Re: Boris Johnson - Pericles or Alcibiades?

Thanks, Mark

Dan

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 27, 2019, at 6:02 AM, Mark Davidson <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Apparently Boris Johnson's great hero is Pericles. Simon Jenkins argues
> that Alcibiades would be more appropriate:
> 
> "Johnson’s real model is not Pericles but his ward and brief successor as
> Athenian leader, Alcibiades. A talented, handsome and vain playboy, he
> could never kick the vices of his youth or rise to the tasks later
> entrusted to him. His political loyalties were as unpredictable as his sex
> drive, the latter embracing both his teacher Socrates and his putative
> stepmother, Aspasia. When Athens tired of him, he defected to its enemy,
> Sparta.
> 
> "He then defected to Sparta’s enemy Persia, and when this gambit ran its
> course Alcibiades relied on charm, guile and “a silken tongue” to return to
> Athens, where the mob welcomed his relentless optimism. “Strike first to
> avert attack,” was his motto. He duly led the Athenians to military defeat
> and eventual ruin. In exile he was soon murdered, either by his political
> enemies or by relatives of a girl he had just seduced."
> 
> https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2019%2Fjul%2F27%2Fboris-johnson-no-10-pericles-greek-hero&amp;data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40lsv.uky.edu%7Cfaa3baf9afb04a04312208d71292f9f2%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C636998294777545286&amp;sdata=%2BSzj7F837gb3C1THnmZFE0D%2BkolrXtvDFY%2B%2BUYLt7pE%3D&amp;reserved=0
> 
> 
> At one time I had a reasonably positive view of Johnson, but that changed
> some years ago, and now my opinion of him couldn't be lower.
> 
> His cabinet of hard-right extremists says it all.
> 
> Underneath his pleasant public persona, Johnson is cold, arrogant, amoral,
> devious, utterly self-centred, and incompetent. He bears grudges for many
> years, and pays them back. It seems that the people who know him best are
> those who like him least.
> 
> "He is a far more ruthless, and frankly nastier, figure than the public
> appreciates."
> — Max Hastings
> 
> Mark D.