The Greeks called everybody barbarians

A couple of days ago, I finished reading The Portable Greek Historians from which I was assigned reading selections in my Freshman Humanities class two and a half years ago. Man, oh, man. The thing is, it wasn't half bad.

Herodotus has a really obnoxious tendency to go off on tangents to the point that I sometimes forgot what it was that he was talking about. This is not a good habit to have when you are chronicling a war. Still, this is where you read about Leonidas and his two hundred Spartans holding off the entire Persian army. I also learned that one of the principle generals on the Persian side was a woman, Queen Artemisia. She was one of Xerxes I's most trusted strategists and generals. I mean, think about it. The people of this time barely recognized women as rational beings, yet this woman was a general and trusted advisor to the King of Persia.

Thucidydes was by far my favorite. That man was a historian by God. Of the others, Xenophon tells a pretty good story and paints a nice picture. Polybius was interesting but I don't remember anything he said aside from some things on the Achaen League and how they were justified in using force to unify Greece under a democracy.

Now, to make up for my inconclusive rambling - once again I didn't write about the book until almost a week after I read it - here is an introduction to Achewood, by way of yesterday's comic.

Achewood lays out a pretty unique beat, so don't despair if you don't get it. Sample some of the story lines and see if you can dig it. Definitely, in my opinion, and I'm not going out on a limb here, one of the best webcomics out there. If you like things, anyway.

In other news, I am reading some selected political writings of Augustine. Interesting. I am also reading The Devil's Panties, a diary-type webcomic. The two authors should never meet. I'm sure only one of them would find it amusing.