Undivided past. Joining us on the tv is politics professor at princeton. Shes written a new book called the birth of politics eight greek and roman ideas and why they matter today. Professor were the greeks and romans successful politicians . They were. They managed in different cities date to develop the worlds first democracy and they that they produced works of art and literature great works of architecture and Political Institutions into voting for example which remains fundamental and the romans of course were for 500 years and in the empire for another 500 said depending on the nature of success they have a lot to offer. But for some of the similarities between the two clicks that is an interesting question. They emphasized the role of the election for the people studying the terms of legitimacy so thats true in the greek democracies and the Roman Republic so for example no law could be passed without the assemblies we think about the eu meet in rome in the senate for example but they couldnt pass the law. They could manage the budget but if they wanted to pass a law they had to go to the people and its interesting that the idea that people fundamentally are responsible for setting up the terms of legitimacy continue so they got the people that claimed to each new emperor so that idea then gets into the modern political side and becomes an important underpinning for the sovereignty. Who are some of the leaders of ex if we think about athens one of the interesting things that emerge is in the speeches so one of the most important figures in its history is the lawgivers. It would become a Democratic Path at the beginning of the sixth century and at the period he established the principle of justice but the rich and the poor but there was a kind of period where they got the upper hand and became tyrants. At first they were not tyrants in the bad sense they might be good to the ordinary people but by the end they did become quite corrupt and it is in about 5 10 that they are overthrown and they start to take the real turn towards becoming a democracy under crisis and then later in the next century others. Who had more authority is at the greek was at the greek people or the roman people . In many ways, the people in the sense of the popular ordinary poor people have the greatest authority more than the poor dead in rome and they played key roles for the court system so they were stuffed by the jury is as well as 500 people and there were no professional judges so they didnt have the vision between what he did and that the law and the facts. People would just decide what they thought the law required and so that was an incredible source of power and i mentioned that they were responsible for lawmaking and they staffed a lot of what we think of as a Civil Service so they wouldve ordinary bureaucratic functions establishing the measures. Those were staffed by ordinary people put into positions by lottery but one of the things i argue that sometimes they exaggerate that still. So there was no division between rich and poor and that is an overstatement. The athenians had a political role but they could hold them accountable and it is to hold them accountable for the great power. One of the things you talk about in your book or some of the things modern politics as he arrived from the greek and romans and one of the things is a virtue. What do you mean by that . Scenic its the idea that also for excellence, being good at what you do. So he we can see this has a virtue of cutting raw, thats what it is to be a nice. Are there certain things that as human beings we need to do well just has a nice needs to cut 12 and that those are the terms in which they thought about politics. So in a way there was a longstanding agreement coming back and also they do were things like was done in the courage, justice. But in the classical age so we have been writing, the big debate was in particular what about the issue of justice. Is that a virtue words that a kind of illusion is that something good for us as humans and individuals to be just or is that something we have been suckered into doing by the political rulers and a lot of the philosophers i write about in the book are debating that question. I teach political theory and the department of politics and also an associated faculty member so i teach courses on agent did it and chant into greece and rome as political models and also courses on knowledge and politics and science and democracy that takes me further but one of the interesting things is davis him day for some but insisted that knowledge and expertise should be central. When you talk about the political growth. A come of what ages, what ages are we talking about . Spinnaker they are acting at about 510 bc which is the end of the sixth century. It goes the other way. They are writing in the three hundreds, so more or less it comes to an end after alexander the great. Theres a few skirmishes in the aftermath that essentially when i write about the period at the same time you have the rise of rome so the Roman Republic established and 510 and the emergence of the essentially it is extinguished that the battle is about 20, 25 years before the birth of christ enddoublequote about the early centuries of the roman empire. Another one of the ideas according to the professor is cosmopolitanism. For the greeks, politics is something that took place in that city state and what happens in this period you start to get them based in other parts of the mediterranean people start to think about politics even in principle to extend beyond a particular city wall so this becomes the notion of the first use of the term i am a citizen of the cosmos as opposed to a citizen of athens and data developed into an ethical idea that maybe one can live according to a set of universal values and balls that are not bounded geographically and i think that is the origin of our ideas of the cosmopolitan ethics. To declare that you are a cosmopolitan. He banned it in a kind of inyourface rejecting way. So he often had sex in public and he didnt abide by any of the conventions of clothing more money that ordinary people would follow. And according to him political boundaries were just another set but he rejected that later philosophers take up that idea and they make it something more seemly marriage doesnt have to do with rejecting these other boundaries that was having our allegiances in wider circles so we might start saying i offer an allegiance to my own body and self and family into town. What about plato and socrates think about the democracy . W. Is that its hard to imagine a democracy that can take scientific expertise or knowledge seriously enough. In a democracy the problem is people think they are equal and that means a think their opinion is just as good as everybody else about anything and so that makes it hard to respect what we would call scientific knowledge and that this is something that tocqueville saw. And i think the jury is out. It is a question of whether democracy can manage to take the sufficient account of scientific threats and understandings and respond adequately so we need to take the challenge and kind of reflect on what are the resources that democracy has. What about socrates . We know about his ideas in the writings but what he did in his life is raised a similar kind of challenge that to the individuals who in his society more people were concerned with pursuing power and wealth. He challenged them as individuals to say what is the value of what you are pursuing, dont they end up undoing themselves and what do you want the world for which is the end to which wealth is the means and so he really challenges people to see that again the virtue might be logically the more fundamental thing they need to value and care about living an ethical life more fundamentally than pursuing power and wealth. That is a taste of the birth of politics eight greek and roman political ideas and why they matter. Theres the cover. Youve been watching book tv on cspan2 from princeton university. Is there an author or book you would like to see featured . The rarely see politicians on the left that have contributed to this impact you see them as champions. But at the time the congress was charging full steam ahead with this law and order approach, then the senator joe biden hoped them along. Some of you are old enough to remember the ad. Everybody looked at that handset and said that is so incredibly racially charged. Its a scare tactic and a very subtle way and thats pretty much to take on the take on that ad but the fact is in 1988 joe biden got on that boat and picked up the same thing and said it is to lock him up in jail. If you heard what he did everybody would want to lock him up but this might have been an opportunity to sort of stem the tide to offer some balance to mitigate this push by offering the other side. There are other ways. What i find really troubling is a 1994 when congress was putting in place what bill clinton called the toughest and smartest crime law ever enacted in the history of the country to Racial Justice advocates that i showed you before but they wanted to do as clinton was expanding the Death Penalty to dozens more they wanted to include a Racial Justice measure and it would have said okay for those who are in states where there are statistical disparities and capital sentencing but allow the defendants in those cases to present that as evidence independent prosecutors would have to rebut that and show that there are nonracial influences just a way of helping to mitigate this