Caveat: Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.

The Australian economist John Quiggin, who writes at a blog called Crooked Timber which I often peruse, had a slightly oblique discussion of a text by Thucydides (the Melian  dialogue) which I very vaguely recall once reading (or attempting to read). His summary is interesting, vis-a-vis drawing an eerie (and ironic) kind of parallel between the situation in Classical Greece, with Athens as hegemon within the Delian League, and the situation in modern Europe, with Germany as hegemon within the European Union.

He concludes with the quote I have used as my title on this post, which I guess is a kind of anonymous Greek proverb which was first recorded in Sophocles' Antigone (one of my favorite classical plays, I guess, though I most prefer Jean Anouilh's modern adaption, which neverthless stays quite loyal to the thematics… and speaking of Germans behaving hegemonically).

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

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