Peloponnesian Placepo'

And so life comes to pass Plato, the Republic, and the riposte of revenge Knowing history can never fully extend The Socratic palm of philosophy’s heavy hand Poisoned by power's thirst for peaceful Persian seas Which stir lush groves of crimson and Thebian thieves As sparkling city-states crumble and empires feast Rome culling the culture crush of golden Greece Where Herodotus fathered and Plutarch bleeds Tales of battles, generals, and Hellenic greed That perhaps Alexander was but a minion of means Simply a soldier of death's deciduous seed Born to pass hereditary titles to war's widowed lands Endlessly reaping the accolades of conquering man Somehow sown in the tomes of Aristotelian prose Even construed as a catharsis of glory’s godless throes So perhaps, someday, conquest will become nothing more Than tragedy misquoting the late...great...Edgar Allan Poe