Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit Subscriptions.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

You can register for a free account to have four complimentary articles per month. We will occasionally email you a newsletter, from which you can unsubscribe at any time. We do not sell personal data or otherwise disclose personal information to other organisations.

Editorial

What Have the Romans Ever Done For Us?

by Rick Lewis

“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.”
Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Salve! This issue’s theme is Roman Philosophy. But as the rebels in Monty Python’s Life of Brian asked, what have the Romans ever done for us? The question seems relevant here; we are philosophers, not archaeologists. What ideas did Roman philosophers contribute that we can actually use today? To answer this, first let’s set the scene.

…