Classical Discourse and British Imperial Identity: The Imperial Character

Abstract

In 1877 Edward Dicey wrote ‘England, like Rome, is the corner-stone of an imperial fabric such as it has fallen to the lot of no other country to erect, or uphold when erected.’³⁸⁹ This is familiar territory, where the comparison to Rome establishes or confirms the special magnificence of Britain’s Empire. But that was only the first step. Dicey continued, revealing still more of the conceptual imperial constellation bound up with classical discourse. Having acknowledged the role of naked self-interest in the foundation and maintenance of Britain’s rule in India, he came to the crux of the issue. He claimed that the real reason the British, as opposed to another equally avaricious rival, held India was that ‘to us has been given a mission like to that of ancient Rome’.³⁹⁰ This too is familiar territory: Britain’s civilizing mission, so similar to Rome’s, made the Indian Empire special and historically great. But the conclusion of Dicey’s thought carries us onto new ground, revealing the final element in the imperial nexus derived from classical discourse. As he put it ‘we too might well be bidden to remember that regere imperio populos is the talent committed to us.’³⁹¹ Romans and Britons shared the same rare and innate capacity for imperial rule, inimitably described by the immortal and apparently irresistible genius of Virgil.³⁹² Everything followed from this essential similarity in character. Without it there could be no talk of a magnificent and durable ‘imperial fabric’ or of an imperial civilizing ‘mission’.