A quote

Listen now to a further point: no mortal thing

Has a beginning, nor does it end in death and obliteration;

There is only a mixing and then a separating of what was mixed,

But by mortal men these processes are named “beginnings”.

Empedocles

I took this quote from un-put-downable and brilliant book, Persian Fire, of Tom Holland, which has occupied my mind for two weeks, it’s a really hard reading, though.

You may have watched the one of those popular movies of 2006, 300, and probably fascinated by it. I watched it, too, because its visual effects, fiction and musics were rather good to me. After watching 300 brave heroes (in fact, they are 299) from Sparta when they defended their mother-land against the one of those most powerful armies, the history has witnessed so far and definitely the strongest one in those times, I felt humiliated at some degree. Even though I am not a pure blood Persian, I think that I have some common roots with them. In fact, if you live in Anatolia, particularly the east part of it, or in Mesopotamia, no doubt you have some connections with Persians. So do I.

I said that “I felt humiliated“, due to that the Persians, whose roots have something in common with mine, were demonstrated as idiot-coward beasts, who bloodthirstily aimed to conquer the other side of Aegean Sea, whereas Spartans were intelligent, merciful, brave, etc. , through the movie. Therefore, I felt as I expressed. To be frank, it was more than being humiliated. It’s insulting!

ANYWAYS!

Later on, I had been looking for a book, from which I could get some REAL FACTS about Persians, Spartans and the war, for a while. Eventually, I discovered the book, Persian Fire, and am reading it nowadays. It seems that the author, Tom Holland, has done rather good job by being objective as much as possible. Till the page I just read, I can honestly say that.