SOURCES OF ROMAN HISTORY.
Are the sources of the most ancient Roman history, before ever an historical literature had arisen in Rome, worthy of credit? In former times a simple honest belief was prevalent concerning this point; it would have been considered as audacity and as a crime, if any one had doubted of the Roman history, especially that which Livy drew and set forth from the sources at his command. It is now quite incomprehensible to us to what a degree very ingenious men, like Scaliger, who had far more knowledge than we, received without any hesitation the details of ancient history, deeming, for instance, the lists of the kings of Sicyon to be quite as authentic as those of the kings of France. This state of literary innocence lasted as long as all education was purely philological, and derived from books only. In the seventeenth century, when in England,France, and Germany, a new era commenced for the civilization of mankind, many began to be startled at the contradictions which some individuals might have remarked before them, but had imposed on themselves silence upon the subject,—as for instance the Roman Valla, the discovery of whose grave is one of the most pleasing remembrances of my life, and Glareanus, who thereby irritated the ingenious Sigonius, a man, however, who had not the least idea of historical criticism. The Italians were for some time a-head of the rest of Europe, then the French followed, and shortly afterwards, the Germans. As early as towards the end of the sixteenth century lived Pighius, a native of the province of Cleves, who had original ideas with regard to historical criticism, but who has commenced much and finished nothing. Then followed Perizonius’ able criticism, and then the sceptical works of Bayle and Beaufort. It was not possible in the eighteenth century to receive the Roman history with the same credulity as in the sixteenth, since the sphere of the human mind had been so much enlarged during the seventeenth. People wanted to comprehend what had happened, and how it had come to pass, and so they could no more believe in the Roman history as they found it. O that Perizonius had gone on with the work which he had begun, and had formed the conviction that he must arrive at an historical result, without which belief no man can advance and succeed;—or, that others had proceeded in his track! But he was wanting in self-confidence, and others set themselves to the work with less comprehensive powers. Beaufort, a clever man, but whose studies had not been sufficiently comprehensive, forms at this time an epoch; but his literary and personal imperfections caused him to root up the tares with the wheat. Already before had Pouilly, in the ‘Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et des belles lettres,’ set forth the same opinions, but quite crudely. It was the time of that extreme scepticism which Bayle had givenbirth to, and Freret had confirmed. Beaufort did not feel the necessity of a good groundwork of scientific knowledge; nevertheless he held a prominent place in his time, and exercised a marked influence upon Hooke and Fergusson, who were not capable of any deep inquiry. Yet it is remarkable that those points which Beaufort had left untouched caused scruple to no one. People made difficulties about the seven kings, the chronology, and other matters of the kind; but they would believe without knowing why, and repudiate what had a very good foundation. Such a state of things must be followed by a regular sound criticism, or there is an end of science.
Properly speaking, Livy himself to a great extent is liable to the censure of having made the earlier Roman history fall into disrepute; not merely because he sets forth much contradictory matter, but because he says himself in the beginning of the sixth book, that a new era commenced with the burning of the city by the Gauls, in which the records of the earlier times had been destroyed. This is only half true.
