Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  The Western Roman Empire thus collapsed. Some centuries later it was to rise again in a different form. The Eastern Empire, however, continued, although it was hard put to it to withstand the attacks of the Huns and others. Not only did it survive these attacks, but it carried on century after century in spite of continuous fighting against the Arabs, and later, against the Turks. For the amazing period of 1100 years it survived, till at last it fell in 1453 AC when Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks or the Osmanlis. Ever since then, for nearly 500 years now, Constantinople, or Istanbul as they call it, has been in the possession of the Turks. From there they repeatedly marched into Europe and came right up to the walls of Vienna. They were driven back gradually in later centuries, and a dozen years ago, after their defeat in the Great War, they nearly lost Constantinople. The English were in possession of this city and the Turkish Sultan was a puppet in their hands. But a great leader, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, came to rescue his people and, after a heroic struggle, he succeeded. Today Turkey is a republic and the Sultan has vanished forever. Kemal Pasha1 is the President of the Republic. Constantinople, the seat of an empire for 1500 years, first the Eastern Roman and then the Turkish, is still part of the Turkish State, but it is not even its capital. The Turks have preferred to keep away from its imperial associations and to have their capital at Angora (or Ankara), far away in Asia Minor.

  We have hurried through nearly 2000 years and followed rapidly the changes which came, one after another, the founding of Constantinople and the transfer of the capital of the Roman Empire to the new city. But Constantine did another novel thing. He turned Christian and, as he was the Emperor, that meant, of course, that Christianity became the official religion of the Empire. It must have been a strange thing, this sudden change in the position of Christianity—from that of a persecuted faith to an imperial religion. The change did not do it much good for a while. Different sects of Christians started quarrelling with each other. Ultimately there was a great break between two sections—the Latin section and the Greek. The Latin section had its headquarters in Rome and the Bishop of Rome was looked up to as its head—later to become the Pope of Rome; and the Greek section had its headquarters in Constantinople. The Latin Church spread all over northern and western Europe and came to be known as the Roman Catholic Church. The Greek Church was known as the Orthodox Church. After the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, Russia was the chief country where the Orthodox Church flourished. Now with Bolshevism in Russia this Church, or any other Church, has no official position there.

  I refer to the Eastern Roman Empire, and yet this had little to do with Rome. Even the language they used was Greek, not Latin. In a sense, it might almost be considered to have been a continuation of Alexander’s Greek Empire. It had little contact with western Europe, although for long it would not admit the right of western countries to be independent of it. And yet the Eastern Empire stuck to the word Roman and the people were called Roman, as if there was some magic in the word. And, stranger still, the city of Rome, in spite of its fall from the headship of empire, did not lose its prestige, and even the barbarians who came to conquer it seemed to hesitate, and treated it with deference. Such is the power of a great name and the power of ideas!

  Having lost the empire, Rome started carving out a new empire, but of a different kind. It was said that Peter, the disciple of Jesus, had come to Rome and become the first bishop there. This gave sanctity to the place in the eyes of many Christians and added special importance to the bishopric of Rome. The Bishop of Rome was, to begin with, not unlike other bishops, but he grew in importance after the Emperor went to Constantinople. There was no one to overshadow him then, and, as the successor to the chair of Peter, he came to be regarded as the chief of the bishops. Later he came to be called the Pope, and as you know the Popes exist to this day and are the heads of the Roman Catholic Church.

  It is curious to note that one of the reasons for the split between the Roman Church and the Greek Orthodox Church was the use of images. The Roman Church encouraged the worship of the images of its saints, and especially of Mary, the mother of Jesus, while the Orthodox Church objected to this strongly.

  Rome was occupied and ruled for many generations by chiefs of the northern tribes. But even they often acknowledged the overlordship of the Emperor at Constantinople. Meanwhile the power of the Bishop of Rome, as a religious head, grew, till he felt strong enough to defy Constantinople. When trouble came over the question of image-worship, the Pope decided to cut Rome off completely from the East. Much had happened meanwhile of which we shall have to speak later—a new religion, Islam, had arisen in Arabia, and the Arabs had overrun all northern Africa and Spain, and were attacking the heart of Europe; new States were being formed in northern and western Europe; and the Eastern Roman Empire was being fiercely assailed by the Arabs.

  The Pope begged for assistance from a great leader of the Franks, a Germanic tribe of the north, and later, Karl or Charles, the head of the Franks, was crowned Emperor in Rome. This was quite a new empire or State, but they called it the “Roman Empire” and later, the “Holy Roman Empire”. They could not think of an empire without its being Roman, and although Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, as he is called, had little to do with Rome, he became Imperator and Caesar and Augustus. The new Empire was supposed to be a continuation of the old one, but there was an addition to its name. It had become “Holy”. It was holy because it was specially a Christian empire, with the Pope for its godfather.

  Again you see the strange power of ideas. A Frank or a German living in Central Europe becomes Roman Emperor! And the future history of this “Holy” Empire is stranger still. As an empire, it became a very shadowy affair. While the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople carried on as a State, this Western one changed and vanished and appeared again from time to time. It was indeed a phantom and ghostly empire, continuing to exist in theory by the prestige of the Roman name and the Christian Church. It was an empire of the imagination with little of reality. Someone—I think it was Voltaire—defined this “Holy Roman Empire” as something which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire! Just as someone else once defined the Indian Civil Service, with which we are unfortunately still afflicted in this country, as neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service!

