Thank you for reading my story. I hope you enjoyed it very much. It was a lot of fun writing it. Please favourite and review it, if you wish.
Very few men in history can be considered as important to the fate of western civilisation as Themistocles. It is common consensus that Greece is the birth place of western civilisation – being the cradle of democracy and philosophy. It is also important to note that most of these great developments flourished after the defeat of Persia. Thus, it seems likely that had Greece been defeated, the world would be a very different place.
This story is about standing up to harsh odds when everyone is against you – a giant, your neighbours and many of your people. It is a story that has been immortalised and replayed for generations, all under different contexts. It was replayed when Napoleon ravaged Europe; when Greece fought for its freedom from Ottoman occupation; when the Ottomans fought for their freedom from Greek occupation; and, perhaps most significantly, when the British Empire spoke out against Nazi Germany and paid the price. It is the same story every time, just replayed in different contexts.
With the rise of the Greek individual, human individual and human dignity were invented. A being worthy of
thinking himself one with the gods. When lunacy, thinking itself deity, arrived from the east with the mightiest force the world had until then seen, the tiny Greece raised its head and said:
"I shall not surrender, because I am a free human being. I shall not bow before any ruler, because I alone can rule my own world. I shall not be herded, because all my human siblings are each individuals worthy of equal respect. You may kill me, because you are powerful, but you shall not enslave me, because I cannot be beaten into submission. I submit only to my own mind and convictions. These convictions may be changed by intelligent argument, but not by force."
-Professor. A. M. Celal Şengör, İstanbul Technical University