Sam Keen notes that Professor Arthur Nock at Harvard was fond of saying that wars between the Greek city-states “were only slightly more dangerous than American football.” And Ardant du Picq points out that in all his years of conquest, Alexander the Great lost only seven hundred men to the sword. His enemy lost many, many more, but almost all of this occurred after the battle (which appears to have been an almost bloodless pushing match), when the enemy soldiers had turned their backs and begun to run. Carl von Clausewitz makes the same point when he notes that the vast majority of combat
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