Medieval Trade Routes

This map of Medieval trade routes is very detailed and interesting. It also may be of interest to compare with the route of the Ten Thousand, as its mention of mountain passes gives a pretty good indication of how they probably traveled. They are currently in Trebizond, near the center of the map on the Black Sea. They probably came through Baghesh Pass, and fought the last battle that was detailed at Zigana Pass.

Anabasis Interlude III: James' Remarks

James posted some insightful remarks at his blog, to which I would like to draw your attention and some of which I would like to discuss further.

One [thing that stood out for him] is how important sacrifices and studying omens was in their activity. At one point they delay action for an almost disastrously long time because the omens weren't favorable. The recorded speeches emphasize how important it is to be honest, because the gods hated evil oathbreakers. 

In yesterday's post I mentioned this insight, and added that what really impresses me is the efficacy of these religious practices. Anabasis is a prose work and a kind of public history, but it does contain a lot of Ancient Greek ritual. I am impressed by their apparent efficacy.

There is something about the process itself that may be effective. They’re praying to Zeus and Heracles and Apollo, whom very few today believe are real; but it works. There’s something about the process, and maybe it’s in the ritual or the attitude of prayer or of gratitude, that seems effective. 

Or it could be that, somehow, their understanding of virtue "tuned" their prayers to the right listeners, in a way we wouldn't understand. Jewish, Indian and Chinese history also contain various -- quite varied, actually -- methods of communing with the divine, and all of them have at times produced good results. That's strange given how different their metaphysical claims ultimately are, especially the Hindu and Buddhist claims about the basic reality that differ quite widely from either the Ancient Greek or Christian ones.

Major decisions have to be voted on by the soldiers, not just the generals--who can be similarly gotten rid of. I don't mean to disparage Xenophon, but that brought to mind the not entirely dissimilar democracy on pirate ships. (I don't know if privateers, who'd be more like mercenaries, were run along lines similar to pirates.)

Some were, and some weren't; a lot of privateers in the Golden Age of Piracy were pirates sometimes and privateers other times, like Henry Morgan or Stede Bonnet. Morgan ran his crew like a pirate, but Bonnet paid his crew wages rather than plunder (and also paid for the construction of his ship). Other privateers were businessmen who were in the service of a country to which they were loyal all the time, particularly American privateers. There was a joint stock company or a wealthy man who outfitted the vessel, hired a captain, and ran it like a business. 

However, the analogy between pirates and Greek soldiers is not novel. 

When we are going to talk about pirates, well, we already are: most of those early Vikings were in fact pirates, and not kings in their own land. We will return to how little a distinction there is between piracy and "legitimate government" in a while, but the concept was not new even then: no less than St. Augustine relates a story about a pirate captured by Alexander the Great, who asked the pirate how he dared molest peaceful shipping. The pirate asked him, "How dare you molest the whole world?"

It is a much fairer point than people admit. If we look at our own American notions of legitimacy in government, the pirates look far more legitimate than the kings: they made compacts to which the people who joined those compacts actually gave their consent. Iceland's government looks like the only one that we would find legitimate on anything like the American model; even Scotland's doesn't have the legitimacy of the Declaration of Arbroath until 1320, much later.

Xenophon's army started as a force of mercenaries, and after the death of their employer they became an unemployed force who initially just tried to see if one of the Persians would like to hire them instead. After the deaths of their generals through Persian treachery, however, they became something else. 

The Ten Thousand are at this point in the story a kind of marching Republic. They elected their leaders and could replace them; and they no longer serve any higher authority but themselves. Their purpose is indeed like a nation's purpose: to protect their citizenry against the dangers of the world, while keeping each other as free as possible. 

Now that they have returned to a Hellenic city, they have to decide what to do. At first they continue to act like a Republic, waging war against the neighbors who had chosen to wage war against them during their passage. (How much wiser the Macrones' decision to trade with them and help them pass looks now!) 

They are no longer in the Wild, or what was the Wild to them. They have to now figure out how to come to terms with their society of Hellenic fellows. The city they came to gave them gifts and let them use it as a base for raiding, but in time they will need to do something else. They could dissolve and all sail home, keeping such money and slaves as they took on the march. Or they could retain this power that they built by coming together and building mutual trust and camaraderie. They have loyalty to each other now, which as James notes they didn't at first. That's powerful too.

