Full episode
235: The Balloon Goes Up
Act Six

Lessons From Ancient Wars

The story of a preventive act of war committed 3200 years ago, in the land that's now Turkey, not too far from Iraq. Seneca's The Trojan Woman takes place at the end of the Trojan war. MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Mary Zimmerman is directing the play at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. She talks with Ira about the play. In it, a child is murdered to prevent a war, though no one's really sure that if the child lived he'd have actually waged war on his neighbors. A superpower nation preaches about the child. "His life itself is a danger we cannot allow to continue to undermine the entire region's collective security." (5 minutes)