Traveling alone 2500 years ago and today Part 2

Don Quixote wasn't written 2500 years ago.  It was, however, written during the time when "the Moors" were at war with Europe.  There were also no trains, steam engine driven ships, cell phones (or any phones for that matter), BMW motorcycles, gasoline and only muskets and front loader short range canons.  So the stories of travel were very similar even though it takes the position that the concept of a "knight errant" was quaint.  There was also plenty of fantasy, writing and madness.

With this "military history" background in mind, when I went to get a book on tape to listen to as I drove in my self contained environment where the rain is only a reason to turn on windshield wipers (On a motorcycle you rely on wind speed to clear the view-an imperfect technique even in a light rain and, of course, you get wet); it was natural when my eyes fell on "The 2500 year old conflict between East and West" it would catch my eye.  It just so happened, that this also fell right into the time frame when Zeno wrote his Paradoxes.

For those of you who read regularly, you'll remember that Zeno lived around the time of the Persian Wars (490-479); perhaps coming into the time continuum at the tail end of that.  One of the early papers I wrote was on the Persian Wars and "The mad king" Xerxes who, when his bridge failed, whipped the river.  Another part of that writing was that in one of the battles they buried pottery to foil mounted infantry, hence the first use of land mines (in recorded history) and the term "pot holes" which, bizarrely dates back to Herodotus before they even had roads like ours and the ones Romans built.  I hope that the book on tape doesn't cover this later point which I believe to be my one great mining expedition in history, an event now lost to time due to my being an orphan with no one to collect the detritus of my early life.  Oh, but to have time to tell that story.

The madness of Xerxes predates the madness of Don Quixote which prevents Cervantes from being the first writer of madness on record.

Zeno, being the Godfather of Hologram theories and therefore Non-linear time theory may be my second favorite Greek even though we've never been formally introduced, at least not in Linear Time.

Anyway, the point of this is not to point out that everyone in road repair quotes Herodotus, although that point is worth making, it is to discuss 2500 years ago and today and that will come later.