The SECDEF Speaks

Mr. Hines dropped this address in the comments below, but it's aimed directly at American citizens so I wanted to put it on the front page.

History Rhymes

At first I thought he was talking about the origins of the Republican Party, which sort of was founded by refugees from the Whig and the Democratic-Republican Party who dissented from slavery. I realized, however, that he means the current party. 

He's right, too: Trump was a Democrat most of his life, donated a lot to the Clintons (enough to buy his sister a Federal judgeship from Bill). Tulsi was a Democrat until like November. RFK? Who could be more of a Democrat than a scion of the Kennedy family? 

I'm also perfectly OK with dismantling the government. Er, "as we've known it for a century or more." Or, you know, maybe even more than that. 

Without Joe the Key Guy, how will we face the future?

If the state-sponsored press wants to excel at propaganda, I'd think they'd avoid phrases like this when trying to generate panic over the loss of essential federal personnel:

the institutional knowledge needed to rescue visitors from locked restrooms

Are there a lot of people who lock themselves into restrooms at national parks? Should Congress look into special funding for this national emergency? Does it require critical institutional knowledge to go get the keys out of Joe's office and avoid having to blow a hole in the wall before some tourist starves to death in the toilet?

It reminds me of this classic from Duffle Blog.

Thermonuclear Deregulation

Reason has mostly been unhappy with the new administration, but they like this EO really well.

Gotta love it

It's a little like the Kash Patel inverted-universe story, but oddly more satisfying: a maverick anti-fraud junior bureaucrat temporarily snags the top seat at the Social Security Administration after being targeted for termination when he cooperated with DOGE.

It's like Richard the Lion-Hearted reappearing and rewarding Robin Hood.

Anabasis XVII

The next day they march down off the mountain from which they saw the sea, and ten parasangs later reach the river that is the border between the Macrones and the land of the Scythians. (You can see this on yesterday's map: the Macrones' land is labeled due west of the blue circle, and the 'Scythini' south of it.) The army finds itself trapped between the rugged mountains and a river, which they must cross, and a thick forest on the other side. 

They begin trying to cut down trees in order to make a road for themselves, but they are soon set upon by an army of Macrones. These are poorly and very lightly armed, wicker shields and spears and stones that they are throwing rather than the clever slings with lead bullets that the Persians were using. One of the Greek peltasts comes to Xenophon and explains that he was originally from this country before being made a slave by the Athenians, and later winning his freedom as a soldier; he thinks he can talk with them. Xenophon assents, and so the peltast goes to them and asks why they are attacking the Greek Army. The Macrones reply that they have come to resist the invasion of their country; the Greeks explain that they don't really intend an invasion, but instead are returning from one and just want to get back to Hellas. 

The Macrones are quite delighted by this news, and once they have exchanged pledges and tokens guaranteeing it, immediately throw themselves into the road-building. What could be better than a good road for a potential enemy and hungry army to leave upon? Speaking of the hungry army aspect, the Macrones have the good sense to sell food to the Greeks, creating an impromptu market for them to spend some of their Persian silver.

The Macrones escort them across their land to the border of the land of the Colchians, thought to be ancestors of the modern Georgians, who are drawn up in battle array and intend to fight. Once again the generals led by Xenophon reorder their army into a new battle order in deference to the mountainous terrain. For this advance over uneven and ascending ground, they form a series of columns by company out of the heavy infantry, with the light infantry and skirmishers as supporting divisions. (The 'companies' are about 100 men, per Xenophon; the divisions are about six hundred men each.)

Now, you should know enough by this point to understand what is about to happen. The flower of the Persian army could not stand up to these hoplites drawn up in battle array and on the advance. These proto-Georgians make an actual attempt to resist, but they are pulled apart trying to contain the Greek companies and their center gives way. Much as happened at the Civil War-era Battle of Chickamauga, this hole is advanced into somewhat by mistake and chance, with a light division finding itself punching through easily and a heavy company following behind them. The broken Colchian army flees when it realizes that it has been split and penetrated, and the Greeks have seized the high ground. 

The Greeks capture some supplies and find themselves also amongst a lot of honey beehives that belonged to the locals. The honey for some reason makes them sick, and they spend a day of vomiting and other illnesses that would make you think that you had come upon them in a condition of military defeat; but the next day nobody had died of it, so they march on.

Another seven parasangs and they find themselves at the sea!