That in the earliest times the use of letters was already known among the Romans, and that authors might therefore have existed dating from the remotest periods, cannot be gainsayed, as we still have coins of Sybaris, the destruction of which is generally set down as having taken place four years before the expulsion of the kings. If the Greeks in Italy had letters, why should not the Romans have had them likewise? A common and easy use of them is not to be thought of previous to the introduction of the Egyptian papyrus;[1]but that writing was used in Rome very early is shown by the census, which required very extensive book-keeping.It is beyond a doubt, that before the burning by the Gauls a written law existed, the composition of which is attributed to L. Papirius under Tarquinius Superbus (according to others, Tarquinius Priscus). When Livy therefore says,per illa tempora litteræ raræ erant, this is only partly correct. Authors there were at that time none at all (by which appellation I designate those who write with a view of being read by a public). And when moreover he says of written literature, (litteræ),una custodia fidelis memoriæ rerum gestarum, he goes too far. We have parallels in the German and other histories. Among the Greeks, Polybius mentions the Chronographies, and Toichographies, Annals especially in the temples. Corresponding to these are our Annales Bertiniani, Fuldenses, and others, which commence from the seventh century, and go on through the period of the Carlovingians. They are composed of unconnected lines under the heads of the years of the different reigns, and at the side of the yearly dates the events are marked in the briefest manner, for instance,Saxones debellati. These annals also were mostly kept in churches; besides the names of the emperors, those of the bishops are usually found. After the chronicles of the empire, those of the towns arose. Thus it was among nations who in every respect were most different. Among ourselves also, family events are even now still frequently noted in our Bibles. Such annotations are most ancient, and it may safely be supposed that they existed in Rome likewise in very great numbers. When magistrates were introduced who changed every year, it became necessary to note down their names for the Fasti; for no document had legal validity unless the accurate date was affixed to it. In these Fasti they had without doubt an eraa regibus exactis, the consuls being at the same time registered, and the principal events put down.
To these annals belong theAnnales Maximi, more rarely calledAnnales Pontificum, an authentic and morecomprehensive arrangement of annals, the object of which was to record every thing that was to be preserved for public memory. Cicero, de Oratore II, 12. and Servius ad Virg. Æn. I, 373, state that the chief pontiff wrote the most important events on an album which was exhibited at his residence, where probably many may have copied it, as we know of Cn. Flavius who exhibited a copy of the Fasti in the Forum. An album is a whitewashed tablet (a proof of the difficulty of the material), on this the transcript of the public documents was painted, as for example, theEdictum Prætoriumand others. Now Cicero states, that the noting down of the annals had been madeab initio rerum Romanarumto the pontificate of P. Mucius; from which people wanted to conclude that the Romans in his time had had authentic annals which had gone on without interruption from the first beginning of the state. But this is by no means what Cicero says, he merely states that the noting down of events had been a usage observed from the first; that the annals had been preserved entire in his time, he does not mention any where. Vopiscus mentions, that they had been keptad excessu Romuli, beginning therefore with Numa; but this is only the opinion of an illiterate man. The pontificate was referred to Numa, and so was therefore also the institution of the annals.
We may say with certainty, that the annals of the pontiffs for the earlier times were afterwards restored, although the belief in their genuineness might be generally received. The pontiffs were conservators of the law and of the chronology, and of course therefore also of history. But even if the original annals had only existed as far back as the expulsion of the kings, those most irreconcilable contradictions which we now find would have been impossible. Would not Fabius and others have found them out? Livy himself says, that the old records of history had perished in the Gallic conflagration. This may particularly refer totheAnnales Pontificum; at that time not even the twelve tables were rescued, now could theseAlbahave been saved? The fact alone, that they were not found farther back induced Livy to make conclusions which were too sweeping. The chief pontiff lived below in the town, so that although theAnnales Maximiwere destroyed, yet many other annals (of private persons living perhaps in the Capitol, and others) might have been preserved. Thus in China, the old books were destroyed by the command of the Emperor, and those now preserved were restored from the memory of aged men, and the supplements of the astronomers with regard to the eclipses of the sun and the moon. And in the same manner, the Sibylline books, after the destruction in Sylla’s time, were made up again by collation from all quarters. According to a Jewish tradition, this applies also to some books of Holy Scripture which were restored after the destruction of the temple. In this manner we may also explain what is recorded concerning the fabled infinite antiquity of the Egyptians. The eighteenth dynasty of Manetho is historical. Before it the Hyksos were reigning, under whom old records are stated to have been lost. And yet we are told, that before this, seventeen more dynasties had existed, reference being made to such lost annals. Before Champollion’s invention of the reading of hieroglyphics, one wanted to repudiate as unhistorical every thing down to the time of Psammitichus, whereas we now know, that the age of the Hyksos forms the boundary of real history, and that every thing previous to it has been supplied afterwards. In like manner, theAnnales Maximimay have been restored for the time anterior to the burning by the Gauls. A striking proof that the authenticAnnales Pontificumwere not preserved beyond the destruction of the city by the Gauls is afforded by the passage in Cic. R. P. I, 16, where the eclipse of the sun, which took place fifteen years before the Gallic conflagration, is spoken of. This eclipse, which was seen at Gades, wasmentioned in theAnnales Pontificumas an extraordinary phenomenon, and put in connexion with the passage of the Gauls over the Alps which took place nearly about the same time. Now Cicero states, that from this eclipse all the preceding ones had been calculated backwards up to the time when Romulus was snatched away from the earth.
