ANCIENT AND MODERN

IMPERIALISM
BY THE EARL OF GROMER
G.C.B., O.M., G.C.M.G., LL.D., ETC.

PUBLISHED BY PERMISSION OF THE

CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W,
1910

j.

'*t,

PREFACE
THIS

essay, in a very abridged form,

delivered

on January

address to the

which body

11,

1910, as

was
an

Classical Association, of

was President

for the year

1009-10.

CROMER,
LONDON,

January, 1910.

yopjQv
yap rots

Kprojj.ovcri

CF

Dost see how thy country, when reproached

wanting in deliberation, looks sternly at
those who assail her? For she grows great in
ts

for

the midst of

toils."

EUR., Supp., 321-323.

ANCIENT AND MODERN

IMPERIALISM
ABOUT
tion

be

the time

did
its

when

the Classical Associa-

me

the honour of inviting me to

President for the current year I

happened to be reading a work written by

a Hebrew scholar, in which I lit upon the

"There

following passage:
old Hebrew sage

unknown one
scholar.'"

unknown
making

an

a saying of

In a place where one

is

permitted to say, I am a
I am not sufficiently

is

fear

in this

any

is

such

indeed, that the

country to permit of
statement.

my

conceive,

main reason why the

presi-

dency of the Association was conferred on

me was that I might personally testify
to the
l

fact

that

one who

can

make no

Schechter, "Studies in Judaism," p. 31.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

pretension to scholarship, and who has been

actively engaged all his life in political and
administrative work, can appreciate the immense benefits which are to be derived from

even

very

imperfect

acquaintance

with

classical literature.

Being debarred,

from speaking to
thought that I might

therefore,

scholars as a scholar, I

perhaps be allowed to address the Association

as a politician and an administrator.
I deter-

mined, therefore, to say something on the

analogies and contrasts presented by a comparison between ancient and modern systems
of Imperialism. I could not, indeed, hope to

say anything new in travelling along a road

which has already been trod by many eminent
politicians

and

scholars

amongst

others, in

John Seeley, Mr. Bryce,

and Mr. William Arnold but I may perhaps
have succeeded in presenting in a new form
some facts and arguments which are already
well known. Plato, the Emperor
Napoleon,
and Mr. Cobden have, from different points
of view, insisted on the value of
repetition.

recent times,

by

Sir

Moreover, as an additional plea in justification

of the choice of

my

subject, I think I

may

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

say that long acquaintance with the government and administration of a country which

was at different times under the sway of the

Macedonian and the Roman does to some
extent bridge over the centuries, and tends
to bring forcibly to the mind that, at all events
in respect to certain incidents, the world

not

has

so

very

Whenever,

years.

much changed

in

2,000

for instance, I read that

1
graphic account in the Acts of the Apostles
of how the Chief Captain, after he had scourged

St.

Paul, was afraid

when

his

very intelligent

subordinate whispered to him that his victim

was a citizen of Rome, I think I see before

me

the anxious Governor of

some Egyptian

province in the pre-reforming days, who has

found out that he has unwittingly flogged
the subject of a foreign Power, and trembles

the impending wrath of his diplomatic

When I read in
or consular representative.

at

Dr. Adolf Holm's monumental history that

the Greeks in Alexandria, under the Ptolemaic

had the privilege of being beaten with a

stick instead of a whip/ I am reminded that

rule,

Acts

Holm,

xxii. 21).

"

History of Greece," vol.

iv,, p.

1S5&,

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

descendants,

their

foreign

subjects,

in

common with

possess

privileges

of

other
sub-

When I
importance.
am told by Professor Mahafly that Ptolemy
Philadelphus had Nile water sent to his
stantially far greater

daughter during her temporary absence from

1
Egypt, I call to mind that Ismail Pasha

adopted a precisely similar course, the only

difference being that in the one case the casks

were sent to Antioch and in the other to

Paris.

In a sense
is

it

be said that Imperialism

may

as old as the world.

Modern

research has

shown that the Hyksos established an empire

which extended from the Euphrates to the
Nile, and one of the most recent writers on
Egyptian history (Professor Breasted) has
termed Thothmes III. the first great
empirebuilder of the world,

of

and the true forerunner

2

Alexander and

searches

also

Recent reNapoleon,
show that a Cretan empire

existed

contemporaneously with the eighteenth

Egyptian dynasty. Many centuries later the
1

MaliafFy,
2

Breasted,

"Greek

"A

Life

and Thought,"

p.

History of Egypt/* p, 32

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

boastful and incompetent
universal empire. 1

Xerxes aimed at

was discovered that the

true vocation of the Greek was the intellectual
Athens, before

it

rather than the material conquest of the world,

2
It would be
also founded a short-lived empire.
interesting to know in some detail what effect
this short essay in Imperialism produced on the

democratic institutions of the metropolis. So

far, however, as I am aware, we are obliged, in
the absence of contemporaneous appreciations
1

on

In addressing the notables of Persia before starting

Xerxes said drovrovs r(ic, f

his celebrated expedition,

the Athenians)
fjitda,

yrjv

pccnicrav* ov$%

/cat

rou$ rovrotcn TrA^a-tox^p 01 5 Karacrrp\f/6^

'

8/AOVpov tovcruv

At<)$ alOtpL

o/wv-

oi'Si/Atav /caroi/'erou

rjA,co$

r^v He/xr/Sa a7ro8o/*v

yap aAA^t/ x&ptjv y

r<j>

(Her., vii, 8).

2
There has been a good deal of difference of opinion,
both amongst ancient and modern authorities, as to how
rf] i///,re/>$

long the Athenian Empire ean be said to have lasted,

but all computations date from B.C. 477 as the commencement of the //ye/Aovta, if not of the ap%^/ (see
Grote, Hist., vol. iv,, p. 380, note, and Thuc., i. 9<M)7).
is discussed in Clinton's "Fasti Hellenic!,"

The matter
vol.

pp. 303-08.

The

preservation of empire

depended
on maintaining the
The Athenian sea-power was
sovereignty of the sea.
crushed at J^gospotamos in li.o, 405. If that event be
taken as the date of the fall of the empire, its duration
was seventy-two years,
ii.,

,300 years

ago,

as

it

does

still,

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

duced by democracy run mad.* The Athenian

Commonwealth is, in fact, the only example
the history of the world can show of an

democracy -that is to say, of a

government in which power was exercised by
the people directly, and not through the interabsolute

The fact
mediary of their representatives.
2
that the experiment lias never been repeated
is in itself an almost sufficient proof that the
1

It

Greek colonies
They were sometimes

has to be remembered that the

were from the

first

independent

founded without the express authority of the Government,

and without apparently any intention of increasing the
or enlarging the dominions of the

mother-country.
of
Government
Lewis
Dependencies/' p. 1 1 7)
George
("
"
similar to the English
that
somewhat;
were
thought
they
colonies in America, especially after the independence of
America." He adds (p. 179): "The non-interference of

power
Sir

the Phoenician and Greek States with the government

of their colonies did not arise from any enlightened views
of policy, and
interests of a
exclusively

still less

from any respect for the rights or

weak community. It must be attributed

(as Heeren has remarked respecting the

Phoenician colonies) to the inability of the mother-country

to exercise a supremacy over a
colony divided from it by

a long tract of sea."

2

Some analogy might, perhaps, be established between

the principles Advocated and in BO Hftr, at all events, us
Church government is concerned put into practice by the
Independents in Cromwell's time and their descendants,
and those adopted by the Athenian Commonwealth.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

system, in spite of the very intense and ennobling spirit of patriotism which it certainly
engendered, was a complete failure.
it

Apart, however, from these considerations,

may be said that the conception of Im-

perialism,

as

we

and

understand,

the

as

Romans, though with many notable differences, understood the term, was wholly foreign
to the Greek mind. 1 The Greek language did
1

think that this statement

is

correct,

but

it is

to be

observed that pride of race, which usually accompanies the

conception of an Imperial policy, was in no degree wanting
amongst the Greeks. Thus, to quote one out of a host of
illustrations

genia say

which might be given, Euripides makes Iphi-

fiap/3<iptt)V 3'

"EAAf/i/as

P}T/>, *EXA?Jv<oi/

&px*w

sticos,

aAA*

T& p,v jap SuvXov,

(Iph. in
It will, of course,

<

ol 8*

Aul, 1400-01).

be borne in mind that in the days of

Euripides the word barbarian merely meant non-Hellene.

It was not till later that a different signification was

attached to the expression (see Grote, Hist.,

vol.

iL,

pp. ]()2-63).

Grote

(Hist., vol. iv., p. 38,9),

speaking of the feelings

entertained by Athenian citizens at the period when the

"
hegemony of Ath^ps was established, says that among

them the

love of Athenian ascendancy was both passion

The speeches recorded by Thucydides

a
good idea of the fears and jealousies
(L 68-87) give

and patriotism."

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

10

not even contain any expression to convey the

idea.
supreme effort was, indeed, made by

one

illustrious individual

whom we

should

now

dominion of the
call Greek
world, and thus turn the Greek mind in a
direction contrary to the natural bent of its
But Alexander was a Macedonian,
genius.
to grasp at the

who would have been

classed as a foreigner

by the true Hellenes, and who ruled over a

race possessing national characteristics differing in many essential particulars from those

of the inhabitants of Attica or the Pelopon1

nesus.
Moreover, Alexander was a conqueror
by Athenian Imperialism, albeit its growth had
but a few years previous to the delivery of tlio.se speeches
been checked by a disastrous defeat, which necessitated
inspired

the evacuation of Boeotia.

1

Grote says (Hist.,

Macedonian

tribes

vol.

appear

ii.,

to

p.

158)

have

that the native

been an

outlying

section of the " powerful

and barbarous Illyrians." See

"
also vol. iii.,
chap, xxv,, and Hogarth's
Philip and
Alexander of Macedon," p, 4< d $eq,
The right of the Macedonians to take part in the
Pan-Hellenic contests at Olympia was at one time eontested, but they were eventually admitted, as the
Argive
descent of

their

kings was considered to have been

proved (Her., v. 221). Demosthenes said that Philip wag
not only no Greek, but not even " a barbarian of a
place
honourable to mention " (Phil, iii,
40).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

11

rather than an empire-builder. He died before

he could enter upon the constructive part of

and with his death the empire of

which he had laid the military foundations
dissolved.
The most successful Imperialist
amongst those who seized on the disjecta
membra of his vast dominions was the first
Ptolemy, and it is worthy of note that the
principal reason of his success was that he did

his career,

lie was not bitten

not attempt too much.
with that lust for dominion which Tacitus
described as inflaming the heart more than
1
He was wise enough not
any other passion.
to waste his strength in distant enterprises,

but to consolidate

his

rule

in

Egypt and

develop the commercial resources of the

admirable geographical position which he

had acquired.
Moreover, not only was the Imperial idea
foreign to the Greek mind the federal conception was equally strange. Although, under
;

the pressure of some supreme necessity, such

as the Persian invasion, a certain amount of

unity
1

of action

amongst the

"Cupido dominandi cunctis adfectibus

(Tacitus, Ann., xv.

5tf).

independent
flagrantior e.st*

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

12

Greek States was

it
temporarily secured,
may be said that, at all events up to the time
of the Macedonian conquest, the true con-

which is a necessary
ception of federation,
to the birth of national
precursor not only
life, but still more to the successful execution
of a broad Imperial policy, never took root in
Greece. For the best part of a century prior
to that date the history of

Greece consists of

a series of internecine struggles

and of tran-

Mr. Tyrrell ("Essays on Greek Literature," p. ;}fl)

thinks that " Hellas sprang from the blood of the M/xx-

Grote says (Hist., vol. in,, p. 9) that the

action taken against Persia was "HS near to a

0ci>vo/mx<xt,"

common
political

rodotus
Ilepcrfl.

union as Grecian temper would permit"

He148) speaks of ot crvvw/MSTtti'KAAtJwv tVl rm

(vii.

The Eginetans who gave earth and water

to the

emissary sent by Darius shortlybefore the Battle of Marathon

were considered by both Athenians and Spjirtans to be

Greece" (irpoWvrcs -np'EAAatSa) (Her., vl 4<))

account of the assembly amounting almost to a PanHellenic Congress held under Athenian
mispiecK in anticipation of the invasion of Xerxes, is given by Herodotus

"traitors to

An

An attempt made by Pericles, after the con145).

clusion of the
thirty-years' truce, to call a Pan-Hellenic
(vii.

Congress failed, owing, according to Plutarch (" Life of

Pericles," Dryden's translation), to "the underhand cross"
ing of the design by the Lacedemonians.
2

Demosthenes says that when the Phocian War broke

out the condition of the whole of Hellas
was one of * ( strife

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

sitory

and half-hearted

13

intended to

alliances,

bind together by ropes of diplomatic sand the

ephemeral interests of the various petty communities.
The Greek nation had not yet

In spite of a common interest in

Olympia, and in spite of the existence of the

been born.

Council.,

Amphictyonic

Professor

which, as

Freeman has pointed out, 1 was an Ecclesiastical Synod rather than a Federal Diet, the
" In
unit was still the TroXt?. 2
respect to political

sovereignty,"

and confusion."

?;

Grote

"

says,

complete

IleAtwrowycros' aTrucra c$taa*T?//ca, Kal ov6*

ol /uorouvres Aa/ccSou/toi/iVi's OUTO>$ lif^vov wcrrc dvcXci

ovO

oJ irpnrepnv

aAAa

uTracrti/ I/HS /caJ

(V GKCWMV iLp^ovr^ xvpioi TO>V 7roA<ov

Tt$ 7JV uKpLros

Kal ?ra/)a TOUTOIS"

ra/)x 75 (^ e

/cat

-rrapa rots

Cor.).

in

Greece and

Curtius, however, dates the birth of the

Greek nation

History

of

Federal

Government

Italy," p. 102.
2

from the creation of the Amphictyonic Council. "The

most important result of all was that the members of the
Amphictyony learnt to regard themselves as one united

body against those standing outside it out of a number

of tribes arose a nation, which required a common name to
distinguish it and its political and religious system from
;

other tribes" ("History of Greece/' vol.

all

Grote's view

(Hist, vol.

pp.
p, 277) seems to be generally in
Professor Freeman.
Ji

Hist,

vol. iL, p. 181.

ii.,

l6*8-7H,

i,,

and

p.

117).

vol.

iii.,

harmony with that of

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

14

disunion was amongst the

"
of the Greeks,
principles
It

is,

point.

most

cherished

however, unnecessary to labour this

must take the Athenian or Ionian,

We

rather than the Dorian, as the typical Greek,

and

we do

if

so, it is

almost a commonplace

to state that the undisciplined

and

idealistic

Greek, with his intense individuality,, was far

carry an Imperial policy into
than the austere and practical

less suitable to

execution

Roman, who not only made the law, but

obeyed

it,

and who was surrounded from

his

cradle to his grave with associations calculated

to foster

Imperial tendencies*

who

Virgil,

was an enthusiastic Imperialist, was probably

a true representative of the llomau public
opinion of his day. The very word iraifavew in

Greek has a different

word educare.

signification to the

Perforce, therefore,

here surely,

if

it

philosophy teaching

we

turn to

Latin

Rome, and

be true that history

is

by example, some useful

lessons are to be learnt, 1

1

Beside the considerations to which allusion

above,

it is

to

be observed that

is

made

almost impossible to
establish any
analogy between Athenian and Roman ImThe object which each sought to attain, and
perialism.
it is

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

15

wish to preface my remarks by saying

that, in dealing with British Imperialism, I
propose to leave the self-governing colonies
I

My reasons

alone.

are threefold.

place, I would point to the relative magnitude, as also to the difficulty, of the

In the

first

Imperial problem in the case of those possessions of the Crown in which the inhabitants
are not

bound

Of

to us

by any

racial or religious

410 million British subjects,

constituting about one-fifth of the population
of the globe, 44 millions reside in the United

ties.

Of

remainder, only about

and
millions at most are of European

Kingdom.
12|-

the

these
stock,

the

by no means of exclusively British

805 millions are Asiatics, and 48 millions

are Africans of various races.

more the means adopted
widely. The Athenians wished

still

India alone

may

for

attaining it, differed

to establish independent
communities in foreign countries.

or semi-independent
On the other hand, as Mr. Finlay remarks (" History of

" Roman civilisation moved

Greece," vol. L, pp. 88-89),
only in the train of the armies of Home, and its progress

was arrested when the career of conquest stopped.

Foreign colonisation was adverse to all the prejudices of
a Roman/* British Imperialism has at different times
been more or less based both on Athenian and on Roman
.

principles.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

16

be said to be about equal in area and popu1

lation to the whole of Europe outside Russia.
perhaps, not superfluous to draw attenThe imtion to these stupendous figures.
It

is,

portance of the conclusions to be deduced

from them

is,

perhaps, occasionally

somewhat

overlooked.

be said that,
whilst the foundations on which the British

In the second place,

it

may

Imperial policy of the future is to be based in

Asia and in parts of Africa are still in process
of being laid, those foundations already rest
on a secure basis in so far as the self-governing
colonies are concerned.

It

is

true that

some

important issues still remain to be decided.

The commercial relations between Great
Britain and those colonies constitute

the

controversial

Measures which
calculated to

by others

as

one of

the day.
questions of
some
are
by
regarded as

cement the union are regarded

likely to tend rather towards the

disintegration of the

Empire.

Further, the

question of Imperial defence, which Professor

Beer, of Columbia University, thinks was " the

rock on which the old

Empire
1

that

Seeley, "Expansion of England/' p.

is

to say,

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

17

the Empire which existed up to nearly the

1
end of the eighteenth century was shuttered,"

not wholly decided These exceptions

do not, however, seriously invalidate the
general statement that, in so far as the selfis still

governing colonies are concerned, the Imperial

Lord Durham's
problem has been solved.
-

epoch making

mission

to

Canada seventy

years ago resulted in practical effect being

given to the principle which had been rudely
enforced by the revolt of the American
colonies.

From

that time forth, the colonies

have practically governed themselves.

In the third place, it is obvious that no very
close or instructive analogy can be established

between Home in her relations with the provincials and Great Britain in its relations with
the self-governing colonies.
When the poet
2
Claudian, in an oft-quoted passage, said that

Rome

gave rights of citizenship to those

she had conquered

elves vocavil

whom

quos domuit-

he meant something very different to what

mean when we say

we

that self-governing powers

have been accorded to Canada, the Australian
1
'

Beer, "British Coloxiial Policy, 17/M-17(>.V

De Cons, StiL, iii. 15%~53,

P-

<

**

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

18

colonies, or

South Africa.

From

a very early

Home was frequently

period of her history,
At the
incorporating new bodies of citizens.
commencement of the

third century, Caraealla

conferred the franchise on practically the whole

Roman world. But this privilege, though

valuable in

some

respects, did

not carry with

any self-governing powers. It merely conferred on a very large number of provincials a

it

personal right to vote in the Roman Assembly.

The Roman system, in Professor Freeman's
"
words, was as

if

the Livery of

London were

invested with supreme power, every elector in

the United Kingdom being at the same time
invested with the freedom of the City/' 1
I turn, therefore, to a consideration of those
possessions on which self-governing
powers, in the full sense of the term, have not

British

been conferred.
of the future

The great Imperial problem

is to what
an extent some

350 millions of British

subjects,

who

are aliens

to us in race, religion,
language, manners, and
1 "
of
Federal
Government in Greece and Italy/'
History
p. 24.

Augustus endeavoured to place Roman citizens

resident in the Italian colonies on a
footing of practical
equality with those resident in Rome by enabling the former
to transmit their votes in
writing to Rome (Suet., Get, r. 4(>).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

19

customs, are to govern themselves, or are to

be governed by us. Rome never had to face
such an issue as this. Mr. Bryce estimates

population of the Roman

Empire in the days of Trajan was at most
100 millions, spread over 2|- million square
the

that

miles

U4

total

of

British flag

The

first

compared to the
over which the

as

country,
million square

miles

flies.

points

analogy which must

endeavours to institute a
of

anyone who
comparison between

strike

notably British

Roman and modern

Imperial policy are that in

proceeding from conquest to conquest each

step in advance was in ancient, as it has been

modern, times accompanied by misgivings,

and was often taken with a reluctance which

in

was by no means feigned that Rome, equally

with the modern expansive Powers, more
especially Great Britain and Russia, was
impelled onwards by the imperious and
;

1 " Studies in
History and Jurisprudence/' vol. i, p. 17.
Mr. Fynes Clinton ( ce Fasti Hellenic!/' vol. i., p. 60S) gives
the total extent of the Roman Empire, exclusive of the

Tauric Chersonese and the northern shore of the Euxine,

as 1,636,398 square miles.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

20

necessity of

acquiring defensible
that the public opinion of the world
frontiers
scoffed 2,000 years ago, as it does now, at the

irresistible
;

each onward move

alleged necessity and that
was attributed to an insatiable lust for an
;

1
extended dominion.

The Roman

policy of world-conquest

may

be said to have been inaugurated by the First

Punic War, in B.C. 264-241. 2 It received a
great stimulus from the campaigns of Lueullus

new

a
1

3
who, Mr. Ferrero says,

73),

(B.C.

conception into

ifc

Roman

introduced

policy

the

is estimated that during the ten years from

87J) to
was an increase of British territory throughout
there
1889
the world of some 1,250,000 square miles, or about one-

It

third of the area of Europe.