[They]reached the sea at Trapezus, a populous Hellenic city on the Euxine Sea, a colony of the Sinopeans, in the territory of the Colchians. Here they halted about thirty days in the villages of the Colchians, which they used as a base of operations to ravage the whole territory of Colchis. The men of Trapezus supplied the army with a market, entertained them, and gave them, as gifts of hospitality, oxen and wheat and wine. Further, they negotiated with them in behalf of their neighbours the Colchians, who dwelt in the plain for the most part, and from this folk also came gifts of hospitality in the shape of cattle. And now the Hellenes made preparation for the sacrifice which they had vowed, and a sufficient number of cattle came in for them to offer thank-offerings for safe guidance to Zeus the Saviour, and to Heracles, and to the other gods, according to their vows.

James mentioned the frequency of the prayer and the oracles in his post on this subject; I want to point out, at least as Xenophon reports it, their efficacy. Now, if their prayers hadn't been answered we might not have the book to go by, so to some degree this is like the 'what are the odds of Earth existing with such a perfect balance of conditions for life?' questions. (The answer is that the odds are 1, given that we're here talking about it.) Yet I am struck by how effective their devotions and prayers turned out to be; even Xenophon's dodgy request to the Oracle of Delphi somehow aligned with him coming through this adventure. 

It could be that prayer per se is good for the soul. Hundreds of years before Christ, they preyed to Zeus whom they knew and it seems to have worked. But then one thinks of the Aztecs and their blood magic and human sacrifice, and perhaps it's not quite as simple as that. 

Vance in Germany

I expect you saw coverage of VP Vance's speech in Germany, and maybe read the transcript. Foreign Policy, which is not a fan of Vance or the current administration but does like the international elite, quotes a German response.

Another official had far stronger words. “It was total bullshit. We don’t know what planet he is on,” the official said. “At least when we met Keith Kellogg, we could talk geopolitics,” they added, referring to Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine. “With Vance, we can’t even agree what a democracy is.”

That last sentence, at least, appears to be accurate. They definitely don't agree on what a democracy is, or should be, or what force it ought to have if voters want things like Brexit. I've been observing the EU from afar for a long time, as we all have, and I'm not sure I understand what they think the function of the democratic aspects of their governance ought to be. They keep holding elections, but they definitely don't seem to let them get in the way of doing what the elite thinks is right. 

Update on Social Security

In the prior post, I noted that a large potential set of suspect payments had been discovered, and that a reconciliation of the numbers was needed. The head of the Social Security Administration has now given a statement on the topic.

“These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits,” Dudek said, while expressing confidence in the audits conducted by DOGE, which Trump has tasked with uncovering any fraud, waste, and abuse in government spending.

“I am confident that with DOGE’s help and the commitment of our executive team and workforce, that Social Security will continue to deliver for the American people,” Dudek said.

It may be that the final figures after reconciliation aren't as gigantic as their potential to be is before we go through that process. It's good to see them cooperating with the inquiry, and committed to squaring things up.

On "Who Goes Nazi?"

AVI is revisiting the famous essay, which we have discussed before in this space as well: Tex had a post about it in 2010, and I had one in 2015 (i.e. both during the Obama years, before the Trump period).

It's a good essay. As I indicated in 2015, "Mr. H" is the one that sounds to me most like myself; the one who "has never doubted his own authentic Americanism for one instant" because "this is his country, and he knows it"; whose "ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and in all the wars since," as did mine. He is both intellectual and practical, and one of two men in the room who will certainly pick up a gun to fight if necessary.

While it's worth considering all this from time to time, it's interesting to see it come up in the present moment. There's a lot of talk about Trump supporters being fascists, even Nazis, but it is mostly ridiculous. Fascists believe in the state as the absolute center of human life, the definer of all values in the post-religious age, with which all churches and families must align, and nothing can be allowed to oppose. The centrality of the state is total:  as Mussolini put it, "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State."

A movement built around slashing the government so that it exercises less control over individuals and families is certainly not fascist in any sense of the word. 

The current SECDEF is proposing to cut the military budget by ~40%(!!!).* This is not the rising militarism associated with Nazi Germany or Fascist Anywhere. Pushback from within the Republican party is that there's no way it will happen, not because they have designs on conquest but because Congress won't agree to spend that much less.

The Trump administration has also got another sense of meaning and rightness that isn't just state dictates. Rightly or wrongly, they interpret sex according to nature, and want the state to comply with that external natural order. 

