A review of Tom Holland's "Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic"

I recently had the pleasure of reading Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic, by Tom Holland, which maps one of the most impactful periods of Western history, namely, the end of the Roman Republic and its replacement with the non-republican regime of Emperor Augustus. It was in this period that some of history’s most fascinating characters emerged in the human pageant, such as Julius Caesar, whose image continues to reverberate to the present day, as a symbol of excess or heroism; many common English expressions, such as “the die has been cast” or “crossing the Rubicon,” come directly from his exploits over 2000 years ago. The text under discussion, therefore, extensively discusses Caesar, and in so doing gives readers scintillating details of this larger-than-life figure who evokes fascination, admiration, but also, in some instances, horror. Another important contribution of Rubicon that this blogpost will elaborate on is its account of Roman institutions such as citizenship and slavery. Contemporary readers know, of course, that they were two defining characteristics of ancient Rome, but often they remain theoretical abstractions given the gap between contemporary and ancient sensibilities and experiences. After reading the text, I had a somewhat better sense of these institutions as embodied, lived, and concrete realities, and consequently felt I could better understand what it was like to be alive during that time. 

 

Institutions: Citizenship and Slavery

 

Citizenship is a very basic concept that, in contemporary terms, denotes legal membership to an internationally recognized sovereign state. But beyond this simple definition, there are many other layers of meaning that reflect distinct historical experiences and civilizations. The etymology is Greek, and as is well known, the practice and conceptualization emerged from ancient Greek city-states. But, of course, different polities had different rules of membership. Romans did not have a blood-based conception of citizenship, and boundaries were more permeable. For example, in Greece, citizenship was transmitted via both parents, while in Rome, conquered people and slaves could attain that desired status. In contemporary terms, we might define these differences as civic and ethnic, or jus jus soli and sanguinis.  Citizenship regimes also greatly differ in terms of the conferred rights and responsibilities. Often it meant the right to vote for representatives or for laws, or the obligation to serve in the army. In Rome, only some citizens could run for office, for any number of reasons (gender, lineage, social class, etc). 

 

At its peak, there were 1 million inhabitants of Rome, and tens of millions across the empire, and this would have required a rather large and complex legal and administrative infrastructure to identify and categorize the different classes of citizens. How, one wonders, was this possible in an era that did not have paper or databases? How could officials determine whether a random person they encountered was a citizen? 

 

Rubicon helps to provide answers to these questions. In the text, we learn for example, about the Villa Publica, where every 5 years Roman men were obligated to present themselves and declare all their possessions, including slaves, and the names and details of their wives and children. Modern notions of privacy did not exist; the “public” in republic was taken quite literally, and hence the state had the right to document and practice surveillance on the most intimate details of citizens’ lives. This information, accumulated over centuries, was written on papyrus using ink pens, none of which survive because of their fragility. Most likely, they burned in one of the fires that periodically inflamed the city, or they just decayed and were thrown out. At the time, however, these piles of documents were an essential part of the republic’s nervous system and were used to make major policy decisions on war, taxation, or public investment. After reading Rubicon, I could develop an image of this complex in Villa Publica, with many rooms where bureaucrats would be sitting down documenting information, and perhaps large storage rooms with shelves or cabinets which contained the piles of documents, perhaps divided into different sections: year, location of citizens (i.e., Rome, provinces, etc). When citizenship was extended beyond the confines of Italy, it would have been impossible for the vast majority to travel to Rome for this purpose, and so most likely, the information was gathered by governors of the provinces, who then had it transported back to the capital for record-keeping.

 

Another core institution of Rome was slavery. This institution, of course, was not unique to Rome, but like citizenship, it had different features in different civilizations and epochs. The image that most contemporary readers have derives from the race-based slavery of the modern period, when Africans were transported to the Americas. In ancient China, slavery was a legally recognized and practiced social institution, but unlike modern slavery, it was not predicated on irreducible racial differences, as many slaves came from the dominant Han ethnic group, while others were from surrounding regions and hence Asian, that is, not significantly different. Ancient Greece also had slaves, and here too, many were either Greek in origin or from polities not too far away, and consequently, ethnically similar. Rome displays the same pattern of non-race-based slavery, in part because they did not have modern notions of race in their imaginary or vocabulary, even though they observed and described physical differences between, for example, Germans, Romans, and Africans. But there were some peculiarities in the institution that were distinctly Roman. One was the relative ease and frequency with which slaves could become freemen and citizens, as their masters could purchase their freedom, or they could gain it via rewards for excellent service, or their master’s will. Foreigners who travelled to Rome were often taken aback by this relative ease with which slaves could become citizens. This more fluid and permeable categorization meant that social mobility was much higher in Rome than elsewhere, and many prominent Romans actually had slave ancestry.

 

Another feature was the ethnic diversity of slaves, which reflected the vastness of the empire; Greeks, British, Gauls, Syrians, Germans, and other defeated peoples often entered slave markets. In Rubicon, the reader discovers the ethnic stereotypes about different slaves; the Gauls were the best herders, the British were best at manual labour, and the Greeks did the intellectual work. Readers of Rubicon will be surprised to learn that some slaves of wealthy Romans were actually medical doctors. It was Greek slaves who had the skills to perform this task, and the same was true for other intellectual work, such as editing or accounting. Readers will also be surprised to discover that some of the poorest Roman citizens had slaves, even though the wealthy possessed them in larger numbers. There is no evidence that this state of affairs was ever questioned; there were slave revolts, like the famous revolt of Spartacus and 130 thousand slaves in 73 BC for their abominable treatment, but they were demanding the rights of their masters, not the end of slavery as an institution. For various reasons too complex to address in this blogpost, it was only in 18th-century England that there emerged a movement to end the practice, which gradually led to its universal prohibition.

 

Civil Wars

 

The period covered in Rubicon is mainly the second and first centuries BC, when the empire was vast in terms of territorial and wealth accumulation, which led to class conflicts over the distribution of the spoils. These would eventually generate civil conflicts, which would culminate in the end of the republic, but the process would take over a century and a half to materialize. 

 

Throughout Rome’s history, beneath the surface of republican institutions, class conflicts were always simmering and threatening to explode, but a lid was kept on them because the elite was willing to gradually expand the rights of the plebs. And it is perhaps no coincidence that Rome’s greatest expansions occurred as the plebs’ rights increased, since their enfranchisement led to the democratization of the demand for glory, a core feature of Roman identity. This demand for glory could be satisfied in the Colosseum’s gladiatorial fights, in the Senate or courts, and through military conquest, which perhaps also allowed some of the pressures from the class conflicts to be externalized to other pursuits. But by the middle of the second century BC, it seemed as if these conflicts and the underlying inequalities that generated them had become incorrigibly acute, as evidenced by the economic transformation; whereas previously Roman citizens owned and tended their own farms, as inequality rose, the wealthy purchased large tracts of land and purchased large numbers of slaves to work on them. Plebs and other lower-class citizens were displaced, and many became homeless. They could voice their grievances via the plebian assemblies, which represented their interests, and populists emerged to satisfy their demands for fairness.

