rex' appointed by the council of elders from among themselves, but a significant difference is that the selection had to be ratified by the whole assembly of the Roman freemen. Class distinctions had come into existence among the Romans already under the kings, the elders who occupied the seats in the Senate gaining the status of a caste apart, the patricians. With the Khmers a similar council of elders had communed together and with their ancestors at the sitting place in the village centre since time immemorial. With the coming of Indian influences they took on something of the Indian caste distinction, though without its rigidity. Thus we learn from an early inscription of the marriage of a Brahman and a Ksatriya, which would have been most irregular in India. In rather the same way the barrier between the Roman patricians and the plebeians began to break down quite early in the Republican period, with mixed marriages between them becoming regarded as legal. Among the Khmers there was certainly nothing to compare with the long struggle between the Roman orders, the plebeians eventually gaining the upper hand. There was nothing comparable to the tribunate of the people, because the Khmer kings maintained their function of protecting oppressed individuals, a function which the Tarquins had so seriously abused. It was from this that it came about in Rome, an idea that could never have arisen among the Khmers, that by the fourth century B.C. one of the Consuls must be a plebeian, while from 287 B.C. the plebeian assembly could pass laws binding on the State as a whole: they could even obtain appointments to the sacred colleges of pontifices and augurs, corresponding to the Khmer court Brahmans. It is interesting to note that the patricians only succeeded in maintaining their position as long as they did because with this privileged class was associated in the plebeian mind the traditional function of the primordial priest king: only the patricians were capable of understanding the omens and thus maintaining the public well-being dependent on the co-operation of the people and the gods. The tremendous risk of upsetting this balance was one which the Khmers were never driven to take. These differences in governmental form, which loom large in modern eyes, should not be over-estimated, for they do not seem to have affected the trend of history so long as the idea of service to the State remained paramount. "For forms of government let fools contest; whatever's best administered is best." Out of fashion though it may be, in view of the dangerous ideologies of modern times, to quote this famous dictum of Pope, I cannot think it is other than appropriate here. The basic concepts of duty and respect for authority were the practical results of a training under kingship, which the Romans and Khmers had both experienced, and which were to stand them in good stead as the States expanded. One institution that indicates that the actual administration, even in such a free State as the Republic seems to have become, had certain characteristics by no means unfamiliar to the Khmers, was that of the Censors. These officials carried on a kind of relentless inquisition, investigating the attention to duty and personal uprightness of anyone from senator to simple family head. This smacks very much of the complex system of espionage that was a key governmental mechanism in any Indianized State. The similarity of their essential training is well indicated by the attitude of both peoples to two of the main facets of their early social systems: their unwavering attachment to customary law, and their family life.

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The source of all subsequent Roman law is to be found in the famous "XII tables", codified and committed to writing about 450 B.c. These recognized the prerogatives of the patrician order, allowed religious custom to intefere in civil cases, and declared debt slavery valid. They were mainly based on customary law, which had never previously been written down. They continued to remain thoroughly Roman, the only changes made in custom being when it obviously disagreed with the dictates of common sense. On to this basis was grafted a certain number of new rules introduced from Athens, which seemed in keeping with the general advance of civilization and overseas trade. The above lines could equally well be applied to the character of the legal systems not only of the Khmers, of which our knowledge is mainly indirect, but also of other major Indianized peoples of South-east Asia, with the difference, of course, that the new rules were introduced from India. The investigations of modem jurists have conclusively shown that the great body of laws of all these Indianized peoples remained their customary law, in accordance with which the kings promulgated such new edicts as circumstances might demand. The Indian Laws of Manu were accepted merely as a framework, within which the native customary law was free to develop. Indian law and the caste system did not make much local appeal in South-east Asia. What both Khmers