What Would the Ancient Greeks Think of Donald Trump?

The current occupant of the White House is such a unique and peculiar figure in the history of the United States that many people have wondered what various people from history would think of him. I’ve encountered a number of questions dealing with this theme on Quora. For instance, many people have wondered what the Founding Fathers would think of him. What would Cicero think? What would Socrates think? There are so many different questions and scenarios that people have been asking about. Today, though, we’re going to look at the question of what the ancient Greek public at large would think of him.

It is extremely difficult to say what the ancient Greeks would think of Donald Trump, partly because the ancient Greeks lived in a world that was so drastically different from our own. If someone brought all the people who lived in the Greek world during the Classical Period (lasted c. 510 – c. 323 BC) back from the dead today, they would barely even recognize the world we live in.

Furthermore, the ancient Greeks were as diverse in their thoughts as any people from any time period, so, obviously, opinions pertaining to Donald Trump would vary quite considerably from person to person. Some people would probably like Trump, while others would detest him.

Anything that we say on this subject will necessarily be speculation, since, obviously the ancient Greeks are all long dead and it is impossible to say for certain what their opinions would be. Nonetheless, I think we can plausibly speculate about how the majority of people who lived in ancient Greece would most likely view Trump, if they were suddenly brought to life today and told about him.

How the ancient Greeks would (most likely) think of the United States

I suspect that, if someone miraculously raised all the ancient Greeks from the dead today, they would be inclined to make sense of the world as it exists today in terms of the world as it existed in their own time—in the same way that, if someone from the twenty-first century United States were thrust 2,400 years into the future, they would try to make sense of that strange future world in terms of what was familiar from their own era as well.

As I talk about in this article from January 2020, people in the United States often like to identify their country with the Greek legacy. Nevertheless, if the classical Greeks themselves were to hear about the United States, they would certainly never in a million years see it as even remotely Greek in character; after all, the United States is half a world away from Greece, only a small percentage of the total population of the United States identifies as ethnically Greek, very few people in the United States speak the Greek language, and almost no one in the United States worships the ancient Greek deities.

Instead, the ancient Greeks would see the United States as a totally foreign nation and its inhabitants as βάρβαροι (bárbaroi). They would probably most immediately associate the United States in their minds with the Persian Achaemenid Empire, since the United States and the Achaemenid Empire are both spectacularly wealthy and powerful non-Greek empires that control enormous swathes of land. The ancient Greeks would even notice that the United States is divided into satrapies (i.e. “states”)!

ABOVE: Map from Wikimedia Commons showing the territorial expansion of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus II, Cambyses II, and Darius II

Although the United States is nominally a republic, to most ancient Greeks, it would probably look like a monarchy. The Greeks were generally inclined to see all foreign governments as autocratic to begin with and the level of authority that the office of the presidency has acquired would only make it all too easy for the ancient Greeks to perceive the president as an autocratic ruler.

It is worth noting that Donald Trump has explicitly claimed that he has “total authority” over the United States. At a news briefing at the White House on Monday, 13 April 2020, President Trump declared:

“The president of the United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The president of the United States calls the shots. If we weren’t here for the states, you would’ve had a problem in this country like you’ve never seen before. […] They can’t do anything without the approval of the president.”

Later in the briefing, Trump said:

“When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be. It’s total. And the governors know that.”

Statements like these from the president would make it very easy for the ancient Greeks to perceive him as an autocrat.

In line with this comparison, the classical Greeks would most likely see any president of the United States in the same way they typically saw a Persian Šāhanšāh. In other words, they would be inclined to automatically think of any American president as a foreign autocrat ruling over a massive, outlandishly wealthy empire.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of King Darius I of the Achaemenid Empire depicted in the Darius Vase, an Apulian red-figure volute-krater from Magna Graecia dating to between c. 340 and c. 320 BC

Ancient Greek ideas about good leaders and bad ones

The ancient Greeks generally did not tend to view Persian kings favorably, but they did distinguish between “good” Persian kings and “bad” Persian kings. For instance, Cyrus the Great (ruled 559 – 530 BC) was widely admired throughout the Greek world and seen as an ideal ruler. This is part of the reason why, as I discuss in this article from December 2019, evangelical Trump supporters love comparing Trump to Cyrus. On the other hand, Cambyses II (ruled 530 – July 522 BC) and Xerxes I (ruled 486 – 465 BC) were widely hated and seen as horrible tyrants.

There were four main virtues that the ancient Greeks generally though of as defining a great leader. Today, these are known as the four “cardinal virtues.” Here they are:

• φρόνησις (phrónēsis) refers to the ability to examine a situation and perceive the right course of action. This word is usually translated as “prudence” or “wisdom.”
• ἀνδρεία (andreía) means “manliness” or “courage.” This was generally conceived of as courage in battle, but it could refer to courage in other circumstances as well.
• σωφροσύνη (sōphrosýnē) means “moderation” or “restraint.” The ancient Greeks generally believed that excessiveness of any kind was dangerous and that a person needed to keep their passions under control at all times. One of the most famous Delphic Maxims was “μηδὲν ἄγαν,” which means “Nothing in excess.”
• δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosýnē) means “justice” or “righteousness.” This was generally seen as the most important characteristic for a leader.

