Peter Jones

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.

The point about crowds, as Gaddafi is now learning, is that there are more of them than there are of him. Romans knew this only too well and, like Gaddafi, went out of their way to prevent large gatherings. Time, therefore, for Libyans to take radical Roman action. In 494 bc, the Roman poor were in conflict with aristocratic landholders because so many of them had been placed in bondage through an inability to pay their debts. The Senate refused to move on the matter and, in the face of riots and disturbances, threatened to bring in the army to quell incipient mutiny spreading among the ordinary people (the plebs).

The Egyptian people want power in the face of government intransigence. So what happens next? Ancient Rome went through this phase, and very destructive it was.  For 50 years, Romans from aristocrats to plebs had broadly agreed that the final say on all major political matters should be the Senate’s (senex, ‘old man’), an oligarchy consisting of current and retired executive officials (consuls, praetors etc.). But after the defeat of Hannibal in 202 bc and the expansion of Roman power into North Africa, Spain, Greece and Asia Minor (western Turkey), the gap between rich and poor widened radically, and the soldiers who had done the fighting did not feel they had been satisfactorily rewarded for their efforts.

Romans would have regarded Hosni Mubarak as effectively the emperor of Egypt. But they would not have thought he had played a very intelligent hand. The Roman emperor held supreme authority. As head of state (princeps), he ruled the Treasury, controlled all the top political appointments, passed all laws, was final arbiter in all legal cases and selected provincial governors. As pontifex maximus, he led all the major state rituals in honour of the gods. As commander-in-chief (imperator), he ruled over the armed forces, chose all generals and determined military policy, often leading the army himself. To help him he had a circle of hand-picked, trusted advisers and a remarkably small civil service. But life was far too busy to spend his days indulging in orgies.

Last week Geoffrey Wheatcroft speculated whether a regiment of what he called Gay Gordons might not have something to be said for it, giving a whole new meaning to ‘once more into the breach, dear friends’.  Ancient Greeks would probably have approved, but with some reservations. Plato argued that Sparta and Crete were largely responsible for introducing a homosexual ethos into the military, a practice that came to be imitated elsewhere in the Greek world. In Sparta, for example, boys were removed from their parents at the age of seven to spend their time in common messes where they were trained up as soldiers. Every 12-year-old had to take a young adult warrior as a lover till he was 18, though the purpose was pedagogic as much as pederastic.

Every year the situation in Afghanistan is reassessed, and every year the conclusion is the same — mixed military progress, but otherwise, zilch. Every year the situation in Afghanistan is reassessed, and every year the conclusion is the same — mixed military progress, but otherwise, zilch. Romans would not have gone there, at least not on the terms that we are there. The Roman empire was a success, for the Romans at any rate, because it was under their total control. When they moved into places like the Greek East, they were dealing with cultures that were largely urbanised. Administrative structures were in place to handle governance and taxation, and an elite ran the show. Romans could convince the elites it was to their advantage to be under light Roman control.

Last week, David Cameron’s enthusiasm for finding out how happy we all are — as if it were any business of his — led us to consider some Greek views of the matter. Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra; sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, Venus proclaims a neat elegiac epitaph from Rome, expressing a common popular viewpoint — baths, wine and sex may wreck us physically, but they help make life worth living. Roman thinkers, however, were as keen as Greeks to discover the happiness that withstood all onslaughts. Stoicism, a Greek invention, was one answer. The basic tenet was that divinity was rational and omnipresent, suffused through nature, ‘like honey through a honeycomb’. Nature and reason were thus closely linked.

There is no point in Mr Cameron snooping into how happy we are unless he believes government can do something about it. Greek and Romans would have been aghast. Greeks knew perfectly well what made people happy. Aristotle (384–322 bc) cites success, self-sufficiency, security, material and physical well-being and the capacity to safeguard them; ‘markers’ included good birth, creditable children, wealth, high status and a circle of respectable friends. But Greek intellectuals knew such happiness was rarely lasting. The lesson was never more perfectly expressed than by Herodotus (490–425 bc) in his story of the meeting between the wise Athenian Solon and Croesus, the richest man in the world.

President Saleh of Yemen has refused to hand over the terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki because it contravenes the Yemeni tradition of hospitality. If the fate of Hannibal is anything to go by, al-Awlaki had better run for it quickish. In 218 bc the Carthaginian Hannibal had famously led his army and elephants over the Alps to take revenge on the Romans for an earlier defeat. He came within an ace of doing so, but in 202 bc was forced to return to protect Carthage. When the Romans defeated him there, he made peace. But he still longed to get his own back, and in 195 bc, when the Romans got wind of his plans, Hannibal fled east.

