A Soldier Is a Soldier Is a Soldier!?: The Military and Its Soldiers in an Era of Globalization

Abstract

According to the legend of the Phoenician prince Kadmos, looking for his sister Europe, who had been kidnapped by Zeus, the soldier is an offspring of a dragon. More precisely, the soldiers emerged from the teeth of the dragon killed by Kadmos, who had sowed the teeth into the earth. In his Metamorphoses, Ovid tells the story of how the soldiers, emanating from the dragon’s teeth, out of the earth, fiercely fight each other in what has since been the central notion of the soldierly activities or profession, i.e., the element of combat, sometimes conceived of in terms of a duel. They kill each other until only five of them are left. These remaining five soldiers then assist Kadmos in founding the city of Thebes and become the founding fathers of the Theban aristocracy. This, then, leaves the reader with the impression that soldiers, at least most of them, are something evil and despicable. Yet, Ovid’s saga is not that unidimensional and unilinear, but presents an ambivalent assessment of the soldier, precisely because some of the soldiers survive the fight and do something noble and respectable. And this might be an appropriate notion running through the lines of what follows.