When we look back at the Persian War--or, more accurately, wars--we (those of us who are glad that the Greeks, ie the Defenders of Truth and Civilization, won the fight) are glad that a man like Themistocles was on the scene. Had he not been wise enough to realize that the "wooden wall" meant an Athenian navy, all would have been lost. Salamis would be just another island...

The Persian War was not the first major clash between East and West. Herodotus looks back to the famous Trojan War as being the first major clash, though he believed it went back further than that (Paris's abduction of Helen was just one in a series of such rapes).

However, the Trojan War was the first time when the difference between East and West was starkly on display. The stakes were never clearer: a Greek victory meant that a strange group of people would live another day, and give the world priceless gifts. Philosophy, politics, literature, history...I could go on. These poor farmers and soldiers defined humanity. It's no coincidence that all subsequent cultural and intellectual flowerings worth a damn (whether in Rome, Vienna, or Persia) appealed to the Greeks.

Subsequent leaders understood the stakes. Alexander the Great, for instance, was a pupil of Aristotle's (though the world is fortunate that he did not share Aristotle's contempt for "barbarians"). He carved out an empire stretching from Greece to India. He opened up channels of trade and established centers of learning that benefited the people of his empire for centuries and would, for instance, become the backbone of the Roman/Byzantine Empire.

(Those who wish to read some excellent books on Alexander should read this and this, though that's material for another post altogether.)

So here we are, living out yet another chapter in the war between East and West. Unfortunately, the men of East are but shadows of their predecessors. Cyrus the Great carved out a great empire, and was much admired by Greeks like Xenophon (who even wrote a book about Cyrus). Even after the Muslim conquest, the East produced thinkers of the caliber of Averoes.

Today's East is a vicious place that raises poor and ignorant children into suicide bombers that viciously and callously take the lives of innocent women and children. Thought is a crime. Women are reduced to the level or property "for their own good."

But what of the West? The man who is "leading" this war, President George Bush, is an intelligent but proudly uneducated and uncultivated man (as mentioned, Alexander studied under Aristotle and had a lifelong appreciation for literature, philosophy, the natural sciences, and learning generally; Pericles is said to have engaged in debates about poetry on the eve of battle). When Western soldiers celebrate victories today, they humiliate their enemies rather than attempt to treat them with honor and, perhaps, pity (contrast this with Alexander's men, who held athletic and literary contests to celebrate their victories).

Perhaps this post has gone on long enough. I close with a few questions:

What happened to civlization? And why are contemptible men at the helm of such an important struggle, when they know neither what they're fighting for or how to fight for it?