General David Petraeus ended his term as the director of the CIA after it turned out that the worldâ??s leading spymaster had cast discretion to the wind to have an extramarital affair. Nor was the other woman shy and retiring about sharing alleged state secrets (although it appears that no security was in fact breached). For what itâ??s worth, history offers Petraeus this consolation: heâ??s in good company.
There's nothing new about a powerful man being brought down by sex. It's as old as Adam and Eve, Samson and Delilah, or Helen and Paris. Just imagine what email between Caesar and Cleopatra would have looked like! What's new is that there are no secrets anymore. Thereâ??s no hope of confidentiality because everything is traceable. The stone trail became a paper trail and now a cyber trail -- and thatâ??s impossible to lose.
Pericles of Athens (ca. 495-429 B.C.) was the leading politician of Greeceâ??s Golden Age in the fifth century B.C. With his mistress, Aspasia, he made one of historyâ??s first power couples. Aspasia was a brilliant and beautiful foreigner who attracted both intellectuals and criticism. She was -- or at least she was accused of being -- a courtesan.
When Athens clashed with Sparta in the conflict that became the long and bitter Peloponnesian War, the comic poets turned their fire on Aspasia. The cause of war, they said, wasnâ??t Athensâ?? rivalry with Sparta or Spartaâ??s alliance with Athensâ?? neighboring state, Megara. It was Aspasia and her business. The real quarrel was over some prostitutes.
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