Tweet
The Halifax Daily News (Nova Scotia)
July 4, 2004 Sunday
Ancient lessons for our politicians;
The Greeks and Romans can teach us all a thing or two
by Robson, John
When the Athenian statesman Phocion gave a speech that the public
applauded, Plutarch claims, he turned to some friends and asked,
"Have I inadvertently said something foolish?" How many politicians
would ever have such a reaction today? Yet how many should? I sure
missed Plutarch during this election.
For one thing, I treasure his anecdote about Cato the Elder who, told
it was odd that there was no monument to him in Rome, said he would
far rather have people ask why he didn't have a statue than why he
did. What a useful standard by which to judge the personal qualities
of politicians. When Bill Clinton claims in his memoirs that "in
politics, if you don't toot your own horn, it usually stays untooted"
you might reasonably conclude that, in Cato's situation, he would
have put one up himself.
Some readers may be puzzled by my tendency to enthuse about some
author who wrote long before Jennifer Lopez's first marriage; if so,
I reply that it is not a boast to find nothing interesting in books.
(Or quote American commentator Florence King that in high school "the
girls who recited Mickey Rooney's wives in the cafeteria made fun of
me for reciting Henry VIII's wives in history class ...")
All argument is in some sense argument by analogy: This thing is like
that thing, it is not like that other thing. But if we do not carry
around with us a supply of material suitable for the drawing of
analogies, what sort of reasoning is likely to result? That's why
Plutarch wrote The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.
Knowledge of the past
A person without knowledge of the past is liable to react to a
promise of free money the same way Homer Simpson reacts to the word
"doughnut." Would it not be better instead to flinch as George
Washington would have at any political program reminiscent of Rome's
"bread and circuses" for the urban mob? Or recall another Plutarch
story about Cato the Elder: "Being once desirous to dissuade the
common people of Rome from their unseasonable and impetuous clamour
for largesse and distributions of corn, he began thus to harangue
them: 'It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the
belly, which has no ears."'
Paul Martin would have been well-advised a year ago to ponder
Plutarch's report that Pompey the Great once had the chance "to lead
Tigranes, King of Armenia, in triumph," but "chose rather to make him
a confederate of the Romans, saying that a single day was worth less
than all future time."
My admiration for Plutarch is not uncritical. He likes the Spartans
too much, and unfairly casts Marc Antony as too besotted with
Cleopatra to attend to affairs of the state. But it's interesting to
see him praise Cleopatra's personality and intellect over her raw
physical beauty, and slam Julius Caesar, who "looking upon all
changes and commotions in the state as materials useful for his own
purposes, desired rather to increase than extinguish them ..."
Perhaps his correspondingly high opinion of Caesar's assassin Brutus
is overdone. But it would be nice to have some sort of opinion on
Brutus that doesn't also involve Popeye the sailor man. Lest you
smell dust here, I promise that Plutarch is also full of intrigue,
illicit sex and gruesome violence. For instance, the orator Cicero,
who backed Brutus, was assassinated and, on the orders of Marc
Antony, his head and hands were severed, brought to Rome, and
"fastened up over the rostra, where the orators spoke; a sight which
the Roman people shuddered to behold, and they believed they saw
there, not the face of Cicero, but the image of Antony's own soul." A
useful anecdote to have whenever someone triumphantly waves an
enemy's head in public.
Flatterer or friend?
Plutarch also records that Phocion once "answered King Antipater, who
sought his approbation of some unworthy action, 'I cannot be your
flatterer, and your friend.'" And he advises the politically
ambitious likewise to "answer the people, 'I cannot govern and obey
you."' Of course anyone who did so might not win, but hey, most
candidates lose anyway. (Besides, Cato the Younger once lost an
election for consul, declined to run again because the people
obviously didn't want him, and happily went on with his life.) And it
would surely raise the level of debate to go about dismissing people
as "another Lepidus" or hailing them as "a second Brutus" instead of
wracking our brains trying to remember who was in Joe Clark's
cabinet. Speaking of people who should certainly have spent more time
asking friends if they'd inadvertently said something foolish.
