The Torch Bearer and the Tutor: The Roman Empire and its Heirs

Speranza

By courtesy of M. Lakkur, of Oxford.

This is a commentary on M. Lakkur's excellent essay,

"The torch bearer and the tutor: prevalent attitudes towards the Roman Empire in Imperial Britain"

----- thanks to O. Kusturica for the reference.

While "British Empire" started to be used early enough -- and there's also the collocation, now being used by post-colonialists, of 'English empire' -- Lakkur will concentrate on late nineteenth-century views onwards.

Lakkur:

"Until the mind-19th century, British historians viewed Roman imperialism as despotic."

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"London as the heir to Rome".

----

"The government of Italy has actively drawn upon the "Roman image"".

Lakkur quotes from

R. Hingley,

"Roman officers and English gentlemen".

"Roman authors talked in the first person to the English gentleman."

----

This was of course from their schooling, which gave them an intimate knowledge of the classics.

Churchill is a good example.

And Gibbon's history of the Roman Empire was a favourite read of young Churchill, who read it 'from end to end' -- rather than from start to end. Odd.

----

The history of ancient Rome influenced the English elite.

Hingley refers to the positive 'imperial discourse' that emerges.

Hingley drops names.

Francis Haverfield.
W. T. Arnold.
Lord Cromer
Stanley Baldwin.

Politicians AND classicists -- or students of Ancient Rome.

The reference is to

Francis Haversfield,
"Romanisation of Roman Britain" -- 1905.

Quite the antithesis of Mattingly!

----

"Historians seldom praise the Roman Empire." -- implicatures:
i-English historians today seldom praise.
ii-They SHOULD!

---

The point was that Historians would rather praise the Republic (although as authors mention, the 'empire' starts with the Republic, since 'empire' (IMPERIVM in Latin) means 'order', before it means 'dominium' or territory.

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Rather, these historians who did NOT praise the Roman Empire enough were led to identify it with England's imperial enemies: NAPOLEONE Bonaparte -- Napoleone I, Napoeone II, Napoleone III, and his predecessors: the French monarchy under Louis XIV.

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Granted, GIBBON, as a illuminist, held a STRONG hostility towards imperialism -- Roman or other!

----

After visiting Rome in 1764, he sent a postcard to his dad:

"Dear dad,
I'm here in Rome. Let me tell you this:
I am NOW convinced that there
never NEVER existed such a nation
as Rome and I hasten to add I hope
for the happiness of mankind that
there never will again.
Weather fine,
Cheers,
                      Ted."

-----

Reproduced in J. Norton, "The letters of Gibbon".

In "History of the ... Roman Empire", Gibbon writes:

"There is nothing perhaps more averse to nature
and reason than to hold
in obedience"

IMPERIVM

"remote countries and foreign nations."

---- While the fights that lead to the Latin league were "o. k." -- they were not remote or 'too foreign'!

----

Lakkur then goes on to quote from

John Sheppard,

"The fall of Rome and the rise of the new nationalities"

1861.

----

He engages in counterfactual arguments and imagines an England or London alla Rome:

Let's state each scenario:

Parliaments, meeetings, and all the ordinary expressions of the national will are no longer in existence.

A free press has shared their fate

a number of the richest old gentlemen in London meet daily at Westminster to receive orders from Buckingham.

The last heir of the house of Brunwsick is lying dead

Lord Clyde in a few months will be marching upon London at the head of the Indian army.

Hyde Park has been converted into a gigantic arena, where criminals from Newgate are set to fight with the animals from Kew's Zoological Gardens.

----

Amusing!

And vis-a-vis what people think of Murdoch today!

Shephard is using 'the language of prophecy' and he is updating things.

As Lakkur aptly notes: Gibbon would "NOT have envisioned an English lord at the head of an Indian army"!

----

It was in 1876 that Victoria took the title of

"EMPRESS" -- imperatrix --

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Mommsen's book got translated!

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Lakkur goes on to quote from another source:

R. J. Seeley,
The expansion of little England into Great Britain
1883

----

Seeley writes:

"Back in the day it was the Roman REPUBLIC that was held in honour for its freedom"

and thoughts on the Empire were anathema.

'all that is good in politics is liberty'.

----

Seeley's view replaces Gibbon's view.

At this point, the Anglo-Saxons were held in demise, and Haverfield was speaking of ROMANISATION OF BRITANNIA.

It was ROME that had passed its civilization to ENGLAND.

After all, the Anglo-Saxons disliked London, and would rather sleep in huts in the glorious (granted) countryside!

