Ancient and modern

Meghan Markle has been urging women to define themselves as they see fit, with ‘your full, complete, whole-layered, sometimes weird, sometimes awesome but always best and true self… you’re so much greater than any archetype’. But that all depends on the self-definition you come up with. Hers (if she had the slightest self-awareness) would clearly

The Labour MP Rupa Huq, of Pakistani heritage, has been suspended for suggesting that Kwasi Kwarteng, of Ghanaian heritage, was only superficially black and did not sound black on the radio. The ancients would have been baffled by her comment. They were fascinated by their world’s many different cultures, but colour held no significance for

The German branch of the ‘green’ organisation Peta (‘People for the ethical treatment of animals’) is demanding that, until men stop eating meat – apparently they cause 41 per cent more pollution than female carnivores – women must deny them sex. The same sanction had its origin, of course, in Aristophanes’s comedy Lysistrata (411 bc),

Public dissent, from riots to republicans objecting to homage to the Queen, is dealt with by the police, a force created in 1829. Romans too faced such problems, though many had no qualms about crushing free speech; and it took them some time to get a grip on them. During the decline of the Roman

The death of Her Majesty raises the question of a commemoration of her extraordinary years of service. Augustus ruled the Roman empire from 27 bc to ad 14 and was the longest serving of the roughly 70 emperors of the western empire (which ended technically in ad 476). He may have cracked a joke on

On retiring from office, Boris Johnson described himself as a sort of Cincinnatus, returning to his plough. This famous story attracted two comments from the media, both missing the point. According to the historian Livy (c.59 bc-17 ad), when Rome’s last king, the tyrannical Tarquinius Superbus – ‘the arrogant’ – was ejected in 509 bc,

Sir Tony Blair’s Tone-deaf suggestion that Stem subjects should dominate the curriculum of all schools would paradoxically take education back to the ancient world, when education was designed to benefit only the few. Take Rome. Wealth in the ancient world lay in land, which the rich exploited for all it was worth. Needing to protect

Medical problems come and go in the media, and at the moment the flavour of the month appears to be gout (from Latin gutta, a ‘drop’, seeping into a joint). For the Greek doctor Hippocrates, gout (Greek podagra, ‘foot-trap’) was the ‘fiercest, longest and most tenacious of all joint diseases’. But since the ancients did

As Miss Truss and Mr Sunak spray policies around on a range of topics which they hope will appeal to Conservative members, Tory MPs agonise about whom to support, presumably with jobs in mind. The philosopher and statesman Cicero (106-43 BC) was more interested in a politician’s personal qualities. The Roman state was a res

James Howells has spent years trying to persuade Newport council to allow him to spend millions digging up a rubbish tip to find a computer hard-drive, possibly containing yet more millions, which he threw away in 2013. The ancients, who found obdurate behaviour fascinating, often explored such human failings in their myths, many of which

It is clear that the country will soon need a Water Czar. Augustus’s right-hand man Agrippa would be the one to reshape the whole system, and Frontinus to ensure it all worked. Of Rome’s aqueducts, ‘cut-and cover’ masonry channels, following the contours of the ground, made up 80 to 90 per cent of their total

The battle to be PM raises the question: in a functioning democracy, how should arguments be won? Surely, by persuasion. But for ancient Greeks, too often it seemed to be by flattery. The Greek for ‘flatterer’ was kolax, and a comedian described a kolax’s lifestyle as follows: he would dress up in his best cloak,

The word ‘colony’ meets with a sharp intake of breath these days, but ‘province’ raises no eyebrows. How very odd. The ancient Greeks invented the western notion of the colony. But ‘colony’ is the term the Romans applied to it and is of Latin derivation, from colo, ‘I cultivate, inhabit’ and so colonia. The ancient

Last week Lloyd Evans was wondering whether it was about time audiences started booing dramatic productions of which they disapproved. He was right to trace this happy practice back to the ancient Greeks. In Athens, trilogies of tragedies were put on in competition, and Plato tells us that the audience did not disguise its feelings

An Oxford don has raised the prospect of producing a cocktail of hormone pills that would help you to fall in love. What an appalling prospect! You might suddenly find yourself consumed with an irresistible desire for Ian Blackford. The ancients knew what was really required: a means of ensuring that the object of your

The RMT union is threatening strikes to bring the country to a halt. Such activities have a long history in the West. The Romans got there first in 494 bc when the plebs – that is, most of the workers – won a degree of political power hitherto denied them, by withdrawing their labour. Using

Nostalgia wars are all the rage at the moment, but an extraordinary example appears to have been missed: a hammer and sickle painted on the newly erected statue of Lady Thatcher. Communism was in fact invented by the Greek comic poet Aristophanes (c. 446-386 bc). For him, it was one long, uproarious joke. His Ecclesiazusae

The ancients certainly knew how to put on a celebration. Let us hope the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee comes up to scratch. In 274 bc the Greek pharaoh of Egypt, Ptolemy II, staged a procession in honour of his father. It featured 400 cartloads of silver plate, 20 of gold and 800 of spices, 57,600 infantry,

Given Putin’s less than triumphant operation in Chechnya, where the Russian army suffered catastrophic losses, it is hardly surprising that his control of the ‘special operation’ in Ukraine does not seem to be a howling success. His inability to deal with the situation there bears a striking resemblance to that of the short-lived Roman emperor