Peter Jones

After failing to lay a glove on David Cameron in his pre-election interview, the professional personality Jeremy Paxman is said to have called him a ‘smooth bastard’, an admission of failure if ever there was one. After failing to lay a glove on David Cameron in his pre-election interview, the professional personality Jeremy Paxman is said to have called him a ‘smooth bastard’, an admission of failure if ever there was one. Paxman’s problem is that, being merely an interviewer, he is master of none of the technical problems on which he was challenging the Tory leader. It is a subject on which Socrates was eloquent.

In this election there is one stupendous problem towering over all parties’ ambitions — debt. They all pretend it can be solved painlessly, but know they cannot tell the truth about it. Romans would have known where to start. In this election there is one stupendous problem towering over all parties’ ambitions — debt. They all pretend it can be solved painlessly, but know they cannot tell the truth about it. Romans would have known where to start. Romans made a point of emphasising that Senate and People stood together. Not for nothing was the famous SPQR logo Senatus Populus Que Romanus highlighted on coins, documents, monuments and the standards of Roman legions.

Manifesto pledges, arguments, debates: but do any of them discuss the real issue at hand — what makes for good government? Socrates had strong views on the subject. Manifesto pledges, arguments, debates: but do any of them discuss the real issue at hand — what makes for good government? Socrates had strong views on the subject. In his dialogue Gorgias, Plato puts Socrates head-to-head with Callicles, who proclaims the gospel that might is right, and that by effective use of rhetoric a politician can rise above the common herd and get whatever he wants.

David Cameron wants us all to be part of a ‘Big Society’. David Cameron wants us all to be part of a ‘Big Society’. What this means is using the state to galvanise families, individuals, charities and communities to come together to solve social problems themselves. But what will motivate people to do so? Ancient Athenian citizens (male, of Athenian parentage and over 18) felt highly motivated to solve the problems they faced because in their radical, direct democracy they met in Assembly every eight days to make all the decisions, executive and legislative, that parliament makes on our behalf today.

Stephen Byers looks more like a seller as he touts himself round the House of Commons like a ‘taxi for hire’. Stephen Byers looks more like a seller as he touts himself round the House of Commons like a ‘taxi for hire’. Romans knew all about this sort of thing. The Latin for ‘electioneering’ was ambitio, and its cognate ambitus meant ‘bribery’. Since vote-winning was an honourable pastime, bribery did not mean corruption. It meant doing favours by offering gifts for something in return, which could (at a pinch) be seen to be in the public interest. Such a culture was at the heart of all relationships, social, political, legal and business, in the Roman world.

Jack Straw is proposing to replace the 700-year-old House of Lords with an elected body. Fifth-century bc Athenians went through an equally dramatic constitutional change involving an age-old institution, but in their case, with real purpose, though not without bloodshed. The Areopagus was so named from the rock (pagos) of Ares on the Acropolis with which it was associated. Like the Roman senate, it consisted of state officials (archons) whose period of office had expired. These posts were originally the fiefdom of ancient aristocratic families, and the Areopagus had considerable influence, legal and political, in early days. But slowly its make-up was changed. The reformer Solon in the 6th century deprived the hereditary aristocracy of its grip on power.

Gordon Brown using his pen to stab the back seat of his limo in rage puts one in mind of Domitian (emperor ad 81-96) killing flies in rather the same way. Brown’s furious treatment of messengers with bad tidings likewise has many ancient parallels. So our Prime Minister would do well to read some ancient treatises on anger-management. In his de ira (‘On Anger’), the Roman philosopher Seneca (ad 1-65) describes what an angry person looks like: ‘his eyes blaze and flash, his whole face is crimson with blood surging up from the depths of his heart, his lips quiver, his teeth clench, his hair bristles and stands on end, his breathing is forced and harsh, his limbs can be heard twisting themselves into knots, he groans and bellows...’.

There was no respite for those who engaged in democratic politics in 5th- to 4th-century Athens. Since Athenians meeting in Assembly were the government of Athens, they had no compunction in taking action against those whom they had appointed to serve them when, rightly or wrongly, they felt they had been let down in some way or other. Miltiades, the victor against the Persians at Marathon in 490 bc, later led an expedition against the island of Paros without informing the Assembly of his intentions. When it ended in disaster, the crime was compounded. Not only had he abused his powers by acting off his own bat, he was also guilty of gross incompetence. The result was that his political enemies in Athens, of which he had many, were handed a golden opportunity to get their own back.

Tony Blair claimed with almost evangelical fervour that it was ‘right’ to side with America in deciding to attack Iraq and went on: ‘I had to take this decision as Prime Minister. It was a huge responsibility.’ Tony Blair claimed with almost evangelical fervour that it was ‘right’ to side with America in deciding to attack Iraq and went on: ‘I had to take this decision as Prime Minister. It was a huge responsibility.’ Aristotle would have had some questions to ask about this. Aristotle (384-322 bc) raises a major problem in asking how one should lead the good life, and argues that it could be lived only in the context of a community, and most importantly a community in which one played an active political part.

