Should London be flattered or worried? The man who would be the next MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip says the city of which he is currently mayor is carrying the mantle of Periclean Athens into the 21st century.
London stands for freedom, openness and tolerance as Athens did 2,500 years ago, says Boris Johnson. In fact, of course, it stands for deeper freedom and broader tolerance than Athens ever knew. So do Manchester and Bridlington, Barrow-in-Furness and Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Slavery is outlawed and women learn, vote and work in all of them. It is doubtful that the Parthenon would have been built without slaves, and women in 5th-century Athens scarcely moved from the hearth unless specially educated to talk to men about more than housekeeping and children.
But enough of quibbling. Mr Johnson is broadly right. Athens in the age of Pericles was spectacularly free compared with its neighbours and with what came before and after. And that is why, if the past is any guide to the future, London may have reason to be worried.
Athens’ golden age ended in slaughter. Enemies ganged up on the city state that dared to heed its citizens, and Pericles was forced into a passionate defence of liberty as a recipe for strength rather than weakness. “We live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every danger,” he proclaimed — over the bodies of the fallen, early in the 27-year Peloponnesian war.
Taking his cue from antiquity, Mr Johnson told an invited audience at a think-tank last night that modern democratic freedoms faced global enemies. “We must fight these enemies,” he said, and so we must. In the meantime it’s worth noting that the think-tank hosting the event was funded by the UAE, where a little more freedom, openness and tolerance would not go amiss.