 

The Gracchus brothers represent the first wave of this populist backlash against Rome’s corrupt elite, which reached the highest echelons of the state and set in motion the train of events that would lead to the clashes that ended the Republic. Gaius Gracchus’s demands were mainly for the Senate to redistribute land to the plebs; this would have involved confiscating land from wealthy land owners, many of whom were either Senators themselves or had client-patron relations with them, and so the Senate’s veto was assured. Gaius persisted and even was willing to engage in extra- or anti-constitutional measures to enact his agenda. For this, he was killed by a mob of senators and their supporters, but this did not put an end to the underlying class conflict. His brother, Tiberius, was an even more radical populist reformer, and not only demanded the redistribution of land, but also measures to end corruption, and the provision of grain and maize to those in need. He, too, was unceremoniously taken out by those acting on behalf of the interests of the Senate (and, therefore, the beneficiaries of existing arrangements). 

 

The Senate was mistaken if it believed that eliminating the Gracchus brothers would restore the pre-populist status quo; the underlying class conflict would subsequently manifest in the civil wars between the Marius and Sulla factions. Sulla would ultimately prevail and would neutralize the plebeian assembly by removing their veto power.

 

Julius Caesar would turn out to be the most glamorous and consequential populist leader to enter the scene, and his qualities as a scholar, soldier, politician, lover, and adventurer have dazzled generations of historians and thinkers ever since. For these reasons, the pages of Rubicon, including the title, devote much attention to his exploits and legacy. He was born into a noble family, the Julio-Claudian dynasty, who believed they were descended from the Trojan hero Aeneus, and from Venus, the god of love. From an early age, he held a number of important political offices, including the “aedile”, which, to my knowledge, has no modern equivalent and was responsible for the management of the games and public spaces. He also held the prestigious and powerful office of pontifex maximus, or chief priest, who was the intermediary between the people and the gods. Caesar was also governor of Spain, a periodically rebellious province which he successfully subdued. The conquest of Gaul, or modern-day France, was one of Caesar’s most documented adventures in part because of how bloody they were, in part because Gaul was Rome’s ancient foe and its absorption into the Roman empire would not only permanently eliminate the threat, it would also create the civilization of France. The Gauls’ resistance, led by the famous Vercingetorix, was fierce. Caesar himself participated in the battles, and his courage, fighting ability, strategizing, plus his willingness to share in the hardships of his men led to soldiers’ unwavering love and loyalty to their leader. 

 

At the time, executive power over Rome's affairs was being shared with Pompey, and disputes arose between the Senate and Caesar over the legality of the Gallic wars. A message was sent to Caesar ordering him to disband his army and return to Rome, a decision with which he strongly disagreed, and this was when the moment of truth arrived. Disobedience would mean a resumption of the civil conflict that had destabilized Rome during the clashes between the Gracchus brothers and the Senate, and between Marius and Sulla. When the decision was made, Caesar uttered the phrase—the die has been cast—which would reverberate through the ages, and the moment he crossed the Rubicon, he not only would permanently change history, but he also gave posterity a new vocabulary to describe momentous decisions from which there was no possibility of turning back.

 

Pompey was Caesar’s existential foe in this battle, and on the surface, their disputes were over the exercise of political power. But as Rubicon helpfully reminds readers, there was also the underlying class conflict mentioned above; while the Senate and its wealthy patrons supported Pompey, the plebeian and lower-class faction supported Caesar. There were both economic and cultural reasons for this. Caesar’s policies entailed substantial redistribution of resources towards the lower class. And in a classic populist fashion, he was also very charismatic, spoke with a lower-class accent, and had a very frugal lifestyle despite all the comforts and riches that his position afforded him.

 

When he entered Rome with his soldiers—an illegal and unconstitutional act—he discovered that many of his enemies, including Pompey, had fled. And so the fighting between the factions would occur far from the capital. Pompey was ultimately captured and beheaded; now, Caesar had no serious rivals, and as is well known, he abused his power. When the Senate voted to make Caesar dictator for life, his fate was sealed, and on the fateful Ides of March, he was killed by a group, right beside a statue of Pompey, who had wanted to restore the Republic. The plebs who provided the backbone of Caesar’s support were outraged and rioted, destroying the homes of the attackers and several government buildings.

 

Caesar’s chosen successor was his nephew Octavius, who shared power with Mark Antony and Lepidus. To restore order, the three held executive power without reference to the Senate. This martial law, they believed, would be temporary, and constitutional rule would return after stability was restored. As it turns out, Mark Antony and Octavius had a falling out when the former went to Egypt, began a love affair with Cleopatra, who not only seduced him physically, but he also developed an affinity for Eastern ideas of universal and divine monarchy. The disputes between Octavius and Mark Antony could not be resolved peacefully, and the latter was ultimately defeated in the battle of Actium. 

 

Now, Octavius became the unrivalled emperor and was given the name, Augustus, the Holy One, through which he is known by posterity. For many historians, this was the definitive end of the republic and the beginning of the imperial period. But a little probing reveals that this reflects an attempt to neatly divide historical periods rather than an actual reflection of a messy reality. For one, Rome was an empire well before Augustus assumed power. Meanwhile, republican institutions arguably stopped operating effectively during the clash between the Gracchus and the senate 150 years prior. The meaning of “republic” is a polity where citizens are equal and are represented irrespective of class or other categories, and yet as inequality increased, the Senate became more and more corrupt, while the plebian assemblies could no longer effectively represent the interests of the lower class majority; under these conditions, it would be stretch to call this “republic” or “democracy” even if they continued to be enshrined in formal constitutional rules.

 

The picture is further muddied by the fact that the available evidence suggests Augustus was very popular and supported by the majority of plebs. The reason is that he ended the civil wars, and by restoring peace, established the conditions for a new golden age. Moreover, much of this wealth was distributed to the plebs in the form of pensions, or land, or free food. Thus, a strong case can be made that he enjoyed popular legitimacy because of the outcomes—peace and prosperity, without which liberty is not possible—of his successful governance. In the contemporary political science literature, this has a technical term—output legitimacy—and is extensively documented as a viable alternative to input legitimacy, namely, the consent which derives from elections. A related question is whether, in the absence of elections, there was any process to hold Augustus accountable in the event of failure. A short answer is yes, because Roman citizens could and did participate in riots or violent protests, while Roman emperors could and would be killed for their failures. From these reflections, I conclude that Augustus does not fall neatly into any familiar categories, such as dictator or autocrat; he was the emperor, resembled a monarch,, but evidently supported by the majority, and this popular mandate depended on his keeping the end of the bargain, namely, governing in a way that ensured the people’s desire for peace, prosperity, and liberty were satisfied. 

A Review of Tom Holland's "Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age"

This blogpost is the first in a series on the works of Tom Holland, a popular writer on ancient Roman history. He is a professional historian, but one of his many talents is to make the study of Roman history compelling and engaging for non-specialists via prose written in an accessible style. In his works, he does not merely compile the facts, dates, and significance of the events; rather, he weaves them together to form a narrative that helps the reader experience what it was like to live during the period. On its own, this is a noteworthy accomplishment, but his works have other benefits for readers, like me, who have an enduring fascination with ancient Rome. One is to learn in great detail about the personal lives of second-century AD emperors, such as Trajan and Hadrian, who left an enduring legacy in the history of the empire. Another is to obtain a bird’s eye view of the empire, which during this period stretched from Britain to Arabia, and because of a single administrative system covering such a vast and diverse territory, had created an unprecedented level of exchange of goods, services, people, and ideas. As such, it would only be a little bit of a stretch to characterize this period as the first wave of globalization (at the time, goods from Asia reached Rome; only the Americas were not connected to the Eurasian landmass). 