There may be fascists in America somewhere, but they aren't at the Daytona 500. 

Trump's ideas may be ill-advised or outright wrong in some places -- the Gaza plan is madness, for example. They may be ill-executed by the team of outsiders and amateurs he's putting together even when they're good ideas. What they are doing may cause unintended harms as well as the intended goods of debt reduction and a more sustainable government structure. There are lots of fair criticisms to raise and entertain. 

But fascism? Nazi? Completely ridiculous. 

* SECDEF Hegseth clarified the next day that he is proposing to reassign 8% of the annual budget each year for five years. He does not anticipate cutting it by 8% each year for five years as reported by CNN at the link.

Anabasis XVI

Out of the snowy mountains, the Greek army finds pleasant villages for a while; but then they come into a hard country where their provisions fail. In this country, the land of the Taochians, men have seen enough raiding armies that they have no pleasant villages. In the manner that would later become true of the Scottish Borders, where English raiders were constantly riding in -- or the English borders, where Scottish reivers were constantly riding in! -- the people of this land had fortified their homes, and were in the habit of keeping their provisions behind stone walls. The Army finds nothing to purchase or plunder, and soon are out of food. 

I have circled in blue the land of the Taochians.

Finally Cheirisophus, commanding the vanguard, just attacks one of the fortified places because he needs the food. The Greeks are driven back by a hail of stones, until at last the whole army has come up before the walls. Once Xenophon and the rear guard are there, the two generals consult and determine that the stones are survivable in the heavy armor, and once they are expended there are too few behind the walls to put up any effective further defense. Therefore, they begin passing an area to draw the fire with the clear plan of making their enemies run out of ammunition. 

It turns out to be a fun game.

Callimachus hit upon a pretty contrivance--he ran forward from the tree under which he was posted two or three paces, and as soon as the stones came whizzing, he retired easily, but at each excursion more than ten wagon-loads of rocks were expended. Agasias, seeing how Callimachus was amusing himself, and the whole army looking on as spectators, was seized with the fear that he might miss his chance of being first to run the gauntlet of the enemy's fire and get into the place. So, without a word of summons to his neighbour, Aristonymous, or to Eurylochus of Lusia, both comrades of his, or to any one else, off he set on his own account, and passed the whole detachment. But Callimachus, seeing him tearing past, caught hold of his shield by the rim, and in the meantime Aristonymous the Methydrian ran past both, and after him Eurylochus of Lusia; for they were one and all aspirants to valour, and in that high pursuit, each was the eager rival of the rest. So in this strife of honour, the three of them took the fortress, and when they had once rushed in, not a stone more was hurled from overhead.

The fun stops when they gain the fortress, however. Expecting the severe treatment that has caused them to adopt such a hard way of life, the women atop the fortress hurl their infants to their deaths, and then leap to their own. The men of the fortress follow suit. One Greek officer, Aeneas the Stymphalian, tries to grab one of the men to keep him from suicide, but the man wraps him up and carries him off the cliff down to the crags below, killing them both. 

They recover a large flock of sheep from this endeavor, as well as cattle and asses. This is helpfully mobile food for an army, and the prize that it turns out the people were defending with their lives. 

The army has come through the worst of the mountains now, as you can see from the map. They gain a guide at the next city, who promises them that he can lead them to the sea. The land he takes them through is undergoing a war of its own, and they end up having some skirmishes with forces arrayed to fight another set of invades. 

Yet on the fifth day, when Xenophon and the rearguard hear shouting before them as the army climbs atop a mountain, it is not as he first thinks the sound of combat. The Greeks are shouting with joy. 

"THE SEA! THE SEA!"

[W]hen they had reached the summit, then indeed they fell to embracing one another--generals and officers and all--and the tears trickled down their cheeks. And on a sudden, some one, whoever it was, having passed down the order, the soldiers began bringing stones and erecting a great cairn, whereon they dedicated a host of untanned skins, and staves, and captured wicker shields, and with his own hand the guide hacked the shields to pieces, inviting the rest to follow his example. After this the Hellenes dismissed the guide with a present raised from the common store, to wit, a horse, a silver bowl, a Persian dress, and ten darics; but what he most begged to have were their rings, and of these he got several from the soldiers.

The sight of the sea is one of the most memorable parts of the Anabasis. These men, hardened now by difficulty, war, and the terror of seeing true horrors, are filled with joy to tears. They have not reached the sea, but they can for a moment see it, and they know for certain now how much further they have to go until they can hope to find ships for home. 