and Romans particularly wanted from the, advanced civilizations were their superior magic and religion. The family, not the individual, was of the first importance in the Roman social system. Besides the actual blood relations, the term familia was held to include all the household living on a certain piece of land, such as the slaves and the clients, the latter being those freemen who had placed themselves under the protection of the householder. Included in the family group were also the ancestral and local spirits (the Penates and Lar), and of course the Genius of the paterfamilias, whose continuing support of the family group was essential to survival. Over his wife and children the power of the paterfamilias was patriarchal, and much the same over his clients. To his slaves the relationship was that of master and servant. The patriarchal power was restrained from being arbitrary by the force of the customary law, and the responsibility to the ancestors. Towards the slaves the attitude of the master was bound by no such considerations; however the necessity of making life endurable, if they were to be of use, generally protected them from inhumane treatment. The paterfamilias directed the work of the farm, demanding strictest obedience, and he decided all quarrels and meted out punishments. He also acted as household priest in the daily ritual and offerings that had to be made for the propitiation of the family spirits. The wife, being in charge of the cooking and weaving, had a special place of authority in the household, and gradually came to exercise a wide though indirect influence in society. At the harvest and sowing festivals a number of families met and jointly undertook the prescribed religious rites: they also obtained a certain amount of relaxation in sports and games. Again it can be said, without great fear of error, that all the above description of family life would have applied equally well to the Khmers at the comparable period. The existence of matrilineal descent - there was certainly no matriarchy - would hardly affect the resemblance, which is even borne out by some contemporary evidence. Thus an inscription of A.D. 639 mentions the king's consecration of an image "through devotion to Siva and for the deliverance of his parents". And the Chinese historian Ma Tuan-lin, referring to about the same time, says "the children of the deceased pass seven days without eating, shave the head in sign of mourning and cry loudly". These similarities are not mentioned here as being anything remarkable in themselves, but merely to indicate that social conditions, deeply rooted in the traditional cultural background, were in fact during the time of expansion very much alike: it would be quite possible to have imagined http://amekhmer.free.fr 2001-2005

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that they were very different, among two peoples so far apart in space and time. What is perhaps more surprising is that the Khmers had the same type of feudalism as that which was by far the most usual among the Romans, i.e. the patrocinium. In accordance with this, the clients were allowed to choose their lord or patron, whereas with the precarium, the basis was territorial. It is believed that at some early time the Khmers changed the basis of their feudalism from the territorial one to the personal one, corresponding to the Roman patrocinium. We must now consider briefly the territorial expansion which brought Romans and Khmers into the closer contact with the Greek or Indian mentors, that was to mean so much to their future development. After the expulsion of the Tarquins, Rome had first to meet the vigorous efforts of the Etruscans to regain possession of the city. In this they were aided by the Latin towns until Rome was able to draw some of them into a defensive alliance. This Latin league also undertook the reconquest of southern Latium, peopled by the Volsci, who had remained independent. Rome and the Latin league also had to repulse the attacks of the Sabines and other hill tribes. Soon the Roman power had so much increased that Veii, the important city of Southern Etruria, was captured in 396 B.C., and Rome dominated Etruscan territory as far north as the Ciminian forest. This speedy success was greatly helped by the attacks of the Celts on the Etruscans in the Po valley. However in 390 B.C. this redoubtable foe fought their way south to Rome, which they sacked after signally defeating the Roman army in a surprise attack. It is true that the Celts vanished away as quickly as they had come, thus making it easy for the Romans to recover from the disaster. I do not think that their recovery should, however, be attributed to this fortunate chance. Sometimes both the Romans and the Khmers recovered from the most serious setbacks by their own efforts, and sometimes they appear to have been saved from disasters by mere good fortune. With the continually developing experience and character that both were gaining, and which made them so resilient, I do not think we ought to over-estimate the importance of a few fortunate escapes. Latin