Many of the early societies that we have considered were forged by warriors, men who displayed martial valor and who used violence to achieve their ends. Our ancient texts describe many instances in which war was pursued for different reasons, but the documents are not neutral about the cost of this recourse to violence. Write an essay in which you contrast three different reflections on violence and war from Achaemenid Persia, Athens and Sparta, India of Ashoka. These could be descriptions of warriors as heroes, or religious reflections on the need to lessen the recourse to violence.