Anabasis XV

The army continues quickly after its success of the last chapter, but finds it is pushing through very deep snow in the Armenian mountains. This is a new peril -- very different from the sands of Arabia, or the dry mountains of Kurdistan. They lose quite a few men and beasts in the snow, and have to abandon others who are snowblind or who lose their toes to frostbite. They learn that the shoes they have been making not of leather but the rawhide of recently slain animals, to replace their good shoes now worn, are partly to blame; and that they must remove the shoes at night to avoid having the rawhide freeze to their feet.

Eventually they come to a set of mountain villages that have adapted to the snow in interesting ways. They have built homes that are underground, with entrances like wells that broaden out as you descend. They also dig passages for their animals, who live underground in these homes with them. And they have great bowls filled with all manner of edible grains, floated in barleywine that has become quite strong. They pull out the grains to eat, and drink the strong beer, to keep themselves through the winter. They are not delighted by the arrival of the Greeks, but do not resist them and indeed make them welcome for a short time. 

Xenophon takes the headman* of one of the villages as a guide, promising that his family will not be troubled in return for his good service. Yet the Greeks also take his young son along, a babe, clearly as a hostage for his good behavior even though Xenophon never uses the term. In fact, during the next passage through the snow another of the Greek generals grows cross because the headman has not lead them to more villages, and strikes him. The headman flees, abandoning his son. The Greeks at least proved fond of the boy, and took care of him.

They come then upon a contested mountain pass, and seize it by a clever maneuver. They have some other local guides they have captured, and those young men help them find goat and sheep paths to grounds above the enemy army. They light fires once they have seized the high ground, so that the enemy below knows they have been outflanked. When the main army pushes up against them, and the flankers push down, the enemy -- now unnamed, because the Greeks no longer really know whom they are fighting -- readily gives way in the face of disciplined attack. 

* If you want to hear what "headman" sounds like in Greek, there's a great scene in The Thirteenth Warrior (1999) in which the Arabic-speaking characters try various languages in order to identify who is in charge of the Viking encampment. One of them is ἡγεμών, "hēgemṓn," or 'headman.' This is not actually the word Xenophon uses; he gives άρχοντας, which is usually translated as "archon" or ‘ruler’. But at least you can get a sense of what it might be like to try to sort out who is in charge in various languages, one of which is Greek.

The one that works in the movie is Latin, “noster Rex,” or ‘our King.’

Ambiguities of Language

I notice that there is a significant usage of ambiguous terms going on in this NYT story about the resignation of the Social Security head in protest of DOGE. There is a very careful construction at work in deploying these terms in this way.

The resignation of Michelle King, the acting commissioner, is the latest abrupt departure of a senior federal official who refused to provide Mr. Musk’s lieutenants with access to closely held data. Mr. Musk’s team has been embedding with agencies across the federal government and seeking access to private data as part of what it has said is an effort to root out fraud and waste. [Emphasis added.]

"Private" data? It's clearly not private, because it is owned by the government. It is thus, to use another ambiguous term that is at least as just, public information. 

But it isn't really public-public, just as it isn't really private-private. It's akin to the copies of your emails that Google or Yahoo owns, and which they can freely choose to share with the FBI if they are asked. They don't need your permission, and you have no legal expectation of privacy. Here, the government owns this copy of the information, which DOGE has lawful authority to access. 

Which brings us to "breach."

“S.S.A. has comprehensive medical records of people who have applied for disability benefits,” said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a group that promotes the expansion of Social Security. “It has our bank information, our earnings records, the names and ages of our children, and much more.”

Warning about the risks of Mr. Musk's team accessing the data, Ms. Altman added, “There is no way to overstate how serious a breach this is.” [Emphasis added.]

It's not a "breach" in any normal sense of the term; it's just a government agency with oversight powers accessing the records of another agency over which it has oversight responsibilities. They're not stealing the information. They're not 'breaching security.' They are part of the security; this is their job.

Now the use of 'private' was in the Times' own voice; here they are simply quoting someone who said something they liked even better. It's misleading and without context, which makes it even better for them because the point of the article is to lead the reader in a particular direction.

Class Warfare in the USA

I don't quite buy this argument, but there is something to be said for doing a class-based analysis of the present moment. I think he has the classes wrong. His opening statement is to the effect that it's a war between factions of the elite, in which the working class is powerless. 

