MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF THE WORK AND THOUGHT
OF ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE
by Teodoro Tagliaferri (University of Naples Federico II)
No. 5
(January 15th, 2022)
WRITINGS ON THE EMPIRES IN WORLD HISTORY, III
Arnold Joseph Toynbee, My Feeling about the Roman Empire, in A.J. Toynbee, The Tragedy
of Greece, A Lecture delivered for the Professor of Greek to Candidates for Honours in Literae
Humaniores at Oxford in May 1920, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1921, pp. 41-42.
“I can best express my personal feeling about the Empire in a parable. It was like the sea
round whose shores its network of city-states was strung. The Mediterranean seems at first
sight a poor substitute for the rivers that have given their waters to make it. Those were
living waters, whether they ran muddy or clear; the sea seems just salt and still and dead.
But as soon as we study the sea, we find movement and life there also.”
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