Thyestean feast?
[Victor Davis Hanson]
Greek mythology often encapsulated an entire culture's worst fears and
depravities-and over centuries of story-telling became ever more complex and
layered and bizarre.
But what is strange about reading Michael Yon's graphic descriptions from
Iraq is that al Qaeda (or its kindred) seems almost in a single generation
to be outdoing a millennium of savagery present in Greek history and myth.
You have to go to Thucydides's Mycalessus to find a parallel of wiping out
even the animals of a small village.
On Friday, Yon reported that al Qaeda served up a son for dinner to his own
family- a barbarism reminiscent of Atreus (hence the "curse" on the House
of Atreus) cooking (sans feet and hands) and then serving his twin brother's
sons to their unsuspecting father Thyestes.
So Yon reports a revolting modern-day Thysestean feast...
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTUzNmIyNDUyMmRjZTk0OTYwZTRhZTVmNzFkOGIwMGY=