Servius states of these annals that they had been divided into eighty books. It is to be remarked, however, that this passage of the Scholion is not found in the Codex Fuldensis, but only in several other manuscripts, the trustworthiness of which is indeed rather doubtful; yet it is not to be understood, how any one could have told stories precisely on this subject. Cicero, in the introduction to the booksDe legibus, says moreover concerning theAnnales Maximi,quibus nihil potest esse jucundius, which is quite enigmatical. The manuscripts of the booksDe legibushave all of them in the fifteenth century, from the year 1420, been copied from one single manuscript. Ursinus conjectures instead ofjucundius,jejunius, which indeed has much in its favour; others proposeincomtius. A first-rate author, however, may sometimes easily venture upon an expression which puzzles and distracts us; and thus Cicero may have written in this passagejucundius, merely in order to designate the enjoyment which historical records of such high antiquity afford, owing to their credibility. At least we should not be justified in altering the word.
We may form a distinct idea of these annals from the passages which Livy has quoted from them at the end of the tenth book, especially where he mentions the election of the magistrates, and in the third and fourth decades. As it seems, Livy’s copy only began with the year 460 A. U. C., otherwise he would have certainly made an earlier use of it.
One point is still to be mentioned, Diomedes (III, 480) states, that theres gestæ populi Romaniare (in thepresent tense) noted down by the pontiffs and scribes. Now authors like him are to be takencum grano salis, but he is of some weight in so far as he had no desire to deceive, and he might have known it after all. When therefore Cicero states that the Annales had been written only as far down as to P. Mucius, a distinction must perhaps be made. In the times of P. Mucius, it may have been deemed superfluous to continue them any longer, the lateracta diurnamay about this time have commenced,—a sort of town gazette, which also contained the acts of the senate. The farther development of theseacta diurna(afterwardsdiurnale,journal) together with the rise of literature is probably the cause of theAnnales Pontificumhaving ceased. Yet similar annals may have been continued privately. The infinitely important fragment of a chronicle of Rome, by a monk of the name of Benedict, who belonged to the monastery of Soracte, discovered by Pertz,[2]contains at the time of Pope John the Eighth, annotations made quite in the old language of the annals concerning theOstenta, which at that time were seen in Rome and the environs; that the lightning had struck the city wall; that there had been a shower of stones; and such like entries. In many monasteries the Annals of St. Jerome were continued. Every year the most remarkable events were inserted, as when an Emperor ascended the throne, &c. In this manner the expression of Diomedes may be justified.
These different annals were the only books of history from the earliest times which have been preserved among the Romans. All others mentioned by Livy,libri magistratuum,libri legum, &c. are Fasti, of which there were certainly a great number dating from the commencement of the Republic, the like of which we have still in theFasti CapitoliniandTriumphales, incomplete,even frequently falsified. These Fasti, which are still to be seen on the Capitol, where Augustus set them up, and which originated with Varro or Atticus,—the so-called Capitoline Fasti which formerly stood in the Curia Julia—contained only at the side of some detached yearly dates some memorable events. The Triumphal Fasti, which stood in the same edifice in a different place, had certainly existed from very early times. Every triumph was marked down in them, and very likely with more detail than was done in those which are preserved. The statements of Livy concerning the booty which had been made, are undoubtedly always taken from these Triumphal Fasti; but it is very remarkable that they are first found the year after that in which his extracts from theAnnales Pontificumcommence.