colonies, the means by which Rome usually extended her territorial control, were established to the northward, and Etruria in 353 made a peace treaty for a hundred years. However in 3 11 the northern Etruscans attacked the Roman outposts but were completely defeated. The Etruscan cities had to purchase peace with a huge indemnity. A further attempt was made in alliance with the Celts, but this was also defeated, the Etruscan kingships falling to the Romans one by one. By the middle of the third century B.C. all Etruria proper had been absorbed by Rome, while their possessions in the Po valley had become Cisalpine Gaul. Being now in control of the Tiber throughout its length, the way was open for the expansion of commerce to the north. As we have seen, the comparable danger to the Khmers from the north was offered by the Chams, and these the Khmers had expelled from occupation of part of their homeland in the fifth century A.D. They then seem to have moved their capital northwards to Bassak at the foot of the Lingaparvata Mountain. This certainly could not have been done had it been felt that there was any further danger to be expected from the Chams. The high dividing range of the Cordillera was thought to offer sufficient protection from them. Moreover the Chams, unlike the Etruscans, did nothing to break the understanding to which they had evidently come with the Khmers. In fact relations had so far improved that an embassy of friendship was sent to Champa, and it was present in the Cham capital in 605 when this was sacked by a Chinese army. Fortunately for the Khmers the Chinese had no interest in carrying their conquests further to the south. So the parallel with the Celts is limited to the fact that the Chinese attack on the Cham capital reinforced the Khmer belief that there was no further danger from Champa. A false sense of security was induced, for in the end the Khmers would be as obliged to reduce the Chams to as complete subservience as the http://amekhmer.free.fr 2001-2005

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Romans had found to be necessary with the Etruscans - and the delay would prove costly. It should be noted, however, that whatever might have happened in imperial times, it was actually the Etruscans' own behaviour in being unwilling to keep the peace treaty of 3 5 3 that brought destruction on them. It will not be necessary to o into the details, most of them based on uncertain evidence, of Rome's extension and consolidation of her supremacy over the lowland region of Campania to the south of Latium, concurrently with her struggle to reduce the Etruscans. In the first place the settled peoples of related culture had called Rome in to protect them from the fierce hill-Samnites, against whose encroachment on her colonies and allies Rome was obliged to fight three bitter wars during the fourth century B.c. Their final defeat enabled Rome to extend her hold on Apulia in south Italy, annex the Sabine country and establish colonies on the Adriatic coast. On the borders of Apulia and Lucania she founded a strong colony as a defence against the Greeks of southern Italy. The above sequence of events is a by no means unexpected development on the part of a city-state in process of taking the leadership in any similar region, so that we are not surprised to find the same thing occurring with the Khmers. The gradual extension over territory inhabited by peoples of the same stock as themselves was largely in the direction of the north and west of the Great Lake; also in the lower valley of the Mün river. At a later date, as we shall see, they penetrated further up the Mekong itself, in what is now Laos, where they had to push back the Khas and other savage tribes. We now have to consider the greater power settled in the southern part of each of our two peninsulas, which each of the two empires-to-be had to subdue, and from each of which they drew the higher influences that inspired their advancing civilizations. We shall deal first with the Greeks who from the eighth century B.C. had been in possession of all the good seaports on the south coast of Italy. Collisions were bound to occur as the Romans advanced southwards, and that was especially the case with Tarentum (modern Taranto), the port whose leadership was acknowledged by the other Greek city-states on the coast. After one or two incidents, the Tarentines called to their aid in 28r B.C. King Pyrrhus of Epirus. Since this was an eventuality the Romans had foreseen, they had in fact endeavoured to avoid provoking the Greek colonists. Pyrrhus was an ambitious and brilliant military adventurer who aspired to emulate Alexander by building up an empire in the West. This was first to have united the Greeks in Italy and then to have proceeded to the conquest of Carthage, the rout of the Roman barbarians being conceived as a minor preliminary task. He had brought with him from Greece a relatively powerful force and, aided by the local Greeks and some Samnites, he did proceed to win several "Pyrrhic" victories that have become proverbial. He had not appreciated the way