Peter Jones

Friday

Peter Jones

Ancient and Modern – 13 September 2002

From our UK edition

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.

Thursday

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 01 January 1970

From our UK edition

The media have been collectively tut-tutting over the mindless mob that gathered to abuse a woman held on bail over the Soham murders. Nothing new there: the Roman historian Tacitus (ad 56-120) long ago pointed out how satisfying it was to submerge one's individual personality into a collective one. Tacitus paints a splendid picture of the fickleness of the mob when he depicts the overthrow of the emperor Galba in ad 69, the man who would have made a fine emperor had he never actually been one, as the historian wittily puts it. The pretender Otho is scheming to seize power, and the outraged mob decides to seek him out and do away with him. But then the praetorian guard declares for Otho, and the mob's sympathy immediately turns.

Peter Jones

Ancient & Modern | 01 January 1970

From our UK edition

After Rome defeated Carthage in the first Punic war (264–241 bc), it annexed Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica and maintained its interest in the Carthaginian heartlands of North Africa and Spain. So when Hannibal, elephants and all, marched through Spain and southern Gaul and descended over the Alps into Italy to start the second Punic war (218 bc), he was out to remove the Roman threat to Carthage’s western ambitions. Whether he wanted actually to take Rome or not, his basic aim was to weaken Rome by drawing away its Italian allies. To this end he had brought with him about 60,000 battle-hardened troops (and 37 elephants). His tactics and their experience were instrumental in their first devastating victories.

Peter Jones

Who will judge the judges?

From our UK edition

My Ancient & Modern column has banged on long enough about the glories of the only democracy the world has ever known: that of Classical Athens, where the citizens (Athenian males over 18) were the legislature, making all political decisions by a show of hands after public debate in the Assembly. However, those same citizens also sat in judgment in the courts, where there were no judges to tell them what they could and could not decide. So there was no separation of powers: Athenian citizens, being sovereign, could make and unmake laws at whim, if they could be persuaded so to do (and, on one famous occasion, they were, though they soon repented of it).

Peter Jones

Ancient & Modern | 1 January 1970

From our UK edition

It is astonishing how ancient thinkers chanced to anticipate certain developments in our understanding of the nature of the universe. From atoms to swerves to strings, Greeks got there first — after a fashion. Ancient Greeks were the first people we know to propose that a single basic stuff lay at the heart of all matter. From the 6th century bc, Thales seems to have suggested it was water; Anaximenes air; Anaximander ‘the infinite’ (the equivalent of ‘something unlike anything we know, but don’t ask me exactly what’).

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 1 January 1970

From our UK edition

The refusal of his patients to assume responsibility for their own actions is a recurrent theme of Dr Theodore Dalrymple’s columns. He and Aristotle see eye to eye on the matter perfectly. In Nicomachean Ethics III, Aristotle (384–322 bc) begins by arguing that a man can wish for what really is good, or merely for what seems to him good at the time. A man of high moral character will wish the first, whereas ‘a worthless man wishes anything that takes his fancy’. But is it in a man’s power to wish for what is good? Certainly, says Aristotle. A man wishes for an end. He decides on the means to reach that end. He chooses those means and acts on them. Now, a mere wish is neither here nor there; goodness is all about what we do.

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern

From our UK edition

The Tory leader Michael Howard has published a list of his ‘beliefs’. If this was a political move, Athenians would have found it baffling. The 5th-century bc thinker Protagoras defined ‘excellence’ as ‘proper management of one’s own business ... and of the city’s too, so that one can make the most effective contribution to its affairs both as a speaker and man of action’. Socrates interjected, ‘I assume you are describing the art of politics and promising to make men good citizens.’ Protagoras agreed that was exactly what he had in mind. To us it is surely an extraordinary idea that one of the main duties of the politician was to make men ‘good citizens’.