Peter Jones

'Prepare for war, Blair tells army,' announces a newspaper headline, stirring the ghost of the Roman military historian Vegetius in its grave. The civil servant Vegetius composed his Epitome of Military Science - the sole surviving Latin treatise on war - in the late 4th century ad. His only memorable utterance is qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum, 'let him who desires peace prepare for war', better known in its slicker form si vis pacem, para bellum. He reinforces it later on by saying that the Romans always keep their fleet at the ready 'since no one dares to challenge or harm a people they know are fully armed and ready to fight'. This saying sounds like the basis of one theory of deterrence.

As the argument over firemen's pay and conditions rumbles on, Mr John Scorer reminds me of the correspondence on the subject of a fire service between Pliny the younger, governor of Bithynia-Pontus in north-western Turkey, and the emperor Trajan. Pliny asks if it would be a good idea to establish one in the province, but Trajan advises that such collegia can cause political trouble; people should be provided with their own equipment and, if a fire starts, call on help from the watching crowd. The fire service in Rome offers more helpful parallels with the current situation. Prevention was originally in the hands of a committee of three, in charge of a body of public slaves stationed around the gates and walls of the city. But they were in the wrong place and ineffective.

Christmas is the time for stimulating educational games round a roaring open telly. This year's is a real festive winner: construct your own Greek tragedy, on any subject of your choice. The rules, observable in Sophocles (496-405 bc) and Euripides (485-406 bc), are strict: 1. The tragedy lasts about two hours and is played in real time: i.e., it represents an unbroken two-hour period in the characters' lives. 2. It takes place in a single location, out of doors. Since Greek tragedies were frequently about kings, that meant outside his palace: i.e., in the palace front garden, or on the roof - a stimulating location indeed. 3. Only three actors are allowed, though they can play as many parts as the tragedian wishes. In one tragedy the three actors played 11 parts between them.

What a fuss everyone is getting into about the funding of universities! If ministers would only sit back with their Aristotle and Plato and think about results, all would become clear. Aristotle is very keen on the telos - the goal or end of things - and when he discusses the state, he decides its telos is 'the sharing by households and families in the good life, for the purpose of a complete and self-sufficient life'. This result being of supreme importance, state control over education is required. As he says in his Politics, 'Since the whole city has one goal, it is evident that there must also be one and the same education for everyone, and that the superintendence of this should be public and not private.... Public matters should be publicly managed.' So far, so Blairite.

The Prime Minister has been sounding off about the importance of 'respect', which he does not define but clearly thinks is a vote-winner.

It is 150 years since Manchester opened the first public lending library in Britain, but the idea of library is very ancient. Palace archives were the first 'libraries'. From third-millennium bc Syria and Babylon (modern Iraq) we have found stores of documents on clay tablets - bills, deliveries, receipts, inventories, court judgments, with some hymns, myths and lists of gods - put together for reference purposes, with crude content-lists for catalogues. In 13th-century bc Hattusas (central Turkey) we find works being given summaries, titles and authors: e.g., 'One tablet, the end [i.e., the end of the work is marked], on the purification of murder. When the exorcist-priest treats for a murder. Words of Erija.

It is, apparently, a problem for many males that when they retire they feel dissatisfied because 'society' does not value them any more. It is hard to see what 'society' as such can actually do about this, but it raises the question why anyone should want to be valued by society, especially one of the sort described week after week by, for example, that sober judge of human nature, Dr Theodore Dalrymple. From Diogenes the Cynic (4th century bc) living in his wine-jar (not barrel) to the ascetics of the late Roman world atop their pillars, many ancients argued that not being valued by society was the only way to live. Diogenes rejects the concept of 'society' tout court, seeing true values and moral standards only in animals, primitive man, barbarians and the gods.

'ANGER-management consultants' have been appearing all over the papers in the past few weeks discussing how the footballer Roy Keane might learn to control his foul temper.