On this, Sir Charles Lucas
to
Lewis's
of Dependencies," !> xix)
"Government
(Preface
remarks : "
of
has been forced upon
annexation
policy

Great Britain during the last half- century, and has certainly not been lightly entered into by her Government or
her people but the result has been the name as if nhe had
;

been simply bent upon wholesale aggrandizement/*

f
2 T<
yap TroAe/ACji) /cpcmja-avrcs P<u/Acucu Ka/>x>/$otuW, KCU
vofucrai/Tcs

rb Kvpi^rarov KOL
fteyarrov ft/>o$ aiVotv )}yu<r0ttt

rty TWV #A.<ov

&rl ra Aotira ra

7iy)bs

&
(Polyb.,
8

vol.

re
i.

T7/i/

EXXa8a

<nmo

/cal

ror irpwrov

Kat rot)s Kara

rr/f

A<rtav TOTTOVJ

3).

Ferrero,
i.,

67rt/3oXr;y,

p. 151.

"The

Greatness and

Decline

of

Home,"

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

21

It paused,
idea of aggressive Imperialism."
though it did not terminate, with the battle of

Actium

(B.C.

31)

and the capture of Egypt.

During this long period, constant but ineffectual

efforts were made, either by corporate bodies
or individuals, to stem the ever-advancing tide
of conquest. Scipio and the Roman aristocracy
were persistently averse to an extension of
empire. This view was shared by the Senate
at

all

up to the time of the Macedonian

Pydna (B.C. 1G8). Cato, to use a

events,

defeat at

term which is now at times woefully misu little

Roman," though his
applied, was a
views may have been dictated by a fear lest
extension should bring in its train an accession
of that demoralizing Greek influence which

was

so repugnant to his sturdy conservatism,

rather than by any doubts as to the wisdom

of the policy on other grounds.

In B.C. 27
.Augustus, who was aware that the power of

Home

was limited as compared to its prestige,

endeavoured to evade the popular cry in favour

of a Parthian war. Even so late as the days

of Trajan and Adrian, the historian Floras expressed grave doubts as to whether it would
not have been better to be content with Sicily
4

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

22

and Africa, "or even to have been without

them," rather than that Home should grow to

own

such greatness as to he ruined by her

1

strength.

The Romans.,

therefore

or, at

all

events,

some of the wisest amongst them struggled

as honestly and manfully to check the appetite
for self-aggrandizement as ever Mr. Gladstone
and Lord Granville strove to shake off the
Bather than
Egyptian burthen in 1882.
they resorted, as in the
case of the Numidian JMasinissa, to the policy

attempt to rule

direct,

of buffer states, with the result, in this particular instance, that before long they had to

wage a
1

serious

"Acnescioan

war against Jugurtha, the

satius fuerit

populo Romano

Sicilia et

Africa contento luisse, aut his etianx ipsis pareere dominant!

in Italia sua, quam eo maguitudinis crescere ut uiribus suis
"
conficeretur
(Floras, Epit, I. xlvi.).

Lucan, speaking of the extent of the

says

Roman Empire,

"

Quo

latius

orbcm

Possedit citius per prospera fata cucurrit.

Omne

tibi bellum gentes dedit omnibus annis

Te geminum Titan procedcre vidit in axem
Haud multum terree spatium restabat Eoa?,
Ut tibi nox tibi tota dies tibi curreret nether,

Omniaque

errantes stellse

Romana viderent"
(Phara.,

vii. 41}).)

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

grandson of the vassal

whom

23

they had set up.

They adopted, in the first instance,, a similar

Though reluctantly
policy in Asia Minor.
forced into

war by Antiochus the Great, they

took nothing for themselves at the conclusion

of the peace which followed upon the crushing
defeat inflicted on that ambitious

monarch

at

Magnesia (B.C. 188). They merely substituted

the authority of the Pergamene for that of the
Seleucid dynasty.
Augustus, although in
attempting to conquer

Germany he undertook

a policy of expansion and direct government of

a limited character, fell back in Asia Minor

on the creation of buffer states, which, in spite

of the death-blow given by Pompey to the
system of protectorates after the Mithridatic

Wars

05-63),

(B.C.

lasted

till

the

time of

He refused to annex Armenia

Vespasian.
on the murder of its King, Artaxes, 1 whom
Tiberius had been sent to depose, although,
according to his own statement, he could

have done
1

".

Ep. L,

xii.

so.

Claudi virtute Neronis Armenius cecidit"(Hor.,

26).

"Studies of Roman Imperialism," p. 213.

Mr. Arnold bases his statement on a quotation from the
2

Arnold,

Monumentum Ancyranum.

Similarly,

in

1765,

Clive

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

24

All these efforts to check the rising tide of

Imperialism were in vain. Perhaps they were
Reluctance
not always very whole-hearted.
to assume further responsibilities was constantly straggling both with

national pride,

which urged that those responsibilities should

be assumed, and with fear of the consequences
if some really efficient ruler were allowed to
take in hand the task which

At

Home had declined.

the death, of Antiochus IV. (Epiphanes)

nephew, Demetrius the Saviour,

was residing at Home, whither he had been

in B.C. 164, his

brought as a hostage sonic years previously,

his character subsequently degenerat that time a youth who gave
he
was
ated,
Me
remarkably good promise for the future.

Though

had from

Roman

been surrounded by
He was known to be

his childhood

associations.

popular in Syria. Here, therefore, was a good

opportunity for the Roman Government, had

wished to do

to take a really effective

step in the direction of shaking off Imperial

it

so,

burdens, and placing them on the shoulders

of one who, though not a Roman, was believed
refused to annex

campaign.

Oudh

at the conclusion of a successful

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

to be a

sympathizer with Home.

25

But the

Senate evidently preferred that their vassals

should be nonentities rather than effective
rulers.

They

refused the

appeal

made by

Demetrius that he should be allowed to return

With the connivance

to his native country.
of his compatriot Polybius, he escaped, 1 and
was only by the bestowal of very liberal
presents that he eventually obtained from the

it

Romans

his recognition as King.

Many potent and often uncontrollable

forces

were, in fact, persistently acting in the direcAmbitious proconsuls and

tion of expansion.

commanders

the prototypes of the British

Hastings and the Russian SkobelelF

Warren
who were animated

either

by personal motives

by a strong conviction of the necessity

of action in Roman interests, were constantly
forcing the hands of the central Government.
Such, amongst numerous examples
which might be cited, were Lucullus (B.C. 72 ) 2
or

Polybius,

episode

is

xxxi.

given in

20-23.

graphic account of this

Be van's " House of Seleucus "

(vol. iL,

c. xxvii.).
2

ee

If the favourable opportunity was to be employed,

in earnest, Lucullus had

and Armenia was to be dealt with

to begin the war, without

any proper orders from the

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

26

and Aquilius
Gallus

was

it

(B.C.

89;

in

Asia Minor, and

Moreover, not only

a "supreme principle of the Roman

(B.C.

27) in Egypt.

Government to acknowledge no

frontier

Power

"3

a principle the execution

with equal rights
of which manifestly tended to an extension
of territory until the sea-coast or some other
natural

boundary

was reached

were the Romans at times

Senate, at his

own hand and

his

own

not

only
compelled to
;

risk.

He

found

placed under the necessity of

in
the
most manifest interest of the
he
what
did
executing
not
with
its sanction, but in spite of
Government,
existing
Mr.
it" (Mommsen, "History of Rome," vol. iv.,p. 335).

himself, just like

Sulla,

Roman History/* p. 1 8)
man in the history of Rome.
Roman Senate nor King

Ferrero (* f Characters and Events of

calls
1

Lucullus " the strongest

"Although neither the

5*

Mithridates had desired the rupture, Aquilius desired it, and

war ensued "(Mommsen, "History of Rome," vol. iv., p. 29).

" While Gallus was

undoubtedly anxious to satisfy his
for glory and plunder, he was no doubt equally
aaxious to impress the Egyptians with the new government, and to convince them of its greater severity and
vigour compared with the rule of the Ptolemies.
Thus Gallus, undisturbed by the authority of the Senate
2

own wish

or of Augustus, acted in

"

Egypt precisely as he pleased

" The Greatness and
Decline of Rome," vol. iv.,
(Ferrero,

p. 170).
s

Mommsen, "The Provinces of the Roman Empire/'

TO!. iL, p, 51.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

27

occupy a country in order to prevent others

from occupying it, as has repeatedly occurred
in the history of British Imperialism ;* but
one at least of their greatest statesmen and
administrators advocated a forward policy on
the ground that it would be impolitic to allow

the subjects of Rome to run the risk of contamination by close contact with a free people.
Agricola urged the necessity of occupying
Ireland in order to overawe the Britons

by
them with Roman arms, and

surrounding
thus, as

it

were,

" banish
liberty

from their

sight."

We may find a not too fanciful analogy to the policy

of the English in the days of Clive, when they were drawn
farther and farther into Indian conflicts by their efforts to
1

(t

check the enterprises of Dupleix and Lally, in the policy

when they entered Sicily to prevent
"
from
establishing her control over it
Carthage
(Bryce,

of the Romans
"

Studies, etc.," vol.

i.,

p. 9).

" The new British annexations in Africa have been

made,
not so much because there was a strong desire in England
if it had not been taken
by the English, it might or would have been by the
"
" Government of
Germans
(Lucas's Preface to Lewis's

to take more of Africa, as because,

Dependencies," p. xxi).
2
"Saepe ex eo audivi legione una et modicis auxiliis
debellari obtinerique Hiberniam posse ; idque etiam adversus Britanniam profuturum, si Romana ubique arma et
"
velut e conspectu libertas tolleretur (Tacitus, Agric., c. 24).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

28

Again, the acute dissensions amongst the

neighbouring tribes materially contributed in

Rome,

the ease of

British in India,

as

did in the ease of the

it

and of the Russians

in

Central

Asia and the Caucasus, towards the execution

of an Imperial policy. Instances abound. One
Gallic tribe constantly asked for Roman assist-

ance to crush another.

Adherbal made an

Mr. Baddeley ("The Russian Conquest of the Can

casus," p. 295) gives a striking instance which occurred in,
1

The

1837.

chief of one of the tribes in the Caucasus

addressed his followers in the following terms : "Avars!

Rather than that these dogs of Murids should rob and ruin
us, will it

not be better to

call in

the Russians

They

not occupy our houses nor take away our last; crust of
bread.
They are brave and generous, and so far have

will

never been ashamed to have to do with poor, simple folk

like us.
Why should we avoid them ? For whose, sake ?
Will

it

not be better to dwell in the closest alliance with

them? We shall be rich,

who will dare to insult us !"

peaceful,

and then

let us see

In India the idea of utilizing internal dissensions hi

order to assert European supremacy was

first

originated by

Dupleix.

The danger of calling in a powerful and ambitious

neighbour to help in the suppression of internal discord
was fully realized by some, at all events, of the Greek
states.

The

address which Hermocrates delivered to th$

Sicilians (Thuc., iv.

59-64) dwells strongly

to all Sicily

Athens.

on the clangor
which would be involved in
invoking aid from

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

29

Roman Senate for help

Rome was invited to be-

eloquent appeal to the

1

against Jugurtha.

come the champion of Hellenic freedom in

Asia Minor, and when the invitation had been
accepted, and help effectively given, it was
soon found, in the words of

Mommsen, that
" the most detestable form of Macedonian rule

was

fraught with evil for Greece than a

free constitution springing from the noblest
less

It is,
intentions of honourable foreigners." 2
indeed, one of the inevitable incidents of the

execution of an Imperial policy that, as a

political force, the gratitude shown to the
foreigner

who

relieves oppression

We

of a very
learnt this

is

have
ephemeral character.
The
lesson both in India and in Egypt.
French also have learnt it in Algiers and
Cochin China, the Russians in Central Asia. 3

" Patres
conscript!, per vos per liberos atque parentes,
per majestatem populi Rornani, subvenite misero mihi ; ite
1

obviam injuria; nolite pati regnuzn Numiclias, quod ves~

trum est, per scelus et sanguinem familiae nostrae tabescere
;

(Sallust,
2

Jugurtha, xiv).

"

Mommsen, History of Rome," vol. ii, p. 4<94.

Mr. Rice Holmes (" History of the Indian Mutiny/'

557) quotes from Sir George Campbell's Memoirs a

passage from a letter written by a Sepoy officer, and dis-

p,

covered in the palace of Delhi, in which

it is

stated that,

30

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

The Roman

Imperialists

were not slow

to take advantage of the opportunities thus

deterred

No

scruples of conscience
from applying to its fullest

afforded to them.

them

extent the celebrated, albeit cynical,, maxim

of Machiavelli. They endeavoured to divide

The most

and govern.

illustrious

of their

historians did not hesitate to record a pious

hope that the nations of the world would

retain and perpetuate, if not an affection for

Rome,
other;

an animosity against each

and Tiberius pointed out to Ger-

at

least

"with

all the faults of the

English, their government was
the best Hindostan has ever seen."
But he also quotes a
statement made
Lord Lawrence to the effect that " the

by

people of India can never forget that we are an alien race

in respect of colour, religion, habits, and sympathies."
This really sums up all there is to be said on the subject.
Mutatis mutandis, Lord Lawrence's dictum may be applied
to Egypt, Algeria, Tunis, Annam, the Asiatic provinces of
Russia, and, in fact, to every country

where the Western

governs the Eastern.

History in this matter repeats itself,

Gregorovius (" Rome hi the Middle Ages," vol. L, p. 327),
" The
speaking of the rule of Theodosius in Italy, says :
unhappy King now learnt by experience that not even the
wisest or most
in customs,

humane

and

of Princes,

religion,

if

he be an

people."
1 "

Maneat, quseso, duretque gentibus,

at certe

odium

sui,

alien in race,

can ever win the hearts of the

si

non amor nostri,

quando urguentibus imperii

fatis nihil

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

31

manicus, as an inducement for him to return

to Italy, that the most politic method of
treating the German tribes was to leave them
to cut each other's throats. 1

All these were, however, but contributory

It cannot be doubted that it was the

causes.

desire to obtain natural

and defensible frontiers

which gave the main stimulus

In Gaul, Spain, and
expansion.

in all directions

Roman

to

Numidia such a

was provided by
either the ocean or the desert
but it was
"The North and the
wanting elsewhere.
frontier

"
East," Mr* Bryce very truly says,
ultimately
2
Rome."
It
was
from
these
destroyed
quarters

Teuton and the Slav poured in, and

marched to what was pathetically, but very

that the

erroneously, thought by a fifth-century

to be the funeral of the world/'

Roman3

iam

praestare fortima maius potest quam. hostium discordiam "' (Tacitus, De Ger., S3).
1 "
Posse et Cheruscos ceterasque rebellium gentes,

quoniam Romanae ultioni eonsultum

cordiis relinqui
2

"

(Tacitus, Ann.,

ii.

esset, internis clis-

26).

"Studies, etc./' p. 15.

Sidonius Apollinaris.
Besides the Teuton and the
Slav, the Persians contributed to the work of destruction.

The

crushing defeat inflicted by the Persians on the

Emperor Valerian (A.D. 259 or 260) gave a death-blow to

Roman domination

in the East.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

32

The same motive

impelled

the

British

trading company, which had been empowered

" make
in 1686 to
peace and war with the

heathen nations

5?1

of India, to

move onwards

they or the British Government, which

eventually took over their governing powers,

until

reached the barrier of the Himalayas, and,

when these had been reached, to ask themselves wistfully

whether even that frontier was

Similarly, the

sufficiently secure.

Russians

were driven across the steppes of Central Asia,

and the French in Algeria from the sea-coast
to the confines of the Great Sahara.
It can

be no matter for surprise that both

modern world, prompted

the victims by actual loss of

the ancient and the

in the case of

wealth and position, and in the case of others

by fear mingled with jealousy, should have

condemned the policy of expansion, and should

have refused to take seriously the excuse
proffered for

its

adoption.

Mithridates in-

veighed against "the insatiable desire for

"
2
empire and wealth displayed by the Romans,
1

Ilbert,

"The Government

of India/' p. 31.

dbnter was granted in 1600.

2

Letter to King Arsaces, Sallust.

The

first

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

and many years

S3

later the British chief Cal-

gacus uttered a similar protest in a speech in

which he is alleged to have made use of the

world-famous phrase, Ubi solititdinem faciunt,

1

pacem
has

appellant.

in

modern times

criticism which,

heen no

British

if

Imperial

heen

policy

assailed

not similar in

with

detail,

has

we

ourselves
vehement, whilst
some
with
have
times,
inconsistency,
attributed Russian advance in Central Asia
solely to ambition, and have waived aside all
less

at

explanations based on the necessities of the

situation, 2

somewhat close analogy may, therefore,

be established between the motive power which
impelled both ancient and modern Imperialists
onwards.
1

Tacitus, Agric., 30.

Terentyeff (" Russia and England in Central Asia/'

"Our movements in the East are not
ii., p. 153) says

vol.

the result of any premeditated plan, but have been the

immediate consequence of the necessities of the moment."
Raids, encouraged by the activity of some bold frontier

have largely contributed to stimulate an aggresin modern times.

policy, both in ancient and

chieftain,

sive

Tacfarinas

in

Numidia was the

political

precursor

of

Abd-el-Kader in Algeria, and of many who have opposed

the advance of Russia in Asia e.g., Schamyl in the
Caucasus.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

34

Their methods were also very similar. In

both cases undaunted audacity characterized
Sulla (B.C. 86) did not
proceedings.
at Chazronea to an
battle
hesitate to give

their

army three times as numerous as his own,

sent against him by Mithridates, with the

he gained a complete victory.

Roman Centurion of the Tenth Legion, when
taken prisoner, boldly stated that with ten of

result that

his

men he would

With

beat 500 of the enemy. 1

a mere handful of troops, Clive won the
of Plassy and

Battle

Empire.

There

founded

Indian

in fact, a

good deal of
between the Roman and British
Both nations appear to the best

similarity

character.

advantage in

is,

critical

Mommsen, "History

Similar instances

of

times.

Rome/

under

Poiyhius said

vol. v., p,

I,08,

might be quoted in connection with

the Russian conquest of Central Asia.

Tashkend,

the

Chernajeff,

1,500

At the capture of
Russians opposed

**

15,000 Khokandian troops and 90,000 hostile natives"

(Vambfry, "Western Culture in Eastern Lands," p. 152),

Perhaps the most striking instances of audacity in the

execution of an Imperial policy are to be found in the
history of the foundation of the Spanish South American
inter alia,

Empire

(see,

vol. i,

pp. 327, 340, 360,

vol.

i.,

pp. 216, 321).

"Conquest of Peru,'
and "Conquest of Mexico/*

Prescott's

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

that the

Romans were most

35

to be feared

when their danger was greatest. 1 I well

remember being struck by the slight effect
produced

in

Egypt by our

early reverses

during the recent South African War. All

were convinced that we were the inheritors of
that proud motto which laid down as a principle of policy that Rome should never make

peace save as a victor. Even amongst hostile

critics, warm admiration was excited by the
steadfastness shown by the nation under trial

should add, which was

somewhat qualified by the delirious and undignified rejoicings which took place when the

an admiration,

main danger was

past.

In respect to another point, the methods

employed by the British, both in India and

Egypt, bear a striking similarity to that

adopted by the Romans. Both nations have
been largely aided by auxiliaries drawn from
in

the countries which

Romans were
dient

they conquered.

The

driven to resort to this expethe paucity of their own

to

owing
numbers compared to the extent of
i

Polybius,

i.

20, 59-

their

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

36

dominions, and to the unpopularity of foreign

service

amongst

their

own

Economy

troops.

and convenience led the British, alone amongst

modern expanding Powers, to follow their

2
Sir John Seeley
example on a large scale.
of
India
"The
nations
have been consays:
quered by an army of which, on the average,
about a fifth were English." 3
The employment of auxiliaries on a large
1 "The
Roman burgesses began to perceive that
dominion over a foreign people is an annoyance not only
to the slave, but to the master, and murmured loudly regarding the odious war-service of Spain. While the new

Generals, with good reason, refused to allow the relief of

the existing corps as a whole, the men mutinied and
threatened that, if they were not allowed their discharge,

they would take it of their

History of Rome," voL ii., p.

own

accord

389).
system was not initiated

by the

"

(Mormnsen,

**

The
it

copied

British.

We

from the French.

Polity ") says

"The

first

Colonel Chesney ("Indian

establishment of the Company's

Indian
1748,

Army may be considered to date from the year

when a small body of Sepoys was raised at Madras,

after the

example set by the French for the defence of

that settlement"

The French still employ

auxiliary troops in Algeria,, but
cm a far smaller scale than ourselves. With the
exception
ofa few Turcoman
irregular horse, the whole of the so-called
*s

Asiatic
1

**
*

"

of Russia is
composed of
Expamion of England," p. 233.

Army

Russians.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

scale

is

;?7

a bold and somewhat hazardous ex-

It would appear, of necessity, to

periment.
either the
lead to one of two consequences
:

conquered race
equal or even,

ultimately placed on an
possibly, on a superior-

is

footing to its conquerors,, or else the subject

race acquiesces in its subjection, and loyally
co-operates with its alien rulers.
these two consequences ensued to

The first of
Rome. To

give only a few illustrations which occurred

at various periods before Rome was finally
overwhelmed by the northern flood Trajan,
:

Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca were Spaniards.

Septimius

Severus

to

belonged

Gallic

and was born in Africa. Neither was

the equality, which eventually drifted into
superiority, confined to the world of politics.
family,

The poet

Martial, at a time

when Roman

Imperialism was mainly represented by those

who were not merely in name, but in fact,
1
The
Romans, boasted of his Spanish birth.
rhetorician, Quintilian,

who preceded

Martial

by a few years, was possibly a Spaniard, and

Ex

Et

Celtis genitus

Tagique

Hiberis

civis

"
(x. 65).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

38

was certainly born in Spain.

Terence was

a Carthaginian slave.