Another source of information concerning the earliest Roman history are theCommentarii Pontificum. They were a collection of law cases from the old public and ceremonial law, together with the decisions of the pontiffs in cases which came under their jurisdiction, similar to the decisions of the lawyers in the pandects. This mass was the groundwork from which those who studied the laws deduced the general principles. The Sunnah, which is the Mahomedan code of law, and the Talmud are quite corresponding to it in form. An abstract principle is never laid down: there is nothing but an enumeration of decisions in particular cases. We find the same in the Pentateuch in the discussions concerning the inheritance of females. With reference to the case ofjudicium perduellionis, it is stated how Horatius had slain his sister. But the groundwork of those books is nevertheless made at a different time from that which is given out in it. What we know must date from a later time, indeed still a very remote one for us, anterior to the rise of Roman historical writing, yet not so old as they themselves would have us believe.
The same was the case with theLibri PontificumandLibri Augurales. From them the historians quote the declarations of war in that definite formula which Ancus is said first to have introduced. The forms of surrender, the formulafœderis feriendi, the appeals to the people, were according to Cicero likewise entered in them. From these books history has been enriched as much as if they had contained authentic historical facts.
Another source of the annalists were thelaudationes funebres, spoken of by Livy and by Cicero in Brutus, from which latter it comes out, that very old specimens, dating as far back as from the times before the war of Pyrrhus, were in existence. They were kept in the Atrium, near the images of the ancestors (imagines). They were speeches in commemoration of a deceased person, delivered in the forum by the nearest kinsman, at first quite simple and unpretending. According to Cicero, they always returned to the family and the ancestors, that is to say, the descent of the deceased was traced from the first fathers of the race. But Cicero and Livy both complain of the falsifications which crept from these panegyrics into Roman history. The Romans, in fact, notwithstanding all the veracity which they otherwise possessed, had an extraordinary vanity with regard to political and family relations, deeming themselves bound in duty to extol their state and their families. For this reason forged victories and triumphs are contained in thoselaudationes.
This was the material when the first historians arose. They had besides, it is true, many laws and other documentary records; but these were a buried treasure noticed by few only. On the whole, the Romans were too careless and negligent to make use of such sources. A remarkable example of it is afforded by Livy, who, among other things, contents himself with stating, that he had heard from Augustus that there existed a certain inscription in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius,[3]without ever thinking of looking himself at it in the Capitol, where he certainly must have been often enough.
