Ancient rome

Thursday

Nell Gifford

Roll up, roll up! A history of the circus from Ancient Egypt to the present

Linda Simon’s compact and colourful circus history is, in many ways, a jewel of a publication. It is hard to say anything new about the circus because almost impossible to uncover quotes and stories that cannot be found in other books. The circus itself — disregarding the circus of ancient Rome — is a modern form and so the stock of images available for this type of illustrated history is quite limited and well known. But here are some interesting photographs of ceramic Mexican acrobats, and an Egyptian fresco of a female contortionist which back up one of Simon’s themes: using the body as a spectacle is an ancient impulse,

Thursday

Peter Jones

No, Richard Branson, our greatest achievements don’t come from our greatest pain

Explaining the death of a pilot testing a Virgin Galactic rocket-ship, Sir Richard Branson intoned: ‘I truly believe that humanity’s greatest achievements come out of the greatest pain.’ The ancients would have been appalled, both at the crass ignorance of the sentiment and its implication. It is hard to see how papyrus, made out of marsh plants in Egypt since about 3,000 BC, resulted from ‘the greatest pain’. Yet, in combination with the presumably pain-free invention of the Greek alphabet, from which the Roman and our alphabet derive, this material was to drive literacy and a knowledge revolution across the Mediterranean. The technology took another dramatic leap forward when the codex,

Thursday

Peter Jones

Hannibal (and Alexander the Great) vs the Islamic State

Whatever the Islamic State hopes ultimately to achieve by its current onslaught on all and sundry in the Middle East, Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, would certainly understand why it has been successful (so far); but Hannibal, who came within an ace of conquering Italy, might offer a word of warning. In the ancient world, conquest of territory was the route to enrichment: other people’s resources became yours to use as you wished. By 358 BC Philip had trained up what would turn out to be an almost unbeatable army. Moving south from Macedon, he picked off Greek city-states one by one, until by 338 BC

Thursday

Peter Jones

Plutarch on smartphone addiction

Adults, we are told, as much as children, become gibbering wrecks if deprived of their mobiles or iPhones for more than 15 seconds. The 2nd-century ad essayist Plutarch foresaw the problem. In his essay ‘On being a busybody’, Plutarch takes a very strict line on man’s desire to be up to date on every last piece of news and gossip, especially what is ‘hot and fresh’ and, most important of all, scandalous. Joyful occasions — weddings and such like — are of no interest. Country life is even worse, ‘since they find the peace and quiet unendurable’. It is ‘adulteries, seductions, family quarrels, lawsuits’ that a man wants, or if forced to

Thursday

Peter Jones

Assisted dying? Ancient religion was all for it

There is something mildly unexpected about religious groups’ hostility to euthanasia. After all, in the ancient world one of the major differences between e.g. Christians and pagans was that Christians were renowned for welcoming, indeed rejoicing at, death. Pagans found this incomprehensible. Not that pagans feared the afterlife. Although, in the absence of sacred texts, there were no received views on the matter, Greeks reckoned that if the gods were displeased with you, they would demonstrate it in this life rather than the next. Initiates into the Eleusinian Mysteries were promised a prosperous afterlife, but Diogenes the cynic retorted: ‘Do you mean that Pataikion the thief will enjoy a better

Thursday

Peter Jones

What Julius Caesar would have done about Nigel Farage

Our politicians are desperately keen to turn the toast of the people, Nigel Farage, into toast himself. But is that wise? Time to consider the career of the Roman general Marius (157–86 BC). Noble families — i.e. those who had held high office — dominated Roman politics. Marius did not come from a noble family, but it was wealthy, and it did have good connections, which Marius later improved by marrying an aunt of Julius Caesar. Thanks largely to his considerable military prowess, he worked his way up the slippery pole, and made his mark in 107 BC when he became consul on a people’s programme, and six times subsequently. First,

Thursday

Peter Jones

How the Ancient Greeks did wealth taxes

After 685 tightly argued pages, the ‘superstar’ economist Thomas Piketty unfolds his master-plan for closing the gap between the rich and poor: you take money away from the rich. Novel. Ancient Greeks realised you had to try a little harder. The culture of benefaction was deeply rooted in Greek society, even more so when the Romans made Greece a province in the 2nd century BC and removed their direct power of taxation. The quid pro quo lay in the prospect of eternal honour for the donors. The services which the wealthy provided for the city included paying for baths, gymnasia and food supply. Where harbour facilities and commercial districts needed

Thursday

Peter Jones

On teaching, St Jerome is with Daisy Christodoulou

Last week in The Spectator, Daisy Christodoulou argued that, contrary to current educational theory, children learned best via direct instruction and drills under the guidance of a good teacher, which might be hard work but was satisfying and good for pupil self-esteem. Romans would have seconded that. In ad 403 St Jerome wrote a letter to Laeta, telling her how to teach her daughter Paula to read and write: make ivory or wooden letters; teach Paula a song to learn them and their sounds and their correct order, but also mix them up and encourage Paula to recognise them without such artificial aid; guide her first writing by hand, or

Thursday

Peter Jones

Cicero would have agreed with Putin

Last September Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against a ‘unipolar’ world, saying that the national revival of Russia was in line with its foreign policy objective of a multi-polar world and the prevailing of international law over the rule of brute force. How very Roman of him. Cicero pointed out that if one wanted violence to end, the law must prevail; if it did not, violence would reign supreme. To no avail. Every five years, the Roman censors asked the gods ‘to improve and strengthen the position of the Roman people’. There was nothing unique about this. Many states prayed for a similar outcome for themselves, while the historian Polybius

Thursday

Peter Jones

Ancient Rome’s fraudulent foreign students

Foreign students getting on to courses under false pretences, overstaying their welcome and so on are nothing new. Ask the Romans. In the 4th century AD, the Roman empire was tottering, and Diocletian decided to sort it out. The resulting increase in bureaucracy led to a large rise in taxation. This laid a particularly heavy burden on the wallets of the wealthy who ran local government (the decuriones), because it was their duty not only to collect local taxes but also to make up any shortfall. But there were tax exemptions, one of which was for students — a luxury only the rich could afford. The result was a sudden enthusiasm