No
like

such consequences, or anything at all

them, have ensued in the case of Great

Britain.

With

and
episode towards

the exception of a passing,

not very important., political

the close of the eighteenth century, when
India added its drop to the existing ocean of

Parliamentary corruption, it may be said that

the Indian connection, although it has widely
influenced British policy, has not in any degree
influenced the composition of the legislative
and executive machine through whose agency

that policy has been directed.

Can it be said with truth that the alternative

consequence has ensued that the subject

have acquiesced in their subjection,
and that the auxiliary
troops recruited from

races

amongst those races have loyally co-operated

with their alien rulers ? The
great Mutiny
which occurred in India some
fifty years ago
would, at first sight, appear to
supply a negative answer to this
question yet the answer
would be by no means
conclusive, for the
;

must obviously
depend upon the
which led up to the events of

conclusion

1857.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

Political

causes, without

to produce the result. 1

59

doubt, contributed

Yet

in spite of the

opinion expressed by one of the

historians of the Sepoy war, 2 I believe that

opposite

1
It can, I think, scarcely be doubted that the adoption
of the policy of "annexations by lapse" was the most
This matter is fully
important of these political causes.

discussed

in

Sir

William Lee -Warner's " Life of the

Marquis of Dalhousie" (vol. ii., chap. v.). Although Lord

Dalhousie was an active agent in the execution of the policy
of annexation

by

lapse,

he did

not, as

is

often supposed,

So early as 1834, the Court of Directors wrote

to the Governor-General tf Wherever it is optional with

initiate

it.

you to give or withhold your consent to adoption, the

indulgence should be the exception and not the rule, and
should never be granted but as a special mark of approbaSir Charles Wood (afterwards Lord Halifax), when
President of the Board of Control, seems to have doubted
the wisdom of the policy. In April, 1854, he wrote to

tion."

Lord Dalhousie

"I

am by no means

these States, though

the end."

all

"

suppose

it

impatient to absorb
will

come

to this in

The Indian Mutiny/ vol. iii., p. 470, et seq.

Malleson,
The causes which led up to the Mutiny are very fully stated
5

ce
by Mr. Rice Holmes in his History of the Indian Mutiny."
A summary is given on pp. 556-60. The main point to
bear in mind is that the British Government, in 1857, had,

broadly speaking, to deal, not with a general rising of the

""
The disturbances/* Mr.
population, but with a mutiny.
"
Rice Holmes says (p. 558),
except in one or two isolated
regions,

and on the part of a few embittered or fanatical

4<0

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

Lord Lawrence was right

in

regarding the
whole of this episode mainly as a military
mutiny rather than a political movement
ever be forgotten that, even
during that time of stress and convulsion, no
inconsiderable body of the auxiliary troops

Nor should

it

remained loyal Throughout the length and

breadth of the British Empire there exists
no monument of greater political significance
than that erected

Lucknow

in

by Lord Northbrook

at

honour of the heroism of those

Sepoys who, in the face of temptations which

would have rendered defection, to say the least,
excusable, adhered to the British cause.

we

leave aside the episode of the Mutiny,

the answer to the question I have propounded
If

On many a well-fought
not
field,
only the bravery, but also the loyalty,
of the auxiliary
troops of Great Britain have
been conspicuous*

cannot be doubtful

Will the past be repeated in the future ?

Will the steadfast
loyalty, to which both the
rulers and the ruled
may look with equal pride
groups, never amounted to a rebellion/*
I think that this
verdict will be endorsed
by most of those who know India,
and who have studied this
particular

question.

11380

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

and

satisfaction,

resist

41

those

disintegrating
into
stimulated
action, botli
being
in India and England, with a recklessness
forces

now

which at times seems to take but

little

heed

of that wise old saw, licspicc fmcm ? That is

one of the crucial Imperial questions of the
future.

An

I will

not hazard a prophecy about

Imperial

Power

it.

naturally expects to

some benefits for itself from its ImThere can be no doubt as to the
perialism.
quarter to which the Romans looked for their
They exacted heavy tributes from
profit.
derive

their dependencies.

They regarded the pro

The Athenians adopted a similar system. At the

height of their empire there were, according to Aristophanes (Vesp,, ().9(i), one thousand cities tributary to
1

Athens.

These arc believed to have paid collectively an

annual tribute of 600 talents (about

was

subsequently

The

50,000),

commuted, or perhaps

it

tribute

would be

more correct

to say increased (Time., vii.

28), to a 5 per
cent, ad valorem duty on all imports and exports.
Little
seems to be known as to the incidence of the tribute on

each city (see Grote's "Hist/* vol. iv., p. 4JW), but there
can be no doubt that the tribute constituted the main
source of Athenian revenue.
Boeckh (" Public Economy
"
of Athens," Lewis's translation,
p 3J)6) says
By far the
most productive source of revenue
belonging to the
Athenian State was the tributes (^><S/)(u) of the allies"
:

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

42

vinces solely from the point of view of the

revenue which could be obtained from them. 1

The onerous nature of the

tribute

may

best be

by giving the facts relating to Egypt

Under Ptolemy Philadelphia, 6| million modii
of corn were annually collected in Egypt.
Under Augustus, the quantity sent to Rome
was no less than 20 millions of modii. In
realized

other words, instead of a tax

amounting to

which was spent in the

no
less
than
531,000 was levied and
country,
180,000,

all

Pericles (Thuc.,

tight

*X

iV

)>

of

keep a
r&v guppaxiuv Bia x^p^
because their main strength was derived from the
ii.

1)

hand over the

advised his countrymen to

allies (rot re

The quid pro quo which the tributaries received

to compensate them for the onerous burdens which
they
had to bear was that the
JEgean was cleared of Persian
tribute.

ships.

" Les
provinces sont des prcsdia du peuple romain, et
fear importance au
point de vue de I'fitat reside uniquemcnt dans les revenus qu'elles lui fournissent "
(Marquardt,
**
Organisation de 1'Empire Romain/* vol. ii.,
p. 558).
M
people dominateur vcut du revenu des provinces
nn propri^taire du
de ses immeubles "
1

produit
"L^Organisation Financi^re chez les Remains/'
1
One of the principal functions of the
89).
procurators
the imperial, and the
quaestors in the senatorial, prowas to euict the Ml and
punctual payment of the
arft,

JP*

tribute.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

sent to

Rome,

exclusive of

for internal requirements.

43

what was exacted

methods adopted by the

British in India differed widely from those of
the Romans, the principle which they sought,
in the first instance, to enforce was much the
same. For all practical purposes it may be
said that for some years India paid a tribute
to Great Britain. The trade of the East India
Company was at first enormously lucrative.
In 1622, goods bought in India for 356,000
the

Although

2
1,915,000 in England.
that the Company, besides

sold for

The

was

making

result

at

times large loans to the British Government,

were able to pay an annual tribute of 400,000

The main reason which, in

to the Treasury.
1763, decided the contest between France and
England

for the possession of India in favour

Power was unquestionably its

predominance as a maritime Power. But a
of the latter

subsidiary cause, which contributed in

1

Wilcken,

*'

Griechische Ostraka/'

vol.

i.,

no small

p.

421, and

I have,
Marquardt's "Organisation Financi&re," p. 294.
on the authority of Marquardt, taken the price of a
modius (about two English gallons) at 3 sesterces 1,000
:

were equivalent to $ 17s. Id.

" British Dominion in
India,"
Lyall,

sesterces
2

p. 20.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

44

degree to the final result, was that, whereas in

England the traders were able to pay the

Government, in France the Government was

upon to pay large subsidies to the

1
traders.
Hopes began to be entertained that
some portion of the burthen of British taxation would be shifted to Indian shoulders. 2
called

Fortunately, these hopes were not realized.

The system was abandoned in 1778, not,
apparently, from any doubt as to its soundness,
but by reason of the financial embarrassments

of the

Company, due to the great Bengal

famine

of

1770

and

other

causes,

which

rendered the continuance of the heavy payQuant aux ressources de finance, il est notoire que
I'ixnposition que Ton l&ve dans nos Colonies ne suffit pas
a beaucoup pr&s aux d^penses de j*Circt et d'administration qu'elles entrainent" (" CEuvres de Turgot/' viii. 459,
1

et

cited

by Lewis, "Government of Dependencies,"

The French

over-sea possessions

still

p,

07),

constitute a drain

on

" The Statesman's

According to
1909" (p. 790), the total expenditure in

the French Treasury.

Year-Book
Algeria,

for

including military and extraordinary disburseabout 3,000,000 in excess of the revenue*

ments, is
2 "
Alderman

Beckford expressed in

the House of

hope that the rich acquisitions of the Company in the East would be made a means of relieving the
"
people of England from some of their burdens
(Lyall,

Commons

his

" British
Dominion, etc.,"

p.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

45

ments of former years impossible. Whatever

may have been the causes, the change was
eminently beneficial, for the system, though
not so faulty as that formerly adopted
by the Spaniards towards their American
colonies/ was, both politically and econo-

From 1773

unsound.

mically, thoroughly

regarded trade with

India, and not tribute from India, as the
counterbalances the
financial
asset which

onwards, England has

burthen of governing the country.

In judging of the methods employed by

ancient and modern Imperialists to effect the
objects which they respectively had in view, it
is not easy to avoid
doing some injustice to

the former.

Christianity has intervened between the two periods, and has established

moral code on

principles

almost wholly

unknown

to the ancient world, although to

the Stoics may be awarded the merit of having

paved the way

1

The Spanish

for the humanitarianism of the

were obliged to export the

forbidden to receive comprecious
modities in exchange from the mother- country.
Thus
the whole of the colonial trade fell into the hands of other
colonies

metals, but were

nations.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

4.6

Professor Bury, if I understand

that the public morality of
rightly, thinks
the Romans was superior to that of the
Christian.

2
Greeks; and there can, I venture to think,
be little doubt that this view is correct. The

speeches

which

mouths of
"

first

It

Thucydides

his orators, if

was the Stoics in the

rose to the conception of

into

put

the

those speeches can

earlier Imperial times

who

humanity and of human,

as

The Stoic
and national, rights.
and the Christian were the first humanitarians" (Laurie,

distinct

from

local

" Historical
Survey of Pre-Christian

See also on this subject Dill's "

to Marcus Aurelius," p. 307 ct

Roman
$e.q. 9

Education," p. 8.
Society from Nero

and Glover's "Con-

of Religions in the Early Roman Empire," chap. ii.).

Professor Sonnensehein, in an article published in the

flict

1906, gives strong reasons for

that
holding
Shakespeare drew from Seneca (De Clem,)
the essential ideas of the celebrated speech on mercy in
" The Merchant of Venice."
According to a high authoNational Review of June,

the Stoics were also to some extent the fathers of

modern economic science. Professor Marshall (" Principles
" To
of Economics/* vol. i, p.
Roman, and
733) says

rity,

especially Stoic, influence

of the good

and

we may

trace indirectly

much

of our present economic system ;

on the one hand, much of the untrammelled vigour of
the individual in managing his own affairs, and, on the
evil

other, not a little harsh

of

rights

held

and
2

its

wrong done under the cover

by a system of law which has
ground because its main principles are wise
established

just."

Bury,

"The Ancient Greek

Historians/' p. 143.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

47

be taken as true indications of contemporary

abound in statements indicative of

"
"
to use a phrase
the false moral arithmetic
opinion,

which, I think,

time

as.,

is

Bentham's

for instance,

current at his

when an Athenian

envoy, speaking to the Lacedaemonians, urged

that " Men who indulge the rational ambition
of empire deserve credit if they are in any
degree more careful of justice than they

need be." 1

On

the other hand, Tacitus, like Sallust,

"would not acknowledge that the standard
applied in private conduct may be inapplicable
"
a high ideal, to which
to public transactions 2
1

Thuc., i 76.
Bury, "The Ancient Greek Historians/ p. 271. Mr,
Butcher has drawn my attention to the fact that a similar
1

code of high morality was inculcated by Demosthenes. In

Olynth. ii., 10, he said: "It is not possible, Athenians,
not possible to found a solid power upon oppression,
Such an empire may endure for
perjury, and falsehood.
it is

moment or for the hour ; nay, it may, perhaps,

blossom with the rich promise of hope, but time finds it
As in a house, a vessel,
out, and it drops away of itself.

the

or any similar structure, the foundations should above all

be strong, so should the principles and groundwork of

conduct rest upon truth and justice."

And

in his speech

136, Demosthenes expressed himself

against Leptines,
in the following terms " Beware not to exhibit as a nation
conduct which you would shrink from as individuals."
:

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

48

even the Christian world, in spite of the efforts

of statesmen such as Burke and Bright, has
not

attained.

yet

But

although

few

eminent men, who were greatly in advance

of their day, may have cherished lofty ideals
of this description, I conceive that they did
not in any way correctly represent the public
opinion of the mass of their contemporaries.
It would, indeed, be unjust to

judge of the
general tenor of that opinion by a few isolated
If, for instance, it be urged that
episodes.
the bleeding head of the vanquished general
Crassus was used as a stage accessory in the
performance of the Baceh*& "to the infinite
delight

an

of

barbarians/'

it

of

audience

may be

haif-HeUenized

replied that posterity

judges of the civilization

of the eighteenth century by the conduct of
Le Bon, Carrier, and other monsters of the

will greatly err if it

is more calamitous than the divorce of

from morals, but in practical politics public and

"Nothing

politics

"
private morals will never absolutely correspond
(Lecky,
"
of
1
Map Life," p. 81); Lord Acton (" Historical Essays,"
p. 506),

thus:

with his usual

"The

felicity of

statement, puts the case

principles of public morality are as definite as

those of the morality of private

identical"
2

Mommsen, "History,

life,

but they are not

etc.," vol. v., p.

l6.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

French Revolution.

49

Traces of the existence

of a humanitarian policy are, indeed, to be

found in the records of Roman Imperialism.

The

cruelties of Druidical worship,

left

untouched by Julius

Csesar,

which were
were sup-

pressed by Claudius, although in this instance

the humanitarian action was possibly dictated

by the political consideration that nationalism

drew its main element of strength from religion. 2
The policy of Augustus in the East was " mild,
3
So also was that of
just, and conciliatory."
4
Agricola in Britain, and that of the Antonin.es
a later period throughout

at

the

empire.

Vita Claud., e, 15.

Alexander, when in
suppressed some very inhuman local practices
connected with Zoroastrianism (Bevan, " The House of
1

Suet v

Bactria,

Seleucus,"

i.

290).

Mommsen

(" Provinces of the Roman Empire/' vol. i.,

"That direct opposition to the foreign rule
105) says
prevailed in the Druiclism of this period cannot be proved."
2

p.

But he appears

to think that its existence

was highly

probable.
8

Ferrero, "Greatness

Tacitus, Agric., c. 27.

" Procuratores suos modeste
suscipere tributa jussit

excedentes
praecepit

oppressus

etc./' iv. 241.

modum, rationem factorum suorum reddere

nee unquam lastatus est lucro quo provincialis
est.

libenter audivit
c

and Decline,

Contra

procuratores

"

(Julius Capitolinus,

suos conquerentes
Antonini Pii Vita,

vi.),

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

50

Moreover, contact with the cultured mind of

Greece must have exercised, and certainly did
exercise,

some humanizing influence on Roman

1

In spite, however, of these palliathought.

ting circumstances, it may be said that Roman
Imperial policy, even after the reforms introduced during the early years of the empire,
if judged by such modern standards as we are

condemned,

This

wont

to apply? stands

think,

now very generally recognized, and by no

is, I

one more so than by the most recent historian

"We must," Mr. Ferrero says,
of Rome.
"abandon one of the most general and most
widespread

misconceptions,

which

teaches

Greece was the last of the Roman provinces into

which gladiatorial games were introduced, and their introduction was effected under protest from some who fitly
1

represented the true Greek spirit of culture and humanity.

" One of the best
(amongst the Athenians) asked his

countrymen whether they might not first set up an altar

God of compassion, and several of the noblest turned
indignantly away from the city of their fathers that so

to the

dishonoured itself" (" Provinces of the Roman Empire/'

L 172), Seneca, as is well known, protested against the
gladiatorial shows, but it was not till paganism had suc-

cumbed

to Christianity that they

were

finally abolished

(A.D. 325).
2
is

The opposite view to that entertained by Mr. Ferrero

thus expressed by Professor Gwatkin
(" Early Church

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

51

Rome

administered her provinces in a

broad-minded spirit, consulting the general

that

and adopting wide and beneficent

principles of government for the good of the
1
Very great improvements were,
subjects."
Like all who
indeed, made by Augustus.
have had to encounter the practical difficulties

interest,

administrative work,

of

and

first

he found that the

most essential step towards the

a sound administration was to

creation of
establish

an

efficient

Department of Accounts,

History to A.D. 313," p. 52) "She [Rome] was the

of the Great Empires, and almost the only one to our
:

time, which turned subjects into citizens, and ruled

first

own
them

own good, and not for selfish gain."

" Greatness and
The
Decline, etc.," vol. v., p. S.
rule of the Carthaginians over their dependencies was

for their
1

even more oppressive than that of the Romans.

Polybius

72) says that the Carthaginian Governors,

who were

(i.

considered the most

efficient,

were those who,

like

Hanno,

the largest tribute, and employed the harshest

measures for levying it, and not those who dealt mildly
levied

and humanely with the people. The discontent caused

by these measures led the dependencies to take part
against the Carthaginians in the First Punic War.
2
It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of

The establishment of a proper system of

must necessarily precede the inception and
execution of any sound financial policy j and the inaugura-

this

point.

accounts

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

52

and accordingly he introduced a system, which

was subsequently improved by Hadrian and
to a highly
Vespasian, and which, according
1
formed the original
qualified modern authority,
basis of all

subsequent systems.

He discovered

sound financial policy is the necessary and

material progress
indispensable precursor of all moral and
tfon of a

It is to be hoped that
be
this commonplace truth
fully realized by the
whose
reformers at Constantinople,
proceedings are now
so
much
with
watched
sympathetic interest in this
being
on
this
I
have
dwelt
subject, in so far as Egypt
country.
26-28.
vol.
is
in " Modern

in

backward Oriental

states.

will

concerned,

It is certain

i., pp.
Egypt,"
that one, and perhaps not the least for-

midable, of the difficulties which had to be encountered

by the statesmen who, in the early days of Louis XVI.,

endeavoured ineffectually to stem the tide of the Revolution was that the French accounts were at that time in
such confusion that it was almost impossible to ascertain
the true facts with which the Minister of Finance had to
deal.

This

is

strongly brought out in the

ee

Requete au

Roi/* addressed by M. de Calonne to the King in 1787.

Ch^rest (La Chute de FAncien Regime/' vol. i.,
p. 83)

says that, after a most laborious study, Calonne

unable to submit a clear and trustworthy statement to

was

the
t(
Cette assemble n'a pas su, ou
Assembly of Notables.
n's pas pu d<meler la verite dans le fatras de chifFres
aournis 4 son examen."
1
Humbert, * Essai sur les Finances et la Comptabilite
dios les Romains."

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

53

a number of sound administrative principles,

which, even after a lapse of eighteen centuries,
the rulers of nations have not as yet taken
sufficiently

to

He

heart.

saw that low

and insecurity of tenure connoted

corruption and misgovernment, and accordingly he gave all his provincial officials not
1
He and his
only fixed, but high, salaries.
immediate successors put a stop to those frequent changes of officials which did an infinite
amount of harm to the Roman, as they have
salaries

in our
1

2
day to the Ottoman, Empire.

He

The

The

Proconsuls received 1,000,000 sesterces a year.

Procurators were divided into sexagenarii, eentenarii,

etc.,

according as their salaries were 60,000, 100,000,

etc., sesterces

et

(Marquardt,

I/Organisation de TEmpire

The

first step taken by Clive,

India to stop the abuses
in
Lord
Cornwallis,
by
to
A similar
was
raise
salaries.
in
times
their
prevalent
course has been followed in Egypt.

Romain/*

and

vol. iL, p. 586).

later

"One

of the secrets of the better administration of

was the length of time during which one

of these Legates might be kept in a single province. Thus,
in Tiberius' s reign, Sabinus governed Moesia for twenty,
Caesar's provinces

and Silius Gaul for seven, years, while somewhat later

"
Galba was in Spain for eight (Greenidge, " Roman Public
Life," p. 434).

The very well-informed author

of " Turkey in Europe,"

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

54

created a regular civil service, and, by imposing

a limit on the ages of officials, impressed young

and competent

men

into his service.

Courts

for the trial of corrupt provincial Governors

were instituted, and some such as Verres of
Sicilian,

and Gallus of Egyptian, fame

were

pseudonym of "Odysseus/' says

as the eleventh century a Vizier
back
far
that
so
(p. 86)
a
work called "The Science of
wrote
(Nizatnu-1-Mulk)

who

writes under the

recommended that provincial

should
be often moved, and not
and
agents
governors
allowed to become too powerful."
Speaking of the period
of Turkish history when the Phanariots had risen to
positions of importance, he says (p. 309): "Hospodars,
dragomans, and patriarchs alike bought their offices for
Government/* in which he

enormous sums.

ff

The

them all as
number of sales,

Porte changed

often as possible, in order to increase the

left them a free hand in the matter of filling their

own pockets."
The practice of effecting frequent changes of officials
has survived up to our own days in Turkey,
The results

but

which ensued from the adoption of this policy in Egypt

were stated by Mr. Cave in 1876 (see " Modern
Egypt/'
vol.
1

tall

i.j

pp. 30-31).