The Annals, many of which, as may have been seen, were preserved in later times, form one source of history, of which it cannot be stated at all how early it could have commenced. But this is only the skeleton of history. Besides these there is a living traditionary history. It consists of narrations which pass from the father to the children, and may be very circumstantial;—others are propagated partly by word of mouth, partly in writing, and these are the poetical traditions. Here is a field on which it will never be possible to agree, whilst looking only to one side of the question. I am convinced that great part of the early Roman history has been handed down in songs; that is to say, all that has life in it, all that has pith and meaning, and coherence. This is to me as evident a truth as any in the world. To these belongs the history of Romulus, that of Tarquinius Priscus, down to the battle near the lake Regillus, and others. The passages in Varro, and a fragment of Cato in Cicero, purporting that the Romans sang the achievements of the ancients to the flute, speak distinctly to the fact. Three inscriptions on the tombs of the Scipios are poetical, as I have shown in my Roman history. Such is moreover the story of Coriolanus, of Curtius, and others. Besides this there are without any doubt preserved in Livy detached lines from the lay of Tullius Hostilius and the Horatii. With regard to others we have not indeed any thing to bring forward, but we may here appeal to the general experience of mankind.[4]
It matters not in the least, whether the old legends were still in existence at the time when the historians wrote their works, or whether they were in verse or in prose. We may find a parallel illustration in our own(German) literature, and refer to the manifold changes which our epic poems had to undergo. The song of Hildebrand and Hadubrand, which Eckard has edited, and W. Grimm has commented upon, is of much more ancient date than the times of Charles the Great; in the tenth century there existed a Latin version of it. We are acquainted with the ‘Nibelungen’ only in that form in which they have been composed in the thirteenth century. How many phases may there not have occurred in the interval between? Then we have the much tamer version of the same subject in the ‘Book of Heroes;’ and at last that in prose of ‘Siegfried,’ which for some centuries has been in an ever renewed form in the hands of the people. Now if the ‘Nibelungen’ and all the information concerning them had been lost, and some ingenious critic recognised in ‘Siegfried’ the old poem, it would be exactly the same case as in the Roman history. The quotation of some verses from the ‘Nibelungen’ in Aventinus,[5]would then stand quite on the same footing as the three verses cited by Livy in the story of the Horatii. Such lays go for a long time side by side with history. Saxo Grammaticus has tried to change the Danish Saga into history, and on that account he cannot be brought into agreement with the statements of the Chronicles. Just so is it in Grecian history. Rhianus, in his poem on Messene, which he undoubtedly composed from old popular songs, is utterly at variance with the list of Spartan kings which Pausanias found in the old records, and with the facts which are mentioned in the contemporary strains of Tyrtæus. Then comes the time long before a literature exists, when men who have a true vocation write history; as, for instance, the author of the excellent Chronicleof Cologne. In this chronicle, which partly dates from the fifteenth century, and which might be made beautifully complete from the archives of Cologne, we find the poem of Gotfrid Hagen on the feud of the bishops, paraphrased in prose, yet with some traces of the rhyme remaining. (Here then is another example of the continual alteration of the form of old poems.) Yet if we compare this with what is stated by that very chronicle on the same subject, perhaps from church books, they can by no means be reconciled with each other. The same thing happened in the Russian Chronicles, which were continued from the time of Nestor, a monk of the eleventh century, down to a much later period, as I myself can testify from a copy in my own possession. The authors of these, as well as the writer of the Chronicle of Cologne, did not live in a literary age, and their works therefore vanished, as they did not write for the public at large. Similar chronicles had without doubt arisen in Rome also before the literature of history commenced; that is to say, before authors wrote for the Greek public, as Fabius, M. Cincius, C. Acilius did. History as a branch of literature only began when the Romans wished to make themselves known to the Greeks. Those who were not Greeks were everywhere keenly alive to the contempt which they had to suffer from the Greeks.
Cicero and Livy say that by the orations in praise of the dead history had been made fabulous. There can be no doubt of this; yet, for all that, those discourses were not a mere tissue of fables, but they were mostly documents of a very early period. This ancient time may be dated from the expulsion of the kings, that is to say, twenty-eight years before the passage of Xerxes over the Hellespont. How many literary documents of the Greeks have we not of that date? Thus in the case of the seven consulships of the Fabii, as they are told in Livy and Dionysius, in the case of the battle with the Veientines, of the story of Q. Fabius Maximus (inthe last book of the first decade of Livy), the relations seem to be taken from such and similar documents; unless we choose to suppose that these stories had been fabricated with such astonishing accuracy of detail. It even seems that Fabius Maximus himself has written his own history, that at least a number of records were at hand in the accomplished Fabian family, and were carefully preserved. Of this intellectual cultivation among the Fabii, we have many proofs before us. C. Fabius Pictor, a hundred years before the war of Hannibal, created a work of art of the highest beauty; the historian wrote in Greek without being ever reproached with barbarisms in his style.
