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Uh, okay, so, I may have gone a bit long there...

Not at all.

I love productive give and take discussions. For example, I learn from you that Persia was actually technologically and militarily more advanced than I realized. Of course, the very long supply lines were a big problem. Salamis was the decisive battle, because Athens was occupied and burned.

When I say 'free Greeks', I mean that they were a rational people, not beholden to the autocratic whims of a God-Emperor as in Egypt, Persia and China. Even the monarchies hated a despot. Knowing this, it is a puzzle to me why Sparta made alliance with Persia. What did they expect the final result to be?

What little is known in their own words of Mycenaean Greece has been translated from a fairly small body of Linear B tablets. These contain details of local economic activity, which was apparently at least minutely inventoried by, and probably controlled by, the state.

I have heard that the earliest known examples of writing were inventory lists of goods and monetary accounts. Who would guess that the need for record keeping would lead to sonnets and novels? I think the ancients preferred to keep their mythologies in the oral tradition. This gave great status to those elders with good memories who were living tomes of their civilization's history. And it allowed for creative embellishment.

Hegel wrote that the ancient empires showed that "One could be free" (the Emperor), and the caste system states of Greece showed that "Some could be free." And finally, the emerging republics of his own time showed that "All could be free." This is about the only sensible thing I have read from Hegel.
The some free men of the Hellenic city-states started a trend in freedom of thought and action that continues to unfold. One man can make a monumental difference. One man can change history. The value of creative thought was proven. And the dangers of one man given too much power was also demonstrated. I am thinking of the egomaniac Alcibiades, whose treasonous and destructive acts forced him to take refuge in a Greek city in Asia. Unlike Themistocles, he didn't make it to old age, as you know.

Was Alcibiades one of the players behind the disastrous Syracuse expedition? My history time-line is not clear. One thing that amazes me about that venture is that the Athenians were supposed to have lost 50,000 men. Or so I have imbibed from some source. But Athens had only about 10,000 free citizens. Can you clear me up on this?

The Roman Empire tore itself apart because it didn't have any kind of unifying national identity, and those who did identify with the Roman civ wound up fighting each other for power. It never had any kind of system of orderly succession (or even any way out of office except death) until Diocletian came along, and his system didn't work perfectly either.

Of course the Roman system of government was not designed to accommodate Emperors. It did have a tight unifying national identity at its inception, but as the city-state grew into a vast empire, that national identity kept getting watered down. Citizenship was extended to more and more peoples, and after Julius Ceasar, that citizenship was hardly equal to what the original inhabitants of the seven hills enjoyed. Compare the right to vote today with what it meant in 1800 in our own country.

IMHO, Rome should never have messed with the Germania. But with Emperors instead of the Senate in control, status was based on conquest. The Emperors were named after the regions they conquered. This inability to live within limits was a major factor for the Empire. Somewhere in their history Rome's wars changed from defensive wars to offensive wars of sheer conquest. Thus runs the course of all over-reaching Empires.

Well, I surely have rattled on as much or more than you, SunkCiv. But this is OUR forum (by the good graces of JR), so who cares what the neighbors think. If you like, we can continue an exchange via FReep mail.