Ancient and modern

As the true depth of the recession emerges, and fury increases against bankers for the massive bonuses they have demanded, effectively from the taxpayer, for creating it, Roman generals might set an unexpected example. Manubiae, probably derived from manus ‘hand’ and habere ‘to have’, meant the booty which a general could claim as his own,

Pupils, we are told, must be kept ‘happy’ at all costs. Pupils, we are told, must be kept ‘happy’ at all costs. It is a surprise, therefore, that the educational potential of drunkenness has not been recognised by Mr Ed Balls, or by government adviser Professor Sir Liam Donaldson who has proposed that the price

Gerry Adams’ predictably psychopathic view that the murder of two soldiers by the Real IRA was merely a tactical error points up only too clearly how little interest Sinn Fein has either in democracy or in the wishes of the people of Ulster. Gerry Adams’ predictably psychopathic view that the murder of two soldiers by

Whatever views we may hold on the subject of Jade Goody, Romans would have found it grimly appropriate that a woman ‘famous’ for appearing on Big Brother should choose to die in the arms of a PR consultant. Whatever views we may hold on the subject of Jade Goody, Romans would have found it grimly

To general disapproval (and in direct contradiction to the Chancellor Alistair Darling), Lord Mandelson has suggested that the government should not be too hasty in removing bonuses from (presumably) ‘hard-working’ bankers. To general disapproval (and in direct contradiction to the Chancellor Alistair Darling), Lord Mandelson has suggested that the government should not be too hasty

Sandwell Council recently advertised for a ‘Thematic Liaison Manager (Performance)’ at £41,000 a year. Sandwell Council recently advertised for a ‘Thematic Liaison Manager (Performance)’ at £41,000 a year. It would be instructive if any reader could tell from that description what the job entailed. I doubt anyone could, and thereby hangs a tale. Latin was

The Today programme would call her iconic, but since she is a 16.1cm gold and ivory (‘chrys-elephantine’) statuette, it would not be saying much. She stands there, erect, shoulders back, thrusting forward impressive bare breasts (one nipple the tip of a golden nail), both hands holding snakes that, twined round her arms, stretch outwards from

Andrew Motion’s tenure as Poet Laureate is about to end, and the search for a successor has begun. It is accompanied with the usual tidal wave of claptrap about this not being ‘the sort of job which any real poet would want’ and the importance of not involving public opinion in the choice. What is

In the last two columns we have considered Barack Obama as novus homo and orator. But what about his mixed race? The racist seeks the cause for the differences between groups of people in either physiological or genetic determinism. The resulting characteristics are unalterable and define them as inherently inferior. But are prejudice, xenophobia and

It is no coincidence that the rules of persuasive public speaking were being formulated by Greeks in the 5th century bc when real democracy was in its first flush in Athens; for if a man was to be given the chance to take an active part in open debate in the assembly, he must know

It is a relief that there is one magazine in which one will not be hauled up on a charge of libel or sexual harassment for writing that Barack Obama, the President-elect of the United States, is a novus homo. So too was the 1st-century bc Roman orator, philosopher and politician Cicero, and he never

‘Are they talking to the trees?’ asked my husband as he banged his stick against a sign attached to a plane tree near the Tate Gallery. He does not need a stick to lean on. He uses it on pedestrians in the way, or, in this case, annoying signs. The sign said: ‘Low tree.’ The

Last time we saw that the Romans did not have anything like a banking system i.e. a machinery for creating credit through various negotiable instruments. What they did have was minted coin — and that was the sole monetary instrument. So at a personal level, if you wanted money, you went to a rich friend and

In the banking chaos, we should recall the words of the American president Thomas Jefferson: ‘The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a grand scale.’ There was no such swindling in the ancient world because minted coin was the sole monetary instrument,

A group of 200 pagan worshippers gathered recently at the Parthenon to beg Athena not to allow material to be removed from her temple and relocated in the new, specially designed museum nearby. The goddess was obviously not impressed. One cannot blame her. The ancient relationship between men and gods was perfectly reflected in the

Apparently some scientists believe that the patterns in which bumblebees search for food — ‘geographic profiling’ is the technical term — could help detectives hunt down serial killers. The ancients would not have been surprised. It is largely to Virgil in the final book of his ‘farming-manual’ Georgics (c. 29 bc) that we owe our

Last time we saw how Socrates and Plato were among the majority of ancient thinkers who supported the ‘creationist’ theory of the world. But there was an ‘anti-creationist’ lobby too, led by the 5th-century Athenian atomists Leucippus and Democritus. Not that they set out to oppose the creationists; it was just that their understanding of