Our politicians are desperately keen to turn the toast of the people, Nigel Farage, into toast himself. But is that wise? Time to consider the career of the Roman general Marius (157–86 BC). Noble families — i.e. those who had held high office — dominated Roman politics. Marius did not come from a noble family,
After 685 tightly argued pages, the ‘superstar’ economist Thomas Piketty unfolds his master-plan for closing the gap between the rich and poor: you take money away from the rich. Novel. Ancient Greeks realised you had to try a little harder. The culture of benefaction was deeply rooted in Greek society, even more so when the
Labour is up in arms because many of the new jobs currently being created are among the self-employed. This seems to them to be cheating. Quite the reverse, ancients would have said. Ancient thinkers knew all about the needs of the poor and were worried about their capacity to cause trouble (as they saw it)
Nearly half of Britain’s billionaires are foreigners, and government hopes many more will now come in on the government ‘start business — get passport’ scheme. Someone has obviously been reading Xenophon. In the 350s BC Athens was in serious financial trouble. In his Poroi (‘Revenues’), Xenophon, a soldier and essayist, sketched out a plan to
As rebels, terrorists, fascists, foreign forces, activists, separatists, militants, militias, nationalist groups, Neo-Nazis, Right Sector forces — take your pick — spread civil war across the increasingly lawless cities of eastern Ukraine, a pro-Russian commander helpfully commented ,‘We have God in our hearts, and they have cockroaches in their brains’. In 431 bc the so-called ‘Peloponnesian war’
What is Boris’s great secret? Does it lie in the bust of the Athenian statesman Pericles (c. 495–429 bc) that he keeps in the Mayor’s office in London? The key can be found, perhaps, in Pericles’ passionate commitment to the idea of Athens as a ‘living lesson for Greece’. This was the central message of
What a splendidly liberal leader Mr Putin has turned out to be, desiring nothing other for his fellow Russians than their human right to decide their own fate. How the Romans would have applauded! In 215 bc, while Rome was desperately trying to keep Hannibal at bay in Italy, Philip the fifth, king of the
If the continuing rows over the expenses and lifestyles of certain MPs cast all of them in a bad light, it is a mystery why decent members do not take action to hasten the exit of their more shameless colleagues. If they do not, then the press will continue to hound them — but not
Our former culture secretary, Maria Miller, is still apparently baffled at the fuss created by her fighting to the last to prevent her expenses being examined. It was a mere ‘legalistic’ transgression; that’s what MPs do. So that’s OK, then. Socrates once discussed with the young Euthydemus the question of going into politics. Euthydemus’ assumptions
Nigel Farage rather missed a trick in his debate over the EU with Nick Clegg. The Prime Minister has promised us an ‘In/Out’ referendum on the EU in 2017, if the Tories are returned to power. But there is a condition: the referendum will be held (his words) ‘When we have negotiated a new settlement…’ (23
According to a top TV scientist, in the beginning there was ‘empty space’ and ‘energy’. After a big bang, the universe started out as a ‘featureless void’. But emerging particles ‘organised themselves into the universe we see today’ by ‘clumping together’ because of ‘deviation’ from perfect smoothness in ‘warped’ space. Meanwhile, cosmic light particles are
Last week in The Spectator, Daisy Christodoulou argued that, contrary to current educational theory, children learned best via direct instruction and drills under the guidance of a good teacher, which might be hard work but was satisfying and good for pupil self-esteem. Romans would have seconded that. In ad 403 St Jerome wrote a letter
Last September Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against a ‘unipolar’ world, saying that the national revival of Russia was in line with its foreign policy objective of a multi-polar world and the prevailing of international law over the rule of brute force. How very Roman of him. Cicero pointed out that if one wanted violence
Since apologising has recently been all the rage, refusing to apologise, as Harriet Harman has done over the NCCL’s connection with the Paedophile Information Exchange, comes as a very pleasant surprise. Ancient Greeks would have understood exactly what she was doing. Socrates’ Apology (written by Plato) had nothing to do with apologising. Quite the opposite,
Tyrants never learn, do they? From Caligula through Gadaffi to the ex-Ukrainian prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, they rule not to serve the people but themselves — and all in virtually identical ways. The emperor Tiberius populated Capri with palaces and grottos where lovers entwined themselves for the pleasure of his guests, like Yanukovych’s gardens dotted with
Since the Somerset Levels are a flood plain, nature will flood it. Romans had no problems with that. Much of Rome was low-lying and pretty marshy. The main drain — the cloaca maxima, only incidentally a sewer as well — was constructed early in Rome’s history to make the forum inhabitable. The 250-mile-long Tiber flooded every four
Foreign students getting on to courses under false pretences, overstaying their welcome and so on are nothing new. Ask the Romans. In the 4th century AD, the Roman empire was tottering, and Diocletian decided to sort it out. The resulting increase in bureaucracy led to a large rise in taxation. This laid a particularly heavy burden
What a song and dance about a tax rise affecting a minuscule proportion of the richest in society! Greeks would have been baffled. Classical Greeks did not have the automatic admiration for self-made millionaires that we do. They felt that only the very lucky or the very wicked could aspire to wealth. ‘No one gets
There is, apparently, an ‘obesity epidemic’ in the UK, such that two million people could benefit from weight-loss surgery. Ancient Greeks would have argued that they would benefit much more from a dose of self-control. The ancients associated fatness with a lazy lifestyle. No change there, then. The doctor Hippocrates, well aware that sudden death was
In last week’s Spectator, Rory Stewart, MP for Penrith, was reported to be proposing that we should create in Britain ‘1,000 little city states, and give power right down to all the bright, energetic people everywhere who just feel superfluous’. What did they teach him at Eton? The ancient Greek city-state (polis, source of our