In composing history, men consulted the annals of the pontiffs, wrote out in good faith what was found in them, and put in what they found in the lays wherever they thought it would best suit, little caring whether it closely tallied or not. These different pieces were probably joined together with a greater accuracy than was done in the Chronicle of Cologne. Few only, Fabius possibly, or what is more likely, Cincius Alimentus and M. Licinius Macer first made use also of the documents in the Capitol and the old law books. The brazen law tables may have indeed been taken away by the Gauls, but there still existed other sources of law. The whole of the earlier constitution seems to have been described in theCommentarii Pontificumin law cases, from which Gracchanus took it. The groundwork of these notices is extremely worthy of credit. The march and progress of the constitution from the establishment of the Republic may be completely traced in it, with an accuracy much greater than has hitherto been possible with regard to considerable portions of medieval history.
One ought to take care not to consider the Romans previous to the time when they learned from the Greeks as barbarians. A people which in the age of the kings built those wonderful sewers; which a hundred years before the Punic wars produced the she-wolf of theCapitol; which possessed a painter like C. Fabius Pictor; which made a sarcophagus like that of Scipio Barbatus, takes certainly a high stand in mental cultivation. And such we must deem their written literature to have been, not composed in Greek forms, but endowed with beauties peculiarly its own. The grammarians knew still the moral maxims of Appius Claudius Cæcus, Cicero still read a speech of the same person against Pyrrhus. Where such writings were kept, many others also must have still existed.
The earliest work which we know of as a contemporary history is the first Punic war of Cn. Nævius, who had himself served in that contest. If concerning this greatest of all ancient wars, we had more positive accounts, such as we possess of the second Punic war, it would be better appreciated. That Nævius wrote this war in the Saturnian rhythm, that he wrote it as a poem, is characteristic of the age, a proof that ancient history was at that time familiar to the Romans in a poetical form. So it was in the oldest historical literature of the Germans with the feud of the bishops by Gotfrid Hagen, and with the poetical history of the conquest of Livonia by the Teutonic knights (which is as yet unprinted); for before the thirteenth century at least no history was written in German prose. The year in which Nævius first brought out a play on the stage is undecided. It was somewhere about the year 520; two passages in Gellius concerning it are contradictory.[6]Whether that piece, however, was the first that he had written, or whether he composed his great work yet earlier, is not mentioned by any one. Nævius was a Campanian, and it may safely be presumed that at Capua there was already a greater movement inliterature than there was in Rome at the same time. The poem consisted of seven books. According to Suetonius, it was originally writtencontinente sermone, but was divided by C. Octavius Lampadius into books, and probably also into single verses. This poem, to judge from the fragments still extant of it, was by no means deficient in poetical merit. Perhaps Servius had not read Nævius at all; he only seems to have known from older commentators that Virgil had borrowed from him the argument of his first book. Nævius treated in it of the destruction of Troy, of Dido, and Æneas. It is very natural to surmise that he also derived already the rivalry between Rome and Carthage from the faithlessness of Æneas.[7]Yet it was hardly an elaborate Roman history. It is known that Nævius by some libellous verses against the Metelli was brought into great troubles, and that he is said to have been thrown into prison. But it is enigmatical how a Roman citizen could have been thrown into prison for the publication of aliber famosus. He is said to have written two plays, whilst there. This is scarcely to be understood, when one has seen those frightful dungeons at Rome, into which no ray of light ever finds its way, and which the ancients themselves declared to be the Gates of Death. The facts may have happened in the following manner. Nævius was a Campanian, and the Campanians lost in the war of Hannibal all the benefits of their rights as citizens. Nævius, who was now friendless and helpless, must as a Campanian have beennoxæ deditusto the Metelli, and have been confined, not in the public prison, but in the house of the Metelli, in a dungeon such as the Romans frequently had in their own houses forthe confinement of debtors. Just as incorrect is the statement in the Chronicon of St. Jerome, that Nævius had died in the year of Cato’s era, 547 (according to Varro 549), at Utica; for as Utica was attached during the war of Hannibal to the party of Carthage, he would even as atransfugahave been very badly received there. According to Cicero, Varro placed the death of Nævius at a later period than others did. There existed therefore at that time already some uncertainty about it.
