Right now, I am hauled up in my West London flat, having been excused from work on account of a nasty case of Optic Neuritis that has totally messed up the sight in my right eye. I’m popping enough pills to have made Hunter S. Thompson take note and trying to fight off the horrendous boredom that comes with being left alone with nothing to do for the day. I’m listening to punk-rock and writing about my recent visit to Greece for their Easter celebrations and while going through my notes and photographs, I noticed a snap that I took in Thessaloniki airport while we were on our way back home. My photograph was spectacularly crummy so I thought that I would transcribe what I saw for you. The quote, innocuously inscribed on a wall next to the budget airline check-in area, is part of longer speech delivered to the people of Opis by Alexander the Great after the conquest of Persia in 324BC. Given the current political climate – particularly with regard to the presidential race in the US with its talks of wall building, and equally with the EU referendum looming in Britain – I thought that Alexander’s words are remarkably as applicable to the modern world as they were to antiquity:

It is my wish, now that the wars are coming to an end, that you should all be happy in peace. From now on, let all mortals live as one people, in fellowship, for the good of all, see the whole world as your homeland, with laws common to all, where the best will govern regardless of their race. Unlike the narrow-minded, I make no distinction between Greeks and Barbarians.

The origin of citizens, or the race into which they were born, is of no concern to me, I have only one criterion by which to distinguish them – virtue for me, any good foreigner is a Greek and any bad Greek is worse than a barbarian.

If disputes ever occur among you, you will not resort to weapons but will solve them in peace. If need be, I shall arbitrate between you.

See God not as an autocratic despot, but as the common father of all, and thus your conduct will be like the lives of brothers within the same family.

I, on my part, see you all as equal, whether you are white, or dark-skinned and I should like you not simply to be subjects of my commonwealth, but members of it, partners of it. To the best of my ability, I shall strive to do what I have promised.

Keep as a symbol of love this oath which we have taken tonight with our libations.

I know that one always runs the risk of totally misunderstanding and misappropriating the sentiments of a piece of historical writing – and particularly those from the ancient world. The thinkings and writings of figures from the ancient world are so utterly divorced from the sensibilities of the modern world that you’d almost be forgiven for taking such ponderings as the twee ramblings of a now long lost time. I telephoned the Classics department at Cambridge University to see if they could shed any light on the matter, but soon quickly figured that the medication may have been making me behave rather oddly and hung up before anybody answered.

A tyrant though he may have been, Alexander’s words point to a tolerant way of thinking that seems almost entirely absent from that of the modern politics. Particularly with regard to how I’ve seen those with a more conservative way of thinking being portrayed in the media. Just a thought..