in which Roman resolution was strengthened by setbacks. His attention then became diverted to Sicily, where he made a landing but achieved no lasting results. So he returned to Italy, only to find that the Romans had now massed superior numbers, and he was decisively defeated at Beneventum in 275. He was forced to retire to Tarentum and thence sailed for Greece. The Greek garrison of Tarentum surrendered to Rome three years afterwards, and she was then able to proceed with the consolidation of her mastery of all Italy south of the Arno and the Po. The subjugation of the great plain of the Po, with its restless Gallic tribes, was still occupying Rome's attention when in 219 B.C. she had to meet the Carthaginian army after their crossing of the Alps. Roman rule over Italy did not take the form of direct dominion over subjugated peoples. It was rather a confederation of "allies", among whom Rome kept the military leadership and http://amekhmer.free.fr 2001-2005

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decided all matters of foreign policy. Of the successful accomplishment of this policy it has been well said: "It was a wonderful work: perhaps the most wonderful that Rome ever achieved."' The steady military perseverence and good sense in political organization that Rome continually developed from the moment when she first had the opportunity to take the lead in Latium, had now enabled her to make the completely effective response to her physical environment. She was quickly recognized by Egypt and among the Greeks as a new power in the Mediterranean world, in the affairs of which she had previously had no concern. Now she wanted to exploit the opportunities for commerce which her geographical situation seemed to offer. But she looked more particularly towards the west, her broader western coast lands supporting the major and wealthier portion of her population. We may now turn our attention to Fu-nan, the core of which was formed by the good agricultural area southwest of the multi-channelled delta of the Mekong. Here it had been necessary to drain marshes rather than irrigate higher level land. It was part of what has been known in recent times as Cochinchina, and corresponded in position on the Indochinese peninsula to the southern part of Italy whose coasts had been settled by the Greeks. The early Indian settlers seem to have arrived in Fu-nan in the first century A.D., so like the Greeks they were established about five hundred years before they fell to the growing power of a determined though still semibarbarous inland people. This happened despite the fact that the Indian settlers, showing a greater capacity to unite than was ever characteristic of the Greeks, early succeeded in doing very much what Pyrrhus had intended: they built up a wealthy kingdom in the delta region, and then a loosely knit empire a thousand miles wide. It was this loosely knit character that was to prove so vulnerable. In the fifth, and early part of the sixth, century A.D., Chen-la as the Khmer kingdom was known to the Chinese, was only one of many vassal states owing allegiance to Fu-nan, although she was certainly the nearest and strongest of these. Champa was recognized by Fu-nan as a purely independent state, and as she maintained friendly relations with the Chams she probably encouraged the Khmers to compose their differences with them. According to legend, the founder of Fu-nan in the first century A.D. was a Brahman from India named Kaundinya, who married a local chieftainess. He and his successors in the second and third centuries proceeded to organize on lines which might well have been adopted by a fortunate Pyrrhus, had the Greeks in south Italy been willing to federate: "The kingdom seems to have consisted at first of settlements, or 'cities', chiefly along the Mekong, between the present sites of Chaudoc and Phnom Penh, each under its local chief. Chinese accounts relates that Kaundinya gave seven of these 'cities' to his son as a royal fief, thus apparently introducing a sort of feudalism into Fu-nan."l Beyond, and mainly on the coasts, lay the feudatory states inhabited by peoples of varied language and blood. The natives of Fu-nan were probably very similar to the Khmers, but a steady flow of immigrants, traders and others from India who married local women, brought a high degree of Indianization. A great increase in material wealth followed, partly because Funan had a sound agricultural economy, but more as a result of its being on the main maritime trade route between India and China. In those days merchant shipping crept along the coast for fear of the perils of the open sea, and after an obligatory stop at the Mekong delta, it proceeded up the coast to Tonkin. There passengers and goods were disembarked and continued by inland waterways to Lo-yang, the Chinese capital. That Fu-nan had relations with India at a high level, at least from time to time, is indicated by the fact that in A.D. z40 the king sent an embassy to an Indian king ruling in the http://amekhmer.free.fr 2001-2005

