The Sketch: Classical touches as Turnbulls walk on the mild side

Turnbull father and son looking fashionably relaxed. Picture: Matrix.

The Athenians, not quite pictured here, were masters of exceptionalism and granted an amnesty to Spartans still living in the city-state in the wake of the Peloponnesian War.

This elevated civility prompted the rhetoricians of the day to cry: “Oh sure, other nations can win wars but nobody does defeat like the Athenians.”

Both documented admirers of the classics, the Turnbull men — cut from the same cloth in looks and substance — might have been discussing the great chronicler of that war, Thucydides, as they strolled through Sydney’s Domain yesterday.

Thucy, as we imagine Turnbull the elder refers to him, has a few things in common with the former prime minister. He is considered the ­father of the school of political ­realism (pictured here in blue designer loafers) which holds that ­relations between states (or former and current prime ministers) are primarily dictated by fear and self-interest. The ancient historian also owned a goldmine; the former PM had only a stake in a Siberian gold deposit.

The Ancient Greeks never had a word for the colour blue. Homer referred to the “wine-dark sea”, an actual description of the water and not an emotional state. It’s just a guess, but we suspect they never had a word for the richness of the salmon-coloured T-shirt Turnbull Sr is sporting, either.

Before he entered his own wine-dark sea, Malcolm reportedly warned the Chinese President and the Malaysian Prime Minister not to fall into the “Thucydides trap” in reference to the idea that Sparta and Athens were driven to war by mutual suspicion of the other’s power and ambition.

We can think of no modern political parallels in the Liberal Party and suspect this is not at all what Alex Turnbull and his father were discussing. Perhaps Alex fancies himself more of a Diogenes the Cynic (without the vow of poverty), who is said to have carried a lamp during the day, searching for an honest man.

Diogenes was a beggar and often slept in a ceramic jar in the agora, which is the historic analogy of setting up an underwhelming hedge-fund named after Mongol bodyguards tweeting character ­assassinations out of self-interest. These are the earnest endeavours of the greats.

Meanwhile, Scott Morrison is on a bus.