Peter Jones

Time, now, for a slightly different tack, to point out another great advantage of the Athenian model towards which Prime Minister Brown might even appear to be groping. It has to do with the party system. When Athenian male citizens over the age of 18 gathered on the Pnyx to take decisions about whatever matters

In AD 212, partly to raise tax, Caracalla made citizenship automatic for all free peoples within the empire. But even though many foreigners/barbarians (e.g. Germanic peoples such as Goths, Visigoths and Vandals) settled within the empire to serve in the Roman army (etc.) after that date, we know of very few granted full citizenship. What was

Apparently Gordon is planning another tax raid on savings, this time life-insurance companies which have ‘too much’ money in reserve against rainy days. After his last pension raid, this will not be a popular move. The Romans can help him solve the problem. Apparently Gordon is planning another tax raid on savings, this time life-insurance

As globalisation of business and communications grows, to what extent will we see globalisation of values? The experience of the ancient world suggests it could be to quite a large extent. Greek and Roman society was, at one level, notoriously conservative. With a social structure that privileged the (very) few at the top of the

Grammar schools? Comps? Sec. mods? City academies? Faith schools? Selection by race? Background? Locality? The argument about education is now, in fact, an argument about the social mix of schools for children between the ages of 11 and 16. What has this got to do with education? In the ancient world, education was run not

Cinematically fascinating, historical tosh, eye-goudgingly tedious and designed for boys of a mental age of about 13 — such was the general judgment of 300, the film about the holding operation of the Spartans and their allies at Thermopylae against the massive Persian army (480 bc). But how the Spartans would have loved it! First,

Primary school pupils in Clackmannanshire, taught to philosophise ‘like Socrates’, have evidently demonstrated dramatic improvements in IQ and other tests. But since the philosophy they are taught is all about working together to seek answers to problems — a worthy aim, of course — it is not at all clear how Socratic they are actually

Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran — how intelligently is the West, especially America, handling the East? The Romans may have something to say on the matter. When the Romans took on Carthage in the two Punic wars for mastery of the western Mediterranean (264-241 and 218-201 bc), they engaged with an enemy as militarily brutal as themselves.

Last time we saw how the Athenians always reverted to type when they established large-scale alliances with other Greek states: what started off as a free union of states pursuing mutual interests slowly turned into an empire run by the Athenians pursuing their own interests. The parallels with the EU were all too clear. How,

The country ‘needs’ more scientists, but no one yet seems able to crack the problem. Ancient attitudes may suggest a way ahead. The earliest Greek ‘scientists’, c. 600 bc, speculated about how the world was made. They assumed there was a basic stuff (or stuffs) from which everything derived, and argued about what it might

Journalists are paid to be thought-provoking, but something very odd comes over them when they unfold their thoughts on the subject of Latin. Neal Ascherson, for example, once argued in the Independent on Sunday that he had been taught Latin at Eton as ‘a rite of exclusion for those outside, a ceremony of submission for

Elephants have been characterised as highly sensitive, socially aware and intelligent because they have noticed in the mirror a white cross marked on their head. What a pathetic test! Jumbo can do far better than that. The ancients speculated whether animals knew God, had memory, foresight or emotion, could distinguish between the good and the

Whatever the eventual result of the West’s incursion into Iraq, the Iraqi people will have to rewrite their history to make sense of the occupation. Doubtless the West will try to influence the outcome — but surely not as cleverly as the Roman emperor Hadrian wooed the Greek world. It helped that the Romans in

When an emotional Tony Blair bade farewell to the Labour party conference, he said how hard it was to give up, but needs must. The ancients too knew all about the love of power: but at least there was a serious price to pay for failure. Today’s failures simply wind up in the House of

David Cameron, once a PR man for a TV company, has brought all his skills to bear on becoming the epitome of everything New Tory stands for, like, er, yes, of course, families (wow!) and the NHS (no!). Is this why he comes over as little more than a pretty windsock, without an idea in

A group of gangsters’ molls in Pereira, which evidently has the highest murder rate in Colombia, has decided to withhold sex from their boyfriends until they give up their guns. Inevitably they have been likened to the women in Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata (staged in Athens in February 411 bc) whose purpose was to persuade their men

Gordon Brown has promised that, when he comes to absolute power, he alone (not parliamentary colleagues, let alone the people) will appoint a cabinet ‘of all talents’ to do his bidding. Even the Romans were more democratic than that. Roman toffs naturally took it for granted that none but they could legislate effectively. As Cicero

We are hardly out of a long winter and already parts of the country are celebrating the traditional Festival of the Summer Water-Shortage, in which the god Hôspipês and his divine consort Sprinkla are ritually banished from the earth for six months, to be gloriously resurrected in the autumn. All very Demeter and Persephone. Strange

A Guardian journalist seems saddened that the departure of the previous editor could signal that ‘The Spectator’s similarities with the last days of the Roman empire are apparently over’. It is even more saddening to report that they never came close. Elagabalus, Roman emperor ad 218–222, showed what could be done if you put your