The British Raj, governed by the products of self-consciously Spartan boarding schools, was also thoroughly imbued with ‘that picturesque wealth of pomp and circumstance which the East alone can give’,16 – and which ultimately derived from the vanished flummery of Xerxes’ palaces. It might have flattered the British Empire to imagine itself the heir of Athens; but it owed a certain debt of obligation to the mortal enemy of Athens, too.
