Greed, grit, and grandeur: Roman civilization in the Victorian nursery Mark Bradley ark Bradley explores the Mrepresentation of Roman civilization in the language, imagery and storytelling of the emergent children’s literature of Victorian and Edwardian England. He discusses the ways in which younger readers at the turn of the twentieth century were exposed to the society, history, and culture of ancient Rome. Examining the works of several successful children’s authors across this period, he argues that they reflect a broader contemporary inter- est in comparing and contrast- ing the classical past with the social, political, and moral climate of the British imperial present. Roman imperialism or Rule Britannia? In 1852, Gilbert à Beckett – a celebrated English comic writer and one of the ori- ginal staff of Punch magazine – put together his innovative Comic History of Rome which presented Roman history as a series of tableaux with very British themes. The title page promises a Roman history that is very much in tune with the themes, events, and figures of contempo- rary British history: the Olympian gods at the top inspired by a welter of famous European figures, the slightly chubby goddess Roma that might remind some of the middle-aged Queen Victoria, and at the bottom a rather unsettling version of the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood nurturing the twins Romulus and Remus. 27 As he explains in his preface, expansionism had it coming. Beckett had set out to use the And the republican general ‘comic’ theme to make Roman Flamininus restores ‘freedom’ to history more amusing and the Greek cities by presiding appealing to the wider public. over the Isthmian Games and Part of that amusement was causing so much cheer that the generated by Beckett’s some- locals interrupt their game of times far-fetched efforts to cricket in order to applaud him assimilate Roman events to (p. 29 top). Beckett’s Roman British themes and morals. Empire, then, was (by and large) So it is that Mars is trans- a giant gentleman’s club; no formed into a British officer imperial abuses, nothing that (complete with Roman plume) makes Rome look like a compli- when he meets the coy future cated role model for the young mother of Romulus and Remus Victorian reader, though all (right). Everything seems above presented with a wry sense of board and gentlemanly in this humour. version of Rome’s foundation, This is not to say that tales of though aspects of the picture, misconduct are omitted; indeed, such as the soldier’s enormous the proper punishment of plume, may conjure up a less scoundrels and rebels was a key innocent interpretation and one component in Victorian repre- more in line with the original sentations of Roman history. The violent tale of rape and pillage. political troublemaker Tiberius So too is the rape of the Sabine Gracchus, for example, is turned Women sanitized for Beckett’s into Humpty Dumpty after he readers (below): as Beckett put tries to overthrow the govern- it, ‘The weather being propi- ment (p. 29 bottom). tious, all the Sabine beauty and fashion were attracted to the Roman history for the place, and the games, consisting of horse ungallant manner, abandoned to their fate masses…and for the nursery racing, gave to the scene all the animation by the Sabine gentlemen’. So, as perhaps of a cup day at Ascot. Suddenly, at a pre- we ought to expect in the heyday of the A Comic History of Rome, then, is an early concerted signal, there was a general British Empire, the nastier elements of example of ancient history propelled into elopement of the Roman youth with the Roman imperialism are played down by the public world of Victorian Britain. The Sabine ladies, who were, in the most the author. Here, the victims of Roman popularization of subjects that had previ- 28 ously been the preserve of the highly- ment, worthy of admiration and emula- man’ under whose leadership ‘Corinth educated adult elite was a growing trend tion. It was achieved through resourceful- was taken, utterly ruined and plundered in British culture at the time. And the ness, bravery, and a determined commit- throughout, and a huge amount of treasure emergence of popular versions of scho- ment to civilize the barbarians. was sent to Rome’. The inevitable result larly subjects like classical antiquity came Occasionally, criticisms of Roman impe- of this influx of wealth, and a stark warn- hand-in-hand with social and cultural rialism float to the surface: Aunt ing to the growing opulence of nineteenth- reforms in late nineteenth-century Britain. Charlotte, like others at the time, high- century Britain, was luxury and deca- Particularly from the 1870s, compulsory lights the virtues of the British Empire by dence. education together with