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Ganges valley, and the latter in turn sent an embassy to Fu-nan with four horses from the Indo-Scythian country. A Chinese ambassador, who visited Fu-nan at about the same time, provides some information as to Fu-nan's trade. He said that horses were brought thither from Central Asia, and he described the long oar-propelled boats being built in Funan for the river trade. From another contemporary Chinese author we know that Persian, Indian and Chinese ships with four to seven sails, able to carry 600 or 700 men and a thousand metric tons of cargo, were plying in the Indian ocean. The rulers of Fu-nan early adopted the worship of the linga, emblem of Siva, but later there was also the cult of Visnu as well as Mahayana Buddhism. About the middle of the fifth century, during a disturbed period, an Indian Brahman arrived, apparently from a Fu-nan dependency on the Malay Peninsula. It seems that in the conditions then prevailing he was chosen by the people as their king. We learn this from Chinese sources, which add that "he changed all the rules according to the customs of India". This would indicate a further strong accession of Indian influences. Other indications in the same vein come from Chinese records referring to the deities worshipped, in this and the following century, the details of the religions, and the habits of the king, who lived in a storied pavilion. But references to the freedom of the sexes, the houses built on stilts (suited to the often flooded river and canal banks), the types of boats and amusements, clearly indicate the survival of a local cultural basis. We are told that the merchandise offered by the Fu-nanese included gold, silver and silks, that they made gold and silver rings and bracelets, also silver vessels. The character of the people was good and peace-loving. The capital city, Vyadhapura, fortified with a wooden palisade, is believed to have been situated at the base of the hill called Ba Phnom ( Fu-nan). What little we know of the architecture suggests that it was confined to small brick sanctuaries, similar to those being built at the time in India. The images of the gods were equally of a style reminiscent of the Indian Gupta, though modified in various respects. Now it happened that a scion of the Fu-nan royal family, having married a Khmer princess who seemingly had inherited the Khmer throne, became King Bhavavarman of Chen-la, about A.D. 5 5 o. His capital, Bhavapura, was probably near Mount Lingaparvata. He appointed his brother, Sitrasena, as commander of the Khmer army. These two evidently became decidedly Khmer in feeling, for when the king of Fu-nan died, Bhavavarman claimed the throne of Fu-nan, but only with the intention of subjecting the suzerain State. He was in fact acting as an instrument of the Khmers. These were now ready to burst their bonds and were doubtless very glad to make use of the leadership and knowledge of Indianized war magic which he and his brother could provide. The inhabitants of Vyadhapura had become wealthy and soft, as a result of centuries of ease. The Khmers had not only had to wrestle with much more difficult agricultural conditions, but had also had to sustain their position as an inland State against the constant threat of attack by the fierce hill-tribes. In fact they had provided a zone of protection against these for the delta region. Thus, as the largest and strongest of the vassals of Fu-nan, the Khmers must have appreciated the declining condition of Vyadhapura, and felt a growing temptation to break through the barrier that separated them from an outlet to the sea and the enjoyment of a lucrative seaborne trade. Strategically they had the advantage of "interior lines", for the Funan empire not only included a motley of peoples largely devoid of common interests, but they were mostly maritime countries strung out along the coast of the Gulf of Siam and on the Malay Peninsula. Communications were chiefly by sea, which had been good for commerce, but useless to counter a determined attack from the Mekong valley. So, if the vassals had wished to bring aid, they could have done little in time; and it would seem that http://amekhmer.free.fr 2001-2005

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they were more interested in profiting by the situation to declare their own independence. The actual fighting was carried out by Sitrasena, at the beginning of Bhavavarman's long reign of more than forty years, so that when he himself succeeded to the throne, with the title of Mahendravarman, he had but a short reign. We have no details of the campaign, but the victor was praised as a great warrior not only in Khmer inscriptions but in Chinese histories. A Cham. inscription, which might be expected to take an objective view, says he was "a hero in the world, who was the destroyer of the proud allies of his enemies, whose name was increased by his strength and whose supreme majesty, like that of the sun, shone brilliantly forth". The main desire of the Khmers in conquering Fu-nan being to obtain access to the sea, they had no idea of reducing the people to servitude, and