 

In this blogpost, I will present Tom Holland’s Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age with an emphasis on several themes, including the deepening and intertwined relationship with Greece, which would eventually determine the cultural composition of the empire, and the successful conquest and pacification of key regions on the opposite ends of the empire, Judea and Britain, which would delineate the empire’s boundaries and which contributed to a proto form of globalization destined to dramatically alter the course of Western history. Lastly, we will explore some of the great emperors who contributed to these events, such as Titus, Vespasian, Trajan, and Hadrian. 

 

Unruly peoples in the periphery

 

Greece was conquered in 146 BC, well before the period covered in the text under discussion, and by the first and second centuries AD had become a shadow of its former self. The city’s glory was during the golden age of the 4^th and 5^th centuries BC, during which, as is generally known, it produced proto forms of democracy, rationalism, and philosophy. This golden age was snuffed out by Athens and Sparta’s—and their respective allies’—mutual destruction during the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. Despite the war’s official ending, quarrels continued between various Greek city-states, and it was the Roman conquest, we learn in Pax, which finally put an end to them and established a semblance of stability and peace. Moreover, it integrated the Greek world into the Roman empire, and as is well known Greek language, culture, religion, literature, and architecture had an enduring influence. During the second century BC, for example, many Roman elites were educated in Athens and became “hellenized”; this distanced them from their local compatriots, who were more conservative in the sense of being attached to Roman traditions. At the same time, in echoes of the relationship today between America and its European satellites, while Romans admired the beauty and culture of Greece, Greeks viewed their Roman overlords as philistines. 

            

During the period under discussion in Pax, Greece continued to be frequently visited by elite Romans for education and tourism. Many Greeks also lived in Rome, often as slaves, although not doing menial tasks or hard labour. Rather, they worked for many nobles as personal doctors, secretaries, editors, and other fields that required intellectual effort. They had an enduring reputation for being educated, clever, and witty, but also effeminate and hedonistic. It was partly for this reason that many Romans warned against their influence, believing that it threatened to undermine the manly and martial values which made their empire redoubtable. 

Thus, Romans were ambivalent in their views of Greeks, but for some, they continued to merit respect and admiration. One of the emperors discussed in Pax, Hadrian, had a deep fondness for Greece, and one reason was that Antonius, a beautiful young Greek boy of 19 or 20, was his lover and offered Hadrian, says Holland, “a distinctly Greek kind of love, which blurred the erotic with the poetic”. In his travels to various Greek cities accompanied—strangely to contemporary sensibilities—by both his wife and his young male lover—Hadrian committed to re-establishing their glory, via massive investment in public works and refurbishment of crumbling buildings. His vision included the establishment of a pan-Hellenic union which would unite Greek cities under a single administration and Roman tutelage. The Roman Senate gave its approval, highlighting the special place that Greece had in the Roman Empire. So special, in fact, that when the city of Rome was sacked, and the Western part eventually collapsed, the empire became divided into Latin and Greek parts, and it was the latter which would survive, in the form of the Byzantine empire, until 1452. 

Britain was conquered and pacified much later than Greece. In 43 AD, Vespasian successfully defeated locals in the Battle of Medway, and the Southern part of Britain became a Roman province. At the time, the island was divided into many different tribes, all, believed the Romans, in various states of barbarism as they did not have the refinements of Roman or Greek life, including literature, art, or architecture. One particular British tribe, the Caledonians, we learn in Pax, was among the most barbarous, as they practiced human sacrifice, and they had not yet been subdued. Agricola, in the major battle of Goaupius, finally defeated and subjugated them. And as with other Roman provinces, Britain gradually became Romanized and adopted all the advanced accoutrements of Roman civilization. The entire Island was not yet conquered, however, and Hadrian, in his travels to Britain, participated in further campaigns against locals, which were often costly and inconclusive. After these experiences, he decided that it would not be worthwhile to conquer the northernmost parts of Britain, and ordered the building of the famous Hadrian’s wall—which still is visible—to demarcate the northernmost borders of the Roman empire. This line, which separated Romanized regions and peoples from others, would eventually lead to two distinct nations, English and Scottish. 

A large part of Pax is devoted to recounting the gory details of the conquest and destruction of Jews’ homeland, Jerusalem, in AD 71. It was Pompey the Great who initially conquered the capital 100 years prior, and subsequently, relations had been cordial, in part because Judean leaders had accepted Roman rule and paid their taxes. In some cases, they even integrated Roman civilization into their capital city. Herod the Great, who famously rebuilt the temple after its destruction by the Babylonians, had also built temples to honour Augustus, plus Roman-style theatres and monuments to impress visitors from the capital. Because of these cordial relations, it was relatively cheap to govern them, and Romans only had a small contingent to ensure order and authority.

Relations deteriorated in 66 AD, and the famous revolt against Roman rule commenced the same year. Vespasian made the order to send 3 legions, a total of 60 thousand men, and Titus arrived at the Jerusalem gates in AD 70. They preferred that the Judeans surrender, as he knew that there were internal divisions and that some accepted Roman authority. But the rebel faction evidently had the upper hand, and Titus made the decision to siege the city and starve it into submission. As supplies dwindled, food had to be rationed to fighters, and many Judeans starved to death. In some of the macabre scenes in the book, their bodies, with bulging bellies typical of starvation, were thrown over the wall towards the Romans. Some rebels in desperation took the risk of sneaking out to obtain supplies of food, but they were caught by the Romans and crucified in front of Jerusalem’s walls to send a message to those remaining inside that there would be no mercy unless they surrendered. After three months, the final assault was ordered, and the gates and walls of the Holy City were penetrated; Judeans fled into their holiest place, the temple, believing that their god would save them, but it was not to be. The Romans mercilessly slaughtered them and rased their sacred temple to the ground.

The significance of this can hardly be understated. Now, the Judeans’ holy land was a Roman province, which they would give the name that remains to this day, Palestina. It set a precedent and an example to other peoples around the empire, namely, that rebellion will lead to utter destruction. The wealth of Jerusalem was taken and paraded through the streets of Rome, and this was memorialized in the famous arch of Titus, which tourists can still visit and see up close, and in coins with the inscription “Judea Conquered.”Jews were now dispersed around the world, and many fled to Rome, where they lived among, and easily blended in with, ordinary Romans, made possible because they were Mediterranean peoples who resembled Italians and Greeks (unlike, say, the lighter-skinned and haired Germans and Britons, or the darker-skinned Ethiopians). Many became slaves, others citizens, and over time, some would assimilate entirely among Roman peoples and lose all vestiges of their ancestors’ faith. 

