The debate grinds on about whether to bid for the Olympic Games to be staged in London. It is time to apply a little ancient wisdom. Alcibiades, darling of the Bright Young Things in 5th-century bc Athens, was very proud of his achievements in the prestigious chariot race at the Olympic Games (he entered seven
What is it in our interests to do about immigration? The ancient Athenians came up with an interesting answer. The reason for Athens’ control of immigrants (metoikoi, ‘those who change their habitation’, metics) was suspicion of aliens (war being endemic in the ancient world) and paranoia about the purity of their own citizenship. Any non-Athenian
Every week professionals such as teachers and doctors express their desire to get out of their jobs. Why? Because they have lost their independence. Greeks and Romans would have richly sympathised. When Cicero was discussing the problems of old age, he said, ‘The old will be respected only if they fight for themselves, maintain their
Mrs Samira Ahmed, an ex-university professor in Sudan, has launched a sex-strike in an attempt to end the 19 years of (un)civil war that have torn the country apart. The newspapers went into their usual routines about Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (411 bc) – and, as usual, got it wrong. In Lysistrata, we are regularly told, the
‘Prepare for war, Blair tells army,’ announces a newspaper headline, stirring the ghost of the Roman military historian Vegetius in its grave. The civil servant Vegetius composed his Epitome of Military Science – the sole surviving Latin treatise on war – in the late 4th century ad. His only memorable utterance is qui desiderat pacem,
As the argument over firemen’s pay and conditions rumbles on, Mr John Scorer reminds me of the correspondence on the subject of a fire service between Pliny the younger, governor of Bithynia-Pontus in north-western Turkey, and the emperor Trajan. Pliny asks if it would be a good idea to establish one in the province, but
Christmas is the time for stimulating educational games round a roaring open telly. This year’s is a real festive winner: construct your own Greek tragedy, on any subject of your choice. The rules, observable in Sophocles (496-405 bc) and Euripides (485-406 bc), are strict: 1. The tragedy lasts about two hours and is played in
What a fuss everyone is getting into about the funding of universities! If ministers would only sit back with their Aristotle and Plato and think about results, all would become clear. Aristotle is very keen on the telos – the goal or end of things – and when he discusses the state, he decides its
The Prime Minister has been sounding off about the importance of ‘respect’, which he does not define but clearly thinks is a vote-winner. In fact, as ancient Greeks saw, ‘respect’ – aid
It is 150 years since Manchester opened the first public lending library in Britain, but the idea of library is very ancient. Palace archives were the first ‘libraries’. From third-millennium bc Syria and Babylon (modern Iraq) we have found stores of documents on clay tablets – bills, deliveries, receipts, inventories, court judgments, with some hymns,
It is, apparently, a problem for many males that when they retire they feel dissatisfied because ‘society’ does not value them any more. It is hard to see what ‘society’ as such can actually do about this, but it raises the question why anyone should want to be valued by society, especially one of the
‘ANGER-management consultants’ have been appearing all over the papers in the past few weeks discussing how the footballer Roy Keane might learn to control his foul temper. The papers could have saved the cost of their predictable services by reprinting selected chunks from Seneca (4 bc-ad 65) De Ira, ‘On Anger’, and Plutarch (ad 46-
The media have been collectively tut-tutting over the mindless mob that gathered to abuse a woman held on bail over the Soham murders. Nothing new there: the Roman historian Tacitus (ad 56-120) long ago pointed out how satisfying it was to submerge one’s individual personality into a collective one. Tacitus paints a splendid picture of
After Rome defeated Carthage in the first Punic war (264–241 bc), it annexed Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica and maintained its interest in the Carthaginian heartlands of North Africa and Spain. So when Hannibal, elephants and all, marched through Spain and southern Gaul and descended over the Alps into Italy to start the second Punic war
My Ancient & Modern column has banged on long enough about the glories of the only democracy the world has ever known: that of Classical Athens, where the citizens (Athenian males over 18) were the legislature, making all political decisions by a show of hands after public debate in the Assembly. However, those same citizens
It is astonishing how ancient thinkers chanced to anticipate certain developments in our understanding of the nature of the universe. From atoms to swerves to strings, Greeks got there first — after a fashion. Ancient Greeks were the first people we know to propose that a single basic stuff lay at the heart of all
The refusal of his patients to assume responsibility for their own actions is a recurrent theme of Dr Theodore Dalrymple’s columns. He and Aristotle see eye to eye on the matter perfectly. In Nicomachean Ethics III, Aristotle (384–322 bc) begins by arguing that a man can wish for what really is good, or merely for
The Tory leader Michael Howard has published a list of his ‘beliefs’. If this was a political move, Athenians would have found it baffling. The 5th-century bc thinker Protagoras defined ‘excellence’ as ‘proper management of one’s own business … and of the city’s too, so that one can make the most effective contribution to its