Vote for Caesar - 9780752891408

The expansion of the congestion charge zone, prices going up on the Underground, bendy buses?all are ideas brought about to try to make the traffic situation in London run more smoothly. Surely there must be a better way? In fact there is. In Roman times, when the streets were even more crowded, Caesar decreed that all vehicles (except those involved in building work) were banned from the city, while Nero took advantage of a major fire to broaden the streets to improve access. Whatever the problem, from the leader whose deputy wants to replace him to the question of how to make democracy really work, you can guarantee that our Classical forebears faced the same situation and came up with some far more effective solutions than current politicians. In this enthralling, informative, and hugely entertaining book, a leading Classicist highlights just how much there is to learn from the past and how things really were once so much better.