Hadrian, after his travels to Greece mentioned above, travelled to Jerusalem. Six decades had passed since the revolt and the city’s destruction, and the temple still lay in ruins. Some local Jews remained in the city and dreamed of rebuilding the temple. Hadrian had considered restoring Jerusalem just as he had done in Greece, but his vision clashed with the locals. Rather than rebuilding Judeans’ former monuments, he wanted to Romanize the city even more, and to add insult to injury, built a temple to honour Jupiter, the greatest of Roman gods. According to Holland, he believed the Judeans did not deserve his benevolence, as they were inveterately rebellious. 

Lastly, readers of Pax will learn some fascinating details about a civilization the Romans attempted, but failed, to conquer, namely the Persians. Both Romans and Greeks looked down on them as slavish and effeminate; approaching their king, they’d kneel like slaves, while they wore eyeliner and ringlets in their hair. Unlike the Britons and the Judeans, Persians were comparable to Rome in size and military strength, and many Romans dreamed of the glory of Alexander in their campaigns to conquer Parthia, which ultimately ended in failure. In 36 BC, Mark Anthony’s attempt ended in utter failure, and 30 thousand men were lost. Augustus recognized Rome’s limits and signed a peace treaty with them, but one of his successors, Trajan, took up the mantle for the glory of Rome, and initially scored some decisive victories, capturing the symbolically important Babylonia, the city where Alexander died. Next on the list was Mesopotopia, but the gods had other plans; some Jews who were scattered after the destruction of their temple went to live in Persian lands, and they joined the fight against the Roman invaders. Shortly after this failure, Trajan died from the exhaustion of these military campaigns. He was replaced by Hadrian, who concluded, correctly, that the empire was overstretched and ordered the withdrawal from Persian territories. 

At this point, the borders of the Roman empire reached their peak, and it was Hadrian who played a major role in establishing them from the Northernmost to the Southernmost reaches. This period is also associated with the golden age, in part because of the increase in trade which the empire’s connectivity across vast distances had produced. Shared languages among elites (Latin or Greek), a single currency that could be used for payments everywhere (denari), and a single system of law and transportation vastly expanded commercial opportunities, and many profited enormously. By 100 AD, the city of Rome’s population was 1 million, an unprecedented size in the ancient world. Most lived in precarious 4 or 5-story apartment blocks, while the wealthy lived in villas. The Bay of Naples became an ancient version of Dubai, a place where the wealthy purchased properties, lived in luxury, and practised debauchery. Here, we learn in Pax, money became the measure of everything, as the nouveau riche consumed luxuries from across the empire and beyond, including silks from China. These same elites were often educated in Greece, had Greek slaves, and were mesmerized by exotic ideas and philosophies produced by Greek intellectuals. Some Greek practices adopted by these Romans, such as cooking exotic recipes with ingredients from afar—a major departure from the Romans' traditionally manly and simple diet of locally grown food—were probably not that significant. But others, such as becoming more intellectual and hedonistic and less warrior-like, would probably have greater repercussions, especially for the nobility, as their sons were less and less willing, as their ancestors had done, to sacrifice themselves for the glory of Rome.

One Eastern influence, but this one from Jerusalem, Christianity, was destined, however, to forever change the fabric of the empire and history. It was Rome’s connectivity that facilitated the diffusion of all ideas, including those of Jesus, and consequently, many quickly converted. Rome was a multireligious empire, and Roman authorities did not interfere in locals’ religious practices. But in Pax, we learn about how many 1st-century Romans viewed this Jewish heresy with deep suspicion. For example, Tacitus was appointed by Trajan to govern Asia, and believed that the East’s influence posed a threat to Rome’s moral fabric. In a letter to the emperor, he said this sect, which called itself “Christian”, was particularly egregious, anti-social, and anti-Roman authority. Pliny, also a governor and an intellectual, noticed that this belief was spreading very fast and threatened Rome’s order. He accused them of, among other things, “depravity” and “stubbornness”.  He tried to nip it in the bud by prosecuting adherents. They were arrested, and commanded by Pliny to worship Caesar—by then believed to be a god—and Jupiter. Christians refused and were executed in cold blood, but this did not produce the desired results, as the faith spread quickly, first in the Eastern provinces, then eventually in Rome. The rest, as we know, is history, as the entire empire would eventually convert to this faith, which would utterly transform Roman civilization and set the foundation for what came next, namely, Europe.

On the History of Human Rights

In 2021, during the height of the pandemic, a friend published an excellent novel, and in one of the closing scenes, there is a dialogue between the main character and a professor he meets in a café in Athens. During their conversation, some of the fundamental concepts in the Western political lexicon, such as democracy and human rights, are interrogated. The dialogue highlighted how these concepts are eminently debatable and theoretically contested, which was very thought provoking because I, like most Westerners, took these concepts for granted, and just assumed that they were out there and part of nature, like the weather or the cosmos. I asked my friend where he obtained the material for this scene, and he replied from the works of French philosopher Alain de Benoist, and two in particular: Au-delà des droits de l'homme, and Démocratie: le problème. Intrigued, I decided to read them during the summer of 2025 (in their original French versions) and, similar to the scene in the mentioned novel, his ideas forced me to think in new ways about these largely unquestioned concepts in the Western political vocabulary.

 

De Benoist’s main argument in the first book is that the idea of human rights, as they are understood in the West, does not have a sound theoretical foundation.  Human rights are understood as universal, independent of culture, history, or civilization, and as a birthright of all individuals. This belief is part of the general education system, enshrined in many legal documents (not the least, the UN Charter), and motivates many political parties’ and activists’ activities. In the mentioned texts we learn—or perhaps reminded is a better term—that the seeds of this idea emerged in a specific religious (Christian) and cultural (Western) context which is not universal. Other cultures and civilizations, for example, especially in the East, emphasized duty and responsibility to the collective rather than the idea of “rights” in opposition to society and/or state.  On the question of democracy, de Benoist also employs historical analysis to show that the inventors of this regime—the ancient Greeks—had a very different understanding and practice than we moderns: similar to Eastern civilizations’ understanding, it was rooted in obligations towards, and participation in, the community, not in the idea of individual rights assumed to be distinct and/or separate from group (nation, culture, ethnicity, etc) membership.

 

Both texts were published two generations ago, and yet they have contemporary relevance, given the crisis of democracy that the West is currently experiencing. This crisis has many explanations, and the books under review may provide another one, namely, that the liberal focus on individual rights, both economic and cultural, in some cases has clashed with the collective interests of the community, generating various grievances. The populist backlash, animated by the demand for the restoration of the “people’s” sovereignty, attests to the sense felt by many that their political regimes are unrepresentative of the collective as they define it.

 

History of Human Rights

 

Ancient Greece and Rome did not have a conception of universal human rights. They had the concept of citizenship, but the practices that today we would call “rights”, for example, to property, or to vote, were strictly related to membership to a community, and were predicated on the obligations towards, and contributions to, said community. A major anthropological rupture occurred with the arrival of Christianity on the historical scene, which presupposed the existence of a relationship with God that was independent of the relationship to the group. Moreover, Christians introduced the revolutionary idea that human beings—all human beings—were created in God’s image, and possessed a soul which conferred a property called “dignity,” simply by virtue of being born as a member of humanity. Here, in fact, we have the seeds of modern human rights: the idea of universality, and the mystical notion  there exists a substance called a soul which gives the individual instrinsic value independent of the collectivity.  

