well well well..., page-21

Oly, Oly, Oly. Shame. How can you say ‘the greatest Olympian civilisations were dictatorships’? Pericles, the founder of the imperial Athenian democracy, is turning in his grave.

Miltiades was the victor over the Persians at Marathon. In his superb book ‘The Classical Greeks’, Michael Grant says: ‘But (Miltiades) came to the usual unhappy end which awaited successful Greek individuals’. The usual problem was that the warlords like Miltiades, Pausanias and Lysander conquered but were then brought down by their greed for money and glory. Perhaps this is the ancient equivalent of excessive options packages for all-conquering executives today?