All of these qualities were seen as absolutely essential for any good leader and the absence of these qualities was seen as the definition of a tyrant.

ABOVE: Eighteenth-century tapestry depicting Cyrus the Great as a ruler of Persia. Many people in classical Greece admired Cyrus the Great and saw him as a model ruler.

Herodotos’s portrayal of Cambyses II: a case study in bad leadership

The Greek historian Herodotos of Halikarnassos (lived c. 484 – c. 425 BC) wrote about Cambyses II in his book The Histories, which he probably wrote mostly in around the 430s BC. in this book, Herodotos portrays Cambyses II as an archetypal insane tyrant utterly lacking in all of the qualities that befit a good leader.

Herodotos claims that, when Cambyses saw the Egyptians celebrating a festival of the sacred Apis bull shortly after his army had suffered a miserable defeat, he falsely assumed that they were celebrating because they had heard what his armies had suffered. Therefore, Herodotos says that Cambyses killed the Apis bull, had all the priests of Apis scourged, and ordered anyone caught celebrating the festival to be put to death (Histories 3.27–29). This incident, which we now know is apocryphal thanks to archaeological evidence, demonstrates lack of phronesis, sophrosyne, and dikaiosyne simultaneously.

Herodotos also claims that Cambyses brutally violated the corpse of the Egyptian pharaoh Amasis (Histories 3.16), that he had his own brother Smerdis assassinated (Histories 30), that he lusted so madly after two of his own sisters that he married them both (Histories 3.31), and that he later murdered one of the sisters whom he had married (Histories 32). All of these things further demonstrate his utter lack of sophrosyne and dikaiosyne.

Although, once again, the ancient Greeks certainly did not all think alike and they would have had a great multitude of different opinions concerning Trump, I think that many of them would have perceived the same flaws in Trump that Herodotos saw in Cambyses II.

ABOVE: Illustration from 1881 of Cambyses II killing the Apis bull, a story recorded in Book Three of Herodotos’s Histories

Trump’s lack of phronesis

Most ancient Greeks would probably see that, as president, Trump is very bad at looking at a situation and figuring out how to handle it. Pretty much any aspect of Donald Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates his lack of phronesis.

For instance, on the evening of Thursday, April 23, 2020, after listening to a presentation about how disinfectants can be used to kill the SARS-CoV-2 virus on hard surfaces, Trump suggested that doctors should consider the possibility of injecting people with disinfectant to kill the virus inside their bodies. The president stated:

“I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets inside the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”

This is, of course, a terrible idea because disinfectants are highly toxic and dangerous. The reason why they are so effective at killing pathogens is because they are highly effective at killing just about everything—including humans.

Trump has since tried to claim that he was only joking about injecting people with disinfectants. Even if he was only joking, though, injecting people with disinfectants isn’t the sort of thing that the president of the United States should joke about during a pandemic. A good leader in the eyes of the ancient Greeks would have carefully weighed the situation and seen that it was better not to say anything.

ABOVE: Photograph of President Donald Trump at the conference where he suggested that people should inject themselves with disinfectants to get rid of the coronavirus

Trump’s lack of andreia

Donald Trump received a medical deferment from being drafted into the Vietnam War in 1968, with a classification of 1-Y, making him ineligible to serve in the military except if there was a national emergency. In 1972, he was reclassified as 4-F, meaning he was permanently disqualified from serving, due to a diagnosis of bone spurs in one of his feet.

Trump never received any treatment for these alleged bone spurs and he later said he couldn’t remember which foot he had them in. At the time, it was extremely common for young men from wealthy families to dodge the draft through medical deferments for minor conditions like bone spurs.

The ancient Greeks would certainly see Trump’s medical deferment as evidence for his lack of andreia. They would probably also see Trump’s habit of blaming others for his own mistakes as further evidence of his lack of andreia.

It is true that Trump often likes to put on a show of bravado, but I think that most ancient Greeks would probably see through this fairly easily, just as most people today see through it fairly easily. In fact, I think Trump would probably remind the ancient Greeks a bit of Paris, the prince of Troy who is portrayed in the Iliad as constantly trying to look brave, even though he is really cowardly and a poor fighter.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an Attic red-figure kantharos dating to between c. 425 and c. 420 BC depicting the Trojan prince Paris putting on his armor

Trump’s lack of sophrosyne

Of all the concepts I’ve listed, sophrosyne is probably the most complicated and difficult for modern audiences to understand, since we don’t tend to value this quality nearly as highly today as the ancient Greeks did. For the ancient Greeks, sophrosyne usually entailed restraining one’s natural desires, including desires for sex, wealth, food, and alcohol. It was thought that sex, money, food, and alcohol were good in moderation, but, in excess, all of these things were bad and potentially even dangerous.

