An ancient Greek, counting up the value of the gifts that Sir Keir Starmer had received over his spotless political career, might immediately have thought of the three mock goddesses of bribery that the comic poet Cratinus invented: Doro, St Give, Dexo, St Receive and Emblo, St Backhander. But a gift might be a bribe, or a genuine thank-you, or an act of altruism: after all, what are friends for? (Julius Caesar racked up gigantic debts.) Greeks agreed that gifts from rich to poor strengthened communal bonds and thought statesmen could serve their own interests if they were serving the interests of the people at the same time.
As for Romans, ‘No vice is more foul than avarice among leaders of men,’ observed Cicero, for whom greed was the main source of injustice; ‘there is nothing by which those in charge of public affairs can more easily endear themselves to the masses than by incorruptible abstemiousness’.
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