Famine

Modern Industrial society seems impervious to the threat of food shortages: Amartya Sen argued in a famous paper that democracies in particular avoided famine much better than any other regime in the past. Because of this, we forget I think how important the supply of food was to states in the ancient and medieval world. The political system of a state in the ancient world could be grievously affected by issues surrounding the supply of food. Livy chronicles in his fourth book just such a moment in the history of Rome- and it does not take more than a shrewd guess (particularly given the unusual number of temples built at this time) to suggest that Rome during its social conflicts suffered from frequent problems with food supply. The Livyan example is interesting though in its own right.

In the consulship of Proculus Geganius Macerinus and Lucius Menenius Lanatus Livy tells us that Rome suffered a 'black' year 'in almost every respect'. As he suggests 'had war been added to the list of miseries scarcely by all the help of the Gods in heaven could the country have survived' (IV 11). Livy tells us that in this year a famine began- the first thing that is interesting about his statement is that he also tells us what he thinks its causes might have been, either a 'bad season' or that 'the pleasures of city life and the excitement of politics which had kept people from attending to their farms'. (IV 11) It is worth noting this in two ways: firstly because it demonstrates descriptively how Livy thought about famine- it could be the product of a moral judgement upon those that suffered it- hence in the end it could bring into question the actual basis of the city. Furthermore the idea that Romans faced famine because they spent their time arguing about politics- brings up in an ancient context a very real problem with democracy- it is, unlike most other activities, something in which the division of labour does not function and consequently it creates an issue with people's attention either being diverted from their job to be a citizen, or sleepwalking into disaster, whilst doing their job professionally.

Livy's discussion of the famine though goes further- and what he describes are the limitations of an ancient world state in confronting a terrible moment in its history. He describes the poor flinging themselves into the Tiber to avoid starvation by drowning. The problem for an ancient state in confronting this famine was two fold. Firstly as we learn from Livy, the methods they had of dealing with it were not really adequate. Lucius Minucius (appointed Controller of Supplies) went round neighbouring states attempting to get corn, he forced people to declare their stocks, diminished the rations for slaves and roused popular feeling against speculators (IV 12). But as Livy declares 'these inquisitorial methods did less to relieve the scarcity than to reveal its extent'.

There was a second kind of response to the famine- which brought into question the stability of the Roman state. Spurius Maelius, a knight, bought up stocks of corn in Etruria (which as Livy says stopped the government buying the corn) and used it to obtain a following in order to mount an attempt upon the crown. His 'generosity won their [the poor's] hearts and crowds of them followed him wherever he went' (IV 13). Livy tells us through the mouth of Minucius that Maelius had bribed the tribunes and assigned the mob leaders tasks (IV 13)- this comes from a senatorial source, and rather than accepting it, it is worth remembering what Livy said earlier about the poor and their food supply. Essentially Maelius got their support through distributing grain- and his political following was a consequence of his wealth and potentially his support in Etruria (Livy just a page before gave us an example of Rome supporting a faction in a town for its own political ends (IV 9-9), I do not think it implausible that Etruria was returning the favour by using famine as a weapon against Rome). Maelius's rebellion failed because a dictator- Cincinnatus making his return- was appointed and arrested and executed Maelius before he could gather his forces. But it is an interesting incident that reveals how vulnerable the Roman state was to its food supply.

Ultimately Rome was a society of a number of wealthy people surrounded by the poor- who were dependent on the harvest. We do not understand the dynamics of its politics unless we understand the problems that a bad harvest presented. As we have noted, the poor were the military strength of Rome's armies- numerically more various than the patricians. Of course the principle danger to the patricians lay in a strike from the poor when another state's army attacked Rome. But there was another danger- in a famine food became a means to control the populace- and as in the case of this famine if the patricians lost control of the food supply, they ceded the loyalty of the plebeians to the controller of that supply. Livy understood this which is why he believed that the revolt of Maelius was so severe- it also points out to me the advantages of empire- we see it so often as a negative, but the scale of empire permitted a politics which was not driven by the harvests in particular small areas. In the days of empire, Rome was supplied by the grain fields of Africa and Egypt- in the days that we are discussing here Rome's stability rested upon whether a harvest succeeded or failed- failure could lead to revolution and civil war- empire addressed that weakness.

Ethical Encounters: Brief Encounter

"Nothing lasts" says Laura Jesson to herself, "this misery can't last". Brief Encounter is a film about time and feeling- the encounter between Laura and Alec is brief but briefness shoots through the entire film. Even as viewers we can feel this hour and a half like an interlude of dreams, punctuated by the sweeping music of Rachmaninov and the voice of Celia Johnston, clipped, English and very emotional. As a movie it does not seem to move so much as to exist- to exist like a dream exists as an alternative but temporary state. After the film, you and the characters are in exactly the same position- as Fred says to Laura at the end 'you have been a long way away, thank you for coming back to me'. We have all been a long way away watching Brief Encounter- and as I will discuss later in this article that distance that we've been is important.

Brief Encounter is about the meeting between a woman and a man. They are both married and after a small set of meetings- five in all- they decide never to meet again. To give away the story is really to give away nothing- because this is a film about an issue and an atmosphere. The atmosphere is created by incredible acting and direction. Let us start with the acting- both Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson have been praised endlessly for this film- that praise is well deserved. Johnson in particular scarcely has the camera off her- much of the film is spent with the director staring straight into her eyes as they flicker round a train carriage, or sink to the floor in despair or light up with the excitement of dreams of love. Howard too does well- he is suave and smooth as he needs to be. It is the direction though which is often less praised but deserves more- one impeccable shot which I've used as an illustration above demonstrates in my view the perfection of Lean's work. Laura is at home feeling guilty about deceiving her husband about where she was that afternoon- she stares in the mirror and what we look with her into the mirror and see what she sees, a woman wracked by guilt. It is a very subtle way of literally getting you to see Laura's position from her point of view but it is incredibly effective.

If that was all, perfect technical ability made manifest on the screen then the film would sit in the category of well made but insignificant but this is not such a simple or irrelevant film. I have told the basics of the story already but there are a couple of issues opened up within the film that need more analysis to elucidate the issues involved. The film pivots around Laura and her relationship with her husband and with Alec her possible lover (I will use the word 'lover' from now on despite the fact that they go no further than a quick kiss). Laura trusts her husband- she wishes she could tell him everything as he is so kind and gentle. She comes across Alec in a cafe and then in the street and she finds him exciting, kind and intelligent- she finds him the epitome of the kind of man that she would have loved to marry as a girl. She describes her feelings towards him as a girlish fantasy- to marry the idealistic doctor- in a sense he ressembles the hero of Agnes Grey, Mr Weston, but modernised. The film is about whether she should leave her husband or not- she does not in the end and it is evident by the end of the movie that here we have an argument for her decision. Throughout the film we are reminded that Laura has people she must look after- her children- and right at the end, Lean makes sure that we see that her husband, though unromantic, does care deeply for her. We never see as much of Alec- though we are invited to remember his two sons and delicate wife (it is significant that we are told about both of them) and invited to see his life as a mirror to Laura's.

The second question is about the morality of Laura and Alec. How should we see them? The fact they have sex has nothing to do with the question of their morality- the interchange of bodily fluids is the culmination of a process at whose heart is emotional infidelity. That is why Laura cannot tell her husband about what has happened- because it would hurt him to know that she desired and felt happy in the company of another man. From Laura's account Alec comes off as the instigator- but that is afterall her perception of events and we do not have his. Around these two figures are gathered other figures within society- Alec's friend who despises Alec when he finds the two of them in his flat, Laura's friends who gossip about her or who annoy her. Alec's friend, Stephen, is the least morally repugnant- expressing disappointment with Alec's behaviour. Laura's friend Mary Norton seems though to revel in sin as an opportunity to gossip nastily. Stephen and Mary embody different responses- to publicly tell the person of your displeasure and then remain silent in the interests of the family unit (Stephen) or to avoid confrontation, enjoy the titillating spectacle of sin and gossip about it maliciously (Mary). Lean wants us to see how unsympathetic society can be to these lovers: but also in Stephen's dialogue with Alec he wants us to see the love affair from the outside- he wants us to see the sordid nature of this magic.

