Those with signs of Covid-19 are being asked to ‘self-isolate’ (Latin insula, ‘island’). But do they have the mindset for it? That requires self-sufficiency, for which the Greeks had a word: autarkeia (our ‘autarky’; contrast ‘autarchy’, ‘absolute rule’). Such a mindset was essential in the ancient world, where the threat of starvation, disease or disaster
The plague that struck Athens in the summer of 430 bc was a killer: it lasted for two years, returned after a year, and carried off a third of Athens’ manpower, including Pericles. From the historian Thucydides’ famous description, the plague — he caught it but recovered — bore certain resemblances to Covid-19 (allowing for
Last week Ross Clark expatiated on the hysteria and panic generated by Covid-19 that threatens to send the world into lockdown. These are aspects of the emotion of ‘fear’, and the Greeks certainly had words for that. The root of Greek deos ‘fear’ meant ‘two’, and was cognate with the Latin dub- (cf. ‘dubious’), i.e.
The PM is insisting that the briefings he finds in his red box every evening should be, well, brief, and has limited them to four sides of A4. That is three too many. Emperors too had in and out boxes and knew what hard work they could be. Seleucus, Greek king of Asia, was said
The PM was filmed introducing his new cabinet by getting them to answer in unison how many hospitals, how many buses etc. he was planning to provide. This is ‘performance politics’, the remanipulation of a ‘stage’ (here the Cabinet Office) and its ‘performers’ (MPs) to send a message to an ‘audience’ (us). Another example would
An impeachment trial is overseen by Congress and Senate, who both make the law and (in this case) sit in judgment on it, ignoring the modern legal principle of the separation of powers. Athenians would have been shocked, not because they believed in the separation of powers (their citizens too made the law in assembly
The gloom that envelopes the Labour party stands in strong contrast to the confidence and hope that the Prime Minister exudes. But is he wise so to exude? Most ancients regarded hope as a delusion. Achilles in the Iliad argued that the best man could hope for was a life of mixed good and evil.
Lord Heseltine’s electrifying hair once whipped the party faithful into paroxysms of euphoria. But since today he sees his hopes of staying in Europe finally squashed, he is a shrunken, diminished figure, and low lie his leonine locks. Let Dikaiopolis restore their vibrancy and bounce. Dikaiopolis was the hero of a Greek comedy composed by
There are as many explanations for Harry and Meghan’s problems with the royal family as there are commentators. May as well let the ancient Greeks have their say. Greeks placed enormous importance on philoi, those with whom one made common cause: and one’s prime philoi were one’s family. So when an Athenian citizen put himself
The candidates battling for the leadership of the Labour party never stop banging on about ‘social justice’ and ‘equality’. But they never define them. Plato did. In his final work, Laws (c. 350 bc), three men, led by the unnamed ‘Athenian’, discussed general principles behind governance and the law. The Athenian then applied them to
Dominic Cummings has written a modest blog inviting mathematicians, physicists, AI specialists and other experts to help him revolutionise the civil service with new standards of accurate, precision planning. Before he does so, perhaps he might reflect a little on the Ancient History side of the degree he studied at Oxford and the need for
One might expect that the challenge of climate change would encourage many young people to take up Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects at A-level. Yet over the past ten years, with the exception of maths, numbers have risen only very slightly; and for ICT have dropped. Ancient attitudes to what then passed as
As a contemporary John Clapham reported, Queen Elizabeth I ‘had pleasure in reading the best and wisest histories’, and translated the Roman historian Tacitus as a ‘private exercise’. This has been confirmed by a manuscript of a translation of Tacitus corrected by her, recently discovered in Lambeth Palace. But what on earth was she doing
There is something deeply unsatisfying about the debates featuring party leaders. The questions put to them, whether by an audience or presenter, are the routine ones that they face every day and therefore draw routine responses. What they never get is an interrogation. Enter Socrates, licking his lips. He once described how a friend of
Cicero said that the good orator could arouse in the listener many different feelings: ‘delight, grief, laughter, tears, admiration, hatred, scorn, envy, pity, shame, disgust, anger, relaxation, hope, fear’. But however the orator brought this about, the ancients were aware that there was more to making speeches than just words. The speaker should in a
The England team reached the final of the rugby world cup in Japan but they lost. As athletes, they knew that was failure. So did the ancient Greeks: only the winner was worth a prize. The poet Pindar (c. 518-440 bc) explored the consequences of this mentality. In one of his commissioned poems hymning victorious
Last week the Lawyers Group of the charity Classics for All held its fifth moot (cf. ‘meet’) in the Supreme Court, under the stern gaze of Lady Arden. Previous moots have tried Socrates, Brutus and Cassius, Antigone, and Verres, corrupt governor of Sicily. The Romans put such moots at the heart of their education. The
Today’s funerals, featuring shiny black hearses and top hats, lack (we are assured) ‘emotional intelligence’. Colourful coffins featuring pictures of favourite musicians, leopard print hearses and burials in yurts will apparently correct this sad deficiency. The Romans might well have disagreed. Cremation and interment took place outside the boundaries of Rome (dead bodies were considered
Dominic Cummings, chief adviser to the Prime Minister, thinks that there is no ‘better book than Thucydides as training for politics’. But what does he ‘teach’? His ‘lessons’ are legion. Herewith some possibilities. In his history of the war between Athens and Sparta (430-404 bc), in which he briefly participated, smart one-liners leap off the page: ‘Humans
Extinction Rebellion is blocking the streets again, foolishly demanding the impossible on a very important issue. But what does one expect from the young? As Aristotle pointed out, since they have no experience of life, they always have exalted notions and think themselves equal to great things. As a result, never having been duped before,