 

It would take many centuries before this idea would take its contemporary secular form. The French and the American revolutions, in particular, were major turning points, although the latter more directly maintained the religious associations (“all endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…”). It is generally understood that the French revolution was more secular, but Alain de Benoist shows that below the surface of the anti-religious rhetoric, the supernatural foundations were maintained, perhaps because it could not have been otherwise. Contrary to widely held views, the idea of human rights finds little justification in nature alone. Nature, in fact, is radically unequal, and provides little grounds for the ontological assumptions of human rights (freedom, universal reason, dignity, individualism, justice, etc).

 

The idea of universality, whether in religious or secular form, contains within it an intolerance of contrary ideas, and this tendency to not recognize the validity of alternative views makes wars more bloody. For example, the French revolution—which, it bears repeating, was an attempt to secularize religious ideas—was followed by the great terror and the revolutionary wars across Europe which led to far more deaths than the Crusades many centuries prior. One reason is that the revolutionaries were now fighting for “liberty”, and so ipso facto opponents did not have legitimate claims to authority.

 

Further evidence of its religious origin is that the idea of human rights has for many Westerners obtained a sacred character. To question them is similar to how it was to question God in pre-modern times, despite the fact that concept is constantly evolving; some human rights today would have been unthinkable only 20 or 30 years ago. One reason for the continuously changing panoply of human rights is that their radical individualist and anti-collectivist nature provides little grounds for placing limits on claims to them. Consequently, it contains the seeds of an inflation of rights, as individual desires more and more become the basis of rights claims.  

 

As individual rights expand, unrepresentative institutions such as the courts settle disputes related to them; consequently, they arrogate to themselves more power to create laws which override public opinion or the legislatures that, in theory, express the views of the majority. The tension between the individual and the collective can become acute such that majorities in some societies have the perception—and in politics perception matters more than reality—that things have gone awry.

 

In contemporary politics, different political groups appropriate the language of human rights to further their ideology. Free-market liberals, for example, claim that individuals have rights to property, meaning to purchase, sell, invest, or trade with whomever they please, domestically or internationally. Actors on the contemporary left, meanwhile, apply this reasoning to cultural or identity domains—for example, the rights of individuals to migrate, or to affirm their sexual identity. Although both would claim to be defending the interests of groups (property owners in the first, minorities in the second), they are both, in fact, denying the right of the larger group—family, tribe, nation, religion, state, etc—to place limits in individuals’ claims.

 

Communities may have valid reasons for limiting the right, say, to property or migration, and yet in Western discourse, certainly among an element of the intelligentsia, this is rarely recognized.  Many people, especially those outside of major cosmopolitan cities, may object to the changes in their countries or communities which may accrue as a result of the trade and migration perhaps because of an attachment to culture or tradition. This is one of the grievances which fuels populism, which is in some ways a reassertion of the claim that collective interests should override individual rights. For instance, protectionism in the form of tariffs is essentially saying: individuals do not have the right to trade with foreigners.  Placing limits on migration, meanwhile, conveys the message that individuals do not have the right to freely cross borders. In both cases, limits on the individual are justified on the basis of some collective, or the wish to protect an aspect of society. From this perspective, it is sometimes amusing to observe parties on the left and right insulting each other on matters of policy, when the real dispute is on which individual rights—economic or cultural—to privilege. (It also highlights that the much aligned libertarians—a tiny minority of liberals—are the only ones who are actually coherent as they defend individual rights—economic and cultural—across the board).

 

Many contemporary commentators call populists “authoritarian” because they defend positions that violate individual rights, either economic or cultural. But this conflates liberalism and democracy, which is another tendency of contemporary Western discourse. The texts under review helpfully remind readers that the two are distinct and in many ways in tension. The etymological origin of the Greek“cracy” in democracy points to its meaning as a form of political rule, while liberalism, historically and etymologically, is an ideology about limiting government power over individuals. Thus, it is entirely logically possible to be illiberal and democratic, or conversely, anti-democratic and liberal. Indeed, it is this divide, rather than the left-right axis, which may better account for many contemporary political conflicts: populists, for example, fall squarely in the former, while many cosmopolitan elites in large cities are more likely to emphasise individual rights—to property or to migrate—whether or not the majority agrees.

 

The contested nature of the concept of democracy is also revealed when we consider that liberals and socialists have very different ideas of its meaning. Liberals adopt a rules-based definition: secure property rights, elections where many parties compete for power, and courts to adjudicate disputes. Socialists, meanwhile, look at underlying societal inequalities, arguing that democracy is more related to substantive societal outcomes.

 

The texts under review are mostly a critique of the first not the second conception; Alain de Benoist accepts the socialist critique of liberal forms of democracy but goes further by highlighting some more important conditions which are arguably sine qua non. One is group membership, which provides cohesion, a sense of shared destiny, and social trust, and it is these which ultimately provide the legitimacy of different political regimes, whether monarchical or democratic. It follows that democratic regimes without these traits can lack legitimacy, which is another way of saying consent, the opposite of which is coercion. A unified sense of group membership also allows political and social conflicts to occur peacefully, because conflicts are subsumed to higher principles to which all are committed or adhere to. For democracy to function properly, this sense of shared destiny should also motivate participation, or active citizenship, which was central to the Greek conception and which de Benoist argues provides a standard against which we can compare contemporary political systems.  On these indicators, many Western countries fall short, with some showing that around half of citizens do not vote. Polarisation is endemic and indicates very low social trust. Much public opinion data which shows how majorities in the US and Europe do not believe that they can influence political outcomes.  And citizens have many valid reasons for this perception, such as the role of wealth and lobbying in determining policy, or the general sense that leaders are not accountable for their decisions. 

 

 

What is to be done, then, to address the crisis of Western democracy? De Benoist argues that referendums are a useful mechanism, as they help to accomplish several objectives. One is to override the will of the elite or the political class. There are moments in history when a political class and elite do not reflect the wishes of the majority and certainly not the preferences of those on the lower end of the social hierarchy. Another is to give citizens of all social classes, but especially those on the lower end, the possibility to decide on the laws and direction of their country.

 

Thus it is not surprising that populists around the world often demand referendums on major questions domestic or international. In a very important sense, they are demanding a return to Greek forms of democracy, in which there is widespread participation, and where ordinary citizens—who form the majority—and not the elite make decisions on policy. The wish for a referendum, whatever the public justification, reflects the widely felt sense that the other institutions of the policy—parliaments, regulatory agencies, schools, courts, etc—are making decisions not representative of what the majority wants, or that the political class is deeply corrupt and not trustworthy. The lesson from the Greeks is that allowing more referendums would enhance democratic participation even if majorites voted for policies that violated individual rights

Paris in the Summer of 2025

In the summer of 2025 I spent 3 weeks in Paris to carry out research at the French national library. It is my 5th time in the city, and some of the previous experiences are recounted on this blogpost here and here. Re-reading my initial impressions of Paris, I am reminded of how I was dazzled by the city’s beauty and allure, similar to being in a new relationship, with all the novelty and excitement, which obscures the beloved’s shortcomings. This time, my relationship with the city is much more mature, sober, and realistic, and consequently many of Paris’s defects were evident. Moreover, last time I went to Paris my departure city was Toronto—a city with many of the same defects—while this time it was the clean and orderly Shanghai. Similar to how a new relationship with a more high-quality partner helps to shed light on the defects of the previous one, the experience of Shanghai made many of the problems in Paris very stark. A broader lesson from this latest trip to Paris is how much of lived reality is a function of comparisons, which structure, and hence create, reality because they reveal some things and not others, and help determine the gap between what is experienced and what is considered the realm of the possible.

