This is the Friends Mystery Debating Society.

I am Gaius in Lunditian on a not so chilly evening in midwinter.

I welcome my colleague Germanicus, who's here with me at our favorite wine bar by the Thames,

joined by the cheerful retired centurion crowd who want to hear

about these riots reported in the Persian Empire. The Roman army spent several hundred years

trying to solve the Persian Empire in its many iterations.

After Alexander for a while, it was called the Seleucid Empire,

but it was always the same crowd, Indo-European Persians.

And we have them today, although we call them Iran for some reason

having to do with the politics of the early 20th century.

It is Persia.

And right now the headlines in the 21st century, gentlemen, and you can see there's

smiles Germanicus. Anything that dings the Persian Empire pleases the centurions.

Okay. Hundreds of Iranian protesters feared killed, writes the Washington Post.

U.S. considers military strikes.

Subhead, Trump administration, national security officials were preparing to meet on potential responses, including a range of military options.

That's the Washington Post, the official newspaper of the capital city,

within these last moments.

I welcome your thoughts, Germanicus, because Persia is where Roman armies go to die,

especially Roman armies led by Roman emperors go to die.

The most notable death, to my mind, reaching back to the late Republic, was Crasis and his

son, who marched against the Persian Empire of the moment in order for Crasis to prove that he

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