Our focus though must remain on the central pair- they are constrained by their society in the sense that they cannot abandon their spouses- but as we see with Laura abandoning her spouse would be an act of selfishness. What this film gets at, what I think that Lean gets, is that life is made of patterns- strings between individuals- and that when we snap those strings or rearrange those passions we can bring great suffering to everyone involved. We can break hearts and worse. Human beings are fragile and human life is fragile- we have a brief encounter with the world- what Laura comes to realise is that had she world enough and time, she would end up with Alec. As we shall discuss in my next post there are good reasons for Laura to be disappointed with life- one of the reasons I'd guess that Alec is not the focus of the film is that Laura's life is drab and boring, a round of visits to the local county town and lunches with Mary Norton. But Lean's argument is that even despite that, she has things to lose by leaving- the tragedy is greater because these two people cannot be together.

I do not think he makes this argument easily. This film is sad for a reason- and its quite possible to come out of it thinking that the lovers have lost too much by abandoning each other. As Isaiah Berlin argued every choice can be a tragedy. "Nothing lasts" can seem like a reinforcement of the idea that Laura thinks everything will last- and that the love affair will colour the rest of her life as the film colours the rest of ours. I think the moment in which her husband wakes her from the dream is crucial though- because when he wakes her and thanks her for coming back, I think that is symbolic both of the end of the dream of the film but also of the end of the dream of her love. She has woken up, as has Alec, and that must be good, mustn't it?

Workers and Jobs (1935)

Arthur Elton's Workers and Jobs was made at the height of the Great Depression in 1935. The then unemployment rate in the UK was incredibly high. Elton's film was made with the cooperation of Poplar Employment Exchange- it was made to illustrate the virtues of the employment exchange both to employees and principally to employers. The working men are shown in the film to be trained, good workers, quiet and disciplined. They queu towards the desk in the exchange without mumbling or grumbling as others are sent to the jobs that they might want. Furthermore the exchange is shown to be an efficient way of acquiring labour for businesses. I want to highlight two things about the way that the Labour Exchange worked that give us an insight into the economies of the 1930s.

Firstly it is noticable that as the introduction to the film states there are at least 15,000 types of work- domestic, industrial and clerical- that men and women can do. We see the employment exchanges taking notes on the applicants- their experience, their competence- what say a machine tool repairer has experience repairing or what kind of tailor this person is. Then they match them to employers. Its a fascinating lesson in the variety and division of labour within the economy- and the difficulty of matching workers to jobs. I suspect of course that the labour exchanges were not this efficient- Arthur Elton was making an advertisment for them- but what he demonstrates is rather that the economy by the 1930s was already highly specialised- as the introductory voice over says the costs of hiring the wrong person for a job were high.

My second point is that the Labour exchange of the thirties looks completely inefficient compared to a modern operation. As you can see in the still above, the model was based on telephoning other labour exchanges to check their vacancies. All the exchange functions on the back of card files- and remember this is an efficient exchange on show in a film whose purpose is advertising- one wonders about the status of those card files and how many records got lost. Furthermore printed sheets are sent out to other exchanges at the end of the day with unfilled vacancies on them- again the potential for misplacing, misrecording and simply destroying accidentally records must have been high. An organisation in the thirties could not afford anything better- but it is interesting to imagine how different a similar organisation would be today.

This kind of documentary is fascinating- just looking at the faces of these long dead normal people doing their business gives me a thrill. But I think it is also useful for seeing both how similar and how different the experience of the thirties is from today's. President Bush and others have said that our economy is teetering on the edge of another Great Depression- it is beyond my competence to say whether that is true or not- but if it is true, I suspect that the way that our society goes through that experience will be very different to the way that our grandparents and their parents did in the thirties. Not least because though they lived in a complex economy, they lived in a much more local and much less computerised one.

A disgraceful incident

Those are Livy's words about an event that happened soon after the Decemvirs fell, in the consulship of Titus Quinctius Capitolinus and Furius Agrippa. Rome was asked to arbitrate between two cities within Latium, Ardea and Aricia, about a piece of land that both cities claimed to be theirs, and 'for which the two towns had fought so often they were exhausted' (III 70). In the midst of the discussions in the forum, conducted it seems by the people under the tribunes, an aged Roman Publius Scapita, rose to his feet and began speaking. Scapita told the assembly that the land that Ardea and Aricia were claiming was originally the property of another town- Corioli- and as Corioli had been conquered by Rome, that territory ought to have gone with the city that had been conquered. This speech was listened to by the crowd with a 'high measure of approval' and despite the arguments of the consuls, 'cupidity prevailed' and Rome claimed the land. (III 72)

This 'disgraceful incident' is interesting- because of two things. Firstly it exposes how the Roman Constitution may have worked- and secondly it exposes what Livy thought of justice. Let us begin with the first consideration. I have mentioned before that we seem in the Roman world to be in a situation where the judiciary and the executive are separated- the judiciary rests in the people, the executive and legislature in the senate and consuls. That's a broad generalisation and does not fully work- but what we can establish in this case is that quite complicated questions of international law were resolved by the assembly of the people, in great contrast to what is done today in most if not all democracies. The people were the court. The reasons for this are not difficult to work out- many of those within the assembly would have had knowledge of other parts of Latium and possibly Italy- Scapita would not have been alone in having visited in the army the places that they talked about in the assembly. Scapita's evidence is interesting- obviously (and Livy agrees with this) there was an accepted right of conquest that allowed a city to claim a territory that had belonged to a vanquished enemy. (III 72)

Livy though thinks that the case that Scapita outlines was an unjust one. The reason that Livy gives for the decision to be regarded as unjust was a simple one. He argued that 'for an arbitrator to convert disputed land to his own use was a crime revolting in itself, and would set a precedent even worse' (III 72). Livy cites the senators arguing that Rome would lose Ardea and Aricia's friendship and lose its reputation not to mention its honour through these proceedings. (III 72) Livy, we have seen, opposed the idea of judging one's own cause- and in a sense this is the beginning of a critique of empire- as soon as the Roman populace become sovereign over territories which are not free or seek their arbitration, the temptation to judge in their own interest as they have the power becomes tyrannical. Livy here may be indicating some of the dangers to the Republic that will flow from its expansion- dangers to the very conception of a just and honourable republic. In that sense the incident fits into a narrative which sees the empire as the product of virtue (ie rising military strength) and the incubator of the decline both of virtue and ultimately of the city.

These arguments lead I think to an account of Rome which emphasizes the dynamic between expansion and democracy- and the ways in which Rome's character as a republic changes as the empire advances. One could even make the argument based on this case that Rome's transition from a Republic to an Empire is a transition from a Republic to a Tyranny of the citizen over the subject- an arrangement which might naturally lead to a habit of subjection and eventually to the Imperium. It is a speculation but in this case, I think we have an indication of one of the pattern that Livy sees underlying the last years of the Republic and first of the Principate.

The Means of Escape

Penelope Fitzgerald's perfect short story is about imagination. The setting is mid-19th Century Hobart, the scenery is dominated by the church, the rectory and the convict prison house, the story by the encounters between the local community of dignataries led by Alice, the clergyman's daughter, and an escaped convict. In that sense it represents a distillation of the early history of Australia: this is the world that Mr Micawber goes to at the end of the David Copperfield and there his daughter meets Magwitch. The isolation is there- you get the real sense that Alice and her family live at the ends of the earth. I love how Fitzgerald brings this out in the first paragraph- giving you a distilled history of Hobart's church- as if to imply that this is a hamlet isolated from the history of the world. To understand mid-century Hobart, you do not need to know about Peel's repeal of the corn laws, the demise of the slave trade, the American war, the revolution in Belgium or the industrial revolution- but you do need to know about the construction of the local church.

