Classical Discourse in British India I: Coping with Life in India

Abstract

Among the remarkable collection of Mountstuart Elphinstone’s papers in the British Library, there is a tiny traveller’s edition of the collected works of Virgil. It carries two inscriptions: ‘M. Elphinstone Benares’ and ‘This book was given me by my mother in 1794; it once belonged to my uncle, Capt. Ruthven’.⁶²⁸ The book, so perfectly suited to travel, so evocative of family, and, as we will see, so in tune with Elphinstone’s abiding passion for the classics, was the perfect present for a much loved younger son about to embark on an Indian career. That he carried it to India we know from the presence of ‘Benares’ in the inscription. That he kept it close through his thirty-two years in India is clear from his journals, which regularly mention him reading it. Indeed, Elphinstone’s journals preserve a remarkable record of reading and study, much of it classical. The apocryphal story that Elphinstone went nowhere without his copy of Thucydides is of course hyperbole, but not in the way that might be expected. The exaggeration lies solely in the claim that it was always Thucydides. His Virgil, for one, was just as likely to be with him, along with any number of other books. On one occasion, he recorded the theft of fifteen to twenty books from his tent, including multiple volumes of Thucydides, Herodotus, and Cicero.⁶²⁹ And on his famous mission to ‘the Kingdom of Cabul’ in 1808–9, two of the five chests in his baggage were filled with books, including Quintus Curtius.⁶³⁰ These classics were neither ornaments nor paperweights. Like the Virgil, they were read, re-read, pored over, often, as we will see, in truly remarkable circumstances and with remarkable outcomes.