Thursday, September 8, 2011

Pillage and murder is okay, but not the earning of profits

Odysseus is insulted when he is asked is he a merchant, “mindful of the gains of his greed”; but he tells with pride how, on his return from Troy, his provisions having run low, he sacked the city of Ismarus and stored his ships with food; or how he ascended the river Aegyptus “to pillage the splendid fields, to carry off the women and little children, and to kill the men.”
—Will Durant.  The Story of Civilization Part II: The Life of Greece.  Chapter 3: The Heroic Age.  1939.