Loneliness breeds the imagination- as does youth. Alice is an intelligent young girl- very conventional as we learn throughout the story. Her world is a lonely one, formed by conversations with her friend Aggie. I found this little paragraph so perfectly apt as a description of Alice that I think I need waste no more words:

They had settled on the age of forty five to go irredeemably cranky. They might start imagining anything they liked then. The whole parish, indeed the whole neighbourhood, thought they were cranky already in any case, not to get settled. Aggie in particular with all the opportunities that came her way in the hotel trade.

The community of course are as Fitzgerald's story points out entirely wrong. But there is something about that paragraph that stands out- it expresses the tragedy of these two young women's lives perfectly but also with its first sentence captures a witty and affectionate attitude to the solitude of their inner worlds which Fitzgerald invites us to share.

Of course imagination leads on to romanticism. When Alice meets the convict in the church late at night- she imagines that she has fallen in love. The twist at the end of the story reveals that Alice's idea of love and what love is are different things- I do not mean to give away here what that twist is- but it reveals Alice's fantasy to be a fantasy. The interesting question about Fitzgerald is whether the revelation hurts Alice: she leaves the question open. But I think if you follow the lineaments of the story, you can see an answer. Fitzgerald is like Austen in that she can describe illusion whilst alluding to reality. Alice's life is dominated by fantasy- but the fantasy has no reality- the question for the reader is what kind of disappointment is worse, the disappointment of the door not opened or the dissapointment of the reality falling short.

This is a fine short story- more happens in it than happens in most novels. What is so amazing about it is the way that it captures the world of early colonisation- the isolation and the way that fuses with teenage girlishness to endow every moment with romantic possibility (and the way that the community, as ever, fails to understand that a longing for romance is not a refusal of life). We are left on the brink of something that happens- again I will not break the suspense- but this is a writer at the peak of her art and what she expresses is timeless.

Freedom and fighting

As the decemvirs fell, we see the constitution of the republic and social strife within Rome resumed. The moment allows Livy to describe something crucial to both his and later thinking about the link between armies and the state- the constitution of the state in particular. Whereas we might presume the virtue of a liberal democracy to rest in promoting economic security, Livy argued that the opposite was true. Tyranny guarenteed wealth and luxury- what democracy or republicanism did was guarentee armies and military might- that might lead to wealth but ultimately like many Roman historians Livy looked on that with great suspision.

Why might it be true that Republicanism created and perpetuated military virtue? Livy offers few direct answers- he wrote after a man, Polybius, who had sought to write a schematic answer to that question based around Roman history. But what he did provide was moments- as ever Livy instructs through incident. Amongst those incidents is yet another raid by the Volscians- what is interesting about this raid that it succeeded- the Decemvirs who had fought against it were vanquished and had, like Servius Tullius, to call representative institutions in in order to cope. Livy is not hesitant in putting the reason for this failure forwards, he tells us 'the commanders in the field were not incompetent btu they had made themselves universally hated' (III 47). Things would change under a Republic.

Rome decided as soon as she had dismissed the Decemvirs to march against the Volscians again. Livy gives us the speech of Valerius one of the consuls- a speech which successfully rallied the troops and led them to conquer the tribesmen: Valerius said

For none but yourself... the victory shall be- not this time will it fill the pockets or swell the pride [crucial word there] of the decemvirs... Show by your deeds that in former fights it was your commanders who failed, not the men' (III 60)

We have noted the fact that Livy and his Republican orators argued that war and tyranny were similar states- Valerius agrees, arguing that Rome's struggles for freedom should be conducted in the same spirit as those on the field. (III 60) Valerius's speech is important because it is so conventional- Livy like Machiavelli after him beleives that equality inspires and makes men willing to fight. This observation should remind us about how different Livy's idea of a republic is from ours- we aspire to a kind of peace, Livy saw the merit of republic being its prowess in war.

Education and Custom

Francis Bacon's essay on Custom and Education is worth examining at length- particularly when education is so important, as Ashok argues, to politics and the formation of the statesman. Bacon's essay emphasizes the non-institutional factors which lead to the creation of a person. Bacon was himself a politician of some distinction- Lord Chancellor under James I and VI- and an exceptionally learned man, not to mention one of the greatest essayists in English and an inspiration to amongst others, Thomas Hobbes. Bacon's thoughts therefore form part of the context in which we all live, and are worth listening to on their own.

Bacon's argument is that our education develops our facilities in different ways. He opens his essay by stating that

Men's thoughts are much according to their inclination: their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions; but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed.

The interesting thing about this statement is the way that Bacon divides the aptitudes of man and the impact of education. Though we may think in terms of our lusts and desires and the language of biologically inspired thought may be universal, our words are conditioned by what we know- and our deeds by what we are expected to do. One could argue that learning is a special kind of custom itself- or that custom is a kind of language in which we phrase our actions. Bacon's argument is fascinating- and has an obvious implication- that we cannot rely on institutional education to change the way that men act- we have to rely upon customs.

Bacon suggests therefore that if you really want a good society, you cannot do anything through politics. In modern times we overrate the power of politics, and yet as Bacon argues

commonwealths and good governments, do nourish virtue grown, but do not much mend the seeds.

Custom as Bacon argues impels men to act contrary to their reason- he cites Indians burning themselves to death, Spartans scourging themselves on the altar of Diana and not crying out in pain and Elizabethan Irishmen preferring a method of hanging. In all those three cases, we might suggest that convention impels men to take a foolish or a neutral choice. In a sense the choice to be educated is something that may not be maintained institutionally directly- it may be something that requires cultivating through convention and its generation.

This does not imply quietism- Bacon also cites Machiavelli in his essay and I think this is deliberate because it links to Machiavelli's analysis of the creation of virtu through good institutions. Essentially what Machiavelli implies is that structure can create a population who behaves in a certain way- the point that Bacon is making is that our direct inputs may not have hte effect that we want them to have. Man's magistrate is convention he tells us- it is worth thinking about how those conventions are formed, how they change and die.

Tyranny and War

You talk of the Sabine invasion- that paltry affair. The real war which the people of Rome must fight is of a very different kind, if only you knew it: it is a war against those who, appointed to office in order to give us laws, have left our country at the mercy of their own caprice; it is against those who have abolished free elections, annual magistracies, which by ensuring the regular transfer of power are the sole guarantee of liberty for all, and without any mandate from the people flaunt the insignia and exercise the power of Kings. (III 39)

Marcus Horatius Barbatus said this to the face of the decemvirs in the senate at the height of their power- and the beginning of their ruin. As ever we need to be cautious- Livy may be inferring what he probably did not know- I find it hard to believe that a record of this speech survived. But this does not negate the speech's importance as a manifesto of resistance to the Decemvirs- in many ways the position that Horatius argues here- coming out of a populist aristocratic pride (he suggests that the Horatii and Valerii have always protected Rome (III 39))- is one that contains an important critique of tyranny. Notice already we have the emphasis upon the partiality or 'caprice' of the tyrant- something that we observed in the last piece of analysis that we did on the decemvirs.

But let us dig a little deeper into Horatius's speech. Firstly there is an important fact to notice about the way that Horatius describes tyrants. Tyrants are at war with their own country- a greater threat than an army of foreigners, of 'Sabines' in this case. Tyrants are at war with their own country because ultimately war is about volition- if I conquer you I force you to do what I want you to do. The brute fact behind a victorious triumph is the brute power that a tyrant seeks. The point Horatius is making here is that a tyrant is the enemy of the people. What he also suggests is that a tyrannical rule can never be a legal rule- notice again the way that he describes the decemvirs, they had an 'office' but now they do not hold a position superior to any private citizen (III 39). His argument is based upon the sense that an office of the government operates in the people's good- as a tyrant cannot operate in a people's good but is their enemy, he cannot govern a free people and consequently must be at war with them.

