Sphinx

There are times when – if I was completely confident that he is human, rather than a papier-maché marionette enchanted with a spirit of pure ambition and entitlement – I could almost feel sorry for Boris Johnson. How to answer questions about one’s self, when either it doesn’t exist or it has been firmly suppressed in favour of an attention-seeking public persona? Brexit? Easy: optimism, boldness, do or die, codswallop, no surrender, blah blah. Domestic policy? Tax cuts and infrastructure investment for everyone! Private life? That should remain private, so there. Okay, which figure from history would you like to be…?

It looks like an easy lob – like the question on hobbies – but there are so many potential pitfalls. Churchill is too obvious, perhaps even too reminiscent of the pre-statesmanlike Johnson, and everyone is already primed with the predictable retorts. Thatcher would go down a storm with party members, but alienate all the wavering liberals and young people that the Johnson magic is supposed to win back, and anyway not historical enough. Someone classical, then – safely insulated from contemporary problems, fits the persona and has gravitas. Caesar, Alexander – but they weren’t really about the politics, were they? Monarchy and dictatorship maybe not such a good look…*

Aha, Pericles! Claim the mantle of democracy! Back to the true roots of that “politics is about the many not the few” line that people liked with Corbyn! (Is that the exact quote? No matter) Great oratory! (That’s so me) Infrastructure projects! (Hold on, elaborate temple not quite the HS2 analogy I was looking for…) Piraeus! (Or was that Themistocles? Well, who’s going to check..?) Um… (Oh, dodgy private life, unnecessary war…) Um…

Obviously if the plan is to introduce nativist restrictions on citizenship rights, then retreat into a bunker and die of plague, we’re right on track. This does raise the question of why one should heroise Pericles at all, other than buying into the anti-democratic argument that Athens worked best when the assembly did what it was told while thinking that it was in control (Thucydides’ “rule of the first man in what was called a democracy”). Which again might not be the ideal image…

The oft-cited Funeral Oration offers a vision of an apparently open, liberal society that has attracted many, and a model for the role of the citizen (eagerly self-sacrificing) that has attracted many in power – but Pericles mostly gets credit for articulating this, rather than creating it. I start to wonder whether the modern heroisation of Pericles – he certainly wasn’t seen in unequivocally positive terms in antiquity – is partly or largely a product of the belief that the incomparable Thucydides was a fan, so there must be something in it.

Now, the obvious point is that any ancient (or modern) figure would raise such problems – the point about exemplary figures, underpinning ancient biographies like those of Plutarch, is not that they ever offer unequivocally positive models for slavish imitation, but that their careers present examples of actions and decisions that are worth thinking about. An honest explanation of why X is a political hero and why you’d want to be them will always, entirely reasonably, need to be hedged with qualifications; despite A, they achieved B and stood for C.

The problem for any contemporary politician is that questions about political heroes isn’t necessarily asking for an honest answer, but for the naming of a totemic figure whose values, virtues, flaws and failures will all then be taken as reflections of the politician in question. Whoever they name, something negative will be identified in the career of the historical figure, and held against them, as if by naming this ‘hero’ they were deliberately affirming every single act and aspect.

Which is of course what I’m doing in pointing out the aspects of Pericles’ career that make him a less than suitable model for a modern politician. I would feel more ucomfortable about this if I was more convinced by Johnson’s espousement of Pericles – if it felt more like an honest answer (in the way that Alexander would have felt like an honest answer) rather than an attempt at not giving a wrong answer. The reasons given for wanting to be Pericles feel like attempts at pushing buttons (anti-elitism! infrastructure investment!) with only a loose connection to a genuine, rounded view of his career and significance or a genuine desire to imagine oneself in that role.

I’m not sure there is a way of not answering such a question badly or problematically – I just wish that Johnson hadn’t picked a classical figure…

*I still think we were lucky to escape Alexander, not least because of the opportunities presented by the Gordian Knot anecdote as a means of characterising a bold, decisive approach to Brexit. Actually, since I have to teach on Alexander next year, further evidence of why hero-worshipping him is a sign of moral failure and poor character might not have been such a bad thing…