allowed them to retain a king of their own under the suzerainty of ChenIa. It would seem that they recognized the Funanese as their cousins, just as the Romans treated the other Italic peoples, over whom they had extended their sway, as "allies". An inscription tells us: "Although conquered first by force, the land which has the ocean for its girdle (presumably Fu-nan), when he exercised his sovereignty, he conquered it the second time by his mildness." An indication of Bhavavarman's wish to gain for the Khmers the advantages of the advanced Indianized culture of Fu-nan is provided by the appointment as his chief ministers of two nephews of the old Fu-nan court physician. They are described as having been good councillors, as well versed in the law and whatever was useful for the government. King Isanavarman I, succeeded his father Mahendravarman about 611 and consolidated the kingdom during his reign of about twenty-five years. He moved the capital south, calling it Isanapura, to what is now the village of Sambor-Prei Kuk, a far more central and strategically located position. The extant remains show that it was a much larger city than the old capital near the Lingaparvata, Mountain. Chinese authors tell us that it was populated by more than 20,000 families, and that there were more than thirty other towns. About 627 Isanavarman took the hitherto unwarranted step of annexing Fu-nan, incorporating the territory into ChenIa. No doubt in the time that had elapsed since the conquest, progressive absorbtion of Indian influences by the Khmers, added to the common ethnic and cultural background of the two peoples, paved the way for their union in a homogeneous kingdom, without distinction between conquerors and conquered. This action, though hard on the vassal king who was forced to flee, had now become an obvious step of good statesmanship, for full control of the delta region was essential to the future of the Khmer State. Isanavarman proceeded to round out his possessions in the Great Lake region, by completing the conquest of north-west Cambodia. In the lower Mün valley, on what is now the plateau of eastern Siam, he came into contact with the Môn kingdom of Dvaravati (old Siam), a former vassal of Fu-nan. Although the plateau region was occupied by Môn Buddhists probably owing allegiance to Dviravati, they were ethnically cognate to the Khmers; and so a desire to incorporate them in the kingdom of Chen-la may soon have been kindled. From the point of view of Chen-la, it may well have appeared that MônKhmer-populated regions, situated along the trade routes, ideally formed an integral part of a Khmer realm: they should be gradually absorbed rather than conquered. However the Khmers certainly had no interest in acquiring vassal states, and may well have profited from what they had seen of the weakness of the Fu-nan system. It would appear that constant watchfulness still had to be maintained: Ma Tuan-lin mentions that "the custom of the inhabitants is to go always armored and under arms".

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The last king of Chen-la during this initial period of expansion is Jayavarman I (c. 640-681 A.D.). His name happens to be perhaps the most illustrious, and certainly the most frequent, of those borne by Khmer rulers, and we shall have to keep in mind the distinctions of those we mention. We know from Chinese sources that this first Jayavarman was a warrior: he extended the kingdom further up the Mekong, through the conquest of what is now central and upper Laos. Then, though an inscription credits him with the introduction of cavalry, -and a way of stopping infantry charges, he seems to have decided that the finishing touch to the ideal kingdom had now been given. So he laid aside his weapons as of no further use. Instead, in his capital city which was probably at Banteay Prei Nokor, he devoted himself to learning, and the arts of peace. "He, the incomparable master of all the arts, to begin with those of singing, instrumental music and dancing; he, a true repository of everything desirable and subtle, an ocean of which science, patience, moderation, cleverness, judgment, liberality, are the jewels . . . this master of masters on earth, H. M. jayavarman." Unfortunately the excessive absorption in higher pursuits indicated by this inscription seems to have been accompanied by a certain unawareness of danger, which was to bring trouble in the later part of his reign. Already by the fifth century A.D. the Khmers had had some contact with Indian culture: there is little doubt that immigrant Brahmans prepared the way for the reception of their religious teachings by their astrological learning, which must have offered a great improvement on local methods of divination. Then a most interesting inscription of Bhavavarman's time tells us how by the beginning of his reign the instruction in the sacred books of India is proceeding. It records that a Brahman had married the king's sister, and set up an image of Siva in a temple to which he donated copies of the Indian epics (Mahdbhdrata and Ramayana), and it would