I want to thank Francis P. Gavin for his participation in this discussion on
Greek contributions to the development of democracy. He makes many
outstanding points.   I find myself in agreement with many of them.


>>Grabbing the gold and running off to join the Persians was
>>common practice at that time. Amongst those inarguably argumentative
>>Greeks.

I agree, and deplore such acts of betrayal.  (Would Pound have been among
them, railing against democratically elected leaders, praising the
leadership of the ONE MAN, Xerxes-- just as he "ran off to join" the Italian
fascist movement?)


>Take another look at your beloved Alcibiades. As for that wonderful
> >democracy that was ruled by 500 of its leading citizens, let's talk about
> >how they put 20,000 people, the inhabitants of Delos--men, women and
> >children to the sword on a single day for refusing to join in an alliance
>with >them. Let us talk about their disastrous attempts at trying to bring
>Sicily >under their control.

Agreed.  There is nothing praiseworthy in such acts.  My point, however, is
that by reading Plutarch's Lives of Alcibiades and his accounts of other
figures who lived in democracies (and by reading Livy ---- would you care to
comment on Livy, because I have mentioned him several times without anyone
replying---), and by reading Aristotle's History of the Athenian
Constitution, and  most especially BY READING BETWEEN THE LINES, one can
learn a great deal about democracy and how it should (and should NOT) be
practiced.   Can you get that by reading a biography of Hadrian?  Pound
admires Hadrian, Trajan, and Antoninus more than he admires any
"argumentative greek, " or any democratic greek (or repubican Roman for that
matter).  How do you evaluate and respond to this aspect of his work?


>Plutarch: you are of course talking about a Romanized Greek living under
>the benefices of an empire at the peak of its power and enlightenment.
> >Since he
lived over half a millennium after the fact, his analogues on the nature of
>Classical Greek personalities with more recent Roman figures is based
>largely
>on secondary sources.

Agreed.  Plutarch's work has all the shortcomings which are implied by your
comment.  If one is interested in the BEST  and most SYMPATHETIC accounts of
Greek and Roman Republican political figures, what would you recommend?  In
the past, my interest in Plutarch was sparked by the perception that he
fueled the highest ideals of many of the greatest French and American
revolutionaries.   I am open to suggestions in this area.

>Your tyrannicide, Marcus Junius Brutus, was, after the death of Crassus,
>the
>leading loan shark in Rome. For a good idea of how he dealt with defaulters
>check out Cicero's account of his treatment of Scaptius and the
>Salaminians.

So i take it you admire Cicero.  Would you cite him as an admirable figure
in Roman Senatorial politics?  I get an idea of what you disaprove in your
remarks, but I would like a clearer idea of what you approve of.  Pound
could care less about, I think, about Cicero or Cato, because democracy and
republican institutions are useless to him.


>He was a corporate entity, a leading member of an elitist power-hungry
oligarchy who looked upon Rome as their private fiefdom. The civil wars they
>created in their constant quest for maintaining exclusivity created in its
>turn, the need for a Caesar.

The NEED for a Caesar???  Are you serious?  Pardon the outburst, but I do
have strong feelings on this issue.

Pound sides with Authoritarians and with Imperialism.  He talks about the
need of Confucius and the need for Mussolini.  You just criticized the Greek
ultimatum to Delos (and rightly, I think).  But do you support Julius
Caesar, inspite of his use of war spoils to bribe and undermine the Senate
on a scale which Brutus could not match?  Do you support Caesar inspite of
his contempt for 500 years of Republican Rule? (Of course Sulla and others
helped pave the way).  Putting the Empire to one side, don't you think the
500 years of the Roman Republican are more worthy of study than the lives of
Latin dictators?  Pound does not think so, and that way, he is probably only
slightly worse than the average modern Latin scholar.


>And amid all this, with talk of Aristotle, I note that you give short
>shrift
>to Plato--whose idea of a republic makes anything Kung-tzu supposedly >said
>look positively anarchic in comparison.

Short shrift, yes.  I deliberately exclude him.  His "Republic" is not
worthy of the name, and no place in any discussion of democracy.  We can
agree on that I think.  Carroll Cox has already said a great deal on this
subject, and I share his opinion on the subject.

>But I also note that you blindly
>romanticize your pantheon--Buddhism, Taoism, Classical Greece

I have no problem in admitting that I strongly prefer Buddhists who
advocated restraint and tolerance to those Chinese Emperors who smashed
their temples and put them to death.  I prefer Taoists who opposed imperial
expansion to the Chinese Emperors (praised by Pound), who slaughtered the
subject races for the sake of extending their power (in fact, I would think
you might agree with me here, in light of your comment on Alicibiades and
Delos).  I believe studying the IDEALS of Greek democracy is more valuable
than studying Vespasian's moralism.  Feel free to criticize my stance, of
course.  But what would you put forward in the way of political philosophy
and social exemplars?  What IDEALS and PRACTICES do YOU admire?

Regards,

Wei

PS  A brief note on a comment by Charles Moyer.

He wrote:  "Paul of Tarsus surely saw how he could rewrite an emberous
Judaic tradition by clamping on to Greek coattails, there being also not
just a little Platonism in Augustine."  I concure completely.  Maybe we
would agree that the survival of some of Pelagius' thought would have been
highly salutary.



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