The British colonisers who travelled to India from the 18th century onwards have been steeped within the Classics; they knew their Greek and Latin (if not the languages of India) and quoted liberally from Horace and Virgil. Not all Britons, after all – nevertheless it was not a small contingent who took historic Greece and Rome with them to the subcontinent. Partly, Classics was an affectation; talking Latin was an indication that you just have been polished, nicely learn and complex, and performing like a gentleman was essential to English self-regard throughout the Raj. However connections with Greece and Rome went deeper: the British noticed their actions in India via the lens of their classical educations and understood their choices within the gentle of Graeco-Roman antiquity. Some imagined themselves as marching within the footsteps of Alexander the Nice, whereas others most well-liked Julius Caesar or Augustus. For some, the epic poems of Homer bore startling similarities with Sanskrit epics and have been a foundation for cultural comparability; for others, Virgil’s Aeneid provided steering on find out how to be imperial and civilised on the identical time.