 

My lodgings in Paris were in 10^th arrondissement. Although I have spent much time in the city, and knew some areas are more degraded than others, I lack the knowledge to specify which ones exactly fall into one or the other categories. Consequently I inadvertently booked a place on Airbnb in one of the city’s shady neighbourhoods. The apartment, moreover, was very small, indeed much smaller than the profile led me to imagine, which was not a problem for the bedroom, but for the kitchen and bathroom was quite inconvenient, as simple activities like showering, making coffee, or cooking required bodily contortions to avoid bumping into walls, counters, or appliances. It is on the fifth floor of a centuries old building without an elevator, but this was not really a problem except on very hot days. Every morning, I’d walk down the spiralling stairs with wooden steps which were sunken in the middle from so many years of use; it reminded me of the stairs one might encounter in a medieval church or castle. The main exit opens to a courtyard where the trash bins are placed, and in the evenings there were always hungry rats looking for bits of food on the ground by the bins. Leaving the courtyard and going onto the street one must pass through and open an old rusty gate which would make a creaking sound from the worn hinges each and every time it opened; the impression created by this sound was that of the typical scene in a horror film, when the character opens the gate to enter the front yard of old and abandoned house.

 

Upon leaving the compound and entering the street, to the right is the famous monument Porte St. Denis (see picture), which attests to the neighbourhood’s past glory, and which contrasts with the present degradation. 

Little did I know when I rented the Airbnb that the area is full of prostitutes, who are openly selling their services. Many are middle aged French women, and I was surprised to see Chinese women doing the same; this defies the stereotype of the typical Chinese immigrant. They were new arrivals, and I knew this because I speak Chinese and overheard them speaking to each other many times. One transgender prostitute was always on the corner just outside the building, and would always smile at me seductively as I was leaving for the library. I could not help but think: what would make him/her/them think that I could be a potential client?! When walking past in the morning, I had just woken up and had breakfast, shaved and showered, dressed in ordinary clothing, and had my backpack with the items—computer, food, paper, etc—necessary for spending the entire day doing research at the library; in terms of appearance I probably looked little different from all the other ordinary people going to work or to school, rather than, say, the type who has been partying all night and wants to continue having “fun.”

 

Going to the library in the morning was quite pleasant in part because the weather was mostly beautiful during my stay. I was in Paris for 3 weeks, and my departure city, Shanghai, was swelteringly hot and humid. I arrived in Paris during a period when the average afternoon temperature was around 25 degrees, while in the mornings and evenings the temperature would fall to between 14-16 degrees. In practice, it meant I could walk and bike—two activities which bring me much pleasure—without sweating, as occurs in Shanghai during the summer, when even short walks lead to the discomfort and inconvenience of profusely prespirating in newly washed clothes.

 

During the day I would be at the French National Library, which is a veritable treasure trove of sources for research on the subject I occupied myself with this summer, namely, France’s relations with its former colonies in SubSaharan Africa. I was able to consult texts unavailable elsewhere, and the next step will be to revise several articles on the topic and then submit them for publication.

 

In the evening, I would often spend time with friends. One was a former colleague at Trent University, who now works in Cyprus, and who fortuitously happened to be in Paris to carry out research during the same period. Despite living in different countries, we have kept in touch via regular Whatsapp calls. The last time I saw him was 3 years ago, and it was great to catch up. I have other friends in the city with whom I would often spend the evenings, and this was a source of much enjoyment, not the least because our communication is entirely in French, allowing me to practice and put into use this beautiful language.

 

After dinner with friends, we’d often go for walks, another experience which allows one to see the great contrasts in the city. The tourist hotspots, such as Parc du Luxembourg or Tuilerie Gardens (in front of the Louvre museum) are very well kept by the city authorities—clean, orderly, and safe. In other parts of town, one might as well be in a different country. The neighbourhood of my Airbnb has been described; the Gare du Nord, a 20 minute walk away, meanwhile, is even more of a cesspool. Unassimilated migrants loitering all around, homeless people and alcoholics lying or passed out on the ground, litter on the sidewalks and graffiti on the walls, the stench of urine, all combine to create a deep sense of insecurity and disorder. And the Gare Du Nord’s stunningly beautiful architectural design(see picture)—with its neoclassical stone walls, Greek columns and Roman statues—only makes the present condition even more stark.

 

Of course, most, or perhaps all, major Western cities, have extremely degraded neighbourhoods, although many of my friends—who like me frequently travel around the world—agree that it has worsened especially since Covid. In any case, during this last trip to Paris I was much more aware, and bothered, by this degradation, leading to reflections on why. One reason is that the novelty of the city has worn off, as it were. As mentioned, the first time coming to Paris I was dazzled by the city’s beauty, partly because I was coming from Toronto, a mostly drab and soulless concrete and steel North American modern city (with some exceptions, for example, the Brewery District). Toronto, moreover, has many of the social problems seen in Paris, not least in the neighborhood in which I lived for 8 years, and so I had become desensitized or accustomed to seeing many loitering homeless and drug addicts, plus dirty streets and public spaces, almost every day.

 

This time, I arrived in Paris from Shanghai, a city that is mostly clean and orderly, especially the train stations. The only migrants one sees in Shanghai are Chinese from the countryside, but the government strictly controls their movements precisely to avoid many of the problems one sees in Paris. For example, inland Chinese who wish to live in Shanghai or Beijing must have a contract for work, housing, and health insurance; this ensures that only the gainfully employed and securely housed can live in the city. Consequently, there is nothing even remotely similar to the scenes mentioned above of crowds of unemployed or homeless migrants loitering in public spaces. In Shanghai, similarly, one does not see drug addicted and/or mentally ill roaming the streets, graffiti is nonexistent, litter on the ground is rare, and safety and security is the default condition of almost every area of the city.

 

The experience of living in Shanghai is a stark reminder that cities and public spaces are not inevitably degraded, and that how authorities manage a city greatly determines livability. From this perspective, the degraded condition of many parts of Paris is the result of choice, that is, of government incompetence. When government officials are committed to creating the conditions for a clean, safe, and orderly city, as is the case in Shanghai, they can make it happen. It is a matter of political will and resources, one or both of which are absent in Paris and most other major Western cities.

