It's 346 B.C. and King Philip II of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great) has just subjugated a bunch of Greek city-states.
He then approaches Sparta and sends them a message: "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."
The Spartans reply: "If."
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
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Hahaha. Like that one.
Here’s my favorite: The Nazis attacked the Americans’ perimeter at the Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, but they were able to hold their ground. The German commander, Generalleutnant Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz, requested Bastogne’s surrender.
The reply he got? “Nuts!”
That’s interesting, and makes me laugh. Strong man does need to threat anyone.
General Cambronne, who commanded Napoleon’s Imperial Guard at Waterloo, is supposed
to have replied when asked to surrender that “the Guard dies, it does not surrender”. However,
eyewitnesses have said that his actual response was the less epigrammatic but equally
eloquent “Shit!”.
Not surprisingly, it’s the first quote that they chose to put on his statue in Nantes.
That is an awesome quote.
What makes it even cooler is the fact that it holds true. King Philip II never even comes close to Sparta.
Well, Sparta was already a defeated city-state by this point. We often contrast Sparta and Athens and Alexander when we should really remember the great Epaminondas who utterly demolished Sparta decades before Philip II and Alexander. Epaminondas marched south from Thebes and defeated Sparta by freeing their slaves. It’s a great story – one worth checking out.
My favorite historical quote is King Phillip 2 of Spain: “Religion is a matter too important to be left to the Pope.”
-J. Prot.