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GODS AND EMPIRE

1. XENOPHANES FLEES BEFORE THE PERSIANS

If horses and oxen had hands and could draw pictures,

their gods would look remarkably like horses and oxen.

Xenophanes of Colophon, ca. 570–480 BCE

All day we trudged north along the Aegean, cold rain

squalling, whipping up whitecaps, churning sandbars,

eating the beach, rocking pines, hissing sand-sleet.

But the hardest storms came at night, scouring us

huddled in dunes as strikes of violet light flashed

off the cliffs, igniting our faces when thunder boomed

and we were caught out not by pursuers, but by the gods

the soldiers whined, as they crouched under leather shields,

like dogs in the deafening downpour. By morning,