Would you compose an ode to your greatest enemies?

Stories are inherently sympathetic.

Even as cautionary tales, for the listener, there is no other way to let a story in than to identify with its protagonist.

Could you imagine Americans making a story about the Japanese directly after World War II?

Yes, there’s The Desert Fox (1951). Shogun, decades later.

But imagine a blockbuster about Admiral Yamamoto.

Aeschylus fought at Marathon.

Later at Salamis (the defining battle after Thermopylae).

Then he wrote a play called The Persians- exploring what it might be like to be Xerxes.