When you have been running the world for a century, the moment you stop people perceive you to be weak. The British found this out after the 1st World War, and especially after the 2nd World War, when they were astounded to discover that no one thanked them for standing alone against Hitler, but, on the contrary, picked the half-dying corpse almost clean. Gone was the reserve currency, the empire, the navy, the lot. The start of the rot was in South Africa and the Boer War (couldn’t cope with a small bunch of determined guerillas – sound familiar?). The Kaiser concluded that Britain was a busted flush. For the Kaiser read Putin, not to mention the resentful Indians and Chinese.

Moral: never blink, always succeed. Problem: it’s not just the eyes and the eyelids that usually the problem, but something more fundamental.

Epicurus was not against war at any cost, but clearly had little time for the empire-building of Alexander. What on earth was the point? The moment this young hothead died, years of strife followed, with little to show for the whole enterprise, except for a library in Alexandria, perhaps, and tens of thousands dead. Best not start an empire in the first place.