History

Many people today feel an ambivalence towards the history of the Christmas festival. They sense that it has deep pre-Christian roots and yet are also aware that most of the actual customs associated with it are relatively modern. The problem is that both views are correct. Most of the current trappings of the season are Victorian inventions or importations: the cards, the tree, the stocking, the turkey and Father Christmas with his reindeer and his sack of presents. Even local seasonal activities which look genuinely primeval have turned out not to be. Most of the season’s trappings are Victorian inventions or importations: the cards, the tree, the stockings The southern

Aesop’s animal fables, as Robin Waterfield points out in his new translation, were certainly not written for children: the animals are ‘brutal, cunning, predatory, treacherous, and ruthless’, despising the weak and mocking people’s misfortunes. The ancients regularly used them against political opponents. Plenty could be so used today. Gnat, who had settled on Bull’s horn, was about to fly off when he asked Bull whether he wanted him to go away. Bull replied: ‘When you came, I didn’t feel you. And when you go, I won’t feel you either.’ Obviously, Nigel Farage or David Lammy with Donald Trump. So: match the following three fables with the late John Prescott, Rachel

Many commentators have criticised the film Gladiator II on technical aspects of the fighting. But there was so much more to gladiators than that. The gladiator troupes, mostly criminals or enslaved prisoners of war, were housed in cramped cells in secure barracks, made to swear an oath to ‘be burned by fire, bound in chains, beaten and die by the sword’ and then put through the most rigorous training procedures to put on a good show. Their owners wanted to please not only the crowds but also the emperor who saw this as good government – punishing the wicked and thrilling the people all in one go (food for thought,

Kemi Badenoch, in an act of unusual awareness for an MP, intends to learn from her own party’s mistakes as well as Labour’s. She must have been reading the Greek statesman Plutarch’s ‘How to profit from your enemies’, one of his 78 essays and dialogues on a wide range of topics, from the intelligence of animals to old men in politics. Politics, he said, always encouraged spite, envy, and rivalry. These encouraged the wise man ‘to stay on guard, do everything with due care and attention, and lead a more mindful life’. The reason he gave for this was that there was a weakness in us that made us ‘feel

The ‘lifestyle guru’ Russell Brand is now under police investigation and (in desperation?) has taken to hawking magic amulets. Still, it has to be better than his announcement that he had become a Christian. As the Greek satirist Lucian pointed out, such a move did little good for one such would-be ‘celeb’ (Latin celeber, ‘busy, crowded’), Peregrinus. He was born c. ad 95 and, suspected of killing his father, went into exile. In Palestine he linked up with a group of Christians and soon became a figure of some authority, a prophet and church-leader widely admired for his understanding (and invention) of scriptures. Lucian, commenting on how easily people are

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 lived ageless and free from hardship, while Nature poured forth its fruits, harvested by men at leisure (comic poets greatly enjoyed imagining a world in which it rained wine and pease porridge, hot sausage slices rolled down rivers and inanimate objects jumped to obey orders: ‘Table, come here! Cup, go wash yourself! Fish, turn over

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

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 of whom are not (apparently) leading happy, useful lives? In the ancient world education was for the sons of the elite, to prepare them to run the country. But some elite Romans did without it. When Marius, who early on made his mark in battle and was picked out as a likely leader of men,

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 in densely packed Rome – perhaps a hundred a day? – that there was no point in talking about preventing them. For the architect Vitruvius (d. c. 20 bc), the collapse of wooden buildings was the main concern. He advised foundations should be as solid as possible, whether on rock, clay or loose ground, ‘of

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 claimed, should be to inculcate habits appropriate to age that would last a lifetime, e.g. as small children, being silent in the presence of their elders, giving up their seats to them, keeping themselves looking neat and tidy. But the last thing that was needed was to make laws about them. So too when it