  Whatever it was, this phantom Holy Roman Empire carried on in name at least for 1000 years, and it was only a little over 100 years ago, in Napoleon’s time, that it finally ended. The end was not very remarkable or dramatic. Indeed, few people must have noticed it, as in reality it had not existed for a long time. But the ghost was laid at last, though not finally, for it rose up again in different guises as Kaisers and Tsars and the like. Most of these were laid to rest during the Great War which ended fourteen years ago.

  34

  The Idea of the World State

  April 25, 1932

  I fear I must tire you and perplex you often enough with these letters. Especially my last two letters about the Roman Empires must be a trial for you. I have gone backwards and forwards through thousands of years and across thousands of miles, and if I have succeeded in creating some confusion in your mind, the fault is entirely mine. Don’t be downhearted. Carry on. If you do not follow what I say at any place, do not trouble about it, but go on. These letters are not meant to teach you history, but just to give you glimpses of it and to awaken your curiosity.

  You must be rather tired of the Roman Empires. I confess I am. But we shall bear with them a little more today, and then take leave of them for a while.

  You know that there is a great deal of talk now-a-days of nationalism and patriotism—the love of one’s country. Nearly all of us in India today are intense nationalists. This nationalism is quite a new thing in history, and perhaps we may study its beginning and growth in the course of these letters. There was hardly any such feeling at the time of the Roman Empires. The Empire was supposed to be one great State ruling the world. There never has been an empire or State which h
as ruled the whole world, but, owing to ignorance of geography, and the great difficulty of transportation and travelling across long distances, people often thought in olden times that such a State did exist. Thus, in Europe and round the Mediterranean the Roman State even before it became an empire was looked up to as a kind of super-State to which all the others were subordinate. So great was its prestige that some countries, like Pergamon, the Greek State in Asia Minor, and Egypt were actually presented to the Roman people by their rulers. They felt that Rome was all-powerful and irresistible. And yet, as I have told you, whether as a republic or as an empire, Rome never ruled over much more than the Mediterranean countries. The “barbarians” of the north of Europe would not submit to it, and it did not care much about them. But whatever the extent of Rome’s authority might have been, it had the idea of a World-State behind it, and this idea was accepted by most people of the day in the West. It was because of this that the Roman Empires survived for so long, and their name and prestige were great even when there was no substance behind them.

  This idea of one great State dominating over the rest of the world was not peculiar to Rome. We find it in China and India in the old days. As you know, the Chinese State was often a vaster one than the Roman Empire, extending right up to the Caspian Sea. The Chinese Emperor, “the son of Heaven” as he was called, was considered by the Chinese as the Universal Sovereign. It is true there were tribes and people who gave trouble and who did not obey the Emperor. But they were the “barbarians”, just as the Romans called the north Europeans “barbarians”.

  In the same way in India from the earliest days you find references to these so-called universal sovereigns—Chakravarti Rajas. Their idea of the world was very limited, of course. India itself was so enormous that it seemed the world to them, and the overlordship of India appeared to them to be the overlordship of the world. The others outside were the “barbarians”, the mlechchhas. The mythical Bharat who has given his name to our country—Bharatvarsha—is supposed by tradition to have been such a chakravarti sovereign. Yudhishthira and his brothers fought, according to the Mahabharata, for this world-sovereignty. The ashwamedha— the great horse-sacrifice—was a challenge and symbol of world-dominion. Ashoka probably aimed at it before, overcome by remorse, he stopped all fighting. Later on you will see other imperialist sovereigns of India, like the Guptas, who also aimed at this.

  You will thus see that in the old days people often thought in terms of universal sovereigns and World-States. Long afterwards came nationalism and a new kind of imperialism, and between the two they have played sufficient havoc in this world. Again there is talk today of a World-State, not a great empire, or a universal sovereign, but a kind of World-Republic which would prevent the exploitation of one nation or people or class by another. Whether or not anything like this will take place in the near future, it is difficult to say. But the world is in a bad way, and there seems to be no other way to get rid of its illness.

  I have referred repeatedly to the “barbarians” of northern Europe. I use the word because they are referred to as such by the Romans. These people, like the nomads and other tribes of Central Asia, were certainly less civilized than their neighbours in Rome or in India. But they were more vigorous, as they lived an open-air life. Later they became Christians, and even when they conquered Rome they did not come, as a rule, as ruthless enemies. The modern nations of northern Europe are descended from these “barbarian” tribes—the Goths and Franks and others.

  I have not given you the names of the Roman Emperors. There were crowds of them and, barring a few, they were bad enough. Some were monsters of evil. You have no doubt heard of Nero, but there were many far worse than he was. One woman, Irene, actually killed her own son, who was emperor, in order to become empress. This was in Constantinople.