After the second Punic war, there arose several authors who wrote in the Greek language. After the Macedonian period, the Greeks began in their histories to direct their attention to the remoter nations also. This encouraged able men among such nations, who understood Greek, to write the history of their people, in order to be read by the Greeks. In Southern Italy, the Greek language had been long introduced. To maintain that the Lucanian Ocellus had really written the works attributed to him might scarcely be advisable; but some reason must nevertheless have existed for placing the authorship of them to his account, and Aristoxenus, to whom all the statements which are extant concerning this point are to be referred, was aware that these people wrote in Greek. In Campania, Apulia, and elsewhere, the native towns had Greek inscriptions and coins. The Alexandrine grammarians read Oscan histories of Italy; but these books were by no means written in the Oscan, but in the Greek language. With regard to the Roman history, there are particularly to be mentioned Q. Fabius Pictor,[8]and Cincius Alimentus, both of them very high-born Romans. The former, being of patrician family, had been sent as ambassador to Delphi. He was great-grandson of that C. Fabius Pictor, who painted the temple of Salus, a work of art which was preserved until the times ofthe emperor Claudius, and was most probably a battle piece representing the victory of Consul Junius over the Æqui. To him already we must give credit for having been familiar with the Greek language and manners, as the practice of painting, according to genuine Roman views, would not have been seemly for a patrician. His son was ambassador to Alexandria, and consequently likewise acquainted with Greek. The object of the historian Fabius was without doubt to combat the odious and unfair notions of the Greeks respecting the Romans. He therefore wrote the Roman history from the beginning,—whether from the arrival of Æneas we know not, but most likely from theprimordia urbis. He described, as Dionysius states, the earlier times κεφαλαιωδῶς, those which were nearer to his own more circumstantially, a feature which he has in common with almost all the Roman historians except Cn. Gellius and Valerius Antias, who do just the contrary. Cato alone kept an even balance. The real subject of Fabius was the war of Hannibal; but his account of the first Punic war was also detailed. From Polybius we see, that he endeavoured in every possible way to justify his own people; that writer even taxes him with partiality for the Romans. The first history of the first Punic war had been written by Philinus, a native of Agrigentum, who was more highly exasperated against the Romans, on account of the destruction of the town of his birth. In direct opposition to him, Fabius in his writings now perhaps exaggerated in favour of the other side. Probably he wrote as far down as to the end of the second Punic war, although we have no evidence in proof, as most of the quotations from him refer to the very earliest times of Roman history. The title of his book we know not; nor do we find it mentioned anywhere, in spite of the frequent quotations, into how many books it was divided. The work was held in exceedingly high estimation, he is very often quoted by Livy and likewise by Polybius, and DiodorusSiculus; but surely we have many things from him where we do not read his name mentioned. It is evident and certain that Diodorus took Ol. 8, 1. to be the date of the building of Rome, just as Fabius did. Now Diodorus in the several years contains notices concerning Roman history, which are very much at variance with the statements of Livy, but which, although indeed very scanty, are by no means to be despised. These he can only have taken from Fabius or Timæus; but the former is more likely on account of the accordance just alluded to. Appian, on the occasion of the embassy to Delphi, mentions Fabius, ὃς τόνδε τὸν πόλεμον ξυνέγραψε; and he too certainly has borrowed from him. Appian was very little conversant with Latin, and had not the least research; where Dionysius of Halicarnassus went before him he closely followed his track, just as Zonaras did with regard to Dio Cassius. Fabius Pictor had likewise written in Greek, (Dion. Hal. V proœm.), so that Appian could read him. Now he also agrees in a remarkable manner with Zonaras, who follows in the wake of Dio Cassius, whose keen glance recognised Fabius as the best authority. We owe therefore to Fabius an immense debt of gratitude for the most precious and invaluable information. And certainly the careful language used concerning the earlier constitution by Dio Cassius, who consistently calls populus δῆμος, andplebsὅμιλος or πλῆθος, is derived from Fabius. Thus Fabius not only is the father of Roman history, but in him also is found the highest and most perfect knowledge of the ancient constitution. Censorious people have railed at the idea that we in the nineteenth century should pretend to understand the Roman constitution better than Livy and Dionysius did; yet we do not presume to understand it differently from the consular Dio Cassius, and Q. Fabius from whom he has borrowed.
