The British colonisers who travelled to India from the 18th century onwards had 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, in fact – nevertheless it was not a small contingent who took historical Greece and Rome with them to the subcontinent. Partly, Classics was an affectation; talking Latin was an indication that you just had been polished, properly learn and complex, and appearing 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 by way of the lens of their classical educations and understood their choices within the mild of Graeco-Roman antiquity. Some imagined themselves as marching within the footsteps of Alexander the Nice, whereas others most popular Julius Caesar or Augustus. For some, the epic poems of Homer bore startling similarities with Sanskrit epics and had been a foundation for cultural comparability; for others, Virgil’s Aeneid provided steering on how you can be imperial and civilised on the similar time.
