Peter Jones

Prime Minister Cameron has argued that ‘retribution [against criminals] is not a dirty word’ and ‘punishment is what offenders both deserve and need’. Many ancients would have keenly agreed. Ancient Greeks argued that society was held together by systems of rewards and penalties, and revenge, recompense and deterrence were the main features of their penal thinking. In Homer’s epics (c.700 bc), for example, the hero demands recompense to restore any loss of status or wealth, see the offender squirm, advertise that he is squirming, and deter him from repeating the offence. Romans were in general less sophisticated.

If Ian Hislop in his new TV series is right, the English up to the 19th century were a bunch of softies. It was from studying the Romans, among others, that they learnt about the stiff upper lip. True enough, but the reality behind such behaviour is provided by the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, on the death of his beloved daughter Tullia in February 45 BC. The funeral over, Cicero fled for two weeks’ refuge to his oldest friend Atticus, reading the ‘consolation literature’ in Atticus’ extensive library. On 6 March he retreated to his own secluded house in Astura on the coast, nearly 40 miles from Rome. Daily private letters to Atticus reveal his state of mind: ‘I write all day long, not that it does any real good, but for a time it distracts me.

The ancient Greek example has already shown the Lib Dems how to enact the Mansion Tax. Now the Romans must step in to explain how to bring about the full-blown wealth tax they so ardently covet. The historian Livy says that an early king, Servius Tullius (traditional dates 578-534 BC), invented the idea of raising money through a wealth tax, i.e. a tax on property. Its purpose was to compensate soldiers for loss of income during long campaigns. The problem was the vast disparity of the property that anyone owned. So Servius came up with the idea of ensuring that the wealthiest paid the most. He did this by creating seven bands of citizens, from the wealthiest to the poorest, defined by their capacity to provide military resources.

All the foul-mouthed effing and blinding by Andrew Mitchell did not worry the copper, only his use of the word ‘pleb’. Quite right too: who could be more plebeian than Mr Mitchell? If we can trust accounts of early Roman history when kings ruled Rome (traditional dates 753-509 bc), plebs was contrasted with patricii simply because patricians came from those clans that had supplied the kings with his circle of advisers, while the plebs had not. Note in passing that plebs is singular, ‘general body of citizens’. It does not refer to an individual member of the plebs, as ‘pleb’ does. The distinction sharpened when the kings were driven out and in the new republic the Senate, dominated by patricians, came to play a major role.

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, has said he may support Nick Clegg’s suggestion of a mansion tax. All houses worth more than £2 million will annually pour a certain percentage of that down the Treasury black hole. But how appealing is that going to be? And what if X, whose house comes into the category, believes that his shouldn’t, but Y’s up the road should? Let the ancient Athenians ride to the unhappy Clegg’s rescue. In Athens, the property tax levied every year on the richest 300 was called the leitourgia (‘public service’, origin of our ‘liturgy’). Those liable were worth about four talents or more (that meant 24,000 drachmas — a skilled workman was paid about 350 drs. a year).

Ever since nationalisation was invented in the 19th century, private franchising (e.g. the West Coast Main Line) has raised the question: why should private business profit from a public service which the state ‘should’ run for all? Ancients, obviously, never gave it a second thought. When Romans needed roads and aqueducts built, armies serviced, mines worked etc., they contracted the work out, as they did too with collecting provincial taxes. This always meant trouble. Whatever system was used — from private consortia (publicani) buying the right to collect taxes or local bigwigs collecting them under the eye of the Roman financial officer — there were always complaints about unfairness and extortion.

The educational bien pensants are up in arms because Michael Gove wants children at primary school to learn their times-tables not in ‘real-life contexts’ but ‘by rote’. The ancients, whose education was thoroughlpractical, had no problems with rote at all. Take St Jerome. In ad 403 he wrote a letter to Laeta, instructing her on how to teach her daughter Paula to read and write. Laeta must get Paula a set of letters, made of boxwood or ivory, and call them by their proper names. Paula must be encouraged to play with them and get used to their shapes and names.