Sophrosyne also entailed restraining one’s anger, since it was thought that anger was dangerous and that it needed to be controlled. (As I explain in this article from March 2020, contrary to what some people have apparently been led to believe, Aristotle most certainly did not advocate for people to release their anger through “catharsis.” That’s not what Aristotle meant by “catharsis” at all.)

Trump’s lack of sophrosyne would be obvious to most ancient Greeks. Things they would perceive as evidence of his lack of sophrosyne would include:

• his many extramarital affairs
• his habit of sexually assaulting women
• his comments about his sexual attraction towards his own daughter Ivanka
• his obscenely lavish penthouse in Trump Tower with gold-trimmed furniture, marble floors, frescoed ceilings, columns, bronze statues, and crystal chandeliers
• his obsession with money
• his obesity
• his habit of saying whatever is on his mind with no filter whenever he is speaking
• his unhinged rants on Twitter
• his verbal attacks against anyone who disagrees with him about anything

Indeed, perhaps more than anything else, it is Trump’s lack of sophrosyne that defines him. Trump is, by definition, a man of extraordinary excess in all matters. I could perhaps see a resurrected ancient Greek trying to argue that Trump has phronesis, andreia, and even dikaiosyne, but I would have a very hard time imagining anyone trying to argue that Trump has sophrosyne.

Incidentally, the ancient Greeks tended to see sophrosyne as an especially masculine quality and they associated lack of sophrosyne with effeminacy, meaning some ancient Greeks might perceive Trump as being deficient in his masculinity on account of his obvious deficiency in sophrosyne.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan in Trump’s gold-encrusted penthouse at Trump Tower. Many ancient Greeks would perceive Trump’s lavish and excessive lifestyle as evidence of his lack of sophrosyne.

Trump’s lack of dikaiosyne

Not only is Trump himself flagrantly corrupt, but his entire administration seems to operate on a premise of quid pro quo. Those who do things that are good for Trump are rewarded and those who do things that are bad for Trump are punished, regardless of merit.

For instance, Gordon Sondland is the founder of Provenance Hotels. He donated a million dollars to Trump’s Presidential Inaugural Committee and he was rewarded with an appointment as United States ambassador to the European Union in 2018, even though his background was not in diplomacy and he had no prior experience as a diplomat.

Then, just two days after Trump was acquitted by the Senate on 5 February 2020 in a near-party-line vote, the president fired both Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Gordon Sondland, both of whom had testified against him before Congress, as well as Vindman’s brother Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman.

While Sondland really had no business being the United States ambassador to the European Union to begin with, the timing and context of Sondland’s firing makes it clear that the reason why Trump fired him was because he testified against him, which is not a justifiable reason for the president to fire someone. Meanwhile, Trump had no good reason at all to fire the Vindman brothers.

ABOVE: Image from C-SPAN of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman giving his testimony before the House. Vindman was later fired by President Trump seemingly for no reason other than because Vindman testified against Trump in the impeachment inquiry.

What modern Greeks think of Trump

It is worth noting that the overall opinion of Donald Trump among modern Greeks is generally unfavorable. A poll in 2017 reported in The National Herald found that only 19% of Greeks said that they had confidence that Trump would “do right on the international stage,” while 76% of Greeks said that they didn’t.

The same poll found that 78% of Greeks agreed that Trump was “arrogant,” 70% agreed that he was “intolerant,” and 55% agreed that he was dangerous. Meanwhile, only 33% of Greek agreed with the statement that Trump “has the appropriate qualifications to be president” and only 20% agreed with the statement that he “cares for ordinary people.”

These rather abysmal approval numbers for Trump among Greeks are reflective of a generally negative view of Trump that is widespread in Europe as a whole. Generally speaking, Europeans just don’t tend to like Trump. Some Europeans do like him, but they are a minority.

And this general disliking for Trump isn’t just because Greeks don’t like the United States in general; The National Herald notes that, at the end of Barack Obama’s second term in office, 41% of Greeks said that they had confidence that Obama would “do right on the international political stage.” That means that over twice as many Greeks had confidence in Obama at the end of his tenure as president than had confidence in Trump at the beginning of his.

Conclusion

My best guess is that the ancient Greeks would tend to think of Donald Trump in terms of a latter-day Cambyses II: a delusional and sadistic foreign autocrat utterly lacking in phronesis, andreia, sophrosyne, and dikaiosyne ruling over an outlandishly large and wealthy empire. This isn’t an entirely accurate perception, but it is the one that many ancient Greeks would be likely to share.

Of course, this perception would likely be very different if Trump were a Greek politician rather than an American one. After all, the ancient Greeks had more than their own share of demagogues. Just look up the Athenian politician Kleon and try to argue that he sounds nothing at all like Trump.

ABOVE: Painting from 1841 by the French Academic painter Adrien Guignet depicting the meeting of Cambyses II of the Achaemenid Empire with Psamtik III of Egypt