When a Roman general achieved a great victory, the Senate would sometimes honor him with a "Triumph". The Triumph occurred in Rome and typically involved a parade of chariots, the Roman legonaires, a display of booty collected from the vanquished enemy along with the surviving captives lead behind the Roman army. The Triumphant general would lead the procession in a chariot dressed up in his finest armor. Behind the general in the chariot would be a slave who would constantly whisper in his mirror "you are only mortal, you are only mortal....".

Classical Greek civilization achieved its zenith in the city state of Athens. Athens saw one of its roles in the ancient Greek world as a champion for democracy. Athens engaged in military adventures where it overthrew existing oligarchies and then replaced them with democracies. In the process of doing this, Athens established an empire of sorts stretching across the Aegean sea. The wealth received as tribute from this empire help facilitate an Athenian Golden Age. The Athenian democratic assembly was not immune to the seduction of demagogues. Some particularly eloquent demagogues convinced the Athenian assembly that an intelligent course of action would be to attack Syracuse (a large, powerful city state in eastern Sicily that was several days journey from Athens). Athens invested a large fraction of its standing army and navy to this Syracusian military campaign. The action later proved to be disasterous with the entire Athenian force destroyed. Afterwards, Athens powerful local enemies (Corinth and Sparta) attacked and beseiged Athens. During the seige, a horrible plague decimated the Athenian population. Eventually the city surrendered to Spartan occupation. Athens never recovered from this. The surrender of Athens to Sparta marked the end of the Greek Classical age. The world did not reattained the level of culture enjoyed by Athens until the Italian Renaissance, almost 2,000 years later.

Gary