Lessons from the Peloponnesian War

—after Thucydides

Thick as their grain, each spring the soldiers rise in rows And lay waste the fields wherever grain can grow.

Athenians ram amidships on the open sea And lose to Syracusans who ram head-on in the bay.

A treaty signed to cover decades lasts until One side decides the other is weak enough to kill.

If one side, losing, retreats behind its city walls, To lay siege, the other builds a wall around those walls.

Every city, no matter how fine or great, Shelters within its confines those who will betray it.

For even in a city so grand that it can build Its temples with marble, the stronger mineral is gold.

The only time an armistice is ever called Is between battles—to clear the corpses from the field.