Just Finished Reading: Greek and Roman Political Ideas by Melissa Lane (FP: 2014)

Like much else in western culture the Greeks seem to have invented politics which, again with much else, the Romans seem to have adopted, adapted and spread across the known world. With hundreds of individual city states the Greeks could effectively experiment in tiny social laboratories to discover the best types of political form which they categorised into three separate strands – rule by one, by some and by many. From these strands they highlighted both the best and worst versions of each, with the best being Monarchy, Aristocracy (my personal favourite) and Polity, with the worst forms being Tyranny, Oligarchy and (rather oddly to our ears) Democracy. In Roman terms, once they absorbed Greece into their ever expanding sphere of influence, Monarchy became Imperial rule and Democracy became the basis for the Roman Republic.

Of course when we speak of Greek and Roman democracy will are not talking of what passes for democracy in most of the developed world where disengaged ‘citizens’ cast their votes in ever decreasing numbers each 4-5 years. Back in the founding years the electorate had political activity at the heart of their existence – indeed the word idiot derives from the Greek for those who are political disengaged private citizens (so little has changed there I think!). Then of course there are the limits of who gets to vote to take into account. Here and in many other democracies across the world we have universal suffrage – where the only criteria is that you live here and are over 18 (plus a few other caveats). Back in the day not only did you need to be a citizen (with both parents being citizens) but you had to be male, free (not a slave) and to meet the property qualifications. Inevitably many people residing within any particular Greek polis where excluding from the political process.

Both Greece and Rome, no matter their other failings, had some interesting ideas: huge juries (often hundreds strong or even into the thousands for important cases), political office by lottery – at least at the lower levels – with short one year occupancy with reports of how well the incumbent did scrutinised by juries. Some of that might still work today. The high level of commitment however is probably a no-go because, well to be honest, we need to work to earn money to live – so precisely the people prevented from voting back in antiquity! Probably the only way we could have fully participatory democracy is to have slaves (machines no doubt) doing all of our work whilst we politicised our lives away. I suppose that it could be fun if you like that sort of thing.

Anyway, if you think you know where our politics comes from this book might both surprise and delight you. Written in an easily digestible style I learnt a great deal almost without any perceived effort – just the way I like it (sometimes anyway). If you also think that events back at the edge of history have no relevance today this book will certainly disabuse you of that! Recommended.