Another wise regulation made by the Romans, but not

the time of Marcus Aurelius, and which was
eventually

incorporated into the Justinian Code,

was that, without a

from the Emperor, no Governor was
appointed to rale the province in which he was born
(Gibbon, "Decline and Fall," c, xviL).

special dispensation

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

brought to

justice.

rare instances

may

More than

this,

55

some

be cited of Governors

who

took a real interest in the well-being of the

The elder Cato drove the usurers
provincials.
out of Sardinia, and abolished the local con2
The
tributions usually paid to the praetors.
very valuable correspondence, which has fortu1
It is worthy of note that one of the last acts performed by the Senate (circa A,D. 470) before the final
extinction of the Western Empire was the trial and con-

demnation of Arvandus, a Prefect of Gaul, who had

rendered himself conspicuous by his oppression of the
tf
provincials.
Gregorovius ( Rome in the Middle Ages,"
vol. i., p. 241) says: " This trial was one of the most
honourable deeds which graced the dying days of the
Senate. For Gaul, however, it was but an empty and
formal satisfaction, since the Governors of the province
continued, not only to drain it with the same rapacity as
it into the hands of the
immediate successor of Arvandus,
new Catiline), was for these offences punished

before, but further betrayed

Visigoths

Seronatus

in fact, the
(a

by the Senate with death."

2

'{

Fugatique ex insula feneratores, et sumptus, quos in

cultum prsetorum socii facere soliti erant, circumcisi, aut
sublati" (Livy, xxxii 27). Livy adds that, although Cato
was a man of the highest integrity (sanctus et iimocens),
it was
generally thought that he was too severe on the
usurers (asperior tamen in fenore coercendo habitus).
It
is

highly probable that Cato, With the best intentions,

violated every sound

more harm than good.

economic law, and ended by doing

56

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

nately been preserved, between the Emperor

Trajan and the younger Pliny also shows that
at times a real interest in the well-being of the

subject races

was evinced both by the central

and by the local authorities.

Occasionally,
stout-hearted
official
also, some
unusually
protected the provincials from the rapacity
of the numerous fashionable and money-

grabbing adventurers who flocked from Rome

in order to prey upon them.
I have a strong
fellow-feeling for that Bithynian praetor

whose

been immortalized by Catullus, 1 for

have had a somewhat wide personal experi-

justice has
I

ence of the race of company-mongers to which

Catullus belonged, and of their angry vitupera-

tionthough

in prose rather than in poetry.

Occasionally, also, Governors were found too

honest to take advantage of the

opportunities

"

Hue

ut venimus, incidere nobis

Sermones varii ; in quibus, quid esset

lam Bithynia, quo mode se haberet,

Ecquonam mihi profuisset sere.
Respond! id quod

Nunc

erat, nihil

praetoribus esse

neque

ipsis

nee cohorti,

Cur quisquam caput unetius

referret,

Praesertim quibus esset irrumator

Ptetor, nee faeeret pili cohortem."
(Catullus, x.)

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

afforded to

them

for illicit gain.

57

Vespasian
when he

returned from Africa no richer than

went there. 1
These cases were, however, quite exceptional.
As a general rule. Virtus post nummos was the
watchword of every class of Roman society
at

all

events,

during late republican times.

"The

subject was regarded as existing for

the empire, rather than the empire for the
2
The tribute was fixed at a high
subject/'

not merely in order to obtain money,

but also with a view to crippling the resources

figure,

of the conquered nation, and preventing

them

from renewing the struggle for independence. 3

It bore with special hardness on the subject
races, because the provincial officials, being
under no control, exacted not only
the tribute, but additional contributions on

practically

their
1

2
8

own

" Rediit certe

"
Greeniclge,

accounts.

private

Varus,

who

"
opulentior
(Suet.., Div. Vesp.,
Roman Public Life," p. 439.
niliilo

4<)-

"Les

guerres, conduites hors de 1' Italic, dorm&rent

a des contributions, qui s'levrent a des sommes
tr&s considerables, et le paiement en fut reparti sur une

lieu

s6rie d'ann6es,
lui enlever

pour

afFaiblir

son indpendance

tion Financifere/' vol.

i.,

p.

Tennemi pour longtemps et

"
(Marquardt,

te

L'Orgamisa-

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

58

met

eventually

his

death in the forests of

Germany, went, a poor man, as Governor to

1
Syria, and in two years became a millionaire.
tax-gatherers and their inevitable companions, in ancient as in modern times, the

The

on the unfortunate
provincials, and, as Mr. Warde Fowler says,
" It is hard to
say which wrought the most

usurers,

were

let

loose

mischief to the Empire,

1

case

"

''1

In

B.C.

107, the

Another notorious
Studies, etc./ p. 22,'?.
Arnold,
was that of Lieinius, whom Augustus named Pro-

Dion Cassius (liv.

1) says that he
combined the avarice of a barbarian (he was originally a
slave) with all the pretensions of a Roman (Svros oiV
curator of Gaul.

The usurers were, of course, very unpopular. Cato

contended that there was no difference between a money2

lender and a murderer, and that the former occupied a

deservedly lower position in public estimation than a thief.

The

subject

vol. iii,

c.

is

xii.

Mommsen

discussed by

It is interesting, in this

in his History,
connection, to

note that the system of trusts, of which we have heard a

good deal lately, was not unknown to the ancient Romans.

There existed "coalitions of

rival

companies, in order

jointly to establish monopolist prices/'

3

Warde Fowler, "Social

Life at

Rome,

etc./

p.

<)4.

In Ismail Pasha's time the Egyptian tax-gatherers were

frequently accompanied by a staff of usurers, who bought

up the crops of the cultivators in advance at prices which

were ruinous to the latter (see "Modern
Egypt," vol. I,
p. 38).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

Senate, on the

59

occasion of sending a com-

mission to Macedonia, expressed an opinion

that the presence of the tax-farmer was in-

compatible with the existence of either justice

or liberty.

Whatever harvest there was

after the corrupt officials arid

left to reap
the rapacious

publicans had done their worst, was garnered

by commercial adventurers of the type of

who were backed with all the weight

of the capitalist interest in Rome.
Marcus
Junius Brutus, who has gone down to posCatullus,

terity as a

model of republican

virtue,

did

not scruple, at a time when the legal rate of

interest was fixed at 12 per cent., to demand

48 per cent, on a loan made to a Cypriote

town, and quarrelled with the somewhat more
scrupulous Cicero, because, as Governor of
the latter placed obstacles in the way
of the execution of this leonine contract. 2
Cilicia,

Ubi publicanus esset, ibi ant jus publicum vanum,

aut libertatem sociis nullam esse " (Livy, xlv. 18).
2

f<

Marquardt,

p. 5 65,

latter

et

Organisation de

1*

Empire Remain/'

Cicero's letter to his brother Quintus,

was Proprietor in Asia Minor

vol.

ii.,

when the

(" Cicero's

Corre-

spondence/' Tyrrell, vol. L, pp. 250-69), breathes something

of the benign spirit which inspires modern Imperialism.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

60

Cicero himself pleaded eloquently the cause

of the insanum Jorum, which answered to our

Stock Exchange, in a speech on the Manilian

law, bearing a very close resemblance to the

arguments brought forward at times in London,

and still more in Paris, on behalf of the bond1

holders of foreign loans.

It is one of the peculiarities of an administrative

system which

is

honeycombed with

corrupt practices that accusations of corruption are sown broadcast, and when, as often

happens, they are false, do almost as much

harm as the corrupt practices themselves. 2
This is what frequently happened in ancient

true,

Rome.

Charges of corruption, often

and also probably at times false, which

times at

were usually coupled with accusations of high

treason, became a fertile source of wealth to
the Treasury. 3

Sallust, in spite of the

Warde Fowler, " Social

"The Roman Emperors

some-

Life, etc,/" p. 75.

employed

certain agents
and furnish

(styled agonies in reb-us) to visit the provinces

the supreme

Government with information respecting

They are accused of having ruined

their condition.

persons in the remote provinces by false accusations"

" Government of
(Lewis,
Dependencies/' pp. 162-63).
8 "
Ancharius Priscus Caesium Cordum pro consule Cretee
postulaverat repetundis, addito majestatis crimine,

quod

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

6l

what vapid moral sentiments which he has left

on record, did not hesitate (B.C. 45) to use his
position as Governor of Numidia in order to
accumulate vast stores of wealth, which, probably owing to the fact that he was a eulogist
of the Caesarian policy, he was never made to
disgorge. The gossip-loving Suetonius records
that Titus, the

amor ac

delicice

generis humani,
of
was strongly suspected
corrupt practices a
suspicion which, however, did him more good

than harm in public estimation, for the easygoing morality of the day readily condoned
venality if unaccompanied by the
1
vices exhibited by a Nero.

more baneful

That a vast improvement took place

in the

early days of the empire cannot be doubted.

turn

omnium accusationum complementum

Ann.,

iii.

Emperor

erat

"

(Tacitus,

Pliny the Younger, in his panegyric on the

"
Trajan, says
Locupletabant et fiscum et

38).

serarium non

tarn Voconiae et Juliae leges, quam majestatis singulare et unicum crimen eorum qui crimine vaca-

rent
1

"

(Pliny, In Paneg,, 42).

rapacitas, quod constabat in eognitionibus

nundinari
prsemiarique solitum denique propalam
patris
alium Neronem et opinabantur et praedicabant.
At illi

"Suspecta

ea fama pro bono

neque

vitio

ullo

(Suet, Div. Tit,

conversaque est in maximas laudes

"
reperto et contra virtutibus summis

cessit

c. vii.).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

62

Mr. Ferrero, who certainly cannot be accused

of the strong Caesarian sympathies which

somewhat colour the views of the great

German

historian

Mommsen,

says that from

" a wonderful
the days of Augustus
economic
1
whole
the
for
It
Empire."
prosperity began

may, perhaps, be held by some that the stimulus

thus given to material prosperity was dearly
bought at the expense of founding a system
of government which arrested the progress of
Hellenism, crushed out the nascent liberties
of nations, and, to use an expressive phrase of
Mahaffy's,* numbed the intellect
of the world.
But I venture to think that

Professor

more reasonable, more

correct,

and more

philosophic view to take is to surmise that the

Paoc Roma/Ha was a necessary phase through

which the world had to pass before those

moralizing influences, which we owe mainly
to the Jew and the Teuton, could be brought
to bear

on the

destinies of

mankind, and thus

usher in a period when the arrested culture

and humanity of the Hellene could exert their
legitimate influence.
3

Ferrero,

" Greatness and

Decline, etc./'

Greek Life and Thought/'

p.

(5 1

7.

vol. v., p.

338.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

6s

Great, however,, as were the reforms accom-

by Augustus and some of his more

immediate successors, it must be admitted
that they were, for the most
part, of a purely
plished

administrative

character.

Notably, nothing

was done to remove that great blot on ancient

civilization which has been
justly termed by a
recent scholarly writer (Mr. Paterson) "The
Nemesis of Nations." The Roman conscience,

than that of the Greek, 1 was

rarely troubled by any scruples on the subject
of slavery. 2 It was thought the most natural
less sensitive

"In Greece alone men's consciences were troubled

by slavery, and right down through the centuries of the
decadence, when the industrial slave system ruled everywhere, the philosophers never entirely ceased protesting
"
against what seemed an inevitable wrong (Gilbert Murray,
" The
Rise of the Greek Epic/* p. 19). The Greek con-

demnation of slavery dates from very early times. See,

the well-known lines in II, xvii. 522-23 also
Eur., Or., 1115, and Soph., Ajax, 485-90. Zeno upheld the

inter alia,

modern doctrine

that neither purchase nor conquest can

the property of another. On the other
well known, Aristotle defended the institution

make one man

hand, as is
of slavery, and

it

condemned by

Plato.

does not appear to have been expressly

Seneca, however,

if

he did not absolutely condemn the

institution of slavery, was a strong advocate of according

humane treatment to slaves. In his forty-seventh letter

he

says

" Servi sunt ?

Immo

homines.

Servi

sunt

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

6*

make slaves of a conquered nation. The Column of Trajan, which

now stands at Rome, commemorates the quasi-

thing iu the world to

1

2
depopulation of Dacia.
Looking, however, at the matter from a
purely administrative point of view,, it may be

said that the reforms only

produced a partial
effect a circumstance which will not surprise
those who, in modern times, have had practical

experience of the enormous difficulties of

Immo

contubernalcs.

Servi sunt

Immo homines

amici/'

etc.

The Essenes, a small communistic sect, of whose peculiar

tenets a description is given by Josephus (Bell. JucL, ii 8),
appear to have been the first community of the ancient
world to entirely reject the institution of slavery both in
principle

and in

practice.

See, inter alia, Lampridius, Alex., Sev. Vita,, c. Iv. ;

" Provinces of the Roman
Empire/' voL L, p. 223 ; and
Ferrero,
2

"Decline and Greatness,

etc./" vol. v., p. 134.

On

the condition of slaves under the ancient world,

and more especially on the effect produced by slavery on

Roman

character and institutions, see, inter alia, Gibbon's

" Decline and

"
Fall/' c. ii. (and notes) ; Merivale's
History
"
of the Romans/' vol. vii,
603
Mommsen's History of
;
p.

Rome," Bk.

IV., c. xi.

and Hodgkin's

t(

Italy

and her

The legal aspect of the

ii., pp. 556-65.
question has recently been treated in a work by Mr. W.
Buckland, entitled the " Law of Slavery/'
Invaders/' vol.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

65

eradicating a deep-seated evil, such as corrup-

not condemned by the society

in which the evil-doers mix.
Horace, with
characteristic acuteness, placed his finger on
tion,

which

is

when he exclaimed Quid leges

The abuses which Augustus
moribiis !

the right spot

sine

strove manfully to combat, though greatly

mitigated in intensity, still continued to exist.

The

harshness and oppression of republican

times were rivalled, in the days of Commodus,

by that Syrian Governor (Pescennius Niger),

who aspired to be Emperor and lost his life in
the attempt, and who, on being petitioned by
the inhabitants of his province to accord some
brutally replied that he
regretted that he could not tax the air which
1
they breathed.
relief of

we

taxation,

which, in the first

instance at all events, animated the merchant
rulers of India and their agents, we. cannot
If

turn to the

much

spirit

to gratify our national pride.

The

methods which they adopted did not

differ

find

"Idem

Palaestinis

rogantibus, ut eorum

censitio leva-

retur idcirco, quod esset gravata, respondit: 'Vos terras

vestras levari censitione vultis ; ego vero etiam aerem ves"
cc
trum censere vellem
(Spartianus, Pescennii Nigri Vita/'
1

c.

vii.).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

(>(i

very materially from those employed by the

corrupt and rapacious officials of Ancient

An

interval of 1,700 years had not

The British critic of
altered human nature.

Rome.
the

practices

of

the

East India Company

during the latter part of the eighteenth century

could, without exaggeration, echo the cry of
the

Roman

satirist

second century

of the early part of the

"

Qua? reverentia legura,

Quis metus aut puclor est unquam properantis avari ?"

We now, indeed, know that Warren Hastings

was a great statesman, and that a just or correct
description of the administration over which
he presided is not to be gathered from the
inflated if eloquent diatribes of
1

2
Burke, or the

Juvenal, xiv, 176.

I quote one, and by no means an extreme, instance.

the final day of the long trial (June 16, 179-1), Burke
"
said
My Lords, you have seen the condition of the
country when the native government was succeeded by

On

that of Mr. Hastings; you have seen the happiness and

prosperity of all its inhabitants, from those of the highest

You have seen the very

under the government of Mr. Hastings,
the country itself, all its beauty and glory, ending in a
You have seen flourishing families
jungle for wild beasts.
reduced to implore that pity which the poorest man and

to those of the lowest rank.

reverse of

all this

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

67

pungent and somewhat laboured witticisms of

Sheridan. 1 Nevertheless, even after making a
allowance for the exaggerations of rhetorical pleaders, it cannot be doubted that, at

liberal

the close of the eighteenth century, the administration of India was bad, and that at a

somewhat

was even worse.

During the temporary absence from India
a period which Sir Alfred
of Clive (1760-65)
earlier

period

it

the meanest situation might well call for. You have seen
whole nations in the mass reduced to a condition of the

These things in his government at home

abroad, scorn, contempt, and derision cast upon and covering the British name; war stirred up, and dishonourable

same

distress.

treaties of peace made, by the total prostitution of British

"
faith
Burke's Works/' vol. viii., p. 438).
(

Mr. Rice Holmes (" History of the Indian Mutiny,"

" No other than that
policy
p. 9)> on the other hand, says
the policy adopted by Warren Hastings) which Burke
(i.e.,
held up to execration would have saved the Empire in the
:

most momentous crisis through which it has ever passed."

1
Sheridan termed the East India Company ft highwaymen in kid gloves." On October 7, 1785, he said: "Alike
in the political and military line could be observed
auctioneering Ambassadors and trading Generals; and thus
one saw a revolution brought about by affidavits, an army
employed in executing an arrest, a town besieged by a
note of hand, a Prince dethroned for the balance of an
account."

68

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

" throws
grave and unpardonable
Lyall says
"
dishonour on the English name 1 many of
the local officials of the East India Company,
:

being under no effective legal or moral control, "lost all sense of honour, justice, and

they

integrity;

plundered

as

Moghuls

or

Marathas had done befbre them, though in

a more systematic and business-like fashion
;

eager pursuit of wealth, and its easy

acquisition, had blunted their consciences,

the

9'

and produced general insubordination*

So
moderate a politician as Sir George Cornewall
Lewis carried the full weight of the accusation
down to a later date. In the debate on the
India Act of 1858 he said; ct I do most confidently maintain that no civilized government
ever existed on the face of this earth which
was more corrupt, more perfidious, and more
capricious than the East India

from 1758 to 1784, when

>

Parliamentary control."

Company was

was placed under

From the day when
it

that control

was

improved.

The merchant

established, matters greatly

rulers of India

during their subsequent period of dominion may

have made, and without doubt did make, some
1

" British
Dominion in India/* p.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

mistakes

but the humane and statesmanlike

which animated their counsels

spirit

69

by the noble

is fitly

written by
Macaulay, and inscribed under the statue of

represented

Lord William Bentinck

It

was

lines

at Calcutta. 1

however, until seventy -four

years later that the adoption of the principle
which lies at the root of all sound administranot,

and which in quite recent times has been

flagrantly violated in Turkey, Egypt, and the
Congo, was forced upon the rulers of India
by the convulsion of 1857. That principle is
that administration and commercial exploitation should not be entrusted to the same
hands. 2 State officials may err, but they have
1 "
He abolished cruel rites he effaced humiliating

tion,

opinion

he gave

liberty to the expression of public

his constant study was to elevate the intellectual

distinctions

and moral character of the natives committed to

his

charge."

Although personally I hold strongly to this opinion, I

should perhaps mention that it is not universally accepted.
2

Thus, a very able arid competent authority (Sir Charles Lucas,

Preface to Lewis's "Government of Dependencies/' p. xxiv),
" On the
:
whole, it may be said that
writing in 1891, says

the second birth of chartered companies is one of the most

one of the most unexpected, signs of the
hopeful, as it is
times." Sir Charles Lucas appears to rely mainly on improved
means of communication and on the force of public opinion

10

70

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

but those of good government, whereas commercial agents must almost

of necessity at times neglect the welfare of the

no

interests to serve

subject race in the real or presumed pecuniary

For the last fifty
interests of their employers.
years, although errors of
sibly

judgment may

pos-

be imputed to the rulers of India, more

especially in the direction of a somewhat reckless adaptation of Western ideas to Eastern

requirements, not a word of reproach can be

breathed against the spirit which has animated
their rule.
However much those intentions

may

at times be challenged

by the esurient

youth of the day, whose mental equipoise has

been upset by the institutions and training
which they owe to their alien benefactors, 1 the
to prevent a repetition of the abuses

which formerly arose

under the system which he advocates. These are unquesNevertheless, I cannot
tionably considerations of weight.
but think that the system is radically defective and vicious
;

the more so because public opinion may not improbably

be largely influenced by those who are interested in the
all

perpetuation of the abuses. This is certainly what happened

in connection with the Congo.
1
An anecdote or a chance allusion is at times, to use

an expression of Bacon's, more luciferous than ponderous

argument I remember hearing such an anecdote in India.
A wealthy young Bengali, who was declaiming against the

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

71

uprightness, the benevolence, and the sincerity

of the rulers of India has been fully recognized

by the

and most statesmanlike of the

wisest

1
indigenous races.

British Government., and expressing a wish that they should

be expelled from India, was asked what he would do if, as
the result of the anarchy and confusion which would ensue,
his personal property was confiscated. " What should I do,
sir?"

was

his reply

(e
;

should apply to the High Court/'

British ideas of justice had so unconsciously penetrated

into his mind that he could not conceive a condition of
affairs

which involved the

possibility of the

supremacy of

the law being attainted.

1
Sir Syud Ahmed, the founder of the College at Alighur,
said: "Be not unjust to that nation which is ruling over
you, and think also

how upright is her rule. Of

the English Government shows to the

on

such benevolence as

this

foreign nations under her there

of the world."

is

no example in the history

Sir Salar Jung, the late very capable Minister of the

(c
said
The enlightened classes in

Nizam of Hyderabad,

India recognize that the rule of England has secured us

against incessant strife, involving a perpetual exhaustion

of the resources of our communities, and also that, by a

just administration of equal laws, a very sufficient measure

of individual liberty is now our birthright."

These are both Mohammedans. A distinguished Hindoo

gentleman

(Sir

Congress of 1905

Pherozshah Mehta) said at the National

The future of India is linked with that
:

of England, and it is to England that India must always

look for guidance, assistance, and protection in her need."