It might strike some as odd: The new president of the United States won the election by rallying the working class against the establishment swamp, yet he has placed at the helm of his assault on the elite-controlled Deep State none other than the richest man in the world. But this is only a paradox if you grant a couple of assumptions that the above description presupposes: that the “working class” is actually represented at all in our political system, and that anyone but the “elite” is involved in the power struggles within it. Understanding what’s really happening in the second Trump administration requires disabusing ourselves of both of these notions. What we’re seeing is the latest battle in a long war between two factions of the American elite. The working class are just extras on the set—moral props in a struggle that has nothing to do with them. 

It's definitely true that neither Trump nor Musk are nor ever have been 'working class.' However, they are both outliers from their economic class, and in any case individuals and not classes. The story the author wants to tell is about an elite that is divided into two factions by whether they possess more cultural or more economic capital.

Generally speaking, members of the elite are relatively affluent in both economic and cultural capital. But the composition of one’s portfolio matters. Within the ruling class, Bourdieu regards those who are far richer in cultural capital than economic capital as structurally subordinate—in his words, “the dominated fractions of the dominant class.” Those with the inverse mix—who are rich in money but don’t necessarily boast the most illustrious educational credentials—are the dominant fraction of the dominant class. 

So the story is that Trump represents the dominant fraction of the dominant class, as does Musk; and they are striving to further subordinate the faction that is defined by its cultural capital, e.g. education and cultural knowledge. These are the two classes, the rich wanting more freedom from regulation, and the educated wanting comfortable government jobs programs. 

The problem for me is Weber's insight that the bureaucracy constitutes its own class with its own class interests that diverge from the rest of the citizenry -- even from the 'class' they were drawn from. And it has its own power, too: far from being subordinate, that Administrative class functionally deposed the last President and governed without him exactly as they wished. They ran the police, they ran the military, they ran the government from stem to stern. Even though the government includes many 'working class' men -- soldiers and police officers usually are, for example -- they were led by a class whose interests did not align with theirs, or indeed with any other citizens'. 

It's true that we are finding out that USAID and other mechanisms established something like a 'jobs program' that itself pursued political ends from outside the government. Wealthy networked NGOs and activist groups molded politics in the precise interests of the Administrative class. Because it paid their comfortable salaries, the Administrative class aligned that part of 'those far richer in cultural capital than economic capital' with itself. There is no doubt, however, that the Administrative class was dominant: it set their agenda in its own interest. DOGE is effectively severing that tie, which may in time lead to those two factions drifting apart.

Meanwhile, the rich part of that class seems often to align itself with the Administrative class, just because they end up subject to its powers. Facebook was all about joining in on unconstitutional Administrative efforts towards backdoor censorship, as was Twitter until Musk bought it. All the big corporations were lining up in favor of Wokeness until Bud Light crossed -- well, it crossed the working class. That was really the first blow, Bud Light's loss of its majestic stature and wealth brought about by working people refusing to drink the stuff any more. They too are why Trump got elected in numbers to big to 'fortify.' 

So I don't think this analysis is quite right, but I do think it's a useful exercise to examine what classes there are and try to sort out how they are trying to influence the game. The working class has not proven powerless, and the elite isn't quite divided up the way the author thinks. It is worth thinking about, though.

Two Charts on US Population

Sourced from Wikipedia.

Sourced from the Social Security Administration, according to Elon Musk.

Some reconciliation of these numbers needs to occur. The obvious place to start is verifying Musk's figures are accurate, and the Social Security Administration does in fact have these figures. If that's right, then there's a significant delta that needs to be figured out.

Review: Knightriders

So I don't know how I never heard of this movie before last week, because it seems like the kind of thing that somebody should have suggested to me before now. Knightriders is a 1981 film about a group of medieval re-enactors who joust on motorcycles instead of horses, which is as close as you could easily come to the way I spent the 1990s-2010s aside from the trips abroad. We did Scottish Highland Games instead of Renaissance Fairs, but it was just a big bunch of bikers teaching people how to use historic weaponry on the weekends in our spare time. The movie should have come up.

It never did. It took the algorithm to find it for me, giving me an AI-generated review of the thing. It stars Ed Harris, who is a great actor and wasn't bad here. The plot is less Excalibur than Roger Corman, although Excalibur is probably why this movie didn't become very famous. It was also 1981, and swallowed up all the attention for Arthurian-themed moviegoers.

