To an ancient Greek, nothing was more precious than honour (tîmê). To an ancient Greek, nothing was more precious than honour (tîmê). The root of this word was financial — what you were worth. And what you were worth was judged not by your own values (note ‘value’), as by other people’s assessment of you.
This is the recession, so we must spend our way out of it! So speaks Old Labour. No, no. ‘Thrift’ must be the watchword, insists New Tory. Talk about missing the point. Aristocratic Romans knew all about the pleasures of spending vast sums of money. Lucullus (1st C bc) was a byword for it (hence
Paeans of praise are being heaped on US President Barack Obama for being able to speak well in public, while commentators trace his skill back to the rules of rhetoric invented by Aristotle and Cicero. Plato would be spitting. The main difference between our orators and the ancient Greek rhêtor in democratic Athens is that
Damian McBride, the latest spawn of the Campbell, has notable forebears in the infamous delatores, or informers, of the Roman empire. They too worked with passionate servility to suck up to the emperor of the day by bringing to his attention those who might be considered dangerous to him. A trumped-up charge of treason would
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
‘On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.’ So said President Obama on his inauguration. ‘On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations
President-elect Obama (as I write) is preparing his inaugural, and it will doubtless display the same persuasive charm and intelligence that has characterised all his speeches. ‘Change’, ‘belief’ ‘opportunity’, ‘freedom’, ‘hope’, ‘equality’, ‘rights’ and ‘listening to the people’ will be qualified by ‘responsibility’ and ‘challenge’. ‘Yes, we can’ may become ‘Yes, we can, but only
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
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