threw him in a dungeon, where he was tortured for 22 days.

Machiavelli was eventually released from prison and sentenced to house arrest. He decided that the only way to get his life back was to offer some kind of gift to the Medici family, and the thing he had to give was his knowledge of politics. So he holed up in his tiny villa just outside of Florence and set out to write a handbook, incorporating everything he knew about being an effective ruler in a dangerous and volatile world. It took him just a few months to complete his book in 1513, and that was The Prince, the book for which he is remembered today.

Machiavelli's main point in The Prince is that an effective ruler should use whatever means possible to keep his country secure and peaceful. He wrote, "Men must be either pampered or crushed, because they can get revenge for small injuries, but not for grievous ones. So any injury a prince does a man should be of a kind where there is no fear of revenge."

Despite Machiavelli's hopes, The Prince didn't win over the Medicis. A few years later, a new republic was established in Italy, but Machiavelli's name had already become so associated with evil and violence that he wasn't able to get another government job for the rest of his life. Today, the word "Machiavellian" has come to mean "marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith."

Niccolò Machiavelli said, "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."

moxie

mox·ie

 [mok-see] noun Slang .

1.

vigor; verve; pep.

2.

courage and aggressiveness; nerve.

3.

skill; know-how.
.................................................
Kicking the can down the road: If you  kick the can down the road, you delay a decision in hopes that the problem or issue will go away or somebody else will make the decision later. 

Pump

.

prime the pump,

a.

to increase government expenditure in an effort to stimulate the economy.

b.

to support or promote the operation or improvement of something.

Pumped:

Tense with excitement and enthusiasm as from a rush of adrenaline

argy-bargy

argy-bargy, argie-bargie

ar·gy-bar·gy   [ahr-gee-bahr-gee]  Show IPA noun, plural ar·gy-bar·gies. Chiefly British . a vigorous discussion or dispute

n pl -bargies

Brit informal a wrangling argument or verbal dispute Also called argle-bargle

D.H. Lawrence 1885 –1930: Don'ts

Fight your little fight, my boy,
fight and be a man.
Don't be a good little, good little boy
being as good as you can
and agreeing with all the mealy-mouthed, mealy-mouthed
truths that the sly trot out
to protect themselves and their greedy-mouthed, greedy-mouthed
cowardice, every old lout.
Don't live up to the dear little girl who costs
you your manhood, and makes you pay.
Nor the dear old mater who so proudly boasts
that you'll make your way.
Don't earn good opinions, opinions golden,
or at least worth Treasury notes,
from all sorts of men; don't be beholden
to the herd inside the pen.
Don't long to have dear little, dear little boys
whom you'll have to educate
to earn their livings; nor yet girls, sweet joys
who will find it so hard to mate.
Nor a dear little home, with its cost, its cost
that you have to pay,
earning you living while your life is lost
and dull death comes in a day.
Don't be sucked in by the su-superior,
don't swallow the culture bait,
don't drink, don't drink and get beerier and beerier,
to learn to discriminate.
Do hold yourself together, and fight
with a hit-hit here and a hit-hit there,
and a comfortable feeling at night
that you've let in a little air.
A little fresh air in the money sty,
knocked a little hole in the holy prison,
done your own little bit, made your own little try
that the risen Christ should be risen.

Alone by Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 – 1849

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.