When natural disasters like the Haiti earthquake struck in the ancient world, the first move was to appeal to the Roman emperor. Smyrna, on the west coast of modern Turkey, was hit with a massive quake in ad 177/8. The letter to the emperor Marcus Aurelius from the local bigwig Aelius Aristides describes ‘dust everywhere, the harbour closed, the magnificent market flattened, fine roads disappeared, sports grounds, men, boys and all, destroyed, ships lying flat or sunk, bodies and ruins piled up, winds blowing over what is now a desert. Everything that is left looks to you...’. When Marcus received the letter, he wept.

The failed Hoon–Hewitt coup against the Prime Minister offers a clear Roman lesson — if you strike, you strike early and you strike hard. The failed Hoon–Hewitt coup against the Prime Minister offers a clear Roman lesson — if you strike, you strike early and you strike hard. When, for example, the despotic madman Caligula was cut down, the idea was that the republic would be restored. But as the senate endlessly debated the matter, the army moved in. Claudius (nephew of the previous emperor Tiberius) was hauled out from behind a curtain where he had hidden himself — a soldier spotted his feet — and taken to the barracks of the Praetorian Guard (the emperor’s bodyguard).

Tough decisions! Yes! That’s Gordon for you! The problem is thinking of one: national debt? global warming? school standards? Not a peep. Tough decisions! Yes! That’s Gordon for you! The problem is thinking of one: national debt? global warming? school standards? Not a peep. But Athenian male citizens over 18 meeting in Assembly never had any problems about taking them, contrarian and painful as they were. Two examples stand out. Around 483 bc, the lead mines at Laurium in Attica (Athens’s hinterland) yielded a fabulous strike of silver. The Assembly usually decided to divide it up among the citizens and make hay.

The Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq war raises the old question of what constitutes a ‘just’ war. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas are the authorities here, but they have their eyes on their predecessors. The Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq war raises the old question of what constitutes a ‘just’ war. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas are the authorities here, but they have their eyes on their predecessors. Ancient Greeks had little to say about the concept but, contrary to received opinion, they were not (for the most part) committed warmongers.

It has become increasingly fashionable in right-wing circles to argue that New Labour has always been hostile to, because ignorant of and anyway not interested in, history. I wish to argue that it is always vital to know your history, but it can be equally vital, sometimes, to agree with your enemies to forget it. When Sir Kenneth Dover, one of the UK’s most distinguished classicists, reflected on the activity of history, he argued that there are two sorts of discipline — ‘scientific’ and ‘historical’. Science deals with universals, gathering and testing data with a view to generating repeatable experiments which prove the case in hand.

We recently contrasted the Greek soldier Xenophon’s enthusiasm for encouraging more rich foreigners to settle in Athens (to help out the finances) with our own rather mealy-mouthed attitudes. We recently contrasted the Greek soldier Xenophon’s enthusiasm for encouraging more rich foreigners to settle in Athens (to help out the finances) with our own rather mealy-mouthed attitudes. But a work attributed (wrongly) to Aristotle illustrates that the Greeks were not generally short of scams to boost a state’s coffers. Most of these are (legally) played by our government already. Thus, if your house has a patio with a nice view, you can expect to pay more council tax.

What do we do about the wealth-producers? Especially foreign ones? Everything in our power to indicate our distaste for them, seems to be the answer. The Greek essayist and soldier Xenophon would wonder what we were playing at. In 355 bc Athens was in desperate financial straits. It was then that Xenophon, whose military career had taken him as far as Persia and who knew a bit about rich foreigners, wrote the pamphlet Poroi (‘Revenues’). It is a programme for economic recovery quite unlike the usual Athenian public spending cuts and taxation schemes.

A new Telegraph survey on ‘dating’ (the romantic rather than temporal kind), reveals that 91 per cent of women and 86 per cent of men would not marry someone ‘who had everything you looked for in a partner, but whom you were not in love with’. But what, an ancient would ask, has marriage to do with love? Greek and Roman upper-class males — for they composed the literature, and it is their views of the matter that we have — did not regard love as a crucial component of marriage. To put it crudely, marriage was primarily business: the production of legitimate heirs, preferably male ones, to continue the line and keep the family in the style to which it had become accustomed.

Socrates once met such a girl, Theodote. A stunning beauty — everyone wanted to paint her — she admitted that she came by her wealth through her ability to persuade ‘friends’ to be generous to her. At this Socrates pointed out that, great beauty though she was, it was above all her mind that made all the difference, enabling her to talk attractively and build relationships with her ‘friends’ on the basis of creature kindness and mutual pleasure. Perhaps that is not quite the career that the Cambridge stunners have in mind, but Socrates might still approve, on more philosophical grounds. Returning from military service, he goes to the wrestling ground to see ‘if any young man has become pre-eminent in wisdom or beauty or both’.

As part of a revolution in higher education, Lord Mandelson is requiring information about universities to be modelled on a food-labelling system that will treat students as paying customers — another step on the route to the day when the job of our university teachers will be to provide not education but gratification. What else do paying customers demand? The don becomes a pimp. In his dialogue Gorgias, Socrates describes a pimp as a person who caters for the desires of others. Socrates is driving towards the view that the body and soul have genuine interests that must be served if one is to lead the good life.