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

If

we

we

ask ourselves whether the

turn to the comparative results obtained by ancient and modern imperialists ;

Romans, with
means of locomotion and communication, their relatively low standard of
public morality, and their ignorance of many
economic and political truths, which have now
become axiomatic, succeeded as well as any
modern people in assimilating the nations
which the prowess of their arms had brought

if

their imperfect

under their sway, the answer cannot be doubt1

ful.
It is true
They succeeded far better.
that in the East they did so at the cost of
In that
losing their national individuality.
<6
quarter
they conquered the world only to
" 2
give it to Hellas ; but in the West they left

Mr. Ferrero (" Character and Events,

etc.," vol. L, Pre" the

of
the Occident
between
face, p. v), speaking
struggle
and the Orient/' says that it is "a problem that Home

succeeded in solving as no European civilization has since

been able to do, making the countries of the Mediterranean
basin share a common life in peace."
2

Psichari ("Etudes

in Arnold's

de Philologie Neo-Grecque"), quoted

"Studies of

Roman

Imperialism,"

p.

242.

Professor Flint also (" History of Philosophy of History/"

p. 56), quoted by Laurie (" Historical Survey of Christian

Education/' p, 399), says

"

Home made

and became herself cosmopolitan/'

the world Roman,

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

their

own

mankind.

73

mark on the destinies of

They either Romanized the races
abiding

who were

at first their subjects and eventually

their masters, or left those races to be the

willing agents of their own Romanization*

great deal has been said and written

on

the subject of the inability of modern European Powers to assimilate subject races. It
is very generally held that this inability is
especially

marked

1
in the case of the British.

Mr. Hogarth ("The Nearer East/' p. 277) says, speaking

"The French and Italians acquire more sympathy
with the native society than the Briton does ; they can
I dealt with this
assimilate where the latter governs/'
to a certain extent in
recent work on " Modern
of Egypt:

my

subject

I ought perhaps here to add

pp. 235-42.
that it is very easy to attach undue political importance to
the alleged superior powers of assimilation possessed by

Egypt/*

vol.

ii.,

the French in so far as those powers are proved by Egyptian

In the first place, whatever sympathy exists
evidence.

amongst the Egyptians for the French is almost wholly

based on social grounds. It would be a great mistake to
suppose that it has made the Egyptians political Gallophiles.
In the second place, the sympathy is very superficial. It
does not extend deep down ; it is confined to a small
portion of the semi-Levantinized population of the towns.
In the third place, the circumstances in Egypt are very
The French are not in that country in the
peculiar.
of
Governors, but of critics of another European
position
nation whose influence

is

paramount.

In order to draw

74*

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

That there

is

some truth

in this statement

not deny. Our habits are insular, and

our social customs render us, in comparison
at all events with the Latin races, somewhat unI will

duly exclusive. These are characteristics which

tend to create a barrier between the British

and the more educated portion of the subject

races, but they scarcely affect the opinions
of the mass of the population. The Moslem,
who, speaking about the English to Professor
any valid political conclusions, a comparison should be
made, not between the sentiments now entertained by the
Egyptians towards the French and English respectively, but
between the feelings of the indigenous population of Tunis
and Algiers towards the French, and those entertained by
the inhabitants of India and Egypt towards the British. I am
not sufficiently acquainted with
Algerian or Tunisian facts to

me in instituting any such comparison, but I have a

conviction
that the mass of the Egyptian
strong
population,
if
they are to be ruled by any foreigners, would

justify

greatly prefer

that those foreigners should be of British rather than of

any
other nationality. If any
change of this nature were made,

cannot help thinking that the

Egyptians would soon have
good reason for applying to British the remark which
Thueydides {i 76) makes about Athenian paramount power :
I

^AJus
f*A^iffT>

IF O$F owfit&a
*

it

TO.

^/xerepa

Aa/?ovT<xs Setat

av

quote later the evidence of

BoifBter and others as
regards the feelings entertained
by subject races towards the French in
Algiers and else-

wibere.

^T|jca{o/Av.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

75

" Black is their

faith, but
Vamb^ry, said,
1
pure and blameless is their justice," presented

common amongst
my own experience cer-

a phase of thought very

Asiatics.

Moreover,

me

tainly leads
British

well

to the conclusion that the

generally,

though they succeed

when once the

full tide of

less

education has

set in, possess in a very high degree the

power
and
confidence
of
sympathy
any primitive races with which they are brought
in contact.
Nothing struck me more than the
manner in which young men, fresh from some
British military college or university, were
of acquiring the

able to identify themselves with the interests

of the wild tribes in the Soudan, and thus

them by

sheer weight of character

and without the use of force. 2

to govern

Western Culture in Eastern Lands/*

p.

young men who occupy the outposts

Empire, a German who recently travelled

Speaking of the

of the British

"He

young he has no
an
ambushed
assassin may put
any day
a bullet into him
even shooting and riding are hardly
permitted yet he is cheerful, pleasant, always at work
with or for his men he is not only a soldier, but some-

in India says :
one to speak to

is

so ridiculously

Undaunted by the
thing of a linguist, a student as well.
he carries his
utter
the
loneliness,
deadly monotony,
burden of responsibility courageously and if death calls
him from his task there are always others ready to take
;

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

76

need not, however, dwell on

this

branch

of the subject at any length ; for, although the

idiosyncrasies and the special aptitudes of the
different

European nations count

thing, the real truth

view of

is

that, in a

modern Imperialism,

question

some-

broad general

this aspect of the

be regarded as a

may

for

detail.

So

far

know, the only European people which

have shown any considerable powers of assimias I

lation in dealing with the indigenous races of

Asia and Africa, are the Greeks. Mr. Hogarth,
in his

truly

work

entitled

enough

"
:

"

The Nearer

The Greek

East," says,

excels all [others],

1
being a Nearer Eastern himself/'

his place,

unshakably confident in their country's destiny.

Hard things are said at home of the English subaltern.

You do not know him, you cannot judge him aright, till
"
you have seen him on the North- West Frontier (Review
in the Spectator of March 6, 1900, of Count von Konigsmarck's " Die Englander in Indien

The

insufficient recognition

").

sometimes accorded to these

young men by a small section of their countrymen finds,

I trust, some compensation in the high value attached to
their services by those who, like myself, have seen them
at work.

They constitute, in my opinion, the flower of

the youth of England. No other nation possesses Imperial
agents to compare with them.

"The Nearer

say

" There

is

Mr, Hogarth goes on to

East/' p. 277,
no people which so easily obtains the

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

77

The two main

agencies which were employed

in the Hellenization of the ancient world were

commerce and

culture.

In respect to the

former point, the Greek still preserves a certain

supremacy in the East. More especially, he
is

a retail trader of incomparable excellence.

intellectual advance of other nationalities

The

has, of course, destroyed the ancient

Greek

monopoly of culture.
No modern Imperialist nation has, however,
shown powers of assimilation at all comparable
to those displayed by the Romans.
The untoward zeal of the Jesuit missionaries would
of itself even if no other causes had intervened

have effectually checked any effective

fusion between the Spaniardsand the indigenous subjects of their American colonies.
"
According to Dr. Livingstone, the only art
the natives learnt after five hundred years'
intercourse with the Portuguese

was that of

confidence of the poorer fellahin, and so quickly adapts

I agree about the powers of

itself to Nilotic conditions."

Most
adaptation ; I am not so sure about the confidence.
of the Greeks with whom the Egyptian peasantry are
brought in contact are unfortunately either money-lenders
or bakals (drink-sellers).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

78

from a gun-barrel/' 1 I am
not aware that the Dutch have shown any
distilling

spirits

particular genius in the direction of assimilation indeed, the relations between the Dutch
;

and the natives of South Africa would

settlers

seem to point to a
sion,

The

directly opposite conclurecent Belgian failure -due more

to their ruler than to the Belgian nation is

notorious. Italian and American 3 Imperialism
are of too recent a date to enable
1

Bosworth Smith,

p. $8.

It

ought

(<

any conclu-

Mohammed and Mohammedanism,"

in fairness to

be added that this quotation,

conveys a somewhat exaggerated idea of

Dr. Livingstone's views. On p. 440 and elsewhere in his

taken by

itself,

"Missionary Tales in South Africa* he speaks highly of

the labours of the Jesuit and other Catholic missionaries
in the cause of education in Portuguese Africa.
2
From the fact that, in their Eastern colonies, the

Dutch have done

all in their power to discourage the

knowledge of Dutch amongst their native
think it may be inferred not only that they

acquisition of a
subjects, I

have never attempted to carry out a policy of fusion, but

that they are altogether opposed to making the attempt.
8
The experiment now being made in Cuba is of the
To occupy the country was easy. If
greatest interest.
the Government of the United States succeeds in establishing

a good

government

in

that

island

without a

military occupation, they will afford to the world a novel

and very remarkable object-lesson in the execution of an

Imperial policy.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

sion to be

drawn

as to

their results.

79

The

same may be said of German Imperialism.

There remain Russia, France, and England.
very general idea prevails that the Rus-

sians

possess special

with subject races.

powers of assimilation

Lack

of evidence renders

anyone who has not visited the

Asiatic provinces of Russia to form a matured
It is, however, a fact
opinion on this subject.
that a few Asiatics, such as Loris Melikoff,
who was an Armenian, and Alikhanoff, who
was a Lesghian from the Caucasus and a
Moslem, have risen to posts of considerable
distinction in the Russian service.
Moreover,
in their social relations, the Russians cannot be

it difficult for

accused of being exclusive. They are certainly

much less so than the British. Mr. Schuyler,

who

Turkestan in 1876, said: "The

natives held aloof from the Russians, rather
than the Russians from the natives." 1 On
visited

Schuyler, "Turkestan/' vol. it, p. 233.

Very insufficient attention is, I think., paid to this aspect
of the question.
It is often assumed by those whose

acquaintance with Eastern society is somewhat superficial

that the absence of close social intercourse between

Europeans and Easterns is wholly due to the attitude of

the former. Such is very far from being the case. I have

ANCIENT AND

80

MODERN

IMPERIALISM

the other hand, these advantages are more

than counterbalanced by great defects. Whatever

may be

now, there can be no

one time the Russian adminis-

the case

doubt that at

was extremely bad.

the army were sent to

tration in Central Asia

The worst

officers in

" as a
Turkestan, which was regarded
refuge
1
Comfor the scum of military society."

mission composed of Russian officials reported

"
have not been able to inspire the natives
with confidence.
The high moral qualities
:

We

which ought to have carried the civilizing

mission of the Russians to the natives have
been wanting." 2
which the action of Easterns who
on terms of intimate friendship with
Europeans, who spoke their language fluently and who
were very sympathetically inclined towards them, was
strongly resented by their own countrymen and co-

known numerous

cases in

were disposed to

live

religionists.

According to the well-known historian, Jabarti, when

the French evacuated Egypt at the close of the eighteenth
century, the Turks

and the leading Egyptian Ulema caused

male and female who had lived on
good terms with the French to be executed, not on account
the Moslems

all

of political hatred, but because

become polluted by the

1

it

was

held that they had

association.

Schuyler,
Turkestan," vol. it, p. 220.
JfW., p. 225.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

The

81

and most competent witness on

this subject is Professor Vambery.
He has
visited Central Asia
that "den of Asiatic
barbarism and ferocity/' 1 as he calls it. He
latest

improvements made by
but he adds that " in order to

fully recognizes the

the Russians

work

successfully, the Russians

must make

themselves more familiar with the language,

religion, customs, history, and characteristics
of the natives, and have a more intimate inter-

them than has been the

course with
hitherto."

Russians

He

scouts

the

idea

that

case

the

special aptitude for

assimilation, and, although I am aware that

he

possess

any

regarded by the Russians themselves as

a prejudiced witness, I see no reason to doubt
is

the general accuracy of his conclusions. Differences of religion bar the way to intermar-

and without intermarriage there can be

no social equality or real fusion, any more
riage,

than without a knowledge of the vernacular

language there can be any intimate social
intercourse.

"Western

Ibid., p. 78.

"Very few Russian

Culture, etc.," p. lift

native tongue, and those

officials

are acquainted with the

it will not use it, for

who know

11

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

82
I

turn to the case of the French.

Has

the

genius of the most quick-witted and cosmopolitan nation in Europe been able to solve

the problem
successes

may,

Some

Apparently not.
as in the case of

Egypt, have

been gained, but there has been no

lation,

no

fusion

effective

and of the Eastern

races.

of

trifling

real assimi-

the

Western

high authority

(M. Boissier) speaks very decidedly on this

After paying a well-deserved tribute
subject.
to the material progress effected under French
auspices in Algeria, he goes on to say that, in

one respect, the policy of his countrymen has

been a complete failure. They have not gained
the sympathies of the natives. There has been
nothing approaching to a fusion.

The two

fear of losing the respect of the natives, who might explain

the foreigner's use of the native tongue as a sign that he

wants to ingratiate himself with them and court their

favour" (/WA, pp. 70, 71).
Sir

Donald Mackenzie Wallace, who speaks with high

" If
authority on all matters connected with Russia, writes
we compare a Finnish village in any stage of Eussification
:

with a Tartar village, of which the inhabitants are Mohammedans, we cannot fail to be struck by the contrast. In
the

latter,

though there may be many Russians, there

blending of the two races.

raised an impassable barrier

Between them
1

is

'

("Russia,"

no

religion has

vol. L, p.
198).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

races live in different

The Romans, he
1

ce

Mais

and even

hostile camps.

thinks, succeeded better.

faut reconnaitre aussi

il

S3
1

que notre succes n'est

Dans une

partie de notre tache, qui n'etait

la
nous
tout a fait echou6. Apres avoir
avons
moindre,
pas

pas entier.

vaincu les anciens habitants, nous n' avons pas

gagner. Aucune

fusion, aucun rapprochement ne

entre eux et nous;

leurs

croyances,

ils

leurs

su

les

s'est fait

vivent & part, gardant Melement

habitudes, et, ce qui est plus

dangereux, leurs haines. Ils profitent des avantages que

notre domination leur procure sans nous en etre reconL'Algerie contient deux populations voisines

naissants.

et separees, qui ne se disputent plus, qui paraissent meme

se supporter, mais qui au fond sont mortellement ennemies

Tune de

1'autre, et

confondre.
autorit<

sages

pr6caire,

et

qu'on n'imagine pas devoir jamais se

une situation grave, qui rend notre

et donne beaucoup & r^fldchir aux esprits

C'est

"

pr^voyants

"
(Boissier,

L'Afrique

Rornaine,"

pp. 315-16).

Le Temps,

in its issue of August 28, 1909, quotes a

recently written by an educated and apparently
Francophile Annamite to M. Le Myre de Vilers, ex-

letter

Governor-General of Cochin China, in which the following

" II est triste de dire
que la majorit^ des

passages occur

Annamites n'est pas francophile ce n'est pas qu'ils aient

des motifs s^rieux de se plaindre, mais ils n'aiment pas le
Les
Fran9ais uniquement parcequ'il est Fran9ais.
Annamites parlant et ecrivant le Fran$ais ne sont pas
forc6ment les amis de la France/'
:

"

De

avaient

r6ussi

indigenes" (Boissier,

il r6sulte
que les Romains
la
nous
dans
conqute des
que
"L'Afrique Romaine," p. 354).

ce qu'on vient de voir

mieux

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

84

Lastly, how does the matter stand as regards

have endeavoured to be as
ourselves ?

We

elastic

as the

Western

somewhat

east-iron

civilization admit.

dogmas

of

Speaking from

my own

experience, I should say that the

absence of that social adaptability, in which

some extent compenof the English by a relatively

the French excel,

sated in the case

is

to

On September 5 the same newspaper published a letter

from a correspondent (Lieutenant-Colonel Bernard), who
is evidently well
acquainted with his subject, in which he
says

" Sans doute

il

rfegne

dans certains milieux un

optimisme offieiel et Ton proclame, en toute occasion, que

la France se distingue des autres nations col oni satrices par
les sentiments d* affection qu'elle suit inspirer a tons ses

On

sujets.

oppose notre humeur

bienveillante,

notre

familiarite facile et gaie a la raideur et a la dignite des

Nos voisins savent se faire
Anglais et des Hollandais.

peuvent se faire estimer ; notre lot est meilnous nous faisons aimer, Ce sont 1&
des lieux communs qui satisfont notre vanite, mais que
toutes les observations sinc&res d6mentent.
Dans les

craindre,

ils

leur, et sans efforts

colonies,

nous sommes pour

1'

indigene Fetranger et le

mattre, et cela suffit pour dveiller 1'antipathie et susciter la

haine."

the truth should be boldly stated.

France and England ignorance of the real facts
in connection with this subject, and national
pride, are
It is as well that

Both

in

apt to mislead public opinion and to obscure the true

issue.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

85

high degree of administrative and political

1
Save in dealing with some excepelasticity.
2

tionally barbarous practice, such as Sati, we

have followed the example of Rome in respectit

may be doubted

we have not gone

direction, for we have often

too far in this

ing local customs.

Indeed,

whether

stereotyped bad
to assume the
allowed
them
and
customs,
1

The French

are the inheritors of the principles of the

Revolution, and those principles, as Mr. Fisher very truly

remarks (" Napoleonic Statesmanship, Germany," p. 874i),
were the legacy of eighteenth-century philosophy, ee which
took little heed of the various temperaments and idiosyncrasies of men and nations, regarding humanity as something homogeneous through place and time, capable of
being nourished by the same food and rescued by the
It paid scant attention to historical
same medicines.
conditions, believing that in politics, as in physics, there

was a mathematical

art of discovery

and

scientific truth/

when they

are reformers, suffer from the same

a far higher degree,
Nubar Pasha was
the
to
introduce
French
code
into Egypt, but
quite right
he did not take nearly sufficient care to modify either the
Orientals,

defect, but in

substantive law or the procedure to meet the special

requirements of his adopted country.
2 It is
worthy of remark that the Doseh festival, with

savage practices, which used to be held in Egypt,

was not suppressed by the English, but by the Khedive
(Tewfik Pasha) on his own initiative, before the British

all its

occupation took place.

12

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

86

1
force of law.

We have not interfered seriously

with the practice of infant marriages. Save

2
in respect to slavery, we have left intact the
personal law both of Hindoos and Mohammedans albeit that in both eases the codes were

drawn up centuries ago

to suit the conditions

But in spite of these,

of primitive societies.
and other illustrations of a like nature which
might be

cited,

imagine that

do not

let

us for one

we have not been

moment

innovators,

and, in the eyes of the ordinary conservative

"Usage, once recorded upon evidence given, immeNor is it any
diately becomes written and fixed law.
would
be little evil
There
as
usage,
longer obeyed
a conto
native
custom
in the British Government giving
in
it
had
native
which
never
society,
purely
straining force
if popular opinion could be brought to approve of the
1

gradual amelioration of that custom. Unfortunately for

us, we have created the sense of legal right before we

have created a proportionate power of distinguishing good

from evil in the law upon which the legal right depends
"
(Maine, Village Communities/' pp. 72, 73).
2
In 184<3, an Act was passed by the Indian Legislature
which provided that the status of slavery should not be
recognized by any law-court in the country, criminal or
No such sweeping reform has been effected in
civil.

Egypt, but a series of measures have been adopted, the

general result of which is that the institution of slavery is
moribund (see " Modern Egypt/' vol. il, pp. 495-504).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

Eastern, rash innovators.

87

Freedom of con-

the principle of caveat emptor, rigid

fixity of fiscal demands, the expropriation of
land for non-payment of rent, 1 even the com-

tract,

monplace Western idea that a man must be

proved to be guilty of an offence before he can
be punished, 2 are almost as great innovations
as the principle of representation

accompanied

the electoral paraphernalia of Europe.

by
These divergent habits of thought on economic,
all

and administrative questions have

served to enhance the strength of the very

juridical,

I do not know how the matter stood in the days of

the Republic, but I find in my Commonplace Book a note
to the effect that Ulpian, who was killed in A.D. 228, laid
down in his digest that " it was the rule of Roman law in
1

contracts for rent that a tenant was not bound to pay if

any ms major prevented him from feaping."
2
Not long ago certain districts in the Algerian Hinterland, where military law used to be applied, were brought
under the operation of the ordinary codes. The comment
of one of the principal Algerian Sheikhs on this change was
as follows: "Then/' he said, "there will be no justice;
He was not in the least
witnesses will be required/'
struck with the fact that in the absence of witnesses an
innocent man might possibly be condemned. What struck
him was that, as no one could be condemned without
witnesses, many guilty people would escape punishment
(Parliamentary Paper, Egypt, No. 1 of 1907, p. 85).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

88

formidable and elemental forces, such as

differ-

ences of religion, of colour, and of social habits,

which are ever tending to sunder the govern-

There
ing race from that which is governed.
has been no thorough fusion, no real assimila-

between the British and their alien subfar as we can now predict, the
jects, and, so
future will in this respect be but a repetition
tion

1
Fata obstant. The foundations
of the past.
on which the barrier wall of separation is built
may be, and, without doubt, to a certain

extent are, the result of prejudice rather than

of reason but however little we may like to
;

recognize the fact, they are

of so

solid

character, they appeal so strongly to instincts

and sentiments which lie deep down in the

hearts of

men and women, that

come they

for generations

probably defy whatever

puny, albeit well-intentioned, efforts may be
made to undermine them.

to

will

The

policy of fusion
in
South Africa is
races

between the British and Dutch

tried under circum-

now being

stances which, I would fain hope, afford good promise of

The measures recently adopted with a view to
success.

the execution of this policy appear to me to be eminently

wise and statesmanlike, Of course, the problem presents

South Africa under conditions widely

from
those
which
obtain in India or Egypt.
differing

itself for solution in

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

From

89

this point of view, therefore, British

Imperialism has, in so far as the indigenous

races of Asia and Africa are concerned, been a

But we need not

failure.

lay our

want of

We

success too deeply to heart.

need not, in
a fit of very uncalled-for national depreciation,
think that we have failed where others might,

and probably would, have succeeded.

very contrary is the case. We have
not because

The
failed,

we

are Englishmen, Scotchmen,

or Irishmen, but because we are Westerns.