appear also of the Puranas. More than this, the Brahman introduced daily readings in the temple. He blessed those who participated in the instruction, and cursed anyone who might damage the sacred books, which must still have been a rarity in the country. The worship of Siva had become established as the chief form of Indian religion in Chen-la, the linga already having a certain association with kingship. Buddhism made far less appeal. With the conquest of Fu-nan, the absorption of Indian influences was greatly accelerated. Inscriptions of Isanavarman's reign indicate how flourishing had become the worship of Siva, and specific cults, such as that of the Vedic sage Jaimini, are mentioned. Ma Tuanlin describes the royal audiences and several social usages of Indian origin coming to the days of Jayavarman I, it would appear that the king was a model of all that a Hindu monarch should be. Though these influences were mainly confined to court circles, indirectly their beneficent effects were felt in the well-ordered government and security that radiated throughout the land, at least until the latter part of Jayavarman's reign. Many Hindu temples of the seventh century survive, small brick sanctuaries which keep closely to Indian models, first in mainly Gupta style and then very strongly Pullava. The statues of the Hindu gods are also very Indian in style, varying somewhat in quality according to the expertness of the individual Khmer craftsmen and his ability to master the Indian technique. We have to remember that the immediate response of the Khmers to this access of Indian influence, was an eagerness to learn and absorb as much of the new cultural pattern as seemed of practical value to them. This would above all include methods of improving their contact with the unseen powers on whom the welfare of the growing State depended, especially the great deities they could now visualize in anthropomorphic form. But there was also much else to be learnt concerning government, military organization and commerce which would fit them to make the most of their new status as a power in the South China Sea. At present their response was largely limited to the acquisition of this new knowledge. So there could not as yet be any question of making http://amekhmer.free.fr 2001-2005

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many modifications in what was accepted, except unconsciously, and then just in matters of detail, or in the expression of certain preferences where a choice was offered. Turning to the Hellenization of Rome, perhaps we approach nearest to the Indianization process we have just been discussing, when we think of the re-editing of the important Sibylline Books, part Greek, part Etruscan in origin. The re-editing was done in the light of the more advanced ideas on divination that became available with the conquest of Magna Graecia. This closely parallels the influence of the astrological treatises and practices introduced to Chen-la by the Indian and Funanese Brahmans. At the same time Greek forms of religion took root. the cult of Apollo and Mercury were introduced, while the Greek triad Demeter, Dionysus and Persephone were identified with the old Roman divinities Ceres, Liber and Libera, much as in Chen-la Siva was identified with the local Earth god. As early as 399 B.C. the Sibylline Books, when a plague was raging in the city, had ordered the introduction of the lectisternium, a banquet of the gods, in which for the first time images of the Greek deities, or their Roman counterparts, were placed on view to the public, and were shown reclining on couches and partaking of offerings of food and drink. Later on there was introduced the supplicatio, in which the mass of the population could take an active part: wearing wreaths and holding laurel branches they went in procession round the temple, after the manner of Greek suppliants, offering prayer or giving thanks. Meanwhile the worship of the statues of the new gods was carried out graeco ritu, i.e. with head uncovered. Culturally speaking, it would appear that the Romans were accepting a Greek suzerainty just as much as the Khmers accepted that of Indianized Fu-nan. The introduction of these new cults met a deeply felt need on the part of the growing Roman consciousness, which not unnaturally experienced at this time a certain restlessness and desire for more dramatically expressed forms of worship. Fortunately "respect for the mos maiorum, or ancestral custom, imposed an effective check on the desire for innovation. . . . At first the results of contact with the older and more brilliant culture of Hellas were on the whole good".' The introduction of many of the great Greek deities not only enabled the Romans to realize their own traditional numina as anthromorphic beings, but also inculcated the higher moral virtues in much the same way as did the teachings of the Indian epics in Chen-Ia. For we have to remember that in Greece the State religion had been an important factor in shaping public ideas of morality and law, and there also the sanctity of family ties was the basis of