concept of numeracy. Book-keeping, hindered by the number systems of Greek and Latin, always remained primitive. It is very strange, when the
marginal subsistence of the ancient poor is considered, how low a standard of accuracy is found in papyrus and epigraphical calculations. What was
required of an administrator was (after loyalty and probity) litter ae, the whole world of ancient literary culture. The Younger Pliny (Ep. 1. 10.9) is most
revealing on the subject. As prefect of the Roman treasury he has to spend his time at the most banal and routine administrative business; his "work is
'extremely uncultured'-but the word he uses to describe it is litterae, none the less.
That administration was litterae is an observation which will enable us to end on a rather more positive note: up to now we have been necessarily
preoccupied, sadly, with abandoning Auden's image of the bored clerk's 'pink official form'. It has been stressed that ancient government was concerned
with warfare, jurisdiction, and the management of private property. What kept alive this ideology was the aristocratic literary culture for which ancient
civilization has always been most famous. The leader of men, the just judge, and the fair master had been ideals since Homer. For Herodotus the origin of
the power of the Median-and hence the Persian-kingship was simply the impartiality and importance to society of the judgements of Deioces. There was
no distinction between the Arts of Government and the other technai, artes, with which ancient elites concerned themselves. The art of rhetoric above all
united what we see as these two distinct worlds. Eloquence is one of the main requirements of the ancient administrator. The Roman Emperor himself
always expressed himself in the literary forms of letters or speeches, and spent most of his day listening to similar products of ancient literary culture. The
generalizations and principles expressed in Roman governmental pronouncements are not a coherent ideology, and still less an indication of imperial
policies, but simply commonplaces of moral or political thought deployed appropriately in a literary composition. It was not easy to aspire to participation
in this sort of exercise. In fact, in its formal intellectual demands, membership of the Roman administrative elite was not after all so very different from
the system which evolved in China.
Vitruvius, the architect in the public service, expressly praises his parents for the general philological and technical/artistic education which has made him
what he is (6, pr. 4). Philostratus sneers at the lack of success of an imperial freedman whose inadequate literary attainments let him down, 'Celer, a writer
of technical works and a good enough secretary of the emperor, but lacking in polish' (VS 1. 22). For slaves and freedmen, equestrians and senators alike,
culture was the sign of and often the way to social success, and at no level of the Roman administration do we find functionaries who are carrying out
some sort of 'serious' administrative activity while their seniors indulge in cultural pursuits.
I have also emphasized the importance of Rome's inclusion of the elites of the Empire, above all of Greece, in her government. This too would not have
been possible had Greek and Latin speakers not already come to share a common cultural heritage. It is therefore no coincidence that the age of the
greatest governmental complexity of the ancient world and that flowering of culture which we call the Second Sophistic came together. The aristocratic
ideals which underlay ancient government also required conspicuous expenditure on the part of rulers. Much that is familiar about the Roman world from
Gibbon's portrait of the Antonine golden age derives from this. The enormous tomb which Claudius' freedman Pallas built for himself, the vast scale of the
military engineering of Hadrian's Wall, and the great building projects of the Emperor at Rome and the urban upper classes in the hundreds of cities of the
Empire are all themselves part of the great Art by which the Empire was maintained. The reciprocal relations of benefaction, competition, and prestige
among those who controlled the resources of the ancient world are found throughout antiquity, from the aristocracies of the archaic Greek cities to the
Roman Emperors. In these relations were included the whole range of ancient cultural activities, from architecture and utilitarian building to the patronage
of literature, music, and painting-and also to the entertainments of the circus and the amphitheatre and the religious festivals which were the setting of
almost all these forms of display. This characteristic aspect of ancient society produced a type of bond between the elite and the peoples of the cities which
was unique-a major source of the stability and continuity which we associate with the Greek and Roman world.