We

have

failed

because the conditions of the

problem are such as to render any marked

No other modern European

success impossible.

nation has, in any substantial degree, been

more
1

successful than

ourselves,

and, more-

M. Morand, the Director of the School of Law at

Algiers, says (" De L'Importance de L'Islamisme pour la

Colonisation EuropcSenne," pp. %3~%6) fc La politique de la
:

qui, pendant de longues amides, en Algt-irie, a <it6

une politique d'assimilation, semble bien avoir 6t6 sans
Plus les indigenes rnusxilmans nous connaisresultat.
sent et mieux ils nous connaissent, plus ils s'61oignent de
nous, et les efforts faits par la France pour les faire
participer aux bienfaits de la civilisation ne semblent pas
avoir 4t<S recompenses.
Ceux a qui nous avons donn<
1' instruction, n'ont vu
que les rnauvais c6t6s de nos institutions et n'ont et^ frapp(5s, dans la spectacle de notre civilisa-

France

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

90

no other European nation has ever had

to deal with the problem of assimilation under

over,

comparable to those which

the British have had to encounter in India,
difficulties at all

The

Asiatic and African subjects of France

and Russia are Moslems. Five-sixths of the

population of India are Hindoos, and the

Mohammedans who

maining sixth are

adopted that portion

of

re-

have

the Hindoo caste

system which elevates association in the act of

eating and drinking to the dignity of a religious

Thus a very formidable

practice.

barrier to

unrestrained intercourse exists in India, which

lea vices qu'elle entralne.

Aussi, la croyance
leur foi, s'en estla
de
dans
avaient
superiority
ddjd
qu'ils

tion,

que par

A voir/

par example, Mohammed Ben

cause
chtz Feurop<?en la dissohr
Rahal,
que
tion de la famille, la depravation des moeurs, Falcoolisme,
(

elle accrue.
'

dit,

les ravages

le malthusianisme,

F agiotage,

le

surmenage, 1'anarchie,

1'amour effr6n4 des richesses, les amusements fbrmiclables,

les jouissances

arrive 4 se

Vlslamisme ne

de

immod6r<es, une Iibert6 licencieuse, on en

est le plus malade des deux, et si

demander qui
serait pas

Qui

salut.

sait

mtisulman, n'ayant pas,

et indestructible
t-il

que

61oign6s

'

les

de

de

un refuge et unebranche
pourra resister autant que le

pour

s'il

lui

comme

la Foi.'

lui, le

Aussi,

soutien in6branlable

M. Dowtt^

constate-

tnusulmans instructs sont ceux qui sont le plus

nous.'

"

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

is

unknown

in countries

91

whose people hold to

a less socially exclusive creed.

The comparative success of the

Romans

is

Their task was far more

explained.
easy than that of any modern Imperial nation.
In one of those bold and profound generali-

easily

zations

on Eastern

politics in

which he

excels,

Sir Alfred Lyall has very truly pointed

that the

Romans

only had, for the most part,

was Christianity and

Islam, that created nations and

to deal with tribes.

its

offshoot,

out

It

introduced the religious element into politics.

Now, in the process of assimilation the Romans
easily

surmounted any

based on

difficulties

going polytheism and

pantheism of the ancient world readily adapted
religion.

The easy

changed circumstances. The Syrian

god Bel was transformed into Zeus Belos.

itself to

The Phoenician goddess Tanit became a Dea

Ccelestis

Minerva.

in the person

of Juno, Venus,

Her companion Baal

or

Hammon

became Saturnus, with the Imperial epithet

" It was the advent of two
great militant and propagating faiths first Christianity, next Islam that first
1

made religion a vital element in politics, and afterwards

made a common creed the bond of union for great masses
of mankind" (Lyall, "Race and Religion/' p. 14).

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

of Augustus tacked on to his name. 1

The
a
was
of
anomalous spectacle
Roman
presented

General returning thanks to the local gods for

permitting him to gain a victory over the
devotees

who had

trusted to their aid in order

Alexander Severus wished

to erect a temple to Christ on the Capitol of
Rome, and Hadrian scattered places of worship

to avert defeat.

"unknown gods"

to

wide

hindering,

Similarly,

the

God

his

Thus religion, far from

aided the work of assimilation.

become

broadcast through

dominions* 3

when

Cortes invited the Aztecs of Mexico to

"

they replied they had no doubt that

of the Christians must be a good and a great God,

Christians,

as such they were willing to give him a place among

the divinities of Tlascala. The polytheistic system of the
Indians, like that of the ancient Greeks, was of that
accommodating kind which could admit within its clastic

and

folds the deities of

any other religion without violence to

Conquest of Mexico/* vol. L, p. 391).
2 "II
est assess curieux de voir un gouverneur de la
province qui a vaincu une tribu rcbelle <lu pays et fait sur
elle une riche razzia, en remereier les dieux Maures ; c'est-

itself (Prescott's

a-dire, les

dieux

"

m6mes

des gens qu'il vient de vaincve

"

Romaine," p. 328).
"Christo tempium facere voluit, cumque inter deos
recipere, quod et Hadrianus cogitasse fertur, qui templa in

(" L'Afrique
8

omnibus

civitatibus sine simulacris jusserat fieri

pridius, Alex. Sev. Vita,, c. xliiL).

It appears also (Ibid.,
xxix.) that

"

(Lam-

Alexander Severus had

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

9$

Far different has been the situation in more

modern times.
Alone amongst Imperialist
nations, the Spaniards endeavoured to force

on

their reluctant subjects, with

results that contributed to their own undoing.

their

In

faith

all

other cases there has been toleration,

but no proselytism or, at all events, no official

That toleration has, indeed, been
proselytism.
at times pushed so far as in the case of the
tacit acquiescence at one time accorded to

the savage rites of Juggernauth as to strain

the consciences of many earnest Christians.
Toleration, however, is, from a political point
of view, but a poor substitute for identification.

It does not tend to break

down one

of

the most formidable obstacles which stand in

the

way

of fusion. 1

is
especially worthy of note that in the
case
in which the Romans were brought
only
in contact with an unassimilative religion, their

It

ee

et
images of Apollonius, Christ, Abraham, Orpheus,
"
All this is quite
hujusmodi ceteros in. his Lararium.
Once admit polytheism, and no rational limit
logical.
can be imposed on the admission of gods into the Pantheon.
1 " C'est la
divise le
c'est ce
religion qui

fait

aujourd'hui

des

indigenes

("L'Afrique Romaine/'

p. 326).

nos

plus ;
mortels

qui

ennemis

"

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

CM.

was complete. The stubborn Jew who

demurred to paying tribute to Caesar, not
because the amount was excessive, but because
the act of payment was godless, was not to be

failure

by the command of the

Emperor Augustus, the smoke of the sacrifice of a bullock and two lambs rose daily in

conciliated because,

**

their national sanctuary to the

or because, in

supreme God/
to
Jewish
iconoclastic
deterence

the

sentiments,

"

Roman

soldiers,

when on

were ordered to lay aside

their standards, on which the effigies of the
1
Neither was the
Emperors were inscribed.
broken when the semispirit of the Jew to be

service at Jerusalem,

insane Caligula ordered the abolition of the

Sabbath and gave directions that his own

was to be set up in the Temple at Jerusalem an order which was subsequently re2
scinded in a drunken fit of lenity. Conciliation

statue

" Provinces of the

"In the year 39 the Governor

Roman Empire/'

vol.

ii.,

p. 189.

Syria, Publius
the Emperor to march

of

Petronius, received orders from

with his legions into Jerusalem, and set up in the temple
the statue of the Emperor. The Governor, an honourable
Jews from
official of the school of Tiberius, was alarmed
;

all

the land,

men and women,

flocked to him

first

grey- haired, and children,

to Ptolemais iu Syria, then to Tiberias

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

and

95

even extending to a
recognition of the God of the Jews, and brutal
In this
intolerance, proved equally in vain.
cruelty, tolerance,

case the

Romans had

to deal with a

modern

They succeeded no better than

modern Imperialists. The Jews were vanproblem.

quished and dispersed, but they were never

assimilated.

Religion is not the sole obstacle which now

prevents the operation of that most potent of
Antiassimilating influences, intermarriage.

pathy based on colour also bars the way.

The Romans had no such difficulty to encounter. 2

M.

Boissier

gives

some curious

to entreat his mediation that the outrage might

not take place. The fields throughout the country were
not tilled, and the desperate multitudes declared that
they would rather suffer death by the sword or famine

in Galilee

than be willing to look on at this abomination" (Ibid.,

vol. ii., p. 194).
Vespasian and his successors reverted to
the more tolerant policy of Augustus.
1

Although the Jews were never Romanized, they did,

an earlier period of their history, fall to a certain very
limited extent under Hellenic influences. See on this
at

"

The House

of Seleucus," vol. ii., c. xxx.

more to the fusion of the races
contributed
Nothing
and nationalities that composed the Roman Empire than
subject
2

"

the absence of any physical and conspicuous distinctions

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

96

examples based on the ancient epitaphs found

in Numidia to show that intermarriage was

Thus one Musae,

not uncommon.

a Phoenician, had a son

name
lady,

tion

who

of Saturninus, and

manifestly

took the

Roman

married a lloman

In the next generaFlavia Fortunata.

the Romanizution was complete. The

1
son was called Flavins Fortunatus.

Such

now

of extremely rare occurrence in

countries where races of different colour and

cases are

religion are

brought

in

contact with each

other.

natural that they should be so, for, apart

from other reasons, the European woman will
It

is

generally resent union with the Eastern man,

between those

races, just as

nothing did more

to mitigate

the horrors of slavery than the fact that the slave was
usually of a tint and type of features not markedly unlike
those of his master

"

"

Studies, etc./* vol. i., p. 65).

thus
the
(xi. 53)
sang
praises of a young blueeyed British beauty who married a, Roman.
" Claudia cseruleis cum sit Rufina
(Bryce,

Martial

Britannis

Edita,

quam

Latise

Quale decus fonnse

Italides possunt,
1

peetora gentis habet

Roxnanam credere matres
!

Atthides esse suam."

"L'Afrique Romaine,"

p.

336.

has been kind enough to furnish

similar character to that

on Phrygian

inscriptions.

Sir William

me

Ramsay

with evidence of a

adduced by M,

Boissier, based

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

who

is

women

polygamous, whilst the seclusion of

in the East offers an almost insuperable

obstacle to the counter-case of the

man

97

being attracted

by the Eastern

European
woman. 1

There were practically only two languages

world Greek and Latin.

in use in the ancient

Greek held its own in the East. In the West

it was the language of
philosophy, and, to a
certain extent, penetrated, as an instrument of
general use, into the upper ranks of society.
Suetonius gives a letter from Augustus to

a curious jumble of Greek and

In the West there was no need for

Li via which
Latin.

is

Rome

to impose her language on those whom

she had conquered.
The inhabitants of Gaul

and Spain spontaneously adopted this special

form of Romanization. They were eager to
learn Latin, and to cast aside their barbaric

names. 3
1

The

When

question of intermarriage

an appendix to
2

Augustus visited Gaul twentyis

more

fully treated in

this essay.

Div. Claud.,

c.

vii.

See also Horace's well-known

Book L, x., in which he speaks of Lucilius mixing

up Greek and Latin words. The earliest Roman historians

satire,

wrote in Greek.
3
<{

It

may be

said that, to a certain extent,

follows the flag."

The

language

rapidity with which Latin gained

13

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

98

the defeat of Vercingetorix at

Alesia, he found that numerous members of

five years aftcjr

with its slow advance

ground in Gaul may be contrasted
of
in Italy at an earlier period
history, before Roman
Speaking of the subImperialism had been born,

place of the old Italian

11
Literary History of Rome,
dialects, Mr. Wight Duff ("
the
of
language followed
pp. &0, J21) says: "The victory

stitution

of

Latin

the

in

To judge
the wake of the victory of the State.
the
from the ephemeral graffiti on
walls, Oscan lasted

far in

was not

it

Pompeii by the eruption

right up to the destruction of

of A.D. 79"
Similarly,

until the

fall

of the

that

Empire

the growth of the separate Romance languages, which

eventually took the place of Latin, was unchecked (Ihid.,
Sir George Lewis (" 'Essay on the Romance
p. 25).

Languages/*

20) says

p.

that

the Latin language was

"spread by conquest/' and was also "destroyed by eonEven, after the Western Empire had been over
quest,"
run by the Teutonic races, Latin died a very slow death.
It

survived

all

events, in

cerned.
says

"

for

many

.so

far as

Mr. Symouds ("

The

centuries,

notably in

Italy

at

the educated classes were con-

The Revival

necessity felt soon

*

of Learning/' p, 325)
after Dante's death for

into Latin sufficiently

Divine Comedy
translating the
proves that a Latin poem gained a larger audience than
the masterpiece of Italian literature."
Petrarch regretted

the decadence of Latin as a living

language, and refused
to read the Decameron because it was written in the
vulgar tongue, on which Lord
truth ("Lectures on Modern

Acton remarks with

great

History/' p. 74): "The

mediaeval eclipse came not from the loss of
elegant Latin,
but from the loss of Greek/'

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

99

the Gallic nobility already bore the name of

Caius Julius. 1 The younger generation, which
had not witnessed or but dimly remembered
the

great national

struggle,

was becoming

Less than a century later " the

deliverance of the Celtic nation from the yoke

Romanized. 2

of the foreigners was no longer possible, because there was no longer such a nation. The

Roman yoke might

be

felt,

according to

cir-

cumstances, as a yoke, but no longer as a

3
It cannot be doubted that the
foreign rule."
use of the Imperial language materially aided
the work of Imperial assimilation, for Latin

was not merely used by

Much

scholars

and by

men

the same thing happened in Numidia, though

in that quarter the effect

was

less abiding.

M.

Boissier

says (" L'Afrique Romaine," p. 338), speaking of the in" Les

plus audacieux se
scriptions on the ancient tombs
:

un nom de toutes

pieces et I'emprunt&rent tr&s

souvent aux plus illustres maisons de Rome ; nulle part on
n'a trouv6 dans les inscriptions autant de Julii, de Cornelii,

cr6&rent

de Claudii, etc. II n'est pas possible d'imaginer

ce
soient
tous les descendants ou des alli6s de ces
que
nobles families." He cites one case in which a certain

d'Aernilii,

Q. Postumius Celsus
festly a Carthaginian
2

(t

"The

p. 83,

is

described as jilms ludchadis, mani-

name.

Greatness and Decline, etc./' vol. iv., p. 176.

Provinces of the Roman Empire,"

vol.

i,,

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

100

It soon
of high education.
1
guage of the people.

became the

lan-

Imperialist nations have sought to

use the spread of their language in order to

Modern

draw political sympathy to themselves. This

has been notably the case as regards the French
2
and
in the basin of the Mediterranean,
1

M.

Boissier

("I/Afrique Romaine/* p. 34*3} gives

which show the process of Latinization in its
growth, and very justly points to their bad Latinity as
" Naturellea
of the
use of the

inscriptions

de ces pauvres gens est souvent un tres

Les improprietes de termes, les erreurs

le Latin

pauvre Latin.

language.

general

proof

ment

de grammaire,

les solecismes et les barbarismes,

qu'on y

rencontre presque k chaque ligne, nous montrent que nous

avons affaire & des ignorants, qu'ils parlent mal le Latin,
mais au moins ils le parlent. Ce n'est done pas simple-

ment une langue

d'ecole et d'apparat, dont quelques

pedants se servent par vanite ; c'est une langue d'usage,
et, comme toutes celles qui sont vivantes, elle s'approprie

aux gens qui Temploient et change avec leur d^gre de

culture."
2

M, Leroy

Beaulieu, speaking of Algeria, says

de
nos
efforts ce doit etre 1'extension de 1'en"L'objet
seignement Arabe-Fran9ais c*est par lui que nous prenons
:

"
presque au berceau possession des generations nouvelles

("La

Colonisation/* vol.

p. 468).
years past been supplanting the
use of Italian as a
It will
lingua franca in the Levant.
probably for a long time to come retain its

French has

for

i.,

many

predominance

as a

common language

in that region, just as

English will

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

though perhaps

less

designedly

101

as regards the

English in India. I do not think that either

nation is likely to attain any great measure of
success in this direction.
They will certainly

much

be

less

successful

than the Romans.

Neither in French, British, nor, I think I may

add, Russian possessions is there the least
the foreign will eventually
supplant the vernacular languages. In India,
only 90 men and 10 women in every 10,000

probability that

of each sex read and write English. 1 There

does not appear the least prospect of French

maintain

its

paramount position on the farther side of the

Isthmus of Suez.
1

"Indian Census/' p. 173. It cannot, however, be

doubted that of late years the number of the upper and
notably the

official

classes in India

who speak English

has

greatly increased, with the result which is an unmixed

that there is less necessity than heretofore for the
evil
British officials to acquire proficiency in the vernacular

languages
to

widen

still

the ruled.

committee

arises a most unfortunate tendency

breach between the rulers and
the
further

hence there

See on this subject the recent report of the

to consider the organization of Oriental studies

London, over which Lord Reay presided (Cd. 4560),

and the debate which took place in the House of Lords
on September 27, 1909 notably Lord Curzon's speech, in
which special allusion is made to this point.
in

14

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

102

1
In direct
supplanting Arabic in Algeria.
of
the
to
the
case
Romans, who had
opposition

to deal with conquered races eagerly desirous

of adopting the language of their conquerors,

modern

Imperialist nations have to deal with

national sentiments which often cluster round

the idea that the extrusion of the vernacular

should be stoutly resisted. 2

language
is

what

now happening

is

This

Egypt, where

in

presented that the

Nationalist party put forward the perfectly
reasonable demand that superior education

the curious

anomaly

is

be imparted in
Arabic, whilst at the same time the whole
weight of British influence has had to be
1
As
See "La Colonisation/' vol.
p. 467, el seq.
should, so far as

is

possible,

i. f

regards Tunis, M. Leroy Beaulieu

(vol.

ii, pp.

74, 75

" Les Arabes Tuuisiens ont V

esprit plus dlie, plus
says
Les jeunes gens
ouvert que leurs frfcres d'Alg&rie.
:

des

coles

recherchent

les

Francais et suivent avec

qu'on leur
2

fait le soir

occasions

ele les

d'apprendre

le

cours de notre langue

par sureroit"

singular application of this rule

is

the

demand-

perhaps somewhat artificially createdthat an attempt

should be made to revive Erse in Ireland,
National
sentiment in Scotland has never identified itself with the
preservation of Gaelic

but that,

conceive,

is

because

Scotch nationalism, in the wider signification of the term,

has become British.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

103

brought to bear in order to prevent English

1
The
being taught in the elementary schools.
British Government would have been very
unwise had they attempted to resist the teach-

ing of Dutch in South Africa. As they have

not done so, the language will not improbably
in course of time die a natural death. 2
1

It

cannot be too clearly understood by

all

who

take

a special interest in this subject that the demand of

parents in countries such as Egypt to have their children

taught some foreign language

from

is

altogether dissociated

political ideas or sympathies.

It is

wholly based

upon conjectures, which are often erroneous,

particular tuition is likely to pay best.

as to

what

In the early days of the British occupation of Egypt,

question of the ultimate ascendancy of France

when the

England was still in doubt, the number of pupils who

elected to learn respectively French or English varied in
direct proportion to the opinions currently entertained on
or

this subject.
The proportion had nothing whatever to do
with political sympathies for either France or England.
I was constantly pressed by some of the more zealous of
my own countrymen to take steps with a view to dis-

couraging French education, and steadily refused to yield

At present many more pupils learn

English than French, because it is thought that English

to their solicitations.

ascendancy

is

secured, and that, therefore, a knowledge of

English will be more useful than that of French.

2
Towards the close of the eighteenth century the
Emperor Joseph II attempted to enforce the exclusive use
.

German language on the schools and Courts of Justice

Hungary. The failure of this policy was complete.

of the
in

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

104

The importance of this question is not, however, altogether to be measured by the number

who

learn the foreign tongue.

With
further point has to be considered.

of individuals

what object do the educated

classes

amongst

the subject races acquire the linguistic knowledge ? To what uses do they turn it when
it is

acquired

The

stimulus, whether in ancient or

modern

The
times, has manifestly been self-interest.
Gaul and the Spaniard wished to rise to high
positions in the service of Rome, and before
they had been Romanized for long, they were
able to do so.
The native of India is even

now complaining

in shrill tones, and, in some

not
a certain amount of reason,
without
cases,
that the opportunities accorded to him for
rising are insufficient.

But when we turn from

the original motives which impelled the ancient

and the modern respectively to acquire the
linguistic
is

applied

Rather

knowledge, to the use to which

it

when

may

able contrast

it
;

acquired, the analogy ceases.

be said that there is a remark-

for the

knowledge of Latin did

not serve as a solvent. On the

contrary, it
knit the subject race to its
conquerors, and if it
to
invert
the paxts which had
eventually helped

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

105

heretofore been played, the result was due to a

variety of causes, and not to any wish to subvert that

Empire

in

which the Romanized

no less pride than the true

Can the same be said of any of the

provincial took

Roman.

