"At a certain stage, at the height of its success, Athens decided to take on Syracuse, the biggest and richest city that Athens did not control. They obviously weren't driven mad by the gods; they were crazed with their own success. They were so successful that they just didn't believe that this could go wrong. Besides, they had noble (as well as mercenary) motives; by expanding their empire they were adding to the area that could participate in trade under their umbrella. It was good for the economy to be part of their empire; they fostered democracy in the states that belonged to their empire. But this war turned out to be a disaster, and they were terribly defeated. To make matters worse, the Greek states outside the empire became very angry at the tyrannical way in which Athens was carrying on in the empire, and the result was, eventually, the total defeat of Athens. Human nature affected the result two ways: it led to disaster because hubris made the city blind, but also because hubris antagonized other people so much that they mobilized to put down the imperial state."

The neocons and theocons controlling the current Bush administration may want to ponder this as a possible metaphor of their Middle East entanglements.

--Flo Wineriter