This month the world’s most powerful politicians are getting together in Gleneagles to discuss how best to exercise their power. Two thousand years ago, in 60 BCE, the three most powerful men in Ancient Rome – Crassus, Caesar and Pompey – met to form a shadow government, one which recognised the reality of their personal power as opposed to the nearly defunct formal constitution of the Republic; in much the same way as the Titanic recognised the iceberg’s right of way. Known as the First Triumvirate,  it wasn’t to last – power cannot work against the logic it’s based on; so the rulers of Rome were impelled into a civil war they didn’t want because the needs of their camps demanded it.