Editor’s Note:  A note from Rob Cain (Stray thoughts).  

I am told that in Kipling’s time of the RAJ, that there were Brits that stayed in India rather than return home.  Kipling himself, was born in India.  Though there are many similarities and differences between Imperial Britain and the Roman Empire, Kipling’s poem (below) has a ring of truth to it.   As there were probably those who decided to stay on after their enlistments ended in India,  there must have been Romans (and there were) who either longed to stay on in Britannica as well.  In keeping with that, from my time in the U.S. Army I have come across Veterans that ‘missed’ their foreign postings, and found ways to say on by taking jobs as civilian contractors, GS’er, or marrying into the local population.  This has been especially true for Germany and South Korea.  Not much changes over the years.  What am I saying?  Not much changes over the centuries. 

The following was taken from Wikipedia.  

This poem has several alternative titles including The Roman Occupation of Britain – A.D. 300., The Roman Centurion Speaks, The Roman Centurion, and The Centurion’s Song. A recurring topic in Kipling’s writing is that of an “Imperial” which forms an attachment to a colony that equals or surpasses their affection for their homeland.

In A School History of England (1911) it was accompanied by the following explanatory note in the right margin “A Roman Soldier who loves Britain.”

These gentlemen at first talked about exile, shivered and cursed the ‘beastly British climate,’ heated their houses with hot air, and longed to get home to Italy. But many stayed; their duty or their business obliged them to stay: and into them too the spirit of the dear motherland entered, and became a passion. Their children, perhaps never saw Rome; but Rome and Britain had an equal share of their love and devotion, and they, perhaps, thought something like this:—