No one yet has the remotest idea what the Big Society actually is. Had you asked a Roman, he would have told you: it was the rich spreading their largesse among the poor, as Pliny the Younger did (c. ad 61–112). In a letter to his friend, the great Roman historian Tacitus, Pliny describes a project he has set up which he wants Tacitus to support. He says, ‘I was visiting my native town a short time ago when the young son of a fellow-citizen came to pay his respects to me. “Do you go to school?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied. “Where?” “In Milan.” “Why not here?” To this the boy’s father (who had brought him and was standing by) replied: “Because we have no teachers here.

It was an assumption of much ancient Greek literature that sex between the older male and the young boy was the ultimate experience — for the older male. It was an assumption of much ancient Greek literature that sex between the older male and the young boy was the ultimate experience — for the older male. But since the hunt for this nirvana was bound to end in failure, the advice was to forget it. You would just make a complete prat of yourself. Those who fell into the trap — especially elderly males yearning hopelessly after beautiful young boys — were the subject of endless mockery from friends and enemies alike. As for women, well, that was something completely different.

Livy was recently invoked here to rally the top 15 per cent of earners to a bit of wholesome belt-tightening. Not that Livy had anything against the filthy rich. Far from it. But he did expect them to use their wealth wisely — no showing off, no power-grabbing — and if the state did interfere with it, he expected there to be an acceptable quid pro quo. According to tradition, Servius Tullius (the sixth king of Rome, 578–534 bc) divided the Roman people up into classes (same word as ours) by property. One of its purposes was to rank your ability to serve in the army.

Today’s top 15 per cent of earners have been whingeing away at the belts they will have to tighten to deal with the financial crisis. Ancient historians like Livy would not have been impressed. In the Roman republic, crises were life-or-death ones, and it was those who concentrated on the battle and not its rewards (in the shape of often very lavish booty) who won his admiration. Today’s top 15 per cent of earners have been whingeing away at the belts they will have to tighten to deal with the financial crisis. Ancient historians like Livy would not have been impressed. In the Roman republic, crises were life-or-death ones, and it was those who concentrated on the battle and not its rewards (in the shape of often very lavish booty) who won his admiration.

So the Bruvvers have chosen the younger Bruvver, Ed, and Big Bruvver has chosen to keep his powder dry and leave him to it. So, probably, would any ambitious Roman — for the time being. Romans philosophers might have recommended getting out of government entirely and become an Epicurean, seeking ataraxia — the absence of physical and mental pain. The key lay in avoiding a desire for anything that might cause anxiety, especially anything that had no limits, like wealth, status or power, because these could never be satisfied. Alternatively, Roman Stoics would have suggested, in Seneca’s words, that he ‘deal with his own ills, sift himself, see for how many vain things he is a candidate — and vote for none of them.

It is not so much Hawking’s squawkings about God and science that are the problem — though one wished he did not appear to think that either phenomenon told one anything significant about the other — but rather the failure of our education system to engage with the ancient Greeks. The first Greek philosophers like Thales (c. 580 bc) were really physicists, trying to describe, organise and explain the universe and all its contents. They gave accounts of natural phenomena like stars, planets, weather, plants, animals and man, and asked questions about whether and how the universe began, what it was made of, why it changed and so on. Thales apparently took the view that water was the first principle, from which everything sprang and to which it returned.

Thought-crimes mainly refer to what we all think about those stupid laws and bossy official directives only designed for your benefit, sir. Romans did not face these but rather what George Orwell in 1984 understood by thought-crime: wholly innocent activities interpreted as threats to state security. The historian Tacitus is full of them. When one of Rome’s best-loved sons, Germanicus, mysteriously died, many suspected the jealous emperor Tiberius was involved. So in ad 28, when a distinguished Roman, Titius Sabinus, started helping out the widow and family, some ambitious public figures saw a chance to prove their loyalty to the emperor by stitching up Sabinus good and proper. One of them, Lucanius Latiaris, started privately sympathising with Sabinus.

Public life for politicians does not seem to get any easier. Have, as a male, a close male companion, and if the tabloids are not after you, the posh papers will attack you for your insensitivity in pointing to your marriage and desire for a family to demonstrate that you are not gay — disgusting! Enter a coalition, and all disagreements will be disasters. In his ‘Rules for Politicians’, the Greek essayist Plutarch (c. ad 46-120) gives sensible advice about all this. Any decision to enter public life must not be based on ‘an inability to think of anything else to do’; nor must one do it to make money, or with emotional urges to do good or a desire for fame.