----

The English are not like the barbarous GERMANS who never were ROMANISED.

And there was a genetic element, too, since survivors of the Roman period no doubt exist.

Seeley explicitly argues against the thesis that the Roman had been 'overthrown' (or fallen).

Higley focuses on the Edwardian and early Georgian periods with authors such as

Lord Cromer
Charles Lucas
and Stanley Baldwin.

One example:

Lord Cromer,
"Ancient and Modern Imperialism"

Imperialism, ancient and modern.

1910.

----

Cromer is a Griceian: do not multiply senses beyond necessity. Here it's the sense of 'empire'. Lord Cromer writes:

It is evident that the sense of the term 'empire' ('imperium') as we Modern English understand it, and as the Ancient Romans understand it is in essence the same.

He grants, alla Speranza, that there's room for 'many notable differences' -- but not essential -- just accidental!

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Cromer, punning, speaks of the Ancient Romans' IMPERIOUS necessity to extend their frontier.

-----

Note that Cromer was Viceroy of Egypt, a former 'provinciaRomana' and it's no wonder he found 'a striking similarity to that adopted by the Romans.'

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The next source is Charles Lucas, in his

"Greater Rome and Greater Britain".

----

1912.

----

Cfr. "Greater Manchester"!

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Lucas notes one difference: the British imperialist policy would never have built a ROMAN WALL!

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"Our imperial policy has not been that of the Roman Wall" we see in Northumbria and Scotland.

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Lucas wonders:

"How did the Romans hold their Empire for so long a time?"

This sounds like a question at Eton or Grice's college, Clifton!

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The next source is

J. C. Stobart,
The grandeur that is Rome,
1912.

----

"An Englishman can not but draw an analogy from Roman history and seek in a 'moral' for his own guidance."

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The next source is

John Collingwood Bruce,
"The Roman Wall".

----

"We, as Englishmen, must emulate the virtues that adorn Rome's prosperity."

Next comes Stanley Baldwin in 1926.

"We Englishmen should base our lives on the
stern virtues of the Roman character and take
to ourselves the warnings that
Rome leaves for our warning."

----

Cromer, as if to refute Walter O., calls history, "philosophy teaching by example".

----

Britain should learn from the strengths of Rome.

Baldwin speaks of Rome

as

"running her mighty race bearing her torch on high"

Bruce similarly speaks of the "Rome's scepter". "Great is our Honour, great our Responsibility, to follow Rome."

There was this 'fascination' with the Roman Empire.

A fascination grew that was nowhere in earlier times.

---- The double feedback Lakkur aptly refers to as 'osmosis'.

----

There was a difference, noted by Cromer.

The Romans merely met with 'tribes' -- the British with Hindoos and Mohammedans, and such!

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But the worst tribe that the ancient Romans were never able to assimilate was the Jews, Cromer adds.

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The next source cited by Lakkur is

Arthur Balfour, P. M.

in his essay on "Rome".

1908.

----

It is worth noting that in 1905 Elliot Mills published (albeit anonymously -- he would not like to have seen himself fighting Newgate prisoners in Hyde Park, or thrown to the lions of Kew's Zoological Gardens):

"The decline and fall of the British Empire"!

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Mills sets his history in 1995! -- 'sci-fi' avant la lettre---

Mills warns: The English have to read in Gibbon's book 'an accurate description of themselves'!

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The implicature is clear.

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Higley notes that the positive image was kept till the 1990s.

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Lakkur mentions the Salt Hedge and the Customs Hedge and Cromer.

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Of course Oxford reigned supreme here.

There's Lord Cromer and Lord Curzon.

Lord Cromer was appointed the president of the Classical Association in 1910.

Stanley Baldwin followed suit in 1926.

The corridors of Roman power!

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REFERENCES:

Cromer, Lord. Ancient and Modern Imperialism, Murray, 1910.
Freeman, P. From Mommsen to Haversfield: the origin of studies of Romanisation in England. Journal of Roman archeology, vol. 23
Haversfield, The romanisation of Britain, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1910.
Hingley, R. Roman officers and English gentlemen, and the imperial origins of Roman archeology in England. Routledge.
Lucas, Greater Rome and Greater Britain. Clarendon Press, 1912.
Quinault, R. and R. McKitterick, "Gibbon and Empire", Cambridge University Press.
Seeley, The expansion of England.
Sheppard, Rome and the rise of the new nationalities: a series of lectures on the connections between ancient and modern history. Routldege, Warne, & Routledge, 1861.