Writing should be on the wall for a truly fallen empire

IN A COUNTRY which has decided that slavery is the worst crime mankind ever committed (it wasn’t) it remains strange that scholars revere the civilisation called Ancient Rome.

We teach its language to our children, adorn solemn places with Latin inscriptions and study its philosophers as truly enlightened entities. Yet Rome practised slavery from start to finish. It could not have existed without slavery at every level.

Not a mouthful of food was eaten by Romans that was not planted, grown and harvested by slaves. They were forced to perform every menial function, row the galleys, cough their lungs up in the mines and even fight to the death in the arena.

It would be hard to imagine a less slave-riddled society. So was it really a civilisation or a barbarous empire? And if the latter, why do our scholars and academics worship it?

Britain’s entire slaverypractising two centuries pale into insignificance compared to a few months of Roman rule. But we are not pulling down their statues or inscriptions.

IT HAS been some time since I had cause to praise Boris Johnson on this page, but it took oldfashioned “bottle” to fly, even secretly and protected by some of our toughest and best, to Ukraine and circulate among amazed and grateful people last weekend.

So why not take on the much less dangerous task of putting a large bomb under the backsides of the oafish bureaucrats who have made yet another botch – the snail-like granting of travel papers to Ukrainian refugees?

They are dying (literally) to seek shelter here, we are more than willing to welcome them and only the usual and useless tide of paper forms prevents them.

So come on, Prime Minister, issue your ultimatum: get the job done or get out.

SO THE French have voted – for the first of their two presidential elections. The results were much as foreseen. Macron won with Le Pen second. So they go through to the run-off nine days from now.

But nothing was decided. The two winners together only clocked up 52 per cent of the vote, leaving 48 per cent to vote again for their second-favourite. Plus the substantial core of non-voters who may now change their minds and go to the polls for the final choice.

It’s still wide open.