Brocken_Spectre (@Brocken_Spectre)

After Athens’ surrender to Syracuse, a failed invasion during the Peloponnesian war, inside a slave-quarry: “The Syracusans moved to crush our spirits by eliminating officers. Those whose identities they had obtained were hoisted to the pit rim, there to endure within earshot of their men below sieges of barbarity as long as two or three days. Beneath this torture, the names of other officers were extracted and these hauled up to undergo like atrocities. The dead were pitched back at us over the brink. Any who attempted to honor them by burial were shot down or stoned. This ordeal continued until no commander above the rank of subaltern remained. This was not the finish, however. By some misintelligence, or inspired by malice alone, our captors pronounced their conviction that three commanders remained yet unsurrendered. The foe commanded that this trio be produced. It went without saying that, without immediate compliance, the enemy would start butchering at random. At once the three stepped forward. These were Pythodorus the son of Lycophron of Anaphlystus, Nicagoras the son of Mnesicles of Pallene, and Philon the son of Philoxenos of Oa. Their monument, the Three Officers, stands at Athens now, on the slope opposite the Eleusinium. As the Syracusans bound and hauled these men up feet-first, none of whom held rank above squad commander, our men unprompted commenced the Hymn to Victory. Goddess, born of bitter labor, Joy-bringer, Truth-revealer, Long-sought Nike, our voices We lift in song to thee. Sternest of immortals, Yet clement to the brave, For him who endures, Thou effaceth all evil. So fierce was the emotion produced by these stanzas that it seemed to fill the great bowl like a liquid, echoing stone-amplified about the quarry face. Thunderer’s fickle daughter, Enter we thy precincts of agon. To thee, Brightling, or to Death Do we our souls consign.” - Steven Pressfield, Tides of War #fizeekfriday