Peter Green > Quotes

“There are times when a nation desires a king or a dictator; times of confusion and uncertainty when they go down on their knees to one man and beg him to accept absolute power over them.”
― Peter Green, The Sword of Pleasure

“Axioms are often cherished long after reason would counsel their abandonment.”
― Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.

“The attitude of city-state Greeks to this sub-Homeric enclave was one of genial and sophisticated contempt. They regarded Macedonians in general as semi-savages, uncouth of speech and dialect, retrograde in their political institutions, negligible as fighters, and habitual oath-breakers, who dressed in bear-pelts and were much given to deep and swinish potations, tempered with regular bouts of assassination and incest. In a more benevolent mood, Athenians would watch the attempts of the Argead court to Hellenize itself with the patronizing indulgence of some blue-blooded duke called upon to entertain a colonial sugar-baron.”
― Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 B.C.: A Historical Biography