A Review of Michela Fontana's Matteo Ricci: A Jesuit in the Ming Court

Michela Fontana’s Matteo Ricci: A Jesuit in the Ming Court presents the fascinating adventures of the eponymous Jesuit and his travels to China in 1582. The award winning book is a riveting account of this crucial period in history, the age of exploration made possible by the Portuguese and Spanish being the first to circumnavigate the entire globe. It was the former who established a settlement in the Chinese territory of Macao, and hence launched an important phase of extensive interactions with this ancient civilization, a country which, for many Europeans, was wrapped in mystery and intrigue, in part because by then most European intellectuals had either read, or were familiar with, Marco Polo’s account of the Middle Kingdom published over 3 centuries prior.

 

The Jesuits had a mission to spread the faith around the world, and their approach to accomplishing this was to transmit Western knowledge and science, which by then had significantly advanced as evidenced by many breakthrough inventions including microscopes, clocks, maps, and other instruments of measurement. It was partly for this reason that the Jesuit order stressed the importance of secular and scientific knowledge and education alongside theology. Membership required rigorous and extensive training and Jesuits, as a result, were composed only of the brightest and talented individuals. A small portion of Jesuits took on the arduous task of travelling to far away places in the Americas and Asia to carry out their mission, and here, too, only the extraordinary were selected. Travelling to Asia, for example, required six months by ship, and 25% of ships and their passengers were lost either to bad weather, pirates, or sickness. Moreover, they had to leave their relatively comfortable lives in Europe forever, and therefore had to abandon the attachments of friends and family to live in strange lands where they would be exposed to violence, pathogens, and other life threatening challenges. Consequently, many died relatively young, including the Jesuit who is the focus of this blogpost.

 

Thus, only the most talented, committed, and physically fit members were suitable for the mission to Asia, and Matteo Ricci fit this profile. Given his talents, he could have remained in Europe and prospered in any field (most likely in his case, academia), while enjoying the comforts of living in Rome, Milan, or Paris, but he decided to renounce this and take the risky voyage to China with the knowledge that he would never return. This in itself makes Ricci an extraordinary character, but his adventures in China were even more remarkable as they would end up changing the history of China, Europe, and their relations with each other. He not only successfully converted many Chinese, he also brought Western science and knowledge. Throughout, he mastered the language and developed a deep affection for China, which was reciprocated by the Chinese, who were very fond of Li Madou (Ricci’s Chinese name) and who continue to celebrate him in the present era. This blogpost will highlight Ricci’s adventures in the Middle Kingdom as recounted in Fontana’s superbly written text. Additionally, an effort will be made to relate Ricci’s story to the present state of China and its relations with the outside world.

 

The Silk Road

 

The geographical space we now call Europe had extensive trade ties with China during antiquity. Via the ancient Silk Road, elite Romans were able to purchase luxuries from the far East especially silk, porcelain, and tea, while the Chinese purchased horses, honey, and wine from the Romans. Given the distances, however, direct contact was rare or perhaps non-existent, as a round trip took 18 months, and it was middle men, usually Persian, Turkish or Arab traders, who transported the goods in both directions. Nonetheless, Rome and China were aware of each other, as evidenced by the names in their respective languages (“Sinae” and “Daqin”). This mainly economic interaction survived many upheavals, until it was permanently closed by the Ottoman conquests of Constantinople in 1453, giving them a monopoly on trade with China.

 

Marco Polo’s travels represent the next important phase in Europe’s relations with China. He travelled there with his father and brother in 1271 mainly looking for trading opportunities. At the time, China and large parts of Eurasia were ruled by the Mongol empire, and Marco Polo travelled to their territories and lived there for 24 years, and was even made an official by Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan. When he returned to Italy, he recounted his story which was published in 1300 and which circulated widely, helping to fuel Europe’s enduring curiosity about China.

 

The Portuguese established a settlement in Macao in 1557 and from there helped to launch evangelization missions across Asia. China, for many, was the main prize, in part because of its size and in part because it by then had a very advanced civilization. Rome was recruiting members who could help to carry out this mission, and Matteo Ricci volunteered.

 

He arrived on 1582, and the first task was to study Mandarin. By then he already spoke Latin, Italian, Hebrew, and Greek, but this did not prepare him for the difficulty of learning Chinese in part because it has a completely different writing system, and at the time, there was no pinyin—the phonetic spelling of Chinese using the Roman alphabet—to assist in the endeavour. Despite the difficulty, within a year he could speak without an interpretor, and after three years, his Chinese was sufficient to carry out his duties as a Jesuit priest—carry out the Catholic mass, evangelization, and communication, written and oral, with local parishioners and officials.

 

He would eventually master the language, such that he was able to write and publish widely read books entirely in Chinese, such as The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, that presented Christian thought and Western philosophy. He also translated important books to Chinese including Euclid’s The Elements, which introduced Western geometry.  These textual and literary accomplishments represent a major advance in China-Europe relations, in part because they greatly facilitated the transmission of knowledge. A mastery of language led to an in-depth knowledge of China, making Matteo Ricci history’s first Sinologist. And it is here where Fontana’s text really fires up the imagination, as Ricci’s observations allow us to better compare the similarities and differences between Europe’s and China’s respective civilizations.

 

One difficulty encountered by Ricci was convincing locals about the existence of the Christian diety, which was personal, monotheistic, generative, a perfectly loving and just lawgiver. Such a conception required several ontological assumptions which were absent in China’s civilization; if nature was characterized with decay and death, while God was not, the latter had to be in a sense separate from nature even though he created it. And the monotheistic element required the belief that all other deities were false. In the Chinese conception of the cosmos, there was no clear separation between nature and the spirit world. The various aspects of nature— the heavens, seasons, etc—were divine, and this conception influenced how society was organized. The emperor, for example, was also called the son of heaven and represented, among other things, the link between the people and the cosmos. Partly for this reason, one of his major duties was to calculate the major dates on the calendar.

 

In Europe at the time, ordinary people and the elite—i.e., the nobility and aristocracy—shared the same religion. In China, in contrast, the elite were mostly Confucian, which was more a philosophy about how to live and govern well than a religion. The masses, meanwhile, believed in various divinities, mainly Bhuddist but also Taoist. China, therefore, was polytheist, and different religions had co-existed for thousands of years. Existing religions erected statues of the various divinities and worshipped them. For Ricci, this was idolatrous, and convincing them of this, and that there existed a single invisible God who loved them, and with whom they would be reunited after death, represented a radical rupture from existing beliefs.

 

For Ricci as for other Catholics, Jesus was God incarnate, and the crucified Christ provided an image which helped to give flesh to the narrative about the relationship between humans and the divine. But for the Jesuits, it was science which provided the basis for the faith, as it revealed a universe governed by precise laws and regularities which implied a kind of intelligent law giver. Western science showed the law of cause and effect, and if such a pattern occurred chronologically, there needed to be a First Cause, given that it would be illogical to posit retrospectively an infinity of causes. Many elite Chinese were convinced by these explanations and converted, yet the pace of conversions was relatively slow compared to elsewhere in Asia, in part because of the incompatibility of some local practices.

