Peter Jones

Rome’s death penalty The government has set up a system of e-petitions which, if they garner a million signatures, may — or may not — trigger a debate in parliament. The capital punishment lobbies, pro- and anti-, immediately sprang into action. Ancients would have been amazed. Greeks and Romans happily slaughtered each other without giving it a second thought. In 71 bc, Crassus ordered his lieutenant Mummius to shadow Spartacus, leader of a slave revolt, but not engage with him. Mummius disobeyed and was so badly beaten that many of his men ran for it. Plutarch continues: ‘Crassus split up the 500 men who had been first to flee into 50 groups of ten.

The closure of El Bulli, the world’s most highly rated restaurant, has been greeted with cries of anguish from the world’s foodies. Lament no more! Romans were in the joke food business long before El Bullshit. Around ad 65, as Nero was going more and more crackers, the great Roman satirist Petronius produced his Satyrica (a title encompassing both lechery and satire). What survives of it contains an account of a feast put on by one Trimalchio, an ex-slave made very, very good in property and now a multi-millionaire. The absurd Trimalchio naturally regards himself as the coolest man in town, and is especially proud of his cook.

The EU, cobbled together in Brussels for ideological purposes, is fast turning into a creaking alliance of rather disenchanted member states. Let us see if we can help little Herman Achille Van Rompuy, the EU’s current president, to rally his besieged troops in Brussels with a Periclean speech. In summer 430 bc Athens (Brussels) was having trouble with Sparta (its interest rate policy) and had just been struck by a murderous plague (collapse of the banks). Since it was Pericles (van Rompuy) who had insisted on this policy, which would enable it to keep a grip on its empire (the EU member states), Pericles came forward to remind the Athenians (Eurocrats in Brussels) that they must not falter. The following is extracted from Thucydides’ account of that speech.

The value of honour The Murdoch family keep on saying ‘sorry’, but the popular feeling is that they should be saying they feel ashamed. That, however, suggests they have a sense of shame in the first place. For Homer’s heroes, shame (aidôs) and its counterpart honour (timê) were the two most powerful forces that controlled their behaviour on and off the battlefield. Aidôs was an emotion, derived from heroes’ image of themselves, that was acutely responsive to the way other people thought about them. The major difference with our world is that Homeric aidôs was prospective. It was not what you felt after you had failed; it is what you summoned up to ensure you did not fail.

Since the emperor is going through a bad patch at the moment, his News International slaves had better watch out. One bloodbath may not be enough for the old monster. They can expect to have to bend even more obsequiously to his commands over the coming months if their positions are to remain secure. Imperial life was a nightmare for Romans. They needed all the self-defence mechanisms they could muster against its insecurities. The emperor Caligula, Seneca tells us, imprisoned the son of Pastor, a distinguished Roman, because of his foppish hairstyle. Pastor begged for his life, so Caligula immediately had the son executed, but invited Pastor to dinner the same day.

What to do about the old? In the ancient world, the welfare state did not exist, and few people lived to be old in the first place (perhaps only 5 per cent could expect to make 60). They still had strong views on the matter. One of the most touching passages in Homer’s Iliad is spoken by Phoenix, the man who raised Achilles. Childless himself, he describes how he ‘always had to take you on my knees and feed you, cutting up your meat for you and holding the wine to your lips. You would often soak the front of my tunic, dribbling wine all down it — just like a baby! I went through a great deal for you and worked myself to the bone, aware that the gods were not going to send me a son of my own.

The Olympic Committee has begun its quest to find ‘inspirational men and women’ to carry by hand the sacred Olympic torch from its ancestral home in Greece to its final destination in London. One can sense Zeus stirring from his eternal slumbers on cloud-capped Mount Olympus in anticipation of this age-old ritual, well satisfied that the greatest Panhellenic event of the ancient world, once held in his honour at his sanctuary in Olympia 140 miles away, is still signalled by the flame’s traditional progress in the hands of relays of runners from country to country. Some things, we may smugly reflect, never die. But a moment’s further reflection may suggest there is something rather fishy about this circumambulatory torch.

A burning desire to come out on top is bred into the bone of every modern, as it was of every ancient, Greek. Now that the EU is publicly humiliating the country, no wonder there is revolution on the streets. When Achilles went to Troy, his father ordered him ‘always to be best and superior to everyone else’. In another war, another Greek hero Amphiaraus ‘had no desire to be reputed the best: he wanted to be the best’. Victory at the Olympic Games, in the opinion of the poet Pindar, brought a man as close as it was possible to being a god on earth. But if Greeks cared very much indeed about winning,  they cared even more about losing. But at least there was one compensation: if they failed, revenge was always at hand, and that was almost as sweet.

The footballers Rooney and Giggsy are doing a Donald Trump and spending thousands of pounds on their bald patches. Poor darlings! But they are not alone. The topic was of such interest in Rome that the emperor Domitian even wrote a treatise on it. So too did Cleopatra. The doctor Galen (c. ad 129-216) quotes from Cleopatra’s book on ‘Adornment’ as follows: ‘For bald patches, powder red sulphuret of arsenic and take it up with oak gum, as much as it will bear. Put on a rag and apply, having soaped the place well first. I have mixed the above with a foam of nitre, and it worked well.’ But you can do better than that, she goes on.

