IN OTHER WORDS...:

What can Boris learn from the classics?: The new London mayor, Boris Johnson, has been accused of lacking experience and political nous, but he has always boasted one qualification for government - a good grasp of Latin, Greek and classical history. So just what lessons can a modern politician learn from antiquity? (Finlo Rohrer, 5/14/08, BBC News Magazine)

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY

Johnson is not alone among modern politicians to have suffered controversy because of a tendency to talk volubly when it might have been better to remain circumspect.

In the classical world there was a great value placed on not saying too much. Many of the great aphorisms that have made it to the present day are the most pithy. "Veni, vidi, vici" or "I came, I saw, I conquered" - famously uttered by Julius Caesar - has been drummed into many a British schoolchild's head.

As Plato once said: "The wise man speaks because he has something to say, the fool because he has to say something."

But the masters of classical pithiness were the Spartans of Greece. It is said Philip of Macedon once sent a hostile message to the Spartans saying something along the lines of "if I bring my army down to Sparta, I will knock down the walls and kill everybody". The Spartan oligarchs reportedly sent back the one-word reply "if".

PRETEND TO BE STUPID

Supporters of Johnson have long denied that he has affected silliness in order to disguise his considerable intellect. But this was not unknown as a tactic in the ancient world.

"They conceal their wisdom, and pretend to be blockheads, so that they may seem to be superior only because of their prowess in battle." So Socrates, as quoted by Plato, described the Spartans.

And pretending to be stupid is supposed to have saved the life of the emperor Claudius when all his relatives were being murdered in a political merry-go-round.