How the Olympics have changed! Even our ‘Greco-Roman wrestling’, which bars leg-holds and is scored by judges (unless a pinfall is registered), bears no similarity to any ancient version. In ancient Olympia, the first to three falls was the winner, in rounds that went on till a fall was registered. A submission also counted. While there was room for speed and skill, the celebrity wrestlers were man-mountains, like Milo from Croton in southern Italy. He won the Olympic wrestling five times in a row on a diet of 20 pounds of bread and meat, gizzards of cockerels and 18 pints of wine a day.

Boxer Lennox Lewis, arguing that women weakened a man, avoided sex for three weeks before a fight. Greeks would have agreed, but things seem somewhat different in the contraceptive-laden Olympic village. Ancient theory was based on the idea that semen was a vital element in keeping a man strong. The doctor Aretaeus (1st century ad) said, ‘If any man is in possession of semen, he is fierce, courageous and physically mighty, like beasts. Evidence for this is to be found in athletes who practise abstinence.’ Even involuntary nocturnal emissions were thought to be enfeebling, threatening one’s endurance and breathing.

Dr Armand D’Angour (Jesus College, Oxford) has composed a brilliant Ode in ancient Greek to welcome the Olympic Games to London. It is called a ‘Pindaric’ Ode, but as Dr D’Angour knows very well, the ancient Greek poet Pindar (518–438 bc) wrote very differently.  Pindar was commissioned to compose Odes that celebrated winning: not the winning athletes but those wealthy patrons who had sponsored them. The Odes were sung after the event, by a choir to musical accompaniment. They celebrated the patron’s family, wealth and other wins; unfolded moral or proverbial reflections on the meaning of victory; and introduced a myth of some relevance to the occasion, often with a moral point.

‘Olympism’ is, according to the 2011 Olympic charter, ‘a philosophy of life which places sport at the service of humankind… exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind… Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.’ The great Greek doctor Galen, who knew a bit about athletes, took a slightly different view. He wrote: ‘All natural blessings are either mental or physical, and there is no other category of blessing. Now it is abundantly clear to everyone that athletes have never even dreamed of mental blessings.

It is a basic principle of international diplomacy that one does not interfere in the internal affairs of other sovereign states. These days it seems more honoured in the breach than in the observance, Syria being the latest target. The ‘democratic human rights of the oppressed’ is usually the reason (or excuse). In the ancient world, it was ‘freedom’. The Romans were masters of the tactic. Philip V of Macedon (i.e. Greece) had supported Hannibal against the Romans, and in 200 bc the Romans moved against him. To gain a foothold in Greek politics, they decided to appeal to Greeks’ traditional love of ‘freedom’.

Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, has resigned because of Libor rate-fixing among his traders in 2005–9. He once defined the ‘culture’ of a successful bank as ‘how people behave when you think no one is watching’. Plato knew all about that, as the story of Gyges’ ring in his dialogue Republic (c. 370 bc) explains.  Glaucon, challenging Socrates to demonstrate that behaving morally is intrinsically good (whatever the consequences), tells how a Lydian shepherd Gyges found a ring which rendered him invisible when he turned it to one position on his finger, and visible again when he turned it back. As a result, he seduced the king’s wife, with her help killed the king and took the throne.

The Chancellor is desperate to get more cash into his wallet. Why not try the old trick — a tax on luxuries, or rather, an even greater tax on luxuries? True, it might not bring in much, but it plays well with the voters. Suppressing luxury was always a big hit in the ancient world. In 115 bc the Roman consul Scaurus fixed his beady eye on the yummy dormouse and, at a stroke of his pen, passed a sumptuary law banning them, together with shellfish and imported birds, from the menu at banquets. Not that there had been any campaigns to save them. The ancients had been doing this sort of thing for a long time.

During the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations, every Polly in the world chanted dispraise of Her Majesty, who is personally responsible (one claimed) for Trident, public schools, income difference, lack of job opportunities and tax havens. What they want is a Republic. The Republic was invented in 509 bc (traditional date) by the Romans to replace a tyrant king, who ‘ruled neither by decree of the people nor authority of the Senate, had no right to the throne bar force ... instilled fear by executing, exiling, and confiscating the property of, many ... and governed the state through a private circle of advisers’. The parallel with the power of Her Majesty is obvious.