Helen Wood described in last week’s Spectator how she ‘escorted’ a wealthy footballer, Wayne Rooney. He applied for, and got, a super-injunction. So did she, and was refused. What is going on here? The Athenian orator and statesman Demosthenes (384-322 bc) knew. Helen Wood described in last week's Spectator how she 'escorted' a wealthy footballer, Wayne Rooney. He applied for, and got, a super-injunction. So did she, and was refused. What is going on here? The Athenian orator and statesman Demosthenes (384-322 bc) knew. In 348 bc Demosthenes brought a case against a personal enemy, one Meidias, for punching him while on duty at a religious festival. Demosthenes did not argue on the grounds that this violated a ritual or even just himself.

Abysmally incompetent as Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke was in attempting to describe some new thinking about the law of rape, it did not merit the outrage of those who argued that rape is rape is rape and that is the end of the question. But the law is all about distinctions. Murder is murder is murder too, but it still has to be defined accurately and culpability assessed before justice can be done. In 287 BC, the lêx Aquilia dealing with unlawful damage was passed in a Roman assembly. It was named after its proposer, the tribune Aquilius. Its opening chapter referred to the unlawful killing of a ‘four-footed beast of the class of cattle’.

Most universities have decided to pitch their fees at the maximum allowable of £9,000 a year. One hopes this is one part of a Cunning Plan to ensure that Plato’s vision of a real education is realised. Most universities have decided to pitch their fees at the maximum allowable of £9,000 a year. One hopes this is one part of a Cunning Plan to ensure that Plato’s vision of a real education is realised. Plato was once invited by groupies to come to Sicily and try to turn the tyrant Dionysius into his ideal ruler. Plato gave it a go, but it did not quite work out first time round. Some years later, Plato was assured Dionysius was coming on very well in philosophy, and was persuaded to try again.

If Romans had had such a concept as a ‘right to life’, their jurists would have dealt with the question whether it should be possible to lose it. Given that the salus (safety/security/well-being) of the people should be the ultimate law (Cicero), one can guess what their answer would be. But whatever one’s view of bin Laden’s tragic passing, al-Qa’eda’s preference for settling disputes with the bomb and gun throws up a juicy prospect: there is a vacancy for a new mastermind. The collapse of the Roman republic in the 1st century BC was down to dynasts such as Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar using the might of soldiers loyal to them, and not the state, to impose their own will on the Senate.

It was military triumphs and generals returning loaded with gold and silver that triggered great public celebrations. Marriage in the Roman world was, for the most part, a private affair. A legal digest defined it as ‘a joining together of a man and a woman, and a partnership for life in all areas, a sharing in human and divine law’. So whatever family interests may have been in play — and Roman aristocratic marriage often looks like a business deal — marriage ultimately depended on the personal will of the couple involved, affectio maritalis keeping them together. Naturally, marriages broke down, but the ideal was there. Further, the family home was a holy place, generating strong emotional feelings.

The war in Afghanistan began on 7 October 2001. Its purpose was to clear the land of al-Qa’eda and Taleban and establish a democratic state. Last week’s Spectator questioned the current military strategy. Alexander the Great could have expanded on the matter. When by 329 bc Alexander had dealt with the Persian king Darius — the main object of his mission — he pushed on into Bactria/Sogdia, a tribal area roughly equal to northern Afghanistan and its borders, to pursue Darius’ successor, Bessus. He met with immediate success, and Bessus was captured and executed. The Americans, too, in 2001 soon drove the Taleban into Pakistan.

Recent cases over Christians refusing gay couples hotel accommodation and Christian couples wanting to adopt have brought Christian belief into conflict with the law. The Christians have lost. Lord Justice Laws, arguing in 2010 that Christian belief was ‘subjective’, laid a marker for those judgments by drawing a distinction ‘between the law’s protection of the right to hold and express a belief, and the law’s protection of that belief’s substance or content’. In classical Athens, a number of charges could be brought against individuals on religious grounds, under the general heading of asebeia (‘impiety’).

As the governor of the Bank of England wades into the fray, it does not seem too much to ask of bankers to make it clear they are spending a portion of their bonuses on the Big Society. Those who already are must overcome their modesty and let us know about it. Euergesia — ‘benefaction, philanthropy’ — was a virtue of the well-born Greek. Many inscriptions and statues, erected by the euergetist to himself or by a grateful people, attest the practice. The culture spread to Rome. Over 11 years, Pliny the Younger spent two million sesterces on his home town in benefactions. Discussion about the theory of giving was intense.

After 40 years of a culture of tyranny, what hope for Libya’s future? After 40 years of a culture of tyranny, what hope for Libya’s future? Plato describes how the tyrant comes to power: he is smiling, affable and promises much. Some enemies he does away with, others he conciliates. The courageous, intelligent and wealthy he eliminates, and appoints a cabinet of creeps. Aristotle pinpoints the general strategy from there on: keep the people demoralised, mistrustful and weak. In that condition they lack the spirit of enterprise, the confidence to put their faith in each other and the sheer manpower needed to force a tyrant out. The problem is that, from that position, the tyrant leaves himself no alternative but to continue.