There's a connection, though: the sword from the more famous movie ended up in the hands of an outlaw biker who changed his name legally to Arthur Pendragon. That's exactly the sort of thing the hero of Knightriders would have done.

In the end he walks into a schoolhouse and surrenders his sword to a boy who'd come to him earlier in the film, right in front of the teacher and everything. Nobody says anything against it. 

I think it's an interesting meditation on what would have happened in Le Morte Darthur if Arthur had just accepted events instead of contesting them: surrendering his throne to Mordred, his wife to Lancelot, his sword to the next heir. If Arthur had simply accepted that his time had come and let go, wouldn't it all have been better?

Maybe. That's the hard part, though, isn't it? 

 “There likewise I beheld Excalibur

  Before him at his crowning borne, the sword

  That rose from out the bosom of the lake,

  And Arthur rowed across and took it—rich

  With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt,

  Bewildering heart and eye—the blade so bright

  That men are blinded by it—on one side,

  Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world,

  ‘Take me,’ but turn the blade and ye shall see,

  And written in the speech ye speak yourself,

  ‘Cast me away!’  And sad was Arthur’s face

  Taking it, but old Merlin counselled him,

  ‘Take thou and strike! the time to cast away

  Is yet far-off.’  So this great brand the king

  Took, and by this will beat his foemen down.”

Anabasis XIV

The Greeks find the broad river between the land of the Kurds and Armenia to be too deep to cross while it is contested. They stay for more than a day, the Kurds having taken over their better camp behind them, trapped between two enemy forces with a river to cross. 

Xenophon has a dream of being held in iron fetters that fall away. He relates this the next morning, and just about the time he finishes some young men come up all excited. They tell him that they've seen some old women washing clothes further down the river, and that they thought the river therefore must be safe to cross at that location. They stripped naked and crossed with only their daggers, and found that at no point was the river so deep as their crotch. Xenophon and his companions are delighted and pour libations, and determine to cross the river in two divisions, the vanguard taking the opposing shore, the baggage train passing between, and the rearguard -- commanded by Xenophon -- crossing at the end to hold off the Kurdish assault.

This works more or less well, as the enemies on the opposing side once again don't really want to fight. The Kurds really do and do their best to kill as many Greeks as possible on their way out, but the strategy is sound and it brings the Greeks out of Kurdistan at last.

On the far side of the river they march for a few days until they are confronted by a large army. The army's commander, a local grandee, says he wants to let them march through if they will do so without burning the land -- although they may take supplies if needed. The Greeks agree to this, but once again it turns out that keeping your word is not a virtue much respected by these denizens of the Near East. The Greeks are used to this by now, and keep careful watch for betrayal; when it happens, they storm and capture the camp of the grandee, plundering it for its goods. 

Armored MMA

What fun! I enjoyed historical European martial arts among several other kinds, and was our university co-president for ARMA for some years. I would have liked doing this even a few years ago. 

Imagination Time

Al Sharpton has a hypothetical for you.

UPDATE: More imagination. 

The most generous interpretation of her remarks is that she thinks the Nazis were allowed free speech by Weimar and that’s how they got into power. That isn’t true either, however. The Weimar Republic censored hate speech and particularly anti-Semitic speech. The Nazis came to power in spite of censorship, not because of a lack of it. 

Shane vs. High Noon

Althouse has an amusing reply to a Maureen Dowd column that notes, in passing, that the headline writers don't know the difference between Shane and High Noon. We do here! Both of those films have featured regularly in commentary for the decades that the Hall has been in action.

Here are a few relevant pieces for old time's sake. 

And here's a celebration of Jack Palance, the anti-hero of Shane, on the occasion of his passing.

Wild World of Sports

Donald Trump became the first sitting President to attend a Super Bowl in person, and apparently did a flyover of the Daytona 500 as well. Both the football and the NASCAR crowds seemed to appreciate him.

Meanwhile in Canada, Justin Trudeau attended the USA/Canada match of the "4 Nations Tournament" (the other two are Finland and Sweden). The crowd booed the US National Anthem, and perhaps consequently there were three fistfights between opposing hockey players in the first nine seconds of the game. The USA won 3-1, and will play the winner of the other two nations in the final.

It's not that weird for big sporting spectacles to end up tying in with politics, in the manner of Roman emperors attending the games at the Coliseum. Is it a healthy way to let off some of the stress and steam? Maybe.