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Gjerstad supposed Cimon, even as he was in effect a Persian admiral, later to have attempted a marriage alliance toward securing Syracuse as a counterweight to Persia.

But I think that is Gjerstad’s fantasy.

Pyrrhus, however, was clearly trying to win a western empire, the resources of which he would then use in the East.

Pyrrhus in Italy has echos.

But no, Nicias looks brilliant compared to Bush.

Where is our Alcibiades? I’ll even take Cleon, hehe.

I see what you mean though.

Most westerners, including Americans, are tempted to identify themselves with the Greeks in the war with the Persians, at least partly because they trace, or have been trained to trace, their supposed democratic institutions to Athens.

There is an irony in this only those learned about the ancient Greeks and Persians will follow.

As the United States, for example, becomes more of a centralized bureaucratic state, with an autocratic executive, there is less likeness to any ancient Greek polis, small and ferociously idiosyncratic, than to the Persian Empire, centralized, autocratic, and hierarchical.

I was just pointing out to Tim that 2500 years ago it was the Persian Empire who were the Superpower and the Europeans were the “backward religious fundamentalists” who believed deities on Mount Olympus controlled their lives. A role reversal of sorts. And who won, the Superpower or the Greek city states. Tim needs to know some history to answer this.

But a repeat of Salamis in the Hormuz is possible. The Persian commanders made many tactical errors assuming they were superior and foolishly divided their forces and fell into a trap. In the Hormuz there is an island called Qeshm that serves no major purpose other than a good place to attack a fleet from.

As far as “300″, I took that movie with several packages of salt.