major advances in highlighting the vices of the Roman Authors of children’s textbooks printing and publishing technology, saw Empire. Rome’s utter destruction of attempted to interest children in the same the emergence of a new ‘popular culture’ Carthage and Corinth in 146 B.C., for debates about civilization and empire that in which classical ideas could be brought example, was a step too far: Lucius were bothering so many of their parents at to the population at large. These reforms Mummius, conqueror of Corinth, is the end of the nineteenth century because were connected to a need to establish a described as ‘a fierce, rude and ignorant of Britain’s own imperial expansion. By clearer sense of national identity and so examining the pros and cons of Roman consolidate Britain's controversial posi- civilization, readers young and old could tion in the world at the height of the British explore their own society, values, and Empire. By getting them to think about politics. their own national history and their connection to ancient Greece and Rome, Weighing up the pros and cons of the system could teach boys and girls to be empire useful citizens. Rome, rather like imperial Britain, offered young readers at the time a splen- In 1893, George Henty published Beric did model of success and grandeur. the Briton: a story of the Roman invasion Towards the end of the nineteenth century, (1893), a tale of the trials and tribulations Charlotte Yonge – ‘Aunt Charlotte’ as she of a young aristocratic British boy at the called herself – condensed 1500 years of time of Nero struggling to come to terms Roman history into her Stories of Roman with Roman occupation. His preface History for the Little Ones (1876), nearly outlines the ambivalent role that Rome 400 pages of dry and highly moralizing had played in Britain’s own past: ‘My dear prose littered with line drawings of grand Lads, the valour with which the natives of buildings, fine art, ingenious warfare, and this island defended themselves was impressive personages. The Roman acknowledged by the Roman historians, empire was, with thinly veiled allusions to and it was only the superior discipline of the British Empire, a gargantuan achieve- the invaders that enabled them finally to 29 triumph over the bravery and the superior yourself, aren’t you?’ said Una. ‘Ye-es and physical strength of the Britons… The no. I’m one of a good few thousands who Roman conquest for the time was have never seen Rome except in a picture’. undoubtedly of immense advantage to the It is telling that Kipling’s young readers people – who had previously wasted their would not be entirely clear which of the energies in perpetual tribal wars – as it two they should identify with: the inno- introduced among them the civilization of cent British child or the friendly Roman Rome.’ centurion for whom, like Kipling’s read- So: Roman civilization was a good ers, Rome is just a distant story. In a simi- thing for Britain. However, Henty then lar vein, Parensius goes on to tell stories kicks off his narrative with Beric’s of the town of Aquae Sulis (Bath) with its companion reminding Beric what that ‘ultra-Roman Britons, and ultra-British awesome temple of Claudius at Romans, and tame tribesmen pretending Colchester was really about. ‘It may be a to be civilised, and Jew lecturers, and – oh, fair sight in a Roman's eyes, Beric, but everybody interesting’. nought could be fouler to those of a Briton. From the second half of the nineteenth To me every one of those blocks of brick century, classical stories were being and stone weighs down and helps to hold exploited on an unprecedented level to in bondage this land of ours; while that shape the minds of the British youth. temple they have dared to rear to their Rome was an accessible and evocative site gods, in celebration of their having for learning about ethics, morals, and conquered Britain, is an insult and a lie. politics. But it is also clear that this same We are not conquered yet, as they will literature was transforming the way antiq- some day know to their cost. We are silent, uity itself was represented and understood we wait, but we do not admit that we are from childhood upwards. Classics and conquered.’ Empire, then, is a double- British culture, in the Victorian era as they edged sword, and Henty’s young readers sleep behind her walls’ – the same old continue to do today, developed side-by- are encouraged to identify themselves problem of success breeding laziness, as side so that the understanding of antiquity simultaneously with the civilizing even Roman writers had already warned. was shaped by British identities, and the conquerors and with the British resis- Kipling’s historical fiction Puck of understanding of British society, politics, tance.