Asiatic or African races who, being the subjects

of modern European Powers, have learnt the

language of their rulers ? I fear not. The bond

of a common, if on one side acquired, language
is, in fact, much too brittle to resist such powerful dissolvent forces as differences of religion

and

which are constantly acting in the

I have already alluded
direction of disunion. 1
colour,

to the sentiments entertained

by the natives of

Algeria and Cochin China towards the French.

In Central Asia, the first feeling of relief at the

displacement by the Russians of the cruel and

corrupt government of former times speedily
to " a
of discontent.

gave way

general feeling
a preference for
case of India is

The nathfes began to show

.Mohammedan rule." 2 The
" The use of a

common language is consistent with

the existence of the strongest antipathies between different
"
" Government of
communities
Dependencies/'
(Lewis's
1

p. 269).
2

This statement of Mr. Schuyler is quoted, and not

denied, by the Russian Tei*entyeff (" Russia and England
in Central Asia," vol. ii., p.

106

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

Here, of a truth, we have

especially strong.
to use a metaphor which Byron borrowed from
a Greek source- been sedulously nursing the
pinion which is impelling the steel into our

own breasts. For more than half a century

we have, perhaps unavoidably, been teaching
English through the medium of English literature,

and that

historical,

may

literature, in

easily be

so

far

as

it

is

perverted from a

on the advantages of steady progress achieved by a law-abiding nation into

one which eulogizes disrespect for authority,
and urges on the governed the sacred duty
disquisition

of

throwing off the yoke of unpalatable

Governors. Neither, of a surety, if we or the
French in Algeria or Tunis turn to the history
of the other great Western nation, is any
corrective to be found.
Can we be surprised
if

we

reap the harvest which

we have

ourselves

sown?

My own experience in this matter confirms

the conclusion to be derived from evidence ol
a more general nature. That conclusion is
that the great proficiency in some European

language often acquired by individuals amongst

the subject races of the modern Imperial

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

Powers

no way tends to

in

inspire political

with the people to

sympathy

107

whom

that

their mother tongue.

language
Language is
not, and never can be, as in the case of Ancient
is

Rome, an important

factor in the execution of

a policy of fusion.
Indeed, in some ways,
rather tends to disruption, inasmuch as

it
it

furnishes the subject races with a very power1

The writers
ful arm against their alien rulers.
in the Indian Sociologist

who advocate

political

assassination possess considerable facility of

expression in a style of English which is some-

what turgid and bombastic.

forward at the

trial

The defence put

of the wretched youth who,

but recently, murdered Sir Curzon Wyllie, was

composed in English, and was not wanting in
2

eloquence.
1 fe Hitherto the
spread of education among the Tartars
If
has tended rather to imbue them with fanaticism.

we remember

that theological education always produces

intolerance, and that Tartar education is almost exclusively

that a
theological, we shall not be surprised to find
religious fanaticism is generally in direct pro"
to
the amount of his intellectual culture (Wallace,
portion

Tartar's

"Russia/ vol. L, p. 204).

* I do not know whether
Dhingra wrote his own deThe most
fence, or whether it was composed for him.
is
document
the
of
and
part
pitiful
politically noteworthy

108

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

which does not bear

directly on the question of fusion, but which
is highly worthy of note in any consideration
of the difficulties which lie in the path of
I turn to another point

the

modern,

compared to the ancient,

have already mentioned that,

as

I
Imperialist.
as in the case of the suppression of Druidical
practices, a
spirit

few

faint traces of the

modern

of humanitarianism are to be found in

Roman

historical records.

For

instance,

when

provincial towns or districts were devastated

by some natural visitation, such as a disas-

earthquake, or an epidemic disease,

relief was afforded to them, and they were
temporarily exempted from the payment of

trous

tribute.

at

Again,

much

later

period

its author, whoever he may have been,

probably
believed that the wild statements he made were true.

that
1

"

Eodem anno duodecim

nocturne motu

terrae.

celebres Asiae urbes conlapsae

Asperrima in Sardianos lues

plurimum in eosdem misericordise

traxit

nam

centies

sestertium pollicitus Caesar, et quantum serario aut fisco

pendebant in quinquennium remisit. Magnetes a Sipylo
pitmmt damno ac remedio habiti. Temnios,, Philadel-

Aegeatas, Apollonidenses quique Mosteni aut

Mmcedcmes Hyrcani vocantur, et Hierocaesarlanx, Myrinam,
Cymen, Tmolum levari idem in tempus tributis mittique

pfeenos,

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

109

Constantine afforded generous relief

to the famine-stricken people of Antioch but
(A.D. 331),

it

must be borne

in

mind

humanitarianism

Christian

active force.

that

had

by that time
become an

Moreover, indignation

whether

by the humanizing influence of the

excited

Stoic philosophy or by other less laudable

impulses was at times displayed against the

But in
excesses of the provincial Governors. 1
spite of these occasional, and, in pagan days,
not very convincing, humanitarian symptoms,
nothing approaching to the modern "ethical
2

process," as

has been termed by Professor

it

ex senatu placuit qui prsesentia spectaret refoveretque

(Tacitus., Ann., ii. 47).

"

"The

citizens (of Rome) were indignant that their

should
be treated as Gallus had dealt with the
subjects
Under pretext of zeal for justice and
Egyptians,
1

honesty, the public was venting upon the unhappy Gallus

that suppressed hatred which the civil wars had left

behind.

The

large

fortunes

made

in

Egypt

after

the conquest were especially obnoxious to every class.

Cornelius Gallus, who had made a fortune in Egypt, was
destined to become the victim of all who had not enjoyed
his opportunities

"

(" Greatness

and Decline,

etc.," vol. iv,,

pp. .182-83).

"Social progress means the checking of the cosmic

for it of
process at every step, and the substitution
2

110

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

Huxley, was ever applied by the Romans to

the treatment of political and social questions.
Even if they had the will, they certainly did not
would
possess the scientific knowledge which
have enabled them to arrest or mitigate the
In ancient times,
cruel operations of Nature.
preventible disease must have
swept millions of persons prematurely into the
1
Neither, until of recent years, when
grave.

famine and

another, which

may be called

" Evolution and Ethics

the ethical process

"

(Huxley,

").

The contrast between the public morality of the ancient

and the modern world, in so far as the execution of a
policy of Imperialism is concerned, is abundantly illustrated, in the case of the Greeks, by the sentence of death

the instance of Cleon, on the whole male

of
population
Mitylene a sentence which appears to have
been rescinded more on grounds of policy than on those of
humanity (see the speech of Diodotus, Thuc., iii. 42-45).

passed, at

The main

difference

sort

to quote another instance,

between a contemplated crime of this

between the crime
actually committed by the Lacedaemonians and Thebans in
the case of the garrison of Platasa (Thuc., iii. 52-65) and the
or,

modem times, such as the

Armenian massacres, would seem to be that the former
were the deliberate acts of responsible Governments,
whereas the latter have more frequently been
spontaneous
outbursts of savagery, which the
responsible Government
either could not or would not
effectively control.

crimes of mediaeval or even of

TfteJommal of the

Statistical Society, vol. xli.,

paper by Mr. Walford on

<

contains a

The Famines of the World,

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

111

the beneficent Imperialism of modern times

has been brought to bear on the subject of

human life, was any great improvement effected. The mortality during the great

preserving

Bengal in 1769 and subsequent

years has been variously estimated at from

famine in

3,000,000 to "one-third of the population"

that is to say, about lO^OO^OOO. 1

We

Past and Present," in which 350

are

enumerated.

Of

these,

known

many

cases of famine

occurred in ancient

and even the scanty records which are extant are

to show the degree of suffering which they
For instance, in B.C. 436 there was a famine in
caused.
"
Thousands threw themselves into the Tiber."
Rome.
In A.D. 42, Judaea was "desolated by famine/' In A.D. 278,
" thousands were starved " in Scotland. In A.D. 272,
"people ate the bark of trees and roots" in England, and

times,

sufficient

so on.
1

"

In the North of Purneah the European supervisor

believed that half the ryots were dead ; the Resident of
Behar calculated the famine mortality at 200,000 in May
;

the Resident of Murshidabad in June estimated that by

that time three-eighths of the population of the province
in July, 500 died daily in that town in Birbhum,
of villages are entirely depopulated, and
hundreds
many
even in the large towns not a fourth of the houses are
In this large district in 1765 there had
inhabited.'

had died

"

been

close

after the

on 6,000

("Report of the
Part

III,,

villages

under cultivation; three years

little more than 4,500"

famine there were

"Famine

Indian

Famine

Histories/' p. 2).

Commission,"

1885,

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

113

know

that in quite recent times the popu

Soudan was reduced, under th<

lation of the
inefficiency

and barbarities of Dervish

from over 8,500,000 to

less

rule

than 2,000,000.

policy of modern differ rnon

widely from that of ancient Imperialism thanii
dealing with matters of this sort. The moden

Nowhere does the

not accept the decrees

manfully, and
struggles
2
enormous cost, to resist them. In the ease
Imperialist will

He

Nature.

o
a
c

disease he brings science to his aid, and, in th

case of famine, his resistance is by no meat]

he has discovered that Natui

will generally produce a sufficiency of food
man can arrange for its timely distribution,

ineffectual, for

This

No.

Is

Sir Reginald Wingate'g estimate ("Egypt

I see no reason to doubt i

of 1907, p. 79), and

It is said that 5,451,000 perso

of
died
disease (largely of smallpox) during the few yes
of Dervish rule, and that ,203,500 Were killed in exterr

approximate accuracy.

or internal- -principally internal

2

For instance, in 1877 some

famine relief in India.

war.

10,000,000 was spent

In the " Transactions of the Kpidemiological Society

(vol. iv., Sessions 1884-85), a table is given which shows
8

a striking manner the reduction of the London death-r*

effected since the beginning of the seventeenth cento

by the introduction of vaccination and other scient

methods.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

The
human

policy of preserving and prolonging

even useless human life is noble.
life

It is the only policy

But

113

worthy of a

civilized nation.

execution inevitably increases the diffiIn India it has in some

culty of government.
its

provinces produced a highly congested population, and has thus necessarily intensified the
struggle for

life

of the survivors*

We have at

times heard a good deal of what is called

It has been
the impoverishment of India.
attributed

by

hostile critics to

with some of which

I will

many causes/
not now attempt to

they are foreign to the subject I have

But of this I am well convinced
in hand.
deal, as

that whatever impoverishment has taken place

is much more due to good than to bad govern-

ment. 2
1

It

is

largely attributable to a beneficent

"Let those who feel for the millions of

who crowd around relief centres

cultivators

voiceless

at

each

recurring famine, or die on the roadside and in obscure

that famines in
villages, bring it home to their minds

India are greatly due to that policy of saddling India with

the cost of vast armaments and wai*s which she should not
(t
bear, and which she cannot bear" (Romesh Dutt, Famines
in India/' p. xix).

may quote on this point the evidence of the

Howard Campbell, who worked for twenty years
2

Rev.
as a

missionary in India, and describes himself as a Socialist.

15

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

II*

intention to deliver the people of India from

No such intention
war, pestilence, and famine.

ever animated the

Rome,

or,

in

more

digenous rulers of

Imperialists

modern

of Ancient
the

times,

in-

Asiatic! States.

have thus dwelt on some of the more

salient features which differentiate the tasi
I

of

the

modern from that of the

Imperialist,

To

Rome was

that

these

may

ancienl

he added the fad

The

without a rival

ope*

strepitusqne Romcr overshadowed the whoL

known world* Great Britain, on the othe
hand, is only one amongst several competinj

Imperialist Powers, to whom it is conceivabl

that British dependencies might be drawn b;
self-interest,

partial

community

of

race,

Writing to the Labour Leader some few years ago, he sale

" I went to India
expecting to find a great deal of mi
government, and most unwilling to admit that any goc
could result from a bureaucratic system.
Experience h

me to the conclusion that there is no country

the world better governed than India, none in which tl
administration does more for the masses of the people.

forced

The masses
way

are poor, very poor, but their poverty is in

due to maladministration or misgovernment " ("E*

India Association Pamphlets/* No.

),

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

other causes*

115

Further, as Guizot has pointed

the old civilization presented problems

for solution of a relatively simple character,
out,

whilst those which

European

civilization has

to face are infinitely varied and complex.

If
these considerations are borne in mind, there

can be no

Romans,

difficulty in

in

some

understanding

directions

at

all

why

the

events,

gained an apparent success which has been

denied to their Imperialist successors. 2
I use the word "apparent" with intention,

for,

was the success real ? The answer to

that question must depend on the main object

in fact,

"

Quand on regarde aux

de

celle

Europe moderne,

civilisations qui
soit

en Asie,

ont

soit ailleurs,

y
Grecque et Romaine, il est
impossible de ne pas tre frapp^ de Tunit qui y regne.
Elle paraissent eman^es d'un seul fait, d'une seule ide.
te autrement de la civilisation de 1'Europe
II en a
moderne.
Toutes formes, tous les principes d'organiconipris

1'

meme

la civilisation

sation sociale y co- existent, les pouvoirs spirituel et temporel,

les

cratique,

61ements

th^oeratique, monarchique, aristotoutes les classes^ toutes les

democratique,

situations sociales se melent, se pressent, il y a des d^gres

"
infinis dans la liberty la richesse, Tinfluence
(Guizot,

" Histoire de la Civilisation en

Europe," pp. 35-37).
2 It
causes
is, I think, capable of proof that economic
and trade interests greatly facilitated the execution of

Roman Imperial policy ; but I will not at present attempt

to discuss this very interesting question.

116

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

which

it

is

held that an

should seek to attain.

Imperialist policy
If, at any period,

during the Republic or the Empire,

the question of Quo vadis had been proeither

pounded to a

Roman

Imperialist, I do not

he would have found much

He would
difficulty in giving an answer.
have said that he wished, above all things,
to maintain his hold over the provinces, either
conceive that

because they were profitable, or because he

feared the consequences which might result
to the

Empire from

their

abandonment

that

he did not particularly wish to interfere with

1
local institutions more than was necessary;
that, rather against his will, he had been
obliged, in some cases, to extinguish them,
as their continued existence had been found,
in practice, to clash inconveniently with the
necessities of his Imperial policy; and that

the liberality of his intentions was strongly

1

Mommsen

(" Hist./' vol. iii, p, 237) says, speaking of

"The Roman provincial con-

the days of the Republic:

only concentrated military power

hands of the Roman Governor, while administration
and jurisdiction were, or at any rate were intended to be,
retained by the communities, so that as much of the old
political independence as was at all capable of life might
be preserved in the form of communal freedom."

stitution, in substance,

in the

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

treatment of the Greeks,

he had not endeavoured to Romanize/

by

exemplified

whom

117

his

partly because it would have been extremely

difficult to do so, and partly because,
although

much like this mercurial nation, he

nevertheless recognized that the sort of intel-

he did not

primacy which they enjoyed rendered

both necessary and justifiable to accord to

lectual
it

them some

special treatment.

have added that the

But he would

last thing in the

world he

intended was to put into the heads of the

by copying Rome and Roman

customs, they would acquire a right to sever
their connection with the Empire and to govern

provincials that,

themselves

in fact, that his central political

conception was not to

autonomize, but to
Romanize, or at least Hellenize, the world.

What

answer would the modern Imperialist

give to the question of Quo vadis ? I do not
think that the Frenchman, the Russian, the
German, or the Italian, if the question were
1

Wherever the Greek civilization had taken root, the

policy was rather to extend than to supplant it.
In the East, the Romans were content to work through the
Greek form of civilization, and to act as the successors of
Cf

Roman

Alexander.

They did not Romanize; they Hellenized

(Arnold, "Studies, etc./'

p. 196).

16

'

118

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

put to any of them, would be much more

seriously embarrassed than the ancient Roman
to find an answer.

Each would

reply that his

intention was to civilize his alien subjects, but

no way to relax his hold over them. But

what would be the reply of the leading
of the EnglishImperialist of the world
in

He

man?
definite

striving

would be puzzled to give any

answer, for he is in truth always
to attain two ideals,, which are apt to

be mutually destructive the ideal of good

government, which connotes the continuance
of his

own supremacy, and

government, which
partial

abdication

the ideal of

connotes the
of

his

supreme

self-

whole

or

position.

a dim,
although
slipshod, but characteristically Anglo-Saxon
fashion* he is aware that empire must rest

Moreover,

on one of two bases

after

rather

an extensive military

occupation or the principle of nationality he

cannot in all cases quite make up his mind

which of the two bases he prefers. Nevertheor at all events,

less, as regards Egypt, he will
in my opinion, he should reply without hesitation that he would be very glad to shake off
the Imperial burden, but that at present he

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

does not see

much

119

prospect of being able to

His Indian problem is of much greater

complexity, and more especially presents diffido

so.

unknown

to the Imperialists, whether

of the ancient or the modern world.
culties

Consider what has happened in India. The

most practical and energetic of Western has

been brought into contact with the most contemplative of Eastern nations, with the result
that old ideals have been shattered, and that

the very foundations on which the edifice of

society rests are in process of being under1
On what foundation is that edifice
mined.
to

be rebuilt?

The

idea that haunts

the

minds of a very few Westerns, and of a larger

number

of

Orientals,

that

native

society,

whether in India or in other Eastern countries,

can be reconstituted on an improved native
1
Whilst this essay was passing through the press I
chanced to read a very good because, I believe, very
true account of the present condition of society in India,

written by Lady Cox, and published in the November

number of the Nineteenth Century. It is much more worth

reading than most Blue- Books. Lady Cox evidently has a

deep sympathy with the natives of India, and, moreover,
she combines knowledge of her subject with sympathy,

which

is

not always the case with some of her countrymen

write on Indian affairs.

who speak and

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

1*0

is a
pure delusion. The country over
which the breath of the West, heavily charged
with scientific thought, has once passed, and
has, in passing, left an enduring mark, can

model,

never be the same as

it

was

before.

The new

foundations must be of the Western, not of the

Eastern, type. As Sir Henry Maine very truly
remarks/ the British nation in dealing with
India u cannot evade the duty of rebuilding upon
its own principles that which it
unwittingly
destroys."

The most

and generally

salient

accepted of those principles

is

unquestionably

"

Maine,
Village Communities of the Kast and West/'
I take this
8,
p.
opportunity of mentioning that some
remarks I made in my work on '* Modern Egypt," vol. ii,
1

c.

xxxvii., as

to the difficulty

of reforming

to the fact that I failed

Islam, have

have no doubt,
Without
to express them clearly.

been a good deal misunderstood, owing,

going at length into the subject, I may say that I did not
wish it to be inferred that in my opinion the social system

adopted in Moslem countries would not be changed, and,

fstill less, that the reform of
political institutions in those
countries was impossible.
On the contrary, I do not in
the least doubt that both social changes and political
reforms will take place. What I meant was that these

changes would almost inevitably produce this result

that

the Islamism of the future would probably be something

quite different to what we imply when we speak of the
Islamism of to-day. To this view I adhere, but what the
Islamism of the future will be is a point on which I do not

venture to prophesy.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

121

That must manifestly conself-government.

stitute the corner-stone of the new edifice.
There

are,

however, two methods of applying

One is to aim at eventually

a
wholly independent nation in India
creating
the other is gradually to extend local self-

this principle.

government, but with the fixed determination

to maintain the supreme control in the hands

Great

of

Britain.

It

doubted

cannot be

that the aspirations of a considerable section

amongst the educated classes of India now

point in the former of these two directions.

Speaking only of those who profess the

Hindoo

religion, their opinions

may

differ as

to the time which should elapse before those

but so far as
aspirations can be satisfied
;

from recent discussions, the

only difference between the extremists and
can judge

moderates

is

that, whereas

to precipitate, the latter

the hour of separation.

the former wish

would prefer to

delay,

If India were a single homogeneous nation,

the execution of a policy of this sort might

perhaps be conceivable.

But

it

is

nothing

notice in the " Moral and Material Progress Report

for 1906-07," p. l6l, that one obscure newspaper advo1

122

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

In the

of the kind*

last

census 1

no

less

than 147 distinct languages were recorded

vernacular, and I find

on examining the

as

detail

account be taken only of the languages

spoken by communities of more than a million
people, 276 million speak twenty-three different

that, if

tongues.
If

now we

turn to the question of diversity

of religions, we find that, besides a sprinkling

of Parsees, Christians, and Buddhists, there
are (>2| million Mohammedans, of
though their creed is that of

whom

some,

Mohammed,

have adopted Hindoo forms and ceremonials, 2

Two hundred and seven millions are classed
as

Hindoos,

who

are split

up

into an infinite

sects.
To quote the words of the
" Within
very able compiler of the census
the enormous range of beliefs and practices

number of

which are included

in

the term

Hinduism

'

there are comprised two entirely different sets

of ideas, or, one may say, two widely different
cates the adoption of a

"Creed of India/* with a view

to

The idea
amalgamating all the diverse Indian races.
would appear to be quite incapable of realization.
1
"Indian Census," p. S48.
2

Ibid., p.

375.

!i

Ibid., p.

860.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

conceptions of the world and of life. At one
end, at the lower end, of the series is Animism,

an essentially materialistic theory of things,

which seeks by means of magic to ward off
or to forestall physical disasters, which looks
no further than the world of sense, and seeks
to

make

that as tolerable as the conditions

At

will permit.

the other end

is

Pantheism,

combined with the system of transcendental

1

metaphysics."
To speak of self-government for India under
conditions such as these is as if we were to

advocate self-government for a united Europe.

It is as if we were to assume that there was
a complete identity of sentiment and interest
between the Norwegian and the Greek, between
the dwellers on the banks of the

on the banks of the Tagus.

Don and

The

idea

those

is

not

not only impracticable.