  One Emperor of Rome stands out above the others. His name was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. He is supposed to have been a philosopher, and a book of his, containing his thoughts and meditations, is well worth study. To make up for Marcus Aurelius, his son, who succeeded him, was one of the worst villains that Rome produced.

  For the first 300 years of the Roman Empire, Rome was the centre of the Western world. It must have been a great city, full of mighty buildings, and people must have come to it from all over the Empire and even beyond it. Numerous ships brought dainties from distant countries— rare foods and costly stuffs. Every year, it is said, a fleet of 120 ships went from an Egyptian port in the Red Sea to India. They went just in time to take advantage of the monsoon winds, and this helped them greatly. Usually they went to South India. They loaded their precious goods and returned, with the help again of the prevailing winds, to Egypt. From Egypt the goods were sent overland and by sea to Rome.

  But all this trade was largely for the benefit of the rich. Behind the luxury of the few was the misery of the many. For over 300 years Rome was supreme in the West, and afterwards, when Constantinople was founded, it shared supremacy with it. It is curious that during this long period it did not produce anything great in the realm of thought, as ancient Greece did in a short time. Indeed, Roman civilization seems to have been in many respects a pale shadow of Hellenic civilization. In one thing Romans are supposed to have given a great lead. This is law. Even now lawyers in the West have to learn Roman Law, as it is said to be the foundation of a great deal of law in Europe.

  The British Empire is often compared with the Roman Empire— usually by the English, to their own great satisfaction. All empires are more or less similar. They fatten on the exploitation of the many. But there is one other strong resemblance between the Romans and the English people—they are both singularly devoid of imagination! Smug and self-satisfied, and convinced that the world was made specially for their benefit, they go through life untroubled by doubt or difficulty.

  35

  Parthia and the Sassanids

  April 26, 1932

  We must leave the Roman Empire and Europe now for a visit to other parts of the world. We have to see what has been happening in Asia and to carry on the story of India and of China. Other countries now appear on the horizon of known history, and we shall have to say something about them also. Indeed, as we proceed there will be so much to be said about so many places that I am likely to give up the job in despair.

  In one of my letters I referred to a great defeat of the armies of the Roman Republic at the battle of Carrhae in Parthia. I did not stop to explain about the Parthians and how they had managed to establish a State where Persia and Mesopotamia are now. You will remember that after Alexander his general Seleucus and his descendants ruled an empire extending from India to Asia Minor in the west. For about 300 years they flourished, till they were driven away by another of the Central Asian tribes, called the Parthians. It was these Parthians in Persia or Parthia, as it was called, that defeated the Romans during the last days of the Republic, and the Empire that came later never succeeded in defeating them utterly. For two and a half centuries they ruled Parthia, till an internal revolution drove them out. The Persians themselves rose against their alien rulers and put in their place one of their own race and religion. This was Ardeshir I and his dynasty is called the Sassanid dynasty. Ardeshir was an ardent supporter of Zoroastrianism, which you will remember is the religion of the Parsis, and he was not very tolerant of other religions. Between the Sassanids and the Roman Empire there was almost constant war. They even succeeded in capturing one of the Roman Emperors. On several occasions the Persian armies almost reached Constantinople; once they conquered Egypt. The Sassanid Empire is chiefly notable for its religious zeal in favour of Zoroastrianism. When Islam came in the seventh century it put an end both to the Sassanid Empire and the official religion. Many Zoroastrians preferred to leave their country because of this change and for fear of persecution, and they came to India, which welcomed them as she has welcomed all others who have come to her seeking refuge. The Parsis in India today are the descendants of these Zoroastrians.

 
It is curious and rather wonderful to compare other countries with India in the matter of treatment of different religions. In most places, and especially in Europe, you will find, in the past, intolerance and persecution of all who do not profess the official faith. There was compulsion almost everywhere. You will read about the terrible Inquisition in Europe, and of the burning of so-called witches. But in India, in olden times there was almost full tolerance. The slight conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism was nothing compared to the violent conflicts of religious sects in the West. It is well to remember this, for, unhappily, we have had religious and communal troubles recently, and some people, ignorant of history, imagine that this has been India’s fate right through the ages. This is wholly wrong. Such troubles are largely of recent growth. You will find that after Islam began, for many hundred years Musalmans lived in all parts of India in perfect peace with their neighbours. They were welcomed when they came as traders and encouraged to settle down. But I am anticipating.

  So India welcomed the Zoroastrians, just as a few hundred years before, she had also welcomed many Jews who fled from Rome in the first century after Christ on account of persecution.

  During the period of Sassanid rule in Persia, a little desert State flourished in Palmyra in Syria, and it had its brief day of glory. Palmyra was a trading market in the middle of the Syrian desert. Great ruins, to be seen even today, tell us of its mighty buildings. At one time the ruler of the State was a woman named Zenobia. But she was defeated by the Romans and they were unchivalrous enough to take her in chains to Rome.

  Syria was a pleasant land at the beginning of the Christian era. The New Testament tells us something about it. There were great towns and a dense population, in spite of misgovernment and tyranny; there were large canals and an extensive trade. But continuous fighting and misrule reduced it in 600 years almost to a wilderness—the great towns were deserted and the old buildings were in ruins.