Excerpt from Patriotism and Empire
History and poetry, we may be sure, will not willingly let die the antique tale of the three hundred who at Thermopylae held out for Sparta against the Persian host, knowing that there could be but one end, and facing it with a stern exaltation, combing their long hair for that, the last festival, and singing the while -
'Singing of death and of honour that cannot die.'
It is true, there are offsets. There was no military wisdom in defending the pass after the Persians had got behind it; and if it was to be defended, it should have been, as before, from the narrows, not, as was finally done, by way of a sortie.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Patriotism and Empire (Classic Reprint) (John M. Robertson)