That is a first important point. Secondly we have an argument that extends something we have already seen in Livy. Livy originally told us that Brutus had made Romans swear never to obey another King- such was the reason that Octavian later refused the office of Rex itself. But Livy here is warning directly to Octavian and his successors that the name is insubstantial- the decemvirs arrogance is demonstrated when they take on the insignia of Kings, but the key objection to them is that they 'exercise the power of Kings'. Horatius states that 'what men hated was not the name of king but his pride and his violence'- we are back to the private will of the tyrant placing itself over and above the will or good of the people (III 39). The King or tyrant is not defined by a name but by a nature. This politically creates a resistance theory for Rome directed against those who behave like Kings- a tyrant (defined by his behaviour) is at war with his populace and any action by them, as in war, is justified. A point that later is made when one of the decemvirs appeals to the law of Rome, Verginius, one of the tribunes tells the crowd that a tyrant 'alone can claim no share in the beneficence of war' (III 57)- that claim fits with the suggestion that tyrants are beyond the law and its protections.

Resistance theory binds a person to resist a tyrant. This is perhaps an elementary and historically based resistance theory- but no less powerful for that- and its importance is derived from its context. Livy wrote in the reign of Augustus- when the power of a tyrant, one might argued, was cloaked in the Principate's velvet gowns. His argument is a warning to Augustus- that no matter what the legal situation was, if he or his successors ceased to act in the interests of Rome, then they placed themselves at war with their own people.

Sovereignty, Law and Election

When we elect politicians we have an idea of what they ought to do. We have an idea of what politicians are- normally ambitious people with a demand to govern- but the substance of governing is something that has changed down the ages. Furthermore the things we might believe that people should have an input in in order to stabilise and secure government have changed down the ages. The story of the decemvirs in Livy is interesting in this regard because it demonstrates the way that we have a different conception of what election does than the ancient Romans- I will demonstrate later that institutionally we actually have much more in common with Livy than we might think- but the difference in outlook is interesting. We think of election as something that legitimates leglislation- that is not the way that Livy thinks about it.

Livy talks a lot about legislation in the period of the decemvirs. We have already seen that he thinks of the decemvirs as exploiting the knowledge and resources of other ancient civilisations- deferring to the wisdom of great legislators in the past and in Greece, bringing the law crafted by old wise men to Rome. Livy beleives that law is handed down to the masses: when he speaks of the formation of Roman law, through the adoption of a set of principles and their digestion by the population, he is speaking of a flow from the ruler to the ruled, from the wise to the generality of people. Livy in this sense adopts an argument about politics which is not ministerial- the population have the right of veto but not the right of disposition. And it is this process that for Livy creates 'the fountainhead of public and private law, running clear under the immense structure of modern legislation' (III 34)- notice the image there of the flow of wisdom through the intentions of the population, starting at a fixed point in time, at an undemocratic and exalted moment and continuing through the virtu of the people.

Livy's view of legislation therefore is entirely based upon the formation of justice and then its adjustment to the character of the people who live under it.His view of judging is rather interestingly distinct from that. Livy has no problem with good judges- the first decemvirs ruled, he reminds us, tyrannically but they were good men and so provided 'prompt justice, of an almost superhuman purity' (III 33). We are here in the world of Gods- of Kings as the supreme and semi divine law givers. But of course Livy provides another example as the counter to that- the supreme and tyrannical judge can be overwhelmingly virtuous but he is more likely to be overwhelmingly vicious- he is more likely to be the second set of decemvirs, against whom there is no appeal and whose appeal is not to reason but to violence.

Ultimately this is where Livy is most distinct from a modern outlook on justice. Livy regards the original principles of justice as hard- and hence his population have no creative role in the manufacture of the ideal law code. But he regards the following discussion of justice to be simple: once you have set down the principles, any fool can know what they are doing. Hence his ideal decemvirs proceed secretly with the tables, but openly with the cases that they transact. It is a mark of the second set of decemvirs' ignominy that they have to cloak their justice in the mask of ceremonial violence and draw out military forces onto the streets (III 36). An appeal to unreason in judgement proceeds from the fact that for the second decemvirs, the 'man was everything, the cause nothing' (III 37). It is a parlous state of affairs- but one that Livy believes is an indication of something deeper and truer, that the will of the people gives you a sense of the communal intention. That can be swayed by violence, it can be swayed by the mob rule of an inspired orator- but it is unlikely to be swayed by personal knowledge- Rome afterall like Britain or America is too big for that.

The case of Verginia gives us an indication of what Livy means in this sense. Verginia was falsely appropriated by one of the decemvirs, Appius Claudius, because of her outstanding beauty as a slave. Her father as a consequence stabbed her and then revolted, destroying the decemvirate in the process. (III 43-8) The story though gives us an indication which I think is interesting- the issue at which both Appius Claudius and Tarquin fall is about a person, a single woman in both cases to whom a member of the royal family (Claudius or Sextus Tarquin) feels a violent and personal passion. This undermines their ability to give justice. The ordinary people therefore reclaim the state because ultimately their ability to give justice is more profound than that of the individual. The individual can provide wisdom but he cannot provide impartiality- at least that is Livy's view- and to some extent the frame of a republican representative government and a jury system with which we live suggests that though we do not recognise the argument, we live with its legacy.

Lars and the Real Girl

Lars is a loner. He spends his time living in his brother's garage, somewhere in the mid-West of the United States- somewhere no doubt with a Scandinavian heritage. He is encouraged by his brother and his sister in law to engage socially- but Lars refuses to. In the end, in a moment of desperation Lars orders a sex doll off the internet, called Bianca, and tells everyone that she is his girlfriend, come from abroad (she is half Brazilian, half Danish). His family, worried about him, take Bianca and him to the doctors (supposedly to make sure that Bianca has settled in alright but really to find out about Lars) the doctor tells them to go along with Lars's delusion as there is something that through it he needs to conquer. They do and the story of the film revolves around the way that Lars's delusory girlfriend is accepted by the local town and also with the growth of Lars himself through the experience of having this doll around.

There is something deeply perverse about this. It is like something out of Edgar Allan Poe in the sense that we are seeing a human being express strong physical attachment to a plastic sex doll. The film tries to cloak this in a sentimental small town piety- 'she was a teacher, she was a lesson in courage and Bianca loved us all especially Lars': well its true, until you recognise that she was a plastic doll and not a real human being. Twist and turn the tale it gets more complicated- we never quite see inside of Lars, we never see inside his head to what is driving him into his relationship with Bianca. He cannot cope with a normal woman of flesh and blood for some reason which is never explained- and the story takes as its focus the externality of Lars's character. Ryan Gosling plays him with a faint amused smile but without any introspection and this lack of psychological depth creates the atmosphere of the film: it makes the dark places of Lars's mind light.

If the film is not about psychology, what is it about? In part it is about community and compassion- it has a Capraesque tone running through it. This small town come together to enable one of them to live with his delusion and enable him to grow through it. In a sense that has to be lauded- but in a sense the tale is too optimistic. Because we never get inside Lars's head we never really understand what the nature of the illness that he suffers from is and so whether to see this town's actions as the kindness of friends to someone who cannot face, for a moment, real life or an abdication of responsibility. Are they aiding someone or are they in going along with the delusion merely helping a madman to make a fool of himself? I'm not sure that despite the happy ending and the medical piety of the local doctor, that question can ever be answered without a much more thorough examination of what and who Lars is.

What sustains the film are the performances. Emily Mortimer does brilliantly at playing the sister in law- she has just the right amount of weak and perhaps even vain strength. Gosling does a reasonable job- though the problems with Lars's character- in a sense he is a doll as much as Bianca is create problems that the actor cannot get over. Both Paul Schneider playing Lars's brother and Kelli Garner his love interest, Margo, do well: I liked Mr Schneider's ability to get the emotionless man who almost breaks down with the force of what is happening around him. The film is in reality divided into three parts- the first of which is the most satisfying and looks at the way that Mortimer and Schneider's characters react to Lars's new girlfriend and partly because of both of their performances and partly because the material is much more realistic that is the most successful part of the film.

