Interesting essay, even though written more from a &quot;literary&quot; viewpoint than a historical&#x2F;archaeological one. Nevertheless, I found this phrase a little disconcerting:<p>&gt; We hardly need to read of the difficulties of the Roman legions on the Syrian borders to understand that modern military interventions in western Asia might be ill‑advised, or that feeding inedible food to refugees is likely to rebound.<p>As far as I know the refugees now passing through different European countries have not been given <i>inedible food</i> by the locals, or not on purpose, anyway, quite the contrary, there are more than a couple of YT videos of some refugees throwing away bottles of water and what looks to be good enough food. Not sure how this Cambridge professor might have come to this conclusion, and more so, why she chose to propagate this false fact as being, well, the truth.