Xerxes The Great, 'Ahasuerus' Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Xerxes The Great, 'Ahasuerus' - Essay Example It is often presented as a truism that the winners write the history books. But when the subject is a figure of controversy, with both dark and light sides, it is often difficult to really see what happened in a way that highlights veracity. Looking at Xerxes I of Persia, one faces such a situation. On the one hand, Xerxes’ invasion of Greece was massive in scale, represented ingenious engineering, and resulted in the fruition of the goal of its general: a victory at Thermopylae, and the capture of Athens. On the other hand, taking Athens was essentially Xerxes’ last successful move: he faced nothing but a series of embarrassing defeats afterwards, and after the withdrawal of forces from Greece, was treated very harshly by Greek historians. The basic assumption of the current research investigation is that Xerxes, leading the Persian army after Thermopylae, represents a different and more unstable sort of commander than Xerxes before this seminal battle: after burning A thens, Xerxes seems to make nothing but poor strategic decisions. Up until his eventual murder in a court intrigue, when he was essentially disgraced as a general, and was focusing mainly on building projects, Xerxes showed a slippage of rationality and good judgment, along with an increasing inability to take counsel from his advisors and military planners.

Judith Thomsons Responsibility Argument Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Judith Thomsons Responsibility Argument - Essay Example That is why in the course of the years, both sides of the discussion tried to come up with convincing argument. This paper ill describe and then critically analyze one of the ideas that was developed by Judith Thomson who supports abortion. In the course of the defense, the author comes up with several analogies which are supposed to be projected on the issue of abortion and convince the people that the latter is permissible. One of such analogues deals with the imaginary people-seeds. According to the author, there is world where the latter are floating in the air freely and are able to root in one’s furniture. One is able to take special precautions not to let them happen by installing special screens that would keep this pollen away. However, just like any material object, the screens might be defective and people-seeds might eventually end up in the house and root in the furniture. There is no doubt that the parallel between this thought experiment and conception is straightforward. The author goes further, claiming that there are certain rights that can be identified in this situation. First of all, the people-seeds do not have a legitimate right to dwell in the apartment of the person. The latter does not want to have children and the fact that the seeds were able to get it is nothing, but a coincidence. In addition to that, this person has an absolute right to get rid of the people-seeds since the latter are not welcome in the house. As one can clearly see this is a clear allusion to abortion. What is more important is that one can also name several duties that people have with regard to the question above. First of all, it is their duty to use means of protection that are available, primarily the above mentioned screens. The author suggests that there might be more extreme ways to make sure that people-seeds would not take a root as getting rid of all the furniture in the house (perform hysterectomy) or seal all doors and windows (never