I would go farther, and say that to entertain
it would be a crime against civilization, and

only absurd;

especially

it

against

is

the

voiceless

millions

in

India whose interests are committed to our

charge. The case is well put by a very intelli-

gent Frenchman who

1 tf

visited

Indian Census,"

p.

India a few yeaxs

357,

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

1*4

"
ago.

The question/* he

**

says,

is

not whether

England has a right to keep India, but rather

whether she has a right to leave it.
To
abandon India would in truth lead to the
most frightful anarchy. Where is the native
Power which would unite Hindoos and
Moslems, Rajputs and Marathas, Sikhs and
Bengalis, Farsees and Christians, under one
sceptre ?
miracle." 1

As

has

England

accomplished

this

a result of the discussions which have

recently taken place in connection with Indian

I think, on the
affairs, it has been decided

whole, wisely, though I entertain some doubts

to associate
respect to certain details
natives of India to a greater extent than here-

in

Paul Boell, "L'Inde

M, Leroy Beaulieu also
1

et le

Probl&me Indien/'

says ("

La

p. 289.

Colonisation," vol.

ii,

" La
disparition d'une souverainete Europ&enne
418):
aux Indes serait un malheur et pour ce pays et pour la

p.

en g6nral." Mr. Rice Holmes, on pp. 1414#

of his "History of the Indian Mutiny," gives a very
graphic, and I believe absolutely correct, account of the

civilisation

anarchical state of those portions of India in which, for

the time being, the strong arm of British authority was
I wish the
relaxed,
younger generation of Englishmen

would read, mark,

learn,

of the Indian Mutiny

it

and inwardly digest the history

abounds in lessons and warnings.

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

125

"tofore with the executive government of the

oiintry. It has also been decided to go at
iie bound to greater lengths than appear to

:t

*^e

to be wise in the direction of effecting

legislation through the machinery of repre-

^entative bodies

s^embers.
Conjectures

It

is

largely composed of elected

now useless to hazard any

as to

what consequences

will

be

We

I>3rodueed by these bold experiments.

nciaist await the result with what patience we
ncxay. But there is one note which was slightly
struck in the course of the discussions, and to.
~w-liich

allude.

it will,

Some

"ttiat our duty

perhaps, not be superfluous to

Englishmen appear to think
lies

in the direction of develop-

ing self-governing principles

and that we must

all

along the

line,

accept the consequences of

ttieir development, whatever they may be

I conceive, to the extent of paving the
for our own withdrawal from the country,

even,

"way

<io not say that any Englishman would regard

this final conclusion with pleasure, but possibly

some would

be inclined to accord complacent

acquiescence to what they would consider the

inevitable. Within reasonable limits, I accept

the interpretation of our

duty.

do not con-

lati

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

ceal

from myself that the consequences may be

serious, in so far that they

may materially increase the difficulty of governing the country; 1

altogether reject the extreme consequence
I deny that such an
of possible withdrawal.

but

ultimate result

is

inevitable

within any period of which

take account unless we

at all events,

we need

at present

ourselves

weakly
Let us approach
this subject with the animus wanendi strong
It will be well for England, better
within us*

acquiesce in the inevitability.

the cause of probe clearly

gressive civilization in general, if it
understood from the outset that, however liberal

for India,

and best of

all for

be the concessions which have

may

now been

made, and which at any future time may be

The difficulty

of reconciling British democratic institu-

an Imperial policy was fully

Mr.
John
Writing to Sir James
Bright.
recognized by
Graham on April 23, 1858, Mr, Gladstone said: "I have

tions with the execution of

this evening on
admits the difficulty of governing a people
Governby a people i.e., India by a pure Parliamentary
ment" ("Life and Letters of Sir James Graham/' vol. ii,

had a very long conversation with Bright

He

India. ...

p. 340).

Duke of Wellington once said, though

unable at this moment to lay my hand on the
reference " If ever we lose India, it will be Parliament
I

think that the

am

that will lose

it for us,"

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

127

made, we have not the smallest intention of

abandoning our Indian possessions, and that
highly improbable that any such intention
will be entertained by our posterity.
The

it is

foundation-stone of Indian reform must be the

steadfast maintenance of British supremacy.
In this respect something of the clearness

of political vision and bluntness of expression

which characterized the Imperialists of Ancient

Home

might, not without advantage, be imparted to our own Imperialist policy. Nations
wax and wane. It may be that at some future

and

far distant

time

we

be

shall

justified, to

use a metaphor of perhaps the greatest of the

Latin poets, 1 in handing over the torch of progress and civilization in India to those whom

we have

ourselves civilized.

at present

said

is

All that can be

that, until

human

nature

entirely changes, and until racial and religious

passions disappear from the face of the earth,
the relinquishment of that torch would almost

certainly lead to its extinction.

1

"

Augescunt aliae gentes, aliae minuuntur,

Inque brevi spatio mutantur saecla animantum,
Et quasi cursores vital lampada tradunt."
(Lucretius,

De

Rer. Nat.,

ii.

77-79.)

APPENDIX
I

HAVE endeavoured

ancient

times,

between

the

Romans

to ascertain whether, in

intermarriage*
dominant races

was

frequent

Greeks

or

and the indigenous inhabitants

of Asia and Africa with whom they were
<

brought in contact.

With

a view to the

elucidation of this question, I placed myself

in communieation with others notably, Sir

William Ramsay, Professors Bury and Haverfeld, and Mr. Be van -of far greater erudition
than myself.

am

greatly indebted to them

which they have been

kind enough to supply me.
for the information with

It

is

certain that the marriage of

Roman

foreigners was regarded with

It was proscribed by law.
great disfavour,
The offspring of such marriages were concitizens

with

sidered

illegitimate,

marriage

of

Virgil

condemns the

Antony and Cleopatra

128

in

no

APPENDIX
measured

129

The relations between

and Cleopatra and other foreign

terms.

Julius Ceesar

appear to have scandalized Roman

Titus was reluctantly obliged to
society.

ladies

part with Queen Berenice, who is said to have

been the sister of Agrippa and the wife of

Polemon, King of Lycia, and to whom he

was greatly attached. 3 So far as can be
judged, the feelings evoked in these and
similar cases were based solely on national
pride and hatred for all barbarians.
Perhaps
nowhere is the intense dislike which the con1

((

JBgyptum viresque Orientis et ultima secum

Bactra vehit sequiturque^ nefas 2gyptia conjmuL/*
!

JEn.,

Horace
2

ee

calls

"
Cleopatra a fatale

Dilexit et reginas, inter quas

viii.

monstrum

687-88,

"
(Od.,

Eunoen Mauram

1.

St).

Bogii-

sed maxime Cleopatram" (Suet, Div.

Eunoe may have been coloured, but Mr.
Jul.j c. 52).
" There can
u
Sergeant says ( Cleopatra of Egypt," p. 40}
be no hesitation in describing Cleopatra as wholly Macedonian-Greek by race." The idea that she had a trace of
dis

uxorem

Semitic blood in her veins does not appear to rest on any

evidence of value.
3

Suet, Div. Tit.,

c.

7.

Gibbon, however, characterthat the

liii.)

Decline and Fall," c.

istically insinuates ("
reluctance of Titus to part with Berenice
of the separation
real, as at the time

was above

fifty

was not very

" this Jewish beauty

years of age."

17

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM;

ISO

servative

Roman

entertained against foreigners

and the introduction of foreign customs more

brought out than in the remarks which

1
She was
Propertius makes about Cleopatra*

clearly

"

accused of placing the ** barking Anubis in

competition with Jupiter; of having caused
the jangling sistrum to be substituted for the
Roman war-trumpet ; and of having intro-

duced into
"

Home

the terrible innovation of

disgraceful mosquito-curtains."

In

spite,

Roman

however, of prohibitory laws and

prejudice,

it

appears certain that inter-

marriage between Romans and members of

the subject races was no uncommon incident.
I have in my address (p, 96) alluded to the

by M.

and Sir
William Ramsay as regards Numidia and
The Roman soldiers who were
Phrygia.

evidence

adduced

Boissier

taken prisoners by the Parthians in

1

B.C.

58

" Ausa Jovi nostro latrantem

opponerc Anubim,
Et Tiberim Nili cogere ferre minas ;

Romanamque tubam

erepitanti pellere sistro,

Liburna sequi
Foedaque Tarpeio conopia tendere saxo,
Jura dare et statuas inter et amia Man."
Baridos et

cotitis rostra

Prop., iii 11.

[JEfaro (/Japes)

was the Egyptian name

for a boat.]

APPENDIX

131

married native wives, 1 and although Horace

considered this as a disgrace, he would equally,

William Ramsay writes to me, have

regarded it as disgraceful if they had settled
on the Elbe and married German wives, or on
the Thames and married British wives, for he
couples, two lines earlier, Britons and Parthians

as Sir

"

2
together as foes."

cannot anywhere find any distinct indica-

tion that colour antipathy, considered by itself,

formed a bar to social intercourse, and therefore to intermarriage.

Juvenal, indeed, appears

to have regarded the black skin of the ^Ethiopian as a physical defect, which he classes in

the same category as bandy legs. 8 But here,

again, it must be remembered that he lashes
all

foreigners

Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians

indiscriminately with his satire, quite irrespec1

" Milesne Crassi

eoniuge barbara
vixit."
maritus
Turpis
Hor., Od.,

te

iii.

5.

Prsesens divus habebitur

Augustus adiectis Britannis

Imperio gravibusque Persis."
8

"

Loripedem rectus derideat ^Ethiopem albus."

Sat., il 23.

132

tire

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

colour of

of the

Virgil

in

his

their

second

skins.

eclogue,

When

speaking of

"

Menalcas, says,
Quamvis ille niger, quanivis
tu candidus eases," he appears to be merely
alluding to a matter of personal taste in distinguishing between the rival merits of two
suitors belonging to the

same

race.

Turning to the case of the Greeks, it is to

be observed that a decree issued by Pericles
forbade the enrolment as citizens of Athens

of the children born of foreign marriages.

They were, however, considered as legitimate
in the private relations of life, and were allowed
to inherit family property.
The Petrie papyri
show that the original Greek settlers in Egypt

wives with them (Mahafly,

of
the Greek World," p. 45),
Age
and this view seems to be confirmed by a

brought

their

" Silver

chance observation of Diodorus Siculus (xx.

41), in which, speaking of the march of
Ophelias' army through Libya, he says that
the soldiers were accompanied by their wives

and children
KCLI TTJV

(TroXXol Se TOVTCGV reKva teal <yvvaiica<>

aXkrjv TrapacncevTjv rfyov).

See, inter
115-123.

alia,

Sat,

iii.

60,

296;

x.

174; xv.

1,

2,

APPENDIX

133

Gorgo and Praxinoe, who

in

pal characters

are the princi-

the well-known

Adonia-

suzae of Theocritus,

must have accompanied

their husbands to Alexandria.
They boasted
of their Peloponnesian descent, and of their
Doric accent

>

Ara

remark made by Polybius (xxxiv. 14),

Bury has drawn my attenbe
conclusive on the point
to
tion, appears
that a mixed race sprang up at Alexandria.
Polybius (B.C. 210-128) visited that city, and
to which Professor

does not appear to have been at all favourably

impressed with its condition. The population*

he

viz.,
says, consisted of three distinct classes
"
and
civilized
an acute
first, native Egyptians,
"
KCU
race
woXtTucm*) ; secondly, mer(<uXoi> 6%v

cenary soldiers

who were
some

and, thirdly,

originally Greek,

recollection of

" a mixed
race,

and have retained

Greek principles"
rov

18

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

134

Mr. Bevan

refers

me on

information contained in

this subject to the

M.

Bouche-Leelerq's

"
" Histoire des
Lagides
(voL iv., c. xxviil),
from which it would appear that marriages
between Greeks and Egyptians were of
common occurrence at all events, under the
later

M, Bouch^-Leelerq

Ptolemies.

gives

(vol. iv., p. 94) a copy of a marriage contract between u Greek named " Pers, the son of
Bi and Essiur," who was " born in Egypt," and
"Nechta, the daughter of Penebhehn and

Khephet"

On

the whole, I think

it

may

be said that

the practice of not unfrequent intermarriage

between Greeks and native Egyptians in

Ptolemaic times

is

well established.

As

regards other portions of the Hellenistic

world, the evidence is very scanty. Alexander,
as is well

known, favoured a policy of fusion.

himself married a daughter of Darius, and
also Roxana, the daughter of the Bactrian

He

Oxyartes ; moreover, he obliged some of his

Generals to marry Persian ladies. It would
1

In chapter

x.

of his "Empire of the Ptolemies/'

which fusion
had taken place between the Greeks and Egyptians up to
the time of Ptolemy IX. (Euergetes II.).
Professor Mahafiy deals with the extent to

APPENDIX

135

appear from a passage in Arrian (vii. 6), to

which Professor Bury draws attention, that
this policy did

not meet with

Turning to a

later period, little

known of the race

up

much

success.

seems to be

of Gotho-Grceci,

who sprang

in Bithynia (Bury's " History of the Later

Roman Empire/

vol.

ii,

It cannot

p. 34).

be stated with any degree of certainty that

these

were

GrTocci

instances

Hellenes.

Some

may, however, be given of prominent

who

individuals
logically

true

possibly contracted

mixed marriages.

The

first

ethnoof the

three wives of Constantine V. (718-75) was

Irene, the daughter of the Khan of the

Khazars.

The

first

wife of Constantine VI.

was Maria of Paphlagonia, who is

generally termed an Armenian, from the fact
(771-97)

that during her lifetime Paphlagonia was, for

administrative purposes, included in the dis-

of

trict

Armenia.

Further,

the

Theodora (810-67) was born at

But

Paphlagonia.
1

vol.

See
i.,
1

all

in

these

" House of
Seleucus,"
Professor Mahaffy ("Empire of the Ptole31.
"Whether the ladies were repudiated,
says

also

p.

in the case of

Empress
Elissa,

on

this subject Bevan's

mies/ p. 34)
a huge
or whether the whole affair was not considered as
tell/*
cannot
we
was
as Alexander
dead,
joke, as soon
:

136

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

the absence of precise knowledge in

respect to their family histories renders it

ladies

impossible to say whether they were or were

not of purely indigenous origin.
All, I think, that can

be said on

this

branch

of the question is that the existence of intermarriage in the Hellenistic world, other than

not disproved, and that it almost

certainly took place, though with what fre-

Egypt,

is

quency it is impossible to determine. It does

not seem likely that Greek pride of race,
which was largely intellectual, should have
proved a more formidable obstacle to intermarriage than the sense of superiority based

on domination in the case of the Romans.

Mere colour antipathy does not appear to
have existed amongst the Greeks any more
than amongst the Romans.
Sir William

Ramsay, writing to me on the evidence furnished by Dion Chrysostom, who, as is well

known, praised the virtues of the northern barbarians, and who visited Asia Minor and was
thus brought in contact with Orientals, says :
" In
him, Hellenic anti-barbarian pride is very

and yet there is not the slightest trace

o f mere colour prejudice it is eivilization-prestrong,

APPENDIX
judice that

1ST

moves him, and he can admire

heartily certain excellencies even in the rudest

barbarians."

add that both Romans and Greeks

I have
frequently intermarried with the Jews.
already alluded to the case of Titus and
Berenice.
Poppaea, though born of a noble
Roman family, was converted to Judaism, but
I should

her conversion did not hinder her marriage, in

the first instance, to a Roman knight (Rufus

and

subsequently to Nero.
bright spot in her otherwise disreputable career
is that she exerted her influence in favour of
Crispinus),

her co-religionists.

As

regards intermarriage between Greeks

and Jewesses, the testimony of the Bible may
be cited " Then came he (St. Paul) to Derbe
and Lystra and, behold, a certain disciple
:

there, named Timotheus, the son of a

certain woman, which was a Jewess, and

was

believed

1
but his father was a Greek/'

Turning to modern times, I may mention

that intermarriage between Europeans and
Egyptians is of very rare occurrence but it
;

will, of course, be borne in

1

Acts

mind that difference

xvi. 1.

138

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

of religion

now

imposes an obstacle to such

marriages, which either did not exist at all or
existed to a far less extent in ancient times.

very few cases of such marriages were

brought to my notice during my tenure of
generally led to such
unhappy consequences that I endeavoured
and often with success to prevent them.

office in

Egypt.

They

Where

prevention was found impossible, an

arrangement was made under which a European

woman who

contemplated marriage with a

Moslem was fully informed, previous to the
marriage, of the main features of the Mohammedan law in respect to polygamy, divorce, and

the custody of children

these being, as

might

supposed, more especially the

subjects on which, as experience abundantly
proved, serious dissension was most likely to

naturally be

occur. 1
1

Intermarriage between a Christian mart and a Moslem

is even more rare than the union of a Christian

woman
woman

with a Moslem man. A gentleman, who can speak

with authority as regards the practice in Asia Minor, writes
" The case of a Moslem woman married to a
to me
:

man

me

(the only case which

in both being
resulted
knowledge
I only remember to have heard of one such
lynched).*'
marriage in Egypt. In that case there was no lynching.
Christian

is

occurred within

not

my

known

to

APPENDIX
There

in

is

139

Egypt a very numerous Greek

colony, composed of every class of society.

But the Greeks form no exception to the
intermarriage with Egyptians
common with them than it is in

general rule

no more
the case of any other European community.
There may, of course, have been many mixed

is

marriages of this description of which I never

heard, but I do not think that this is likely.
I only remember one case of Grasco-Egyptian

marriage being brought to my personal notice,

and I have a distinct recollection of that case,

gave both the Greek diplomatic

representative and myself a good deal of

because

trouble.

it

am

informed by a lady

who

has

travelled a great deal in Asia Minor that

in that country intermarriage between Greek

women and Moslem men, though

of very rare

occurrence, does occasionally take place.

There is a further question of some interest

which is closely allied to that of intermarriage.
I am not aware that any competent scholar
has ever examined into the question of the
stage in the history of the world at which
difference of

distinguished from
acquired the importance

colour

difference of race

as

140

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

which it certainly now possesses as a social

and political factor. It is one which would
appear to

me

to merit

some

attention.

My own researches are far from profound,

and it may well be that I am either ignorant
of,

or have failed to notice, evidence

subject, familiar to others

who

are

on

more

acquainted with classical and mediaeval

this

fully

litera-

ture than myself.

But, as will be seen from
the remarks I have already made, so far as those
researches go, I have been unable to discover
any distinct indication that colour antipathy

any marked extent in the ancient

The dominant Roman and the intelGreek thought themselves, without

existed to

world.
lectual

doubt, very superior alike to the savage Gaul

or Briton, and to the more civilized Egyptian

but in estimating his sense of

superiority, neither appears, so far as I can
judge, to have taken much account of whether
or Asiatic

the skins of the subject or less intellectually

advanced races were white, black, or brown.
possible that a differentiation between the
habits of thought of moderns and ancients

Is

it

may, in some degree, be established on the

ground that the former have only enslaved the

APPENDIX
coloured races, whereas the latter

ui

doomed

all

conquered people indiscriminately to slavery ?

Is it, moreover, possible that, in the early
stages of Christianity, the feet that the founder

and apostles of Christianity were Asiatics may

have carried greater political and social weight
than was the case when the West, in spite of
antagonism of race, had accepted, whereas
the East, notwithstanding racial affinity, had
I merely throw
rejected, the new religion ?
these out as indications of points which may
perhaps be worthy of consideration. I shall
not be at all surprised if, on further examination, it is held that there is nothing in them.
My own conjecture and it is nothing more
than a conjecture is that antipathy based on
is a plant of comparatively
recent growth.
It seems probable that it received a great stimulus from the world-dis-

differences of colour

One of the
coveries of the fifteenth century.
results of those discoveries was to convince
the white Christian that he might, not only
with profit, but with strict propriety, enslave

Towards the middle of

the fifteenth century, slaves were regularly
imported from Senegambia and the Guinea
the black heathen.

142

ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

Coast and

sold

at

eminent divines/

Lisbon,

Lord Acton

"There were
1

says,

"who

people of hot countries

might be enslaved.
Henry the Navigator
and
Nicholas V. issued
to
Rome,
applied

thought

that

the

him and his Portuguese to

make war on Moors and pagans, seize their
possessions, and reduce them to perpetual

Bulls authorizing

and prohibiting all Christian nations,

under eternal penalties, from trespassing on
slavery,

He

applauded the trade in

negroes, and hoped that it would end in their

the privilege.
conversion/

It is true that negro slavery

never took root in Europe, but it lasted until
within recent times on the farther side of the
Atlantic, and the fact that the institution of

was

slavery

closely identified in the eyes

the world with difference of colour

of

all

must have

helped to bring into prominence the idea of

white superiority, and thus to foster a race
antipathy which, by a very comprehensible
association of ideas, was not altogether confined to those coloured races who were enslaved,

but was also in some degree extended to those

who, as in the case of the Arabs, far from
1

"Lectures on Modern History/* p, 53.

APPENDIX
themselves

being

143

to

subject

eventually became the most

enslavement,

active agents in

the enslavement of others.

Under the

influence of a benevolent and, in

this instance, very laudable

humamtarianism,

there has been a great reaction during

last

century

but

the

cannot help thinking

antipathy based on colour is a
I

now
much more prominent

that even

ment

feature in the governand social relations of the world than

was the case

in ancient times.

There would

sight appear to be some

connection between this circumstance and the
certainly at

first

recrudescence of slavery, which dates from

the fifteenth century.
I

make

these

possibly rather

crude

remarks merely with the object of drawing

attention to a subject which is of much his-

and perhaps even of some practical,

interest, and in the hope that they may lead
torical,

to the matter being considered by others

competent than myself to deal with it.

AKI> SONS. LTD.. PRISTEBS.

GUIUDFOHB

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