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Lucian: Rejecting war’s seductive appeal
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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Greek and Roman writers on war and peace
Lucian: The source of civic strife and war
Lucian: War propaganda and its hyperbole
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Lucian
From The Judgment of the Goddesses
Translated by A.M. Harmon
Athena
I am at your side, and if you judge me beautiful, Paris, you shall never leave the field of battle defeated, but always victorious, for I shall make you a warrior and a conqueror.
Paris
I have no use, Athena, for war and battle. As you see, peace reigns at present over Phrygia and Lydia, and my father’s realm is free from war…
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For peace, against war: literary selections 