The point on which the film stands or falls though is whether you believe in Lars. I've said that Lars is effectively a blank- we are given no kind of insight into what kind of condition he has- apart from some general guilt about pregnancy and a fear of being touched. I was left with questions about Lars rather than answers and questions about the nature of male relationships with women. Perhaps this is naive of me but I don't see a sex doll as a progression between loneliness and a relationship- rather I see it as a diversion because the hard thing in the relationship is coping with another person. Perhaps the film makers are right and imagine Lars taking Bianca's reality seriously and that realisation pushing him towards a relationship but I struggled with it as a concept. I also struggled with the idea that Margo would wait so long for Lars to fall out of love with a sex doll; it just seemed implausible to me.

I'm sure that there are lots of people who see this movie as a sweet reaffirmation of the value of community and the way that love is something that you have to learn to be an adult, and maybe its a reflection on me rather than the film that I couldn't. But I couldn't see it like that- I thought it was implausible. The last reason I think that the film is implausible is because it doesn't recognise that much of the problem of loneliness is not self inflicted or self induced. It dodges the question about loneliness- which is not so much that people do not desire love- but that others do not love them (perhaps that reveals a personal fear or perception of life). Lars ends the story walking into the distance with Margo- that is the most implausible cut of all.

Blogpower- the pious roundup

A couple of years ago I joined a group of small bloggers called blogpower. What is Blogpower? When it was started I remember that it was about the smaller blogger and attempting to get him or her a bit of the limelight and to be supportive of each other. Going round Blogpower this evening I learnt a hell of a lot- and perhaps the most important lesson I learnt was how good the blogs in Blogpower are. This roundup was pretty easy- and if I missed you off it was because I didn't have to look hard for posts at all and so being a lazy blogger, didn't. Anyway to business.

When thinking about the high profile bloggers- lots of them from Iain Dale to Andrew Sullivan have become minor celebrities- as David Hadley writesthis concept of the celebrity is something that we all should be thinking about, it dominates our landscape (and renders me suspicious that larger bloggers can ever provide the change in perspective that the Tin Drummer wants to see). The thing you miss with celebrity bloggers though is that they only take on celebrated issues- smaller bloggers are often more interesting- just take a look for example at the Fake Consultant's post on Egyptian elections- its an issue which will never make the tabloids but which we need to understand. On a similar theme, the Cornish Democrat posts a fascinating essay from Tom Nairn on the concept of nationalism- this is exactly the kind of thing that small blogs do well, disseminate academic work which often gets lost. If you stray from the mainstream, you also think about new and interesting issues- like why for example there are so few famous female artists, whether a sexual orientation really can have a duty to vote one way or another, why national symbols can be counter-productive (this is a long and exceptionally interesting article), whether assisted suicide should be made legal, whether cricket can conquer America- small bloggers do this whilst also providing concise and thoughtful reformations of current issues (like this summary of the arguments against the bailout and David Keen's guide to the British conferences is essential reading for those who weren't there). Coming out of the party conferences- Louis shows the Tories the way forward, Bob marvels at Gordon's gamble of a reshuffle, Mike questions Cameron's links to the hedge funds and Andrew praises the Libdems.

Away from such stuff- politics is not life and bloggers do not just blog about politics. Tom puts politics in perspective this week. My own recent post on Cincinnatus attempts to go back into Roman history and reinterpret this figure's place within that history. Others are also in the business of reading stuff, so you don't have to- Heather has been reading Esure press releases about cars and comes to some interesting conclusions. I like Crushed's unconstrained enthusiasm for the film, the Libertine, he also compliments one of my favourite actresses Samantha Morton which is a mark of good taste, and prompts me to want to see the film. If Crushed is ecstatic, perhaps he needs to listen to this piece of music whose sad movement is the perfect audio post. JMB doesn't need sad music, she has computer shops to contend with. But at least she doesn't live in Rabat, where sexism in Ramadan seems to thrive nor face the gloom of British adverts- bah humbug. Morning star just keeps the gloom going by discussing pain during diabetic eye tests. But even in dark times, we need humour- I loved this post of bad spellings and misplaced sentences. Jams helps by bringing us news of British triumphs at the IG Nobels. Just to surprise everyone Welshcakes has yet again posted some pictures of a pure cullinary delight (he says feeling his stomach rumbling). On a serious note, Liz posts about support in the blogosphere and how important it can be: Callum suggests the very act of blogging can be helpful in bad times. We should never lose sight of the fact that its humans writing blogs- and humans get ill, have bad times and good times: one who hasn't been having it so well recently is Mutley who's been to hospital- here's to him getting well again.

This may seem all a bit ideological but I think there is a point here- whether you agree or disagree with the posts above (and I agree with some and disagree with others) you can find a lot there to make you think. As the Pub Philosopher notes, we face at the moment a gap in information about things that are important to our live- he is talking about politics but could be talking about any number of things- I beleive that good blogs can help shrink that gap. I'm sure I've missed good posts- but this is what I saw this week and this reassures me that there is a hell of a lot of good thinking and writing going on- and that's without even including some of my favourite blogpower blogs that didn't post over the last couple of days.

And with that pious paean to the small blogger, that's all folks till next week's roundup!

Foreign Rome

Spurius Postumius Albus, Aulus Manilius and Publius Sulpicius Camerinus were sent to Athens with instructions to take down in writing the laws of Solon and acquaint themselves with the way of life and the political institutions of other Greek communities. (Livy 3.31)

At the height of the social crisis within Rome, she dispatched three citizens according to Livy to Athens in order to find out what the appropriate constitutional forms might be. The report from Athens was eagerly awaited and led to major reforms in the Roman constitution. (3.33) Livy points out that such reforms were not actually that successful - he argues that the constitution created was 'all wood and no fruit' (3.33) but of course no reader could not fail to appreciate that the new formation produced the Twelve Tables of Roman Law- the basis for Roman law down to Livy's day and something that we shall move to discuss later. But let us focus for a moment on the central point Livy makes here- that Roman constitutional innovation proceeded from seeking the advice of another city. There are a couple of interesting issues here- why Athens in particular was mentioned and why Rome's story includes discussions of other cities necessarily.

Firstly why Athens? I do not think that Livy could prove that the senators did go to Athens- indeed there is an implausibility to it as Rome was far closer to the Greek cities of southern Italy. Rather the reason that Athens is mentioned here I think is the prestige that the name involves. Athens was the most famous example of democracy in the ancient world- Sparta its opponent the most famous example of what Plato called timarchy. That Livy identified Rome with Athens is not surprising to any reader of Fergus Millar's lectures on the Republic: Rome had democratic features. The office of the tribunate and the powers of the popular assembly can be underrated in Roman history, and when we see the class conflict in Livy we see two classes who can both fight against each other. Athens looks a logical place to go for lessons for stability therefore for the ancient Romans- and an obvious place for them to have absorbed lessons about constitutional conflict- particularly the Athens of Solon and not the Athens of the fifth century itself.

The Ancient world prided itself on its law makers- Solon, Brutus, Lycurgus- who provided models to their cities of how they ought to politically proceed. These statesmen moulded their cities in their images- and created civic structures to perpetuate their genius- to turn personal virtu into political virtu. In many senses these figures stood between the age of heroes and the age of constitutions- they straddled the world of personal heroism, the Odyssey and Illiad, and the world of constitutions. The problem that Rome had at this point in her history was renewing her own constitutional framework- how natural to look to the laws devised by one of these great lawgivers in pursuit of reform. What is interesting though is that for Livy these people remain Romans- they remain Brutan in their constitutional thinking and the Solonic innovations do not work. Curiously therefore the Athenian influence that Livy maps is one of failure- the Athenian implant did not succeed in changing the Roman state into Athens- what it does is extend the Brutan nature of the people by providing a graft extending a principle embodied already. The end of the decemvirs is the 12 tables- something that fits into Roman nature- the end of the decemvirs though is swift as the structure did not fit.

