Michael Seselja > Recent Status Updates

Been zooming through this audiobook. Probably because the author is a Croat (although born in England), King Zvonimir has got a mention twice so far. Based.

Book VIII
Things are a little less exciting after the two famous battles at Marathon and Thermopylae. Plus I’m also realising that I enjoyed Herodotus’ random digressions and descriptions of peoples’ customs than his historical narrative. So things have slowed down.

In trying to create the perfect class of soldiers to protect his ideal city, Socrates seems to be cutting them off from some of the things that make human life worthwhile. It’s all a thought experiment though I suppose.

A surprisingly nuanced view of British imperialism here. Davies acknowledges its ills while still being sure to mention some of the ways it was a force for good.

Book VII
Apparently the Persian king Xerxes was so confident that when Greek spies arrived to check out his army, he refused to execute them and instead took them on a tour to show them just how big it was and how futile resistance was, etc.

This chapter also made me want to watch the movie 300.

Book II
I wish someone would make the Aeneid into a movie because I think Aeneas fits the traditional hero archetype a lot better than Odysseus.

Sorry to anyone who works in sales but Plato thinks that you are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose.

Reading this I found it easy to relate to the British Catholics of the seventeenth century in terms of being politically homeless. They were caught in a war between the monarchy, the Puritans and the Presbyterians. Most would side with the Anglican monarch but we were hardly natural allies with the established Church that had dissolved all the monasteries in Britain.

Book VI
Surprisingly the famous Battle of Marathon only gets a couple of pages. A lot of the chapter is spent on detailing how much the Greeks fought with each other; it seems the only thing that could (sometimes) bring them together was the threat of Persians invading.

Also I learned that the Spartans thought that drinking your wine neat would make you go insane. I wonder what they would think about scotch.

Book I
We get Socrates discussing what justice is not, that justice is a good and then whether the just or the unjust life is better. As usual it’s extremely entertaining to watch him arguing circles around people. And Plato was genuinely a great writer.

Book V
Herodotus thinks that in becoming democratic and giving their citizens a say over government, Athens became a much stronger fighting force as the men were more motivated. I think there’s something to this but it probably doesn’t work at the scale of many of today’s nation states.

Book I
I can’t remember if I sympathised with Aeneas in the Iliad because he was presented that way or because I already vaguely knew that he was the star of his own show. Either way, in Book I Virgil has already made me like the guy a lot.

I have just started reading this and my mind is being blown. Reno is expressing the latent political thoughts that have been swimming around my mind for years in polished form.

Very slowly getting through an audiobook version of this.

As the English nation develops in the medieval period I do notice the author’s tendency to try to deconstruct everything. For example he’s quite dismissive of the idea of the Magna Carta influencing Anglosphere politics today. It’s a very late 20th century way of looking at things which is a touch annoying. But he still covers a lot of ground and gives a sense of the complexity of it all. So I’m enjoying it.

Moving from Greece to Rome and believe it or not they are still going on about the Trojan War

Book IV

I don’t take all of Herodotus’ descriptions of the customs various peoples as gospel of course. But wow he makes the ancient Greeks look positively chaste and Christian by comparison.

Pretty enjoyable reading about the origins of the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish peoples so far

The authors are bringing out interesting things I’d never thought of from the Gospel. For example they point out how touching something unclean made one ritually unclean in Jewish law; but Jesus’ holiness is such that instead of lepers passing their uncleanliness on with a touch, they are themselves made clean (holy).

I’ve just started this massive book and the author has already got off on the wrong foot. When describing prehistoric Britain, he refuses to use terms like the “English Channel” and “Wales” because that would be anachronistic and nationalistic. He uses “The Sleeve” and “The Afternoon Country”. As well as being cringe, these are just things he made up, and makes it extremely difficult to follow.

Book III
A few more fun digressions, especially one about giant gold digging ants that apparently live in the deserts of India. But the best part is definitely when Herodotus says he doesn’t think Britain is a real place.

Book XX
I’m glad Telemachus has finally stood up for himself and decided to be a man. Also, despite not being a poetic translation I really liked how this book finished;
“But the supper was yet to come, and nothing can be conceived more gruesome than the meal which a goddess and a brave man were soon to lay upon them-for they had brought their doom upon themselves.”

Book II

The master of digressions continues by mentioning the name of a ruler of Egypt and granting us 80 pages where he tells us everything he knows about Egypt. Again there’s some wild stories.

Book I
A bit of history, descriptions of some very interesting (by that I mean weird) customs and a whole lot of tangents. Herodotus is reminding me of Trump when he went on Joe Rogan: he loves taking the story on a massive detour but he always manages to get back to the point.

Apparently when the ancient Persians had a drinking session they would thrash out important matters. Then in the morning when they were sobered up they would discuss things again, and if they still agreed then the decision stood. I think there’s something in that.

The description of Mannix fighting PM Billy Hughes during the conscription debates was great. Even greater is the story of reconciliation in their later years.