Thoughts from the journey of one Christian sailor.
Sailing for Home
  • Home
  • About Me
  • My 25 Theses
  • Blog
  • Randomness
  • Books/Resources
  • Submit Content!
  • Information/Legal Stuff

Orlando, Hedgehogs, and Spartans

6/14/2016

0 Comments

 
I really need to say a special thank you to my friend Sydnie, since she sent me an awesome book while I was away on deployment about the Peloponnesian War. I'm still working my way through it, but at over halfway through I can pretty confidently say at this point that it's one of the best books I've read since my last deployment, when I read the Eric Metaxas biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Quite interestingly, both of these books pertain to what I intend to discuss; namely, the concept of standing on one's principles.

The Peloponnesian War, for those who are unfamiliar, was the last great war of Classical Greece, fought between Athens and Sparta and their various allies from 431 to 404 BC. It came only fifty years after a united Greece had turned away the Second Persian invasion of King Xerxes, made famous by the movie "300". Whereas the former Greek allies had first held the Persians in a dramatic standoff at the Battle of Thermopylae, and then finally defeated the "god-king" at the battle of Plataea, now after thirty years of unbroken peace the former allies found themselves bitter rivals fighting a long, vicious war for control of Greece. It was the last great war because it reduced both sides after thirty years of hard fighting to devastated shells of their former selves, and paved the way for the Macedonian invasion which gave rise to the empire of Alexander the Great (and eventually along came the Romans).

What does that have to do with Orlando and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, you ask? First of all, you should know that Dietrich Bonhoeffer attended Tubingen university in the early 1920s, where he joined a fraternity called the Hedgehogs. The name was a reference to a well-known literary quotation from the Classical Greek poet Archilochus, who coined the expression, "the fox knows many tricks, but the hedgehog knows one good one."

Read More
0 Comments

    Author

    I'm J.R., a US Navy veteran and Linguist. This blog is devoted to insights and experiences I've gained over the years.

    Archives

    February 2022
    February 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    April 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013

    Categories

    All
    Boldness
    Discipline
    Evangelism
    Faith
    Freedom
    Guilt
    Hardship
    Jesus
    Justice
    Manliness
    On Killing
    Perseverance
    PODCAST
    Rebirth
    Redemption
    Remember
    Respect
    Sin
    Success
    The Future
    The Nature Of Life
    The New Reformation

    RSS Feed

Copyright © 2013-2021 All Rights Reserved, J.R. Dudley www.sailingforhome.com