CHAPTER V: Second Congress at Lacedaemon—Preparations for War and Diplomatic Skirmishes—Cylon—Pausanias—Themistocles

The treasure troves of Apollo at Delphi and Zeus at Olympia could be the source of a loan if the activity—as if it had been by co-signed by a deity had been approved by the oracle of a god. This approval, when the Spartans sent their envoys to beseech the Oracle of Apollo Helios [the Shining One] was regarded as a pact with that god when the god affirmed that war was the correct choice. The modern secular mind, as does the Christian mind, scoffs at any idea that the ancient Hellenes had concord with God. However, the actors and the author seem every bit as reverent and serious about their relationship with the divine as did the ancient Israelites of Scripture.

Note that war in the passage below is described as being kindled, hinting that, like fire, it might grow out of all control of its kindlers.

"To apply these rules to ourselves, if we are now kindling war it is under the pressure of injury, with adequate grounds of complaint; and after we have chastised the Athenians we will in season desist. We have many reasons to expect success—first, superiority in numbers and in military experience, and secondly our general and unvarying obedience in the execution of orders. The naval strength which they possess shall be raised by us from our respective antecedent resources, and from the moneys at Olympia and Delphi. A loan from these enables us to seduce their foreign sailors by the offer of higher pay. For the power of Athens is more mercenary than national; while ours will not be exposed to the same risk, as its strength lies more in men than in money.”

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Below is the ancient appreciation for war and combat in general, as a test of character, in contrast to the modern view that bigger and better wins

“For war of all things proceeds least upon definite rules, but draws principally upon itself for contrivances to meet an emergency; and in such cases the party who faces the struggle and keeps his temper best meets with most security, and he who loses his temper about it with correspondent disaster.”

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Again, the modern view of quantity as bestowing quality, with the idea of nationality swallowed by imperial scale and negating previous nations as having inadequate identity for nationality—due solely to lack of scale—is flatly refuted by the representatives of these, by modern standards, tiny communities, who see themselves as complete nations. Indeed, the modern idea of a nation exceeds identity altogether and is one of economic scale above all else. The note to slavery below alludes to too states: the slavery of a tributary nation which is the slave of its conqueror and must give over money, goods and people as assets and the fate of the conquered nation which angered the conqueror and is then extinguishes, with men murdered and women and children sold, a fate experienced by most nations of antiquity when the tides of war washed over them.

“…as individual nationalities and individual cities we make an unanimous stand against her, she will easily conquer us divided and in detail. That conquest, terrible as it may sound, would, it must be known, have no other end than slavery pure and simple…”

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Below the Corinthians state that the principle virtues of those inheriting freedom are sense, courage and vigilance [the latter being a sin in the slave mind of Modernity, with the vigilante a reviled movie villain] and suggests that the Аrуаn war bands of the Dorians, who conquered Hellas, displaced or migrated away from a larger system of control. And further secured freedom from the attempt of Persia to extend its system of control among them. Taken together with Thucydides’ earlier statements considering the nomad state of things in the land that became Hellas, this reader wonders if this is in part a hint that the forefathers of the Hellenes had shaken off or migrated from an imperial dominion—perhaps of Minoan overrule?

“…the opinion would be either that we were justly so used, or that we put up with it from cowardice, and were proving degenerate sons in not even securing for ourselves the freedom which our fathers gave to Hellas; and in allowing the establishment in Hellas of a tyrant state, though in individual states we think it our duty to put down sole rulers. And we do not know how this conduct can be held free from three of the gravest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance.”

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The statement below is essentially an indictment of my generation of Americans, the Boomer Babies.

“…for it is not right that what was won in want should be lost in plenty…”

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Harboring runaway slaves was regarded as an international crime from deepest antiquity up until the 1860s, a crime worthy of war. Indeed, modern slavery by certain religious cults and sex-trafficking cartels have been upheld by local and federal police forces in the United States in my life time.

“…she accused the Megarians of pushing their cultivation into the consecrated ground and the unenclosed land on the border, and of harbouring her runaway slaves.”