social ethics. As early as 496 B.c. Greek modellers had come to Rome to decorate the temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera, so it was not only as modified by the Etruscans that the Romans of the early part of the Republican period were aware of Greek art. With the conquest of Magna Graecia many Greek statues must have been carried off and placed in Roman temples. In the great collection of antiquities from various sites of Magna Graecia that has been assembled at the museum at Taranto, there are sculptures, as well as many other works of art, that must have been made in Greece, or by Greeks in southern Italy, as early as the fourth century B.c. There are also many objects there which show modification in the light of Italic genius. Like the Khmer temples of Chen-la, the Roman temples of the Republican era remained small, nothing comparable in grandeur to Tarquin's Temple of Jupiter being attempted. Distinctive Italic features were at first confined to such structural modification as produced the high podium, and the saddle roof with high pediments - a propensity towards verticality which was always to characterize Roman architecture as compared to Greek love of the horizontal. While thus yielding to Italic structural principles, the early Roman temples remained Greek in their decorative motifs. http://amekhmer.free.fr 2001-2005

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So here we have our two flourishing young States, their respective territories so satisfactorily enlarged that it might appear that they only had to settle down and continue reaping the full benefits of their advantageous environments. We also see them apparantly finishing their educations, apt pupils of the higher civilizations, and well set to enjoy an ordered and possibly uneventful future. In terms of human happiness it might have been better for them if history could now have passed them by, leaving them to enjoy a pleasant enough apogee, even though it would have meant that historians of the future, judging by such works of art and literary remains as survived, might then have been excused for classing them as successful "satellites". But history could not stand still, or leave them in such delicately poised balance. Fate was to impose harsher stimuli, which would necessarily elicit more deeply felt and original responses than had hitherto been demanded.

CHAPTER III TESTING TIME The prosperity and cultural growth which our two protagonists had now achieved, poised to enjoy the fruits of commerce each in her own "Mediterranean', were not to pass unchallenged by powerful rivals. The latter would have liked to absorb Rome or Chen-la in just the same way that these had absorbed peoples who had stood in the way of their exploitation of the maritime trade routes. In each case the powerful rival occupied an almost equally favourable position as did Italy or the South-east Asian peninsula. It stood on the opposite (southern) shore of the intervening seaway, and must indeed have been an obvious menace. The one was Carthage, the other Java, and unlike their potential enemies they were in good shape to take the initiative when they saw how things were developing, for both had strong fleets and were seafaring peoples. The former were of the same stock as those Phoenicians who, according to Herodotus, circumnavigated Africa in the seventh century B.C. The latter were closely related to those hardy Polynesian mariners who, having invented the outrigger canoe, had pushed their way far into the Pacific. And while each had a culture of their own, each had also benefited from imbibing, like their opponents, a good deal of the civilization of Greece or India. The stage was now set, a thousand years apart in time, for a remarkably similar life-and-death struggle, which came within an ace of cutting short our budding empires. Another factor which contributed no less to a disturbance of the hitherto flourishing period of growth, was an interval of cultural indigestion prior to the emergence of adequate responses to the now greatly reinforced influences from Greece or India. This led to an undermining of the attitude of the individual towards his duty of service to family and State, with a substitution of personal selfishness and desire for gain. But here we encounter a difference in timing: whereas Rome was fortunate in having to withstand the ordeal of the Punic wars before the indigestion became too severe, the opposite was the case with Chen-Ia. Indicating perhaps the supreme importance of internal conditions in the development of a State, it may be said here that this difference in timing did not prove to have much consequence in the sequel. Both Rome and Chen-Ia found themselves faced by ruin at the end of the period we are now considering from which they each found a remarkably similar salvation. It shall be considering these internal changes later in the chapter. So it will suffice to say here that the latter part of Jayavarman's reign, which ended about A.D. 681, was http://amekhmer.free.fr 2001-2005

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