July 4, 2004 Sunday
Ancient lessons for our politicians;
The Greeks and Romans can teach us all a thing or two
by Robson, John
When the Athenian statesman Phocion gave a speech that the public
applauded, Plutarch claims, he turned to some friends and asked,
"Have I inadvertently said something foolish?" How many politicians
would ever have such a reaction today? Yet how many should? I sure
missed Plutarch during this election.
For one thing, I treasure his anecdote about Cato the Elder who, told
it was odd that there was no monument to him in Rome, said he would
far rather have people ask why he didn't have a statue than why he
did. What a useful standard by which to judge the personal qualities
of politicians. When Bill Clinton claims in his memoirs that "in
politics, if you don't toot your own horn, it usually stays untooted"
you might reasonably conclude that, in Cato's situation, he would
have put one up himself.
Some readers may be puzzled by my tendency to enthuse about some
author who wrote long before Jennifer Lopez's first marriage; if so,
I reply that it is not a boast to find nothing interesting in books.
(Or quote American commentator Florence King that in high school "the
girls who recited Mickey Rooney's wives in the cafeteria made fun of
me for reciting Henry VIII's wives in history class ...")
All argument is in some sense argument by analogy: This thing is like
that thing, it is not like that other thing. But if we do not carry
around with us a supply of material suitable for the drawing of
analogies, what sort of reasoning is likely to result? That's why
Plutarch wrote The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.
Knowledge of the past
A person without knowledge of the past is liable to react to a
promise of free money the same way Homer Simpson reacts to the word
"doughnut." Would it not be better instead to flinch as George
Washington would have at any political program reminiscent of Rome's
"bread and circuses" for the urban mob? Or recall another Plutarch
story about Cato the Elder: "Being once desirous to dissuade the
common people of Rome from their unseasonable and impetuous clamour
for largesse and distributions of corn, he began thus to harangue
them: 'It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the
belly, which has no ears."'
Paul Martin would have been well-advised a year ago to ponder
Plutarch's report that Pompey the Great once had the chance "to lead
Tigranes, King of Armenia, in triumph," but "chose rather to make him
a confederate of the Romans, saying that a single day was worth less
than all future time."
My admiration for Plutarch is not uncritical. He likes the Spartans
too much, and unfairly casts Marc Antony as too besotted with
Cleopatra to attend to affairs of the state. But it's interesting to
see him praise Cleopatra's personality and intellect over her raw
physical beauty, and slam Julius Caesar, who "looking upon all
changes and commotions in the state as materials useful for his own
purposes, desired rather to increase than extinguish them ..."
Perhaps his correspondingly high opinion of Caesar's assassin Brutus
is overdone. But it would be nice to have some sort of opinion on
Brutus that doesn't also involve Popeye the sailor man. Lest you
smell dust here, I promise that Plutarch is also full of intrigue,
illicit sex and gruesome violence. For instance, the orator Cicero,
who backed Brutus, was assassinated and, on the orders of Marc
Antony, his head and hands were severed, brought to Rome, and
"fastened up over the rostra, where the orators spoke; a sight which
the Roman people shuddered to behold, and they believed they saw
there, not the face of Cicero, but the image of Antony's own soul." A
useful anecdote to have whenever someone triumphantly waves an
enemy's head in public.
Flatterer or friend?
Plutarch also records that Phocion once "answered King Antipater, who
sought his approbation of some unworthy action, 'I cannot be your
flatterer, and your friend.'" And he advises the politically
ambitious likewise to "answer the people, 'I cannot govern and obey
you."' Of course anyone who did so might not win, but hey, most
candidates lose anyway. (Besides, Cato the Younger once lost an
election for consul, declined to run again because the people
obviously didn't want him, and happily went on with his life.) And it
would surely raise the level of debate to go about dismissing people
as "another Lepidus" or hailing them as "a second Brutus" instead of
wracking our brains trying to remember who was in Joe Clark's
cabinet. Speaking of people who should certainly have spent more time
asking friends if they'd inadvertently said something foolish.