 

For example,  polygamy was a common practice especially among the elite. Ricci discovered that many had concubines. When Ricci told them that such as practice was forbidden among Catholics, and that sexual relations were only permitted among married and monogamous couples, many balked about the necessity of denying themselves a custom that few every questioned. A Jesuit in the Ming Court tells the story of the scholar-bureacrat Li Zhizao, who had to grapple with this dilemma. Like other Chinese literati, he was fascinated by Ricci’s scientific knowledge, and especially by the predictive accuracy of his calculations which contrasted with the erroneous ones of locals; for Zhizao, this was proof that Ricci’s religion represented truth. But he had a mistress with whom he enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh, and giving her up while committing exclusively to his wife and the mother his children seemed like an unreasonable sacrifice. Many other Chinese undoubtedly struggled to resolve the conundrum, and many likely were unwilling to convert precisely for this reason. A similar situation occurred half a century after Ricci’s travels at the highest level of the Chinese state. Emperor Zhu Youlang, whose mother and sister had converted to Christianity, refused to baptism because of the prohibition on polygamy.

 

Another local characteristic Ricci had to contend with was the tendency of Chinese to consult astrologers and fortune tellers. For Catholics, this practice is forbidden in part because a core feature of the faith is that humans’ destiny is determined by the choices they make—their commitment to God, church, family, and virtuous living. Fortune tellers, for Ricci, denied the importance of human agency, and its popularity was the consequence of the fear of death which resulted from the absence of the concept of heaven; for the Chinese, death meant nothingness, and this motivated their desire to avoid it as long as possible. Fortune tellers, many Chinese believed, possessed knowledge that could help them in this regard, who in turn exploited this fear by charging fees for telling them what they wanted to hear. This tendency to be susceptible to quackery because of the wish to avoid death existed at the highest levels of society: emperors throughout China’s history, for example, paid handsome amounts of money to alchemists in their pursuit of elixirs of immortality. Ricci observed the huge market for these kinds of services and made great efforts to convince the Chinese that it was a complete waste of money, rooted in irrational fears. And he practiced what he preached, as he himself had no fear of death; this was another factor that greatly impressed locals and undoubtedly led to some conversions.

 

Ricci’s interactions with government officials allowed him to observe and understand the political system in China, and this too is a fascinating part of A Jesuit in the Ming Court. The most salient aspect he discovered was the influence of the Confucian governing philosophy, which emphasized the importance of virtue and merit as the basis of governing. This belief was manifest in the annual ritual of the imperial examinations, where Chinese across the country from all social classes competed to obtain high scores on exams which tested their knowledge of Confucius, plus poetry, history, and public administration. The best performers would be selected as government officials in the highest echelons of the administration, an outcome which promised status, income, and security. Competition was therefore fierce and students spent immense amounts of time, and families spent large amounts of money, to prepare for this exam which helped ensure that only the most talented governed the various parts of the country. This practice still exists 400 years later in the form of the gaokao, showing that, despite the many changes in regime during that period (monarchy, liberal republic, socialist republic, empire, nation, etc) there is a continuity which speaks to some enduring aspects of the civilization encountered by Ricci.

 

Another feature encountered by Ricci which has endured to the present is political centralization. The Europe that Ricci left had a fragmented political system governed by many different independent political entities, as after the collapse of Rome the continent remained mostly divided. China, comparable in size and even ethnic diversity, had unified under a single emperor in 221 BC, and when Ricci arrived, had a single emperor who ruled all its territories. From antiquity to the period of Ricci’s arrival, the state had collapsed at least 6 times, but seemed to have always reconstituted itself so that power once again became centralized in the capital. Of course, such a pattern is observable in the present era even though the reigning form of political organization—nation, republic, socialism—is very different from previous regimes. This too provides evidence of a kind of civilizational DNA which transcends history’s political upheavals.

 

The Europe that Ricci left behind was very violent, something recognized by Ricci himself. Street brawls were a common occurrence, many walked in public fully armed, and there were wars of conquest on the continent and beyond. Perhaps in part from the Roman legacy and from the medieval honour system, war and violence were important elements of politics and hence philosophy. In China, Ricci discovered the reigning philosophy—Confucianism—had little to say about military strategy or defense, and emphasized the importance of virtue, harmony, and stability. Public violence was rare, and locals were never armed. Although the Chinese had invented gun powder, they had little interest in wars of conquest or in colonization. Contemporary China, again, displays the same pattern. The last war fought by this great power was in 1979 against Vietnam, whereas its peers—for example the US and Russia—have in the past 40 years fought multiple wars. Moreover, the latter two countries are relatively violent, with high homicide rates, while in China murder is relatively rare, and in fact it is one of the most secure countries in the world.

 

This centralization of political power entailed a specific form of governing, derived from Confucianism, which emphasized the importance of social harmony. And it was this which provided the criteria for determining whether foreign ideas and activities were allowed to operate in the country. The Jesuits received permission to evangelize mainly because Chinese officials, including the emperor, were deeply impressed by their scientific knowledge, which, they correctly concluded, offered an opportunity for learning which could enrich and strengthen the empire. A Jesuit in the Ming Court recounts how some local officials deemed the religious aspect to be a threat to domestic stability, but when a decision on the question had to be made by the highest political authority in the capital, it was observed how the Catholic faith was conducive to harmony and stability. One reason is that Confucianism was wholly compatible with Catholicism, especially the emphasis on virtue, community service, and self improvement.

 

Since then, with some brief interruptions, Catholicism has been an officially recognized religion. There are now approximately 10 million Catholics in the country who can practice their faith without molestation. This reveals another enduring tendency in Chinese governance: religions require official permission to operate and this is granted only if they are deemed to be consistent with stability and harmony. Partly for this reason, many protestant sects—such as Christian Zionism, or the prosperity gospel, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, to name a few—would not be granted permission to operate as they all contain beliefs which are not religious as such.

 

The ultimate purpose of Ricci’s travels was to convert China to Catholicism. On this measure, he perhaps did not achieve his objectives, as during his 27 years of evangelization, Fontana calculates that maybe 2500 conversions occurred.  Nonetheless, Ricci and the Jesuits left an enduring legacy which remains to the present day. In China, he is referred to affectionately with his Chinese name, Li Madou, and is celebrated by the highest authorities, as is Marco Polo, with statues, monuments, and by being part of educational curriculum, such that most Chinese, even ordinary ones, are familiar with his story. His mastery of the language and even culture in some ways made him an honorary Chinese; in the words of Ricci’s contemporary Guo Qinluo, “Li Madou has lived in the Middle Kingdom for a long time. He is no longer a foreigner but Chinese, as he belongs to China”. One sees his legacy in the beautiful cathedral in Shanghai, built by French Jesuits between 1905-1910, and in the Jesuit library which preserves their texts and documents.

 

Ricci’s adventures also helped to fuel Europe’s enduring fascination with China and even the tendency of Sinophilia observable among some intellectuals. In the 400 years since, relations between China and Europe have been characterized with oscillations of opening and closing, cooperation and conflict. In the most recent phase of interaction, which can be dated from China’s opening in 1978 to the present, relations have flourished as measured by the amount of trade and travel between the two continents. Moreover, the opening of over 200 Confucian institutes across Europe highlights the two-way direction of cultural transmission which, despite some tensions and setbacks, continues to be highly enriching for both.