One might ask why Livy feels necessary to include this episode- what does he think it tells us about Rome. I'd say that Livy acknowledges here a part of the Roman story that cannot not be acknowledged- that Rome was influenced and changed from the first moment of her history by the interference of foreigners. At points like the Claudii from the Sabines they were other Italians- but often it was not other Italians, but the more important example of Greece that changed Rome. The fact that in Greek political life- whether Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Corcyra, Argos, Thebes, Chalcis, Mytilene or all the other cities, famous in story and in song- the formations of life and politics possible in a polis had been tried and a long history of political thought had been developed in order to understand those regimes in antiquity before Livy. It is more likely that Rome's first contact with this was through the cities of southern Italy that the Greeks had founded- possibly even that was where Romans sought some constitutional inspiration- they didn't have to go to Greece. But Livy had to in order to invoke the genius of the Athenians and Solon.

What Livy tells is a complicated story about the development of Rome- I have mentioned that Livy definitely believes in the mystical idea of Rome surviving down the centuries- he sees a continuity between Romulus and Augustus. But he is too good a historian not to understand that other places influenced Rome- for Livy, stressing the greatness of Rome, those other places have to be equally great and the point he wants to stress is that their influence did not change the course of Roman history. Influence pushed Rome in directions which were Roman but could not change the history of the Republic from becoming a regime led by consuls into victory on foreign fields. Athenian influence led to the decemvirs in Livy's view- the only constitutional experiment that did not last- its historically plausible that actually more of the original Roman regime was influenced by foreign example- but Livy wants to stress this marginal influence because he wants to stress the continuity of Roman history.

Plebs and Patriots

In the years immediately prior to Cincinnatus's dictatorship, Rome was wracked with civil strife between the tribunes and the consuls. At one point the capital itself was seized by mutinying slaves- Livy has a wonderful description of the chaos of that night. Furthermore the tribunes told the Commons not to serve with the army whilst the consuls attempted to conscript them. Only when the forces of Tusculum marched on Rome, aided by the consul, were the slaves evicted and the capital retaken. The incident was merely the culmination of a period of social disunity leading on from the arrest of Caeso, Cincinnatus's son, and his flight. This was a key episode in Livy's history- because it brings out the arguments that Plebeians and Patricians made about the state, arguments that in my view were structurally forced on them and arguments which to a large extent explain the nature of Livy's Republicanism.

The point here is to remember the original political dynamic of Roman life. The Roman soldier was invincible because of his commander but his commander was impotent without the soldier behind him. For the senate, the threat was always the ultimate one of leading armies to glory elsewhere- Coriolanus comes to mind- for the people it was always the threat to withdraw their labour as soldiers. So the constant themes of exile for aristocrats and resistance to conscription from the people are not accidental, but come back to the structure of Roman military life and ultimately to the Roman state's raison d'etre, its fighting forces. This point leads onto another- it leads to the crises of Roman life often being crises about the recruitment of armies just before a military expedition. At this point, especially after a period of social strife, the people were temporarily in a position of power visa vis their richer neighbours but they were also in a position of great danger- with all the disadvantages of war to be concerned about.

We can see how this affected the arguments of both sides, as presented by Livy, when we look at the years leading up to Cincinnatus's consulship and his speech on assuming that office. When the capital was seized by the slaves, the tribunes, according to Livy, 'were so blinded with passion that they insisted the seizure of the Capital was a mere piece of play acting got up to divert the attention of the commons' from political questions. (III 16). The tribune's argument had to be that Rome was not threatened- as soon as Rome became threatened, the people united behind the senate and were subject to military discipline. The tribunes suspected that the entire device of emergency was a mere device- it was a trick, a ploy to hold off political argument for a while.

On the other side, the patricians saw this as a rebellion against the whole idea of Rome. Cincinnatus in his speech reflects on the tribune's claims and dismisses them in the name of Roman unity. He declaimed to the people 'I ask the tribunes- is this what you call helping the people- to deliver them, helpless and unarmed, into the enemy's hands to have their throats cut?' and accuses them of attempting to create a 'state within a state'. The suggestion is important- what Cincinnatus is doing here is finessing the quarrel- in that the tribunes believed the state was being run in the private interests of the few- but doing so in a way that identifies his own party with that of Rome, in a sense that the tribunes who refused to fight for Rome could not. Ideologically the tribunes are calling for the poor to assert their rights, Cincinnatus is arguing for the poor to recognise that Rome's right is higher than theirs. This call disarms the tribunes effectively because it takes away the weapon of refusing conscription.

But it is incredibly powerful- particularly for Livy. Livy calls Cincinnatus a great man later, but he also at the time calls the tribunes insurrectionaries (III 18). He is a historian after all of Rome- and ultimately the argument for the entity of Rome is made by Cincinnatus and not the tribunes- the argument of the senate carries more conviction with a historian or a poet (think of Virgil) whose unit of analysis is the mystical entity of a nation state. Analysed from the perspective of a plebeian who wanted land- the original dispute here was about land- the virtue of the mystical entity as opposed to a crust of bread may not be so obvious- but for Livy the populace lack the attachment to Rome that, as we have seen, in his eyes is a mark of civility. Political community or polis is separated from the Aequi and Volsci by the love of its citizens for their community: Patriotism in this sense is not merely a virtue but a marker of civility. As the patrician argument against the plebeians is a patriotic one and Livy's history is by its nature patriotic too, it is no surprise to find him admiring the virtues of a patrician partisan like Cincinnatus and despising the rebellious tribunes.

Livy's Cincinnatus

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus is one of the archetypes of the Roman republic, summoned from his farm, he led the armies of Rome into battle, won and then resigned his power. That is the figure that has come down to us but it is not, crucially the figure that Livy handed to his successors. Cincinnatus is a much more complicated and interesting figure in Livy- still according to Livy great- but much more interesting than the figure we have. Our figure is a democratic one at its roots- the citizen who can command as well as the highest politician- Livy's argument is not democratic but aristocratic- he uses the story to exalt nobility and to question the values of his own society. His argument is directed against fortune not against the conception of native virtue.

Understanding Cincinnatus means understanding his career- without that understanding you cannot see what Livy wants us to take from the story he tells. Cincinnatus comes to the fore in Livy's history when his son Caeso was prosecuted by the tribunes for his allegiance to the patrician party in the senate and his violent hatred of the people outside it. Caeso fled Rome to Tusculum and though he may have fought for Rome afterwards, he was in disgrace. Upon his flight, his father Cincinnatus lost his entire estate and 'found a deserted hovel across the river and lived there like a banished man' (III 14). The old senator though did not retire from politics but returned to its frontline when he was elected consul along with Appius Claudius (II). LIvy tells us that he was a controversial choice for Consul: he "began his period of office with a series of speeches in which his castigation of the senate was even more vehement than his attempts to repress the commons". (III 19) He castigated the senate for their weakness, their 'feebleness' (III 19). Cincinnatus's arguments on this occasion against the tribunes are fascinating and I will deal with them at another point, but Livy wants to establish him as a character, curmudgeonly but principled. It is noteworthy that when the Romans join his army, Livy comments that 'authority, both religious and secular, was still a guide to conduct and there was as yet no sign of our modern scepticism which interprets solemn compacts, such as are embodied in an oath or a law, to suit its own convenience' (III 20). Cincinnatus's army marches under ancient virtue and one might see his entire consulship in that manner. Cincinnatus himself embodies the same principle- offered the consulship a second time- indeed forced onto the ballot, he rigged it so that he received no votes (III 21)

I wanted to make that point because it allows us to set the famous incident of Cincinnatus's dictatorship in context. Cincinnatus was not an innocent farmer but a highly partisan political leader- a hammer of the plebs we might say- and a punctilious man for legal precedent and obligation. When Livy tells the story of his dictatorship- that the consuls were defeated and that Cincinnatus was called from his farm to lead Rome's armies and led them to a stunning victory in only fifteen days- we are not to read that as a supplication to the successful spirit of Rome, but rather as an injunction to nobility. (III 26) When Livy says that he wants the 'particular attention of those numerous people who imagine that money is everything in this world' he does not want to tell them that everyone is equal, rather his argument is that money means nothing besides nobility and morality. That the ancient virtues of the Roman patrician will outpace the modern ones of the Roman businessman- this is an argument, familiar to any serious analyst of the enlightenment, about the virtues of aristocracy and commerce. It is significant that Cincinnatus appoints Lucius Tarquitius his master of horse- poor but the best soldier in Rome- the point is being made again in case you didn't get it, that wealth and virtue are not the same (III 27). We have to understand this in the story of Cincinnatus because it is the hinge upon which Livy's history turns- and what we need to see in it is a critique of the contemporary senate that Livy lived with: they could not do this because they have turned from the soil and the sword to luxury and commerce.

