The Sunland Lord

Lysa Arryn, his wife. She poisoned him.

Yeah Herodotus may be considered a many things but I like him. 'Histories' for the purpose of reading Xerxes ordering lashing of the Hellespont because there was storm makes it worth while already. And his repetitive "This and that happened in a manner which I will now describe" is hilarious.

His story is crazy. You wonder how many times a man can switch sides, stir up one against another, and still keep his head on his shoulders. But my impression is he didn't do this only because he enjoyed it or for personal gain. He did it also as a self-preservation from the Greek governments, especially his, the Athenian. Even if he wasn't who he was, they would try to backstab him. Him, Themistocles, Nicias, Timoleon, and some others understood how the system works, and refused to come back home to be tried and executed. Some of them decided to die in battle (Nicias), retire on Sicily (Timoleon), escape to the Persians (Themistocles), or live in a foreign land until you can, like Alcibiades himself. I like the tale about him when he cut the tail of his dog, so that the Athenians would speak badly about him. He was so pleased because they would gossip about this smaller matter and wouldn't talk about his bigger schemes and scandals for a while. This might be due to the development of historians. With time, they became more and more systematic and got things in better order. Since Rome took over power later than the Greeks, it is understandable. The Greek writers during Roman era too were getting on the new wave. The governments of Greece and Rome also have effect. Greek city-states were separate, had different systems in different times one from another, each of them had their own colonies in the world. Rome was a better functioning machine. More unified, effective and developed, add the one single army instead of the many armies of Greece and there you go. Imagine if the US is like Roman Republic, many different peoples/states under one standard, and Greek city states were not really united, but were just states with entirely different interests. It's easy to say that modern governments/nations are based closer to old Rome than they are to old Greece.

Bought and started Gallic Wars. So far so good, but I need to finish numerous other stuff I started too.

Maybe some corner for Barca. But not sanctioning a clear penalty for Inter, heck, not even bother to check VAR, that says everything. Inter dropped in quality in second half, but it doesn't mean that they should be punished for it by the ref. Barcelona were far worse in the first half. I agree on one thing: you use all your chances on Camp Nou. This is what Alexis himself said. Inter didn't do it.

1. Like your notion about Socrates as a historical troll. Definitely imagining him as such while reading Republic. 2. You put the Republic on 16th place, so I'm definitely not going by your recommendation of order. 3. Alcibiades. This sounds great. Gonna read it after I finish what I now read. I was stunned by Plutarch's chapter about Alcibiades in Lives. Need to look this up. 4. Critias. Putting this on the list also. Overall, great work. This is very useful and a good read. Thank you, I will bookmark it. Started reading him after finishing Seneca's Letters From a Stoic and was in the mood. Also, wanted to check out what the man who was making company to both the tyrants of Sicily, Dionysius the First and the Second, really thinks. Their relationship, as described by Plutarch, is hilarious and bizarre at the same time.

I will look this up when I am able. I'm reading the Republic these days, so it might be helpful.

He wrote considerably about horses, I think mostly about the different people treating them differently. For example, the Scythians were the best horsemen at the time. Also, the Persians, the Parthians, the Medes, pretty much every Eastern peoples paid a lot of attention to horses. In fight, their cavalry was their main threat to the enemy along with the archers. Especially the Scythians, who were famous as horse archers during the time. Also Herodotus does mention the four horse chariot race at the Olympics, but I think this would be considered especially cruel sport nowadays. I have something less than 200 pages left, so I am going to pay more attention on this subject, since Herodotus wrote many things about pretty much everything you can think of in this book. That's true. We cannot know for certain, but these people did their research, they travelled, talked to inhabitants, notable people, priests, etc. Surprisingly, Plutarch, (and also Appian) allowes himself a freedom of speech one would not guess that existed during the early Roman Empire. He is not a fanboy of the people who transformed the Republic into an Empire, especially Antony and Augustus. He writes more favourably about Caesar though. He openly praises the noblemen who preferred freedom over tyranny, and doesn't seem he had any problems with the authorities about it at all. He was. He lived there for a while, and admired their political system. Some say he almost gained Athenian citizenship, but wasn't granted one by few votes in the assembly or something. Was still respected in Athens, and Plutarch says he won an award for his work there. About his death, some say he died in Italy (Thurium, which was then part of Magna Graecia), Athens (during the outbreak of the plague), or Macedonia. No one can tell for certain though. He was born in Halicarnassus, which was in the Persian Empire during that time, after Persians conquered Asia Minor. Today it's Bodrum in Turkey.

I'm sorry, but I don't get who you are speaking of? Sounds like Themistocles, since he left Athens and found refuge in Persia and stayed. Ancient Athens was hell to many notable people from there. Rarely there's an Athenian's chapter described in Lives that didn't suffer from his fellow citizens. Yeah, so much this. I was amazed how much knowledge today is own to Plutarch. Supernatural events aside, since then they truly believed in those things. But the fun part is, those are interesting to read too and often you can see the logic used by the author.

This last year or less I decided to go through history/biography a bit. I finished Plutarch's Parallel Lives before summer and this is one of the most interesting book I've read. Finishing Histories by Herodotus and Civil Wars by Appian. Anyone who would discuss this?

Barcelona and their push from the refs every time they need it. Seriously, fuck them. This is too much to stomach.

Man, we need a read. The next two books read, about which I am getting sceptical. Had to say this first. And for a re-read, sure, if you don't have anything better to read at the moment, you should do it. I never re-read the whole series, but some of the chapters I like, I did. The good thing is that you don't have to read chapters you don't want to at the moment, and focus on something you wanna know more about. To me, Bran's chapters are amazing, so the last time I read ASOIAF were those.

If Roose and Walder wanted Robb dead, they could've taken the field along with the joined Lannister-Tyrell forces against the Starks. They would've outnumbered Robb what, six, seven soldiers to one? Still better than participate in such a barbaric and abominable act that they are cursed till the end of days, since nobody will ever have any trust in them. And some here calling the RW a "battle" is ridiculous. Warfare doesn't count such "battles", although it was done in history where GRRM has picked the idea from. Can someone tell me if he/she considers the Fall of Harrenhal in Clash of Kings a battle? Because Vargo Hoat and Roose hatched a stratagem against the Lannister garrison different from the Red Wedding, but I wouldn't say it was a battle either. It was a treachery, and a slaughter of an unprepared enemy who thinks he's your ally (Vargo) and thinks that you are a prisoner of war (Northern vassals).

Can imagine if for example Roose managed to persuade Robert to decriminalize the right of first night, and then Robert wants to have his way with Roose's future wife if the latter married. Robert being Robert I can totally see this.

If they are not viewed as children, then they were prisoners of war. So it's murder either way. Lord Rickard was a murderer; no matter if those were kids or adults. If they were guilty of something, then they would've been put on trial, yet, they were not, they were prisoners and valuable ones. Potentially exchanging of prisoners can lead to peace, or at least a truce.