Ancient and modern

Such is the increasing cost of the welfare state that at some stage a government – never this one – is going to have the ask the question: ‘Welfare for whom, and what should it cover?’ There was no welfare state in the ancient world. But there was the elite 2 per cent, who owned

Boris Johnson’s Unleashed imagines him, like Cincinnatus, leaving his plough, saving Rome, and returning to it. But given that Boris is among the international elite, perhaps Alcibiades (c. 451-404 bc) would fit him better. Athenian elites had long had connections with the other power-brokers of the classical Greek world, Sparta and Persia. Born into such

The lives of those daily in the public eye are bound to attract attention, especially when they are politicians telling us what to do. The Greek essayist Plutarch (d. c. ad 120) wrote at length on this topic. How does Labour match up to his ancient ideals? A politician’s aim, Plutarch said, was to win

Rachel Reeves seems to be promising us an initial Iron Age of misery which will mutate into a glorious Golden Age. How very classical of her. It is true that some ancient Greeks saw it the other way round. They argued that it was early civilisation that was the Golden Age, inhabited by men who

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,

The welfare state was designed to serve everyone’s needs. But those needs were defined by the state. So schools teach fronted adverbials (but what about hindmost ones, eh?) and trigonometry, and may (absurdly) have to teach maths to all up to 18. Do these really fulfil the needs of all our children, far too many

We have been told that committees will meet, urgent discussions will be held, the guilty will be punished, and steps taken to ensure that the Grenfell tower disaster will not happen again. Sophocles was not the only ancient to say that it was a foolish man that counted on the future. Fires were so common

However great the achievements of athletes at the Olympic Games – and even more so the Paralympics – there will always be those who have their doubts about their real value. Some ancient Greeks certainly felt like that about their Olympics. Complaints were made that an athlete’s physical fitness did nothing for the public health.

Labour’s new education secretary wishes, as usual, to change everything. She might consider the advice of the Roman educationist Quintilian (d. c. ad 100). In the ancient world education was for the elites, and its purpose was to prepare them to be statesmen and power-brokers. That required mastery of both history, since that was the

Riots are difficult enough for us to deal with, let alone for the ancients, who had neither police nor prisons; and only late on housed troops in cities. Since Athenian citizens – the poor – made all political decisions, and the state and the rich funded them, there was little for them to riot about.

A lawyer who wished to serve on a jury but was no Christian was given permission to swear his oath in the name of a local river. He saw it as ‘his god’, as people did in the past, when the association between nature and divinity was widely taken for granted. Consider, for example, the

It is agreed that the National Lottery revolutionised British athletics, pouring money into the training of athletes with potential, especially in expensive sports like rowing. In the ancient Olympics, only the equine events demanded serious financial outlay – in theory any male could run, jump, throw or fight – but though we hear of goatherds

Just Stop Oil is complaining about laws preventing their particular form of antisocial protests. It is all part of a feeling that our world is sinking under the weight of legal rulings. Even Plato had doubts about what laws were for. In his perfect state, Plato made education the key to everything. Its purpose, he

The Labour party is preparing to get weak on crime and release one batch of criminals to bang up another. What a difference that will make to the safety of our streets! The Roman emperor Augustus did things differently: when the system got blocked up, he released all those whom he considered to be held

Last week, Lionel Shriver wrote a characteristically sharp piece about the narcissism of the ageing Joe Biden, egged on by his wife, in standing again for the presidency of the United States. The Roman poet Lucretius (1st century bc) might well have offered a similar opinion, but he would have presented it as an example of

It would make a pleasant change if every elected MP was to make it their ambition to be honestus, Latin for ‘honourable, moral, a person of integrity’. This brought a man high acclaim because by definition he would be useful, i.e. of benefit, to his country. So argued the statesman Cicero in his three-volume On

When the forthcoming election result is announced, the triumphant party will presumably proclaim: ‘The British people have spoken!’ That will come as quite a surprise to the British people, because all they will have done is crossed a box approving a farrago of implausible policies or reforms in matters over which they have had no

Joe Biden, President of the United States, may not have any criminal charges on his record, but his son Hunter does. When ancient Greeks discussed whether aretê (‘virtue, moral excellence, goodness, bravery’) could be taught, or not, such examples came into play. Plato discussed the problem in a dialogue in which Socrates raised the question

Donald Trump’s book on business Think Big and Kick Ass makes taking personal revenge a very high priority. Given recent events in a US court, it will clearly be a priority if he wins the forthcoming election. For ancient Greeks, it was taken for granted that, if you were harmed by someone, it was your