And Cincinnatus himself provides the ultimate definition of this himself: he derides the consul Municius sternly,

Until, Lucius Muicius, you learn to behave like a consul and commander, you will act as my lieutenant and take your instructions from me (III 29)

Cincinnatus's point is Livy's: forget money, the real determinant of the ability to command is ancient nobility and stern disciplined morality. The two run together and Livy is using the character of Cincinnatus to provide to modern times an example- a model- to behave like. This is a portrait with a contemporary relevance- Livy is speaking directly to the Augustan senators of Rome- Cincinnatus's words for Municius are meant to come down the century as an injunction to senators who lived hundreds of years later, and to make them reflect on the moral decline that has slain the Republic and left an Empire in its place.

Rome and her surroundings

Attacks on Rome during its first century of Republicanism came through the peoples of the hills- the Aequians and Volscians. An uneasy peace with Veii endured, an alliance with the Latins stabilised that territory but it was the people of the hilly valleys around Latium that caused Rome problems. In 463BC, the two tribes came down from the hills and marched on Rome and her allies. Rome was unable to aid the Hernici in Latium (III 5). She was unable to send troops because in an 'unhealthy season', Roman farmers had fled the invasions and 'disease was increased' says Livy 'by overcrowding'. (III 5). Livy paints a terrifying picture of the interior of Rome at this point

The smell of this motley collection of animals and men was distressing to city folk, who were not accustomed to it; the farmers and yokels, packed as they were into inadequate quarters, suffered no less from heat and lack of sleep, while attendance upon the sick, or mere contact of any time, continually spread the infection. (III 5)

The image here is important- and echoes that of Thucydides about the Athenian plague- but it merely is part of the situation rather than part of Livy's argument. The plague is part of what Livy describes as a situation announced by portents (III 5), in which all Rome had to depend on was 'her tutelary Gods' and 'her fortune' (III 6).

Rather than the situation, what Livy is interested in is Rome's response to the situation. Firstly her senators and all the able bodied men did not abandon Rome to her fate. Plebeian Aediles patrolled the streets (normally a task reserved Livy says for the consuls- both of whom were dying) and young senators guarded the gates. The community came together and came together in the service of the city. (III 6) Furthermore Livy comments that Romans went straight to their Gods to seek help:

The Senate, despairing of human aid, turned to the people and their prayers, bidding them go with their wives and children and supplicate heaven for a remission of their sorrows. It was an official command, but no more than each was impelled to do by his own distress: every shrine was packed; in every temple women lay prostrate, their hair sweeping the floor, praying the angry Gods to grant them pardon and to put an end to the plague (III 7)

As Livy noted it seemed the Gods recognised their prayers (III 7) and the raiding forces withdrew. Livy's moral Romans triumphed in that sense- in their moment of weakness the enemy spontaneously withdrew and their allies came into fight for Rome. Rome was saved therefore possibly by its virtue.

But it was also saved by the vice of its enemies. Livy wants us to see that if the Romans were steadfast and virtuous, then their enemies were not. The Aequi were mere theives and not soldiers (III 6). However Livy implies a sociological point as well as a moral one- we have seen the Romans taking pride in their city and defending it. Let us look for a moment at the Aequi, people of the hills without a city, and the way that Livy describes their progress on Rome.

They were very far, as it turned out, from hoping to capture, or even to get within striking distance of, the city; the mere sight from far away of its hills and houses so effectively extinguished their martial ardour, that with one accord they began to grumble about wasting their time amongst the rotten carcasses of men and cattle in a stricken desert where nothing was to be found worth taking, while they might just as well be turning their attention to the rich and wholesome lands of Tusculum

The Aequi and Volsci lacked the strategical longterm sense of the Romans- they lacked the ability to stand steadfast to their objective but rather strived after short term objectives. Whereas the Romans were soldiers, the Aequi and Volsci were 'theives'. (III 6) I think what Livy gets here particularly, as ever, is the effect of the sights as they approach Rome on the Aequi and Volsci. Whereas the sights in Rome stirred men and women to devotion and to hopeless fidelity to their cause; the Aequi see the hills of Rome and are terrified by their history, they see the carcasses and think to move to Tusculum. It is an indication of the moral and strategical difference in Livy's view between the folk of the hills and city dwellers, the former are feckless, wild, animalistic and undisciplined, the latter are determined, devout and desperate to defend their homes. It is a distinction that we shall come back to, but it is crucial to understand, if we are to understand why Livy believed that Rome survived and eventually conquered these hill folk.

Livy's case is partly that Rome was morally superior and partly that its population were strategically sounder- more determined- the two things run together and for Livy cannot be separated. Both meant that Rome survived the attack of the Aequi- she was saved by her character, as much as their folly in not conquering her was a result of their character. To use a Machiavellian word, and its no surprise that Machiavelli read Livy attentively, the virtu of the people, dependent on the way that they lived, deterimined their future.

Melvyn Bragg

Lord Bragg is an arts journalist and a novel writer of some distinction. He presents what I think is the best program on any Radio or Television station in the world- In our Time where three academics gather with him to discuss a historical, scientific or cultural issue- from the library of Nineveh to Poincare's conjecture. The next series of In Our Time has just started- and I would reccomend it to anyone interested in the issues that this blog raises. Bragg has just done an interview with Mark Lawson- I think it is really interesting. Partly because Bragg describes his feelings about his father's return from the second world war- he describes a world essentially where he had his mother to himself and his father's return disturbed his world. Then he moves on to discussing equally interesting his own struggle with depression and his work with TV and radio- it is really interesting as a vision of late century Britain, from an intelligent person who cares a lot about his world and also about the future- he spends a lot of time saying that his world is not more exciting than the world that twenty year olds like me do, but different. That is a key insight into the way the past is- often not better or worse but different.

What Livy knew

Livy we have already seen had a historical method- he was to some extent a professional historian as far as we can tell. It is worth us trying to understand what Livy's approach to history consisted of. History in the ancient world was often a matter of observation- contemporary history being favoured over what we might call history today- the understanding of events long finished with. Livy of course studied our kind of history and therefore had to understand events in the far distant past. We have seen that Livy used conjectural history as a tool to understand events of the past but it is worth thinking about what else he did in order to form his narratives.

Livy relied as well on the accounts of previous Roman historians. The probability is that they themselves relied upon Roman family and public records, histories from the Greek colonies in the south of Italy and their own predecessors as Roman historians. Occasionally Livy names these predecessors- most of whose work is now lost to us- and therefore allows us to ascertain what his approach to them was. Take for example this passage from Book 3 concerning the campaign against the Aequians who had raided Rome:

In describing events so distant in time, it is difficult to make a precise or trustworthy estimate of the size of the forces engaged or the number of casualties: none the less Valerius of Antium does venture to do so; according to his account Roman losses in the territory of the Hernici amounted to 5,200 killed and those of the Aequian raiders in their engagement with Postumius to 2,400, the rest of them, who fell into Quinctius's trap as they were on their way home with their plunder fared worse, losing no fewer (as Valerius says with punctilious exactitude than 4,230 men (III 5)

There are a couple of things to note here- firstly that Livy was aware of the problem of talking in detail about events in the distant past. Secondly that he used his sources with scepticism- we are warned twice about the accuracy of Valerius of Antium's estimate- firstly in the overall warning about estimates and secondly in the language "none the less", "punctilious exactitude" with which Livy describes Valerius's estimate. Livy's own historical technique appears sceptical of the details of previous approaches- in this case exactly in the way that a modern historian would be. Livy like a modern historian understands that too much detail gives a hint of plausibility but also suggests an elaboration precisely because it is punctiliously exact.

