Vachel Lindsay is an American original. He tramped his way through middle America selling his pamphlet, “Rhymes for Bread”. He was quite mad and killed himself for love of Sarah Teasdale. His son lived on Johns Island, SC, and I knew VL’s granddaughter in college.
Herodotus give his account of the resentments of Miletus against the Persians and the story of the Ionian Revolt, which is the beginning of open warfare between the Greeks and Persians
The Kingdom of Theoderic, the judicial murder of Boethius, Justinian’s reconstruction of the Empire, the coming of the Dark Age and the rise of the Roman Church.
How many times have you read a movement Conservative’s explanation of political correctness and critical theory as the products of Marxism?
The Fourth book is largely taken up with Herodotus’ intriguing account of the Scythians and with Darius’ ill-advised expedition against these strange people. The Scyths were a people of Iranian stock, probably very similar to the Medes and Persians before they entered the Middle East and found themselves subjected to the constraints of civilization. They were nomadic horsemen, fearless warriors, and hard to govern. While Darius claims one reason or another for holding a grudge, it would seem that Herodotus regards the expedition as an instance of megalomania.
A podcast with Stephen Heiner and Thomas Fleming on the Fall of the Western Empire, the Gothic Kingdom of Italy, and the enduring legacy of the Roman Empire.
Book III gets down to the business of Cambyses, Cyrus’ successor, and the invasion of Egypt in which he displays signs of madness, which might just be interpreted as the indications of the tyrannical character that is created when boys are raised without anyone who can say, “NO!”
This is a first sketch. If you read nothing else, you must read the Boethius text. If you have questions or comments, you this post and subsequent posts on the same subject.
