fallslikesnow

You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one. Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart -like something dead- lies buried. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally." You won't find a new country, won't find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You'll walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighbourhoods, turn grey in these same houses. You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere: there's no ship for you, there's no road. Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner, you've destroyed it everywhere in the world. Constantine P. Cavafy via languagehat

"Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks except the Lacedaimonians..." We can very well imagine how completely indifferent the Spartans would have been to this inscription. "Except the Lacedaimonians"-- naturally. The Spartans weren't to be led and ordered around like precious servants. Besides, they wouldn't have thought a pan-Hellenic expedition without a Spartan king in command was to be taken very seriously. Of course, then, "except the Lacedaimonians." That's certainly one point of view. Quite understandable. So, "except the Lacedaimonians" at Granikos, then at Issus, then in the decisive battle where the terrible army the Persians mustered at Arbela was wiped out: it set out for victory from Arbela, and was wiped out. And from this marvellous pan-Hellenic expedition, triumphant, brilliant in every way, celebrated on all sides, glorified incomparable, we emerged: the great new Hellenic world. We the Al...