We cannot deny that Livy did not use his sources the way a modern historian would- but we have to understand why. Firstly he did not have access to archaeology and the ability of historians today to reconstruct say the life of Etruscan Rome from the buried remnants of its ancient inhabitants. Secondly he believed that people in general behaved similarly in different epochs- not for Livy the conception of changing worlds of ideas- for him the lessons of ancient Rome were fully applicable in modern Rome but the opposite was also true: the social conflict of the 5th Century BC might be reconstituted from the social conflicts of the 1st Century BC. Livy has his limits in our eyes as a historian- but we ought to also acknowledge his strengths- he was not completely credulous about his sources. They may have vanished but we can see here his scepticism- he also was aware that there were limitations on his knowledge of the darkest corners of Roman history.

A model of certainty

Appius Claudius (I) died "a great man" and thousands attended his funeral. (Livy 2.62) However as Livy makes clear this great man was unable to either solve the social crisis or lead Rome's armies into battle against the Volscians coming down from the hills. Appius's failure should interest us because he represents an archetype, that Livy feels, was unable to cope with Republican politics. Appius was brave and principled- several times Livy shows him standing up to the plebeians, rebuking them to their face and even attempting to arrest their spokesmen: at one point his colleague (Titus Quinctius) in the consulship had to rescue him from the crowd in the forum and the senate convened to calm their colleague down and make sure that he did not risk death through his impetuous hatred of the commons (2.57). As this suggests, Livy's view of Appius is not entirely without nuance- a great man may not be a successful man.

Perhaps this is demonstrated most by Livy's account of Appius's military career. Livy tells us that with appealing symmetry the two consuls were given command of two campaigns- Appius against the Volscians and Titus against the Aequeians. Livy then provides us with parallel and contrasting accounts of their campaign's successes. Appius took his 'savage' temperament to the battlefield- the response of his men was that they grew 'drunk on insubordination' and 'actively desired defeat'. (2.58) After they had been defeated, Livy provides an example of Appius's cruelty- he marched them back into Roman territory and had every man who had betrayed his post, whose unit had fled, who had lost his equipment or his standard, flogged and then beheaded. The rest were decimated (i.e. one in every ten, chosen by lot, was executed). As a contrast Livy develops an account of Quinctius's campaign where 'the consul and his men vied with one another in goodwill on one side and generous consideration on the other' (2.60). On their return to Rome, Quinctius's men summed up the distinction by telling their friends that the senate had given one army a tyrant and the other a father (2.60).

Livy here is directing us to the conclusions that we ought to draw about politics from this episode. Appius's greatness is the root cause of his inability to command, his principles lead him to be unable to compromise with the outside world. As David Runciman at Cambridge might put it: Appius is the most dangerous kind of hypocrite. The man who believes in his own belief so much that he does not recognise that it is his own belief, rather than a societal good. Appius definitely saw no need to recognise the political game of persuasion- his political career was about confrontation and a refusal to care for the beliefs of others. At some points this leads to amazing courage, during his trial and just before his death, Appius stood as a martyr to the cause of senatorial glory. That steadfastness terrified his foes- and they refused to continue the trial, adjourning it indefinitely (2.62). It is what we might call greatness- but it is married to an inability to see other people's point of view when it is right and good to do so. Basically Appius was not a politician- he was a martyr and the garb of a martyr suited him, but in Rome he almost caused a riot and in the field, his inflexible hatred of his own men and their desires caused mutiny, defeat and savagery.

Livy's point is an interesting one- it anchors him as a historian, a student of the changing human nature that can never be fully accommodated in a political system and determines the course of events as much as the general political and ideological framework does. But Livy also here offers us counsel about what kinds of personality thrive in which situations. Appius was a hypocrite of a particular sort- if he was not a fool. The hypocrisy of Appius was the hypocrisy of the martyr, of the great man, but what that great man or martyr was incapable of doing was controlling armies and being a Republican politician, he was capable of impressing even his opponents with his bravery. The example of Appius is interesting- the chances are that Livy's portrait is not historical but derives from scandalous rumour created centuries afterwards about the Claudian family, but what Livy here is doing is deriving out of his created history, principles to understand political nature. Here he does so by observing the way that situation and character can come together- at points a disposition can be useful, at points it cannot. The personality, Livy reminds us, is political- and in order to evaluate politicians, it is necessary to evaluate their strengths of personality.

Appius was able to stand steadfast to his principles in moments of great danger- but unable to understand that compromise, that negotiation are needed when commanding an army or speaking in the forum.

Prosecuting in Democracy

We have seen that Livy believed that tyranny and democracy approached each other in the figure of the demagogue. We have yet to see what the consequences of that for the ordinary citizen- we have seen passion dominating politics in the persona of Tarquin and we have already seen a tyrant refuse to punish a relative for his sin. But what we have yet to see is the wrath of the mob turn on the individual- what we have yet to see is the untrammelled power of the prosecuting wrath of the demagogue, the tyrant- what we have not yet seen is the darkness at the heart of democracy. The creation of the Tribunes of the Plebs brings this aspect of demagoguery (so Livy tells us) to the fore and with a particular ancient tinge.

Titus Menenius was prosecuted for losing his position on the Cremera, Spurius Servilius of failure to command on the Janiculum. (Livy's account is in 2.51, it is worth remembering that while the verdict may be true the record of the trial is definitely Livy's invention: for our purposes analysing Livy's thoughts about the state, this does not matter, but its worth remembering that when I use the past tense here, I am not implying that these things definitely happened). The point of both these prosecutions was to exploit a consequence of the world of the citizen soldier. When military matters as in modern society are divorced from politics, generals are seldom exposed to popular anger: the perceived mishandling of Iraq has not been blamed on Ricardo Sanchez or Tommy Franks but on George Bush- when a conscript army is created then the general's art becomes a matter not merely of public concern but of public policy. This is even truer in a society in which there is no distinction between the military and political roles- we shall find plenty of evidence later in Livy to suggest that this unity of politics and strategy is not neccessarily prudent- but the point here is that in the ancient world the success of a general was seen as a matter of political concern.

When Menenius and Servilius were prosecuted, they were brought to court on the instigation of the tribunes. Considius and Genucius brought Menenius to trial, Caedicius and Statius brought Servilius to the bar. The interest for Livy lies in the fates of the two men and in the way that illustrates the pernicious effects of democratic power and the ways that character influences the viccissitudes of politics. Menenius was bullied and endured a 'bitter humiliation' which resulted in a swift and fatal illness. His death, despite the attempts to intercede of the senate, became a cause for Servilius at his trial. He poured 'anger and contempt' upon the tribunes and the people who had forced Menenius to his 'savage death'. Livy comments that Servilius was saved by his courage and by the fact that Menenius had died. The differing fates of the men reflected that one was prosecuted first and also by their different reactions to the trial: the first reacting by defending himself and therefore seeming more guilty, the second by attacking his accusers and thereby giving the appearance of innocence- its a tactic that politicians even today use well.

But what it illustrates is the way that the mob can force in its wrath, led by tribunes of the people, a man to suicide. The point Livy wants to make is that the judgement of the mob is essentially irrational- the results of these trials were in Livy's view decided by events that had nothing to do with the fact of the matter before the court. It was the carriage of the condemned and the temperature of the times- not guilt and innocence which governed the result. The trials were carried out in an atmosphere of public hysteria, as the tribunes brought out proposals for land reform, and in the aftermath of a war. Failure to fight well was a crime against fellow citizens, furthermore it meant the destruction of a political career: Livy shows how accusations of failures of strategy could devastate careers. Though the substance of the accusations might change, his essential point is about the feeling of the mob- democracy for him cannot be true because like the tyrant a democracy can lead, for Livy, to a show trial where innocence is no defence.