The New York Times has run an interesting Op-Ed, "Pirates of the Mediterannean" (Sept. 30). Nothing to do with Johnny Depp. It draws the parallel that I've been ransacking Gibbon to find, between the post-events-of-9/11 West and the Decline of the Roman Empire. Historical novelist Robert Harris writes:
In the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped....
in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.
Consider the parallels....
and off we go. "Alia iacta est," so to speak.
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