Brad DeLong wrote:
>Someone someday should write a study of how people's attitudes
>toward the future reflect which of the classical republics--Athens,
>Rome, or Sparta--they admire...
I don't think there'd be any direct correlation. Rousseau, for example, wrote admiringly of all three. And Chris Brooke just showed how Steuart and Rousseau associated almost opposite views with their admiration of Sparta.
Peter Bondanella wrote a fun book on how the image of Rome has been deployed through the ages. To cut a long story short, the democrats usually focused on the early republic, while the aristocrats and fascists glorified the empire. In the French revolution, you got to see both interpretations 10 years apart. But the larger story is there's a lot of leeway drawing morals from a classical exemplar.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com