Jonathan Wright - The Ambassadors - From Ancient Greece to the Nation State

Greek diplomacy was capable of outreach. Far more so, in fact, than its Roman equivalent. On the face of things, the ancient Roman worldview was unapologetically inclusive. Yes, Roman legions might tramp across most of the known world, but in due course conquered peoples would be exposed to the cultural and economic blessings of Roman civilization. The conquered, more often than not, could even aspire to Roman citizenship. Rome’s lawyers had seemingly developed a code of international encounter that defined the procedures for waging war and making peace – the only good war was a just war.

All of this was true, but it hardly dampened Roman superiority and xenophobia. Diplomacy existed solely to expand the sphere of Roman influence. It did have much in common with its Greek counterpart. There was no specialized branch of government dedicated to foreign affairs, and ambassadors were chosen as the need arose, usually from the senatorial class. Like their Greek peers, they were given specific instructions and discouraged from showing undue initiative, and any agreements they reached had to be ratified by politicians back in Rome before coming into effect. Clearly, with such a vast empire, Rome was obliged to despatch many ambassadors, whether to seek alliances, to mediate disputes or to deal with administrative problems. Sometimes, in the field, an emperor such as Marcus Aurelius even conducted his own negotiations.

Ultimately, though, Roman diplomacy was ruthlessly straightforward. There were two preferred ways to deal with enemies and rivals. Ideally, they were to be terrified into submission, either through war or the threat of war. Alternatively, they could be bribed. The notion of cautious, respectful negotiation was often frowned upon. Diplomacy, by many accounts, was the poor, even dishonourable, relation to military conquest, the refuge of the weak emperor. In March 218, as one example among many, the senator Fabius Buteo and four other legates travelled to Carthage in North Africa. They announced that either Hannibal and his counsellors were to be handed over or Rome and Carthage would be in a state of war. They avoided all discussion or negotiation and, when the Carthaginians refused to comply with the Roman demands, they blithely announced that the Second Punic War had now begun. Buteo ‘let war fall from his toga’ 5 .

And if there had to be diplomacy, if a foreign nation or tribe had something urgent to relate, the onus was on them to initiate proceedings. In the accounts of his military campaigns in Gaul, Julius Caesar makes few references to the despatching of Roman ambassadors: rather, we are told of foreign envoys, often weeping and prostrated, coming to the Roman camp. Foreign ambassadors, the bearers of congratulations, condolences, requests or apologies, were expected to come to Rome, not vice versa. When the senate was in session, there were regularly hundreds of envoys in the capital, the most illustrious among them being housed and fed, at the state’s expense, in the Villa Publica.

Roman rulers took the number of envoys they received as an index of their prestige and power. Ambassadors from Germany, North Africa and Greece were unexceptional. More noteworthy were the princes who acted as their own representatives – as when Tiridates of Armenia visited Nero to receive his crown from the emperor’s own hands. The exotic ambassador was yet more desirable. If envoys came from as far away as Ceylon, as happened in the reign of Claudius, this was a sure indication of an emperor’s extraordinary fame.

The Roman view of the ambassador’s role lacked nuance. It did not make for the inquisitive, scholarly ambassador. For the most part, while Greece was busy with the inter-state rivalries of Athens, Thebes and Sparta, neither did the Greek notion of diplomacy. But in the person of Megasthenes, at least, a moment of genuine, lasting cultural dialogue had been achieved.

The Greeks were bemused by just how advanced and cultured Indian society seemed. Megasthenes was particularly impressed by its bureaucracy, by the number and quality of officials who oversaw a staggering range of domestic tasks. There was more to the Mauryan genius than this, however. Any fledgling empire, however exuberant, was obliged to look beyond its borders, to potential allies and likely adversaries. History in the West will always flatter classical Greece, but classical India had begun to hone its own ambassadorial skills and to meditate on the nature and ends of diplomacy. Mauryan civilization reached conclusions about its place in the world that were as startling as they were brilliant. Enter Kautilya.

Thus speaks the Beloved of the Gods: Dhamma is good. And what is Dhamma ? It is having few faults and many good deeds, mercy, charity, truthfulness, and purity. I have given the gift of insight in various forms. I have conferred many benefits on man, animals, birds, and fish, even to saving their lives, and I have done many other commendable deeds. I have had this inscription of Dhamma engraved that men may conform to it and that it may endure. He who conforms will do well.

Second Pillar Edict of the Mauryan King Asoka 1

Asoka, Beloved of the Gods, was the greatest of the Mauryan emperors. His reign (273–232 BC) began with a string of bloody military campaigns but, tortured by pity for the fallen and displaced, he renounced martial glory and took to the peaceful, reflective path of Buddhism. Legend tells of the Buddhist monk Nigrodha who went strolling in the gardens of the royal palace one day and enchanted Asoka with his calm, almost beatific demeanour. Everyone else struck Asoka as being confused in mind, like perturbed deer, but the monk seemed utterly at ease, perhaps possessed of some wondrous transcendent vision. The emperor invited the monk into his palace and listened to his account of a Buddhist faith that, after his conversion in c.260 BC, Asoka would help to spread across the region. 2

He decreed that a series of edicts should be promulgated across his dominions, as far as present-day Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan. Sometimes etched on rock faces, sometimes on towering pillars, these inscriptions proclaimed Asoka’s dedication to a life of virtue, his dream that he, ‘his sons, his grandsons and his great grandsons will advance the practice of Dhamma until the end of the world’.

It was a benign vision. Charities, hospitals and veterinary clinics were to be established, prisoners were to be treated more decently, and even the lot of dumb animals was to be improved: ‘formerly in the kitchens [of Asoka], many hundreds of thousands of living animals were killed daily for meat. But now, at the time of writing this inscription, only three animals are killed, two peacocks and a deer, and the deer not invariably. Even these animals will not be killed in the future.’ The edicts spoke of imperial officers who were to tour the countryside every five years to instruct people in the laws of piety, urging them to honour their parents and friends, to live frugally, and to maintain a bare minimum of personal property. Earlier kings might have indulged in endless ‘pleasure tours, consisting of hunts and similar amusements’, but Asoka would only travel in order to meet his people, to talk to the elderly, discourse with Brahmin priests and distribute gifts. 3

The rock-and-pillar edicts were tools of propaganda, and we might question whether Asoka was quite as saintly as he wished history to believe. That he was enlightened and, by the standards of the time, compassionate cannot be doubted, however. He claimed that his task was to ‘promote the welfare of the whole world’, and so he did. He abolished the death penalty, established a sprawling network of wells and rest houses for travellers, and planted shady trees along trade routes. As for ambassadors, they were to continue in their usual tasks – forging alliances and seeking tribute – but they were also to carry medicinal herbs to foreign lands.