Ancient and modern

The presenters of the BBC 2 programme on civilisations seem unable to decide what civilisation is. Socrates would therefore wonder how they could make a programme about it. Still, that’s academe for you. Let the Romans help out. First, the root of ‘civilisation’ is Latin civis, ‘citizen’. That implies a law-bound society. Secondly, in his epic Aeneid, Virgil described how Aeneas, fleeing Troy in flames to found the Roman race, consulted his father Anchises in Hades on the future that awaited him.

Europe, a majority of MPs (party loyalties aside), the Lords, the civil service, the BBC and the CBI are all determined to keep Britain in the EU. To that end, emitting crocodile tears, they would welcome a final Brexit deal that is effectively worthless. That, they hope, will cause a second referendum, resulting in a ‘remain’ vote. The Athenians knew how to deal with that sort of situation. Athens from 508-322 bc was a direct democracy, in which all decisions were taken by male citizens over 18 meeting in assembly. But since they could not just turn up and wonder what to talk about, a council of 500, appointed by lot from citizens over 30, acted as the assembly’s steering committee.

Jeremy Corbyn is the master of ‘raising issues’. He received an obscure prize last year for his ‘work for disarmament and peace’ — i.e. talking about it. He ‘raised issues about human rights in Iran’, he said, when he worked for TV there. It will be at the ‘centre of my foreign policy’. The ancient Greek for ‘word, speech’ was logos, and words could be regarded as tricky and deceitful: mere talk, no substance. Logos, however had another range of meanings: ‘reason, rational account, argument.’ It was in that sense that Plato saw logos as the sole route to the truth: using debate to produce a reason-based account of the world.

This year will be the 100th anniversary of some women over the age of 30 getting the vote, and for the first time all men over the age of 21. One can confidently expect an avalanche of articles about increasing women’s power, with the usual sanctimonious finger-wagging at ancient Athenians, who empowered citizen males in the direct democracy they invented 2,500 years ago, but not females. It is very difficult for people, even academics, to understand the power of culture — a society’s sense of the way things have ‘always’ been done, which is met with a blank incomprehension by other societies who do things differently. The Greek historian Herodotus illustrated the problem.

Since the EU does not want the UK to leave and will do everything to stop it leaving, it is becoming clearer by the day that the Brexiteers’ hopes of a beneficial or even a remotely satisfactory withdrawal agreement are at an end. Like the EU, Athenians knew how to deal with ‘leavers’. After driving the mighty Persians out of Greece in 479 bc, the Athenians proposed that all the Greek city states unite to prevent the Persians ever returning. The means would be a pan-Hellenic naval force on constant patrol across the Aegean, headed by Athens, the leading Greek maritime power. To bring this about, it was agreed that the city-states would provide Athens annually with either money or ships to build up a sufficiently powerful fleet to ensure Greek security across the region.

As the Tories struggle to find a policy which might appeal to their traditional supporters and not simply ape those of Jeremy Corbyn, how about a reprise of Solon’s law against idleness? In 594 bc Solon was made arkhôn in Athens to deal with a number of problems, including debt. Solon ruled, for example, that if fathers did not find a trade for their sons, their sons would not have to support them in old age; and to boost trade and jobs, encouraged foreigners to settle in Athens with their families, and facilitated Athenian commerce abroad. He also passed a law (we are told) against idleness: every year every family had to account for how they made their living, and face penalties if they could not.