With reference to Fabius, there is great and insurmountable difficulty belonging to literary history in themanner in which Cicero de Divinat. I, 21 speaks of him, where he mentionssomnium Æneæ ex Numerii Fabii Pictoris græcis annalibus. This Numerius Fabius Pictor reappears in no other place. The prænomen of Quintus Fabius Pictor is a point quite settled, as it occurs in too many authors; but at that period several wrote in Greek, so that there may possibly have been also a Numerius Fabius Pictor. Cn. Aufidius, whom Cicero speaks of, is likewise quite unknown. As it happens, the booksDe Divinationehave only come down to us in bad manuscripts, which are all derived from one single copy now lost, yet we should certainly not be warranted in supposing this prænomen in particular to be falsified. Yet in his treatise De Orat. II, 12 and in the beginning of the first book De Legibus, Cicero speaks of a certain Pictor as of a Latin author of Annals, and places him between Cato and Piso. This person is also quoted by no one else; but Gellius V, 4, citesAnnales Fabiiwithout any cognomen. A writer of the name of Pictor,[9]de Jure Pontificio, is met with in Macrobius; but these books are foreign to history. Perhaps Cicero made a mistake. There was another annalist, Fabius Maximus Servilianus, who was an author of note according to Dionysius, who mentions him after Cato. Servius also cites him. He lived just in the period between Cato and Piso. His book was entitledQ. Fabii Annales. Cicero had an extreme dislike to the old annalists, he had in all probability hardly read any besides Cato, at least not since his youth. Now in all likelihood he calls that Fabius erroneously Pictor. In dictating especially, such a mistake may occur. That Cicero was little versed in Roman history is proved by the delusion to which he recurs more than once, that Decius the grandson had sacrificed himself like his grandfather and his father.[10]Cicero is particularly incorrect sometimeswith regard to the prænomens, as for instance, contrary to every other writer, he calls the father of Virginia Decimus Virginius. The prænomen Numerius was moreover very common in the Fabian family, so that it might have been more familiar to Cicero. Lastly, Diodorus mentions the same dream of Æneas, which Cicero treats of in other places, as being taken from Q. Fabius (Diod. fragm. ap. Syncell.). In Korte’s edition of Sallust, the fragments of Fabius Pictor are thrown together with those of Fabius Servilianus.
Contemporary with Fabius was the other Roman, of whom we know from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that he wrote the Roman history in Greek; and it is a very instructive fact, in forming an idea of these accounts, that without Dionysius we should not have known that Cincius had written the Roman history in Greek. From Livy we should only have been able to gather that he had written about the war of Hannibal. He was a senator and prætor in the second Punic war, and was made a prisoner in the beginning of the struggle. We see on this occasion, that he must have been a very distinguished personage; as the Roman laws were very strict in that war against those who allowed themselves to be made prisoners, and he nevertheless attained to high and honourable offices. He relates, that Hannibal had entered into conversation with him, and given him an account of his passage over the Alps; a proof as well of his personal consequence, as of the circumstance that he could speak Greek, since Hannibal in the beginning of the war did not yet speak Latin. He is called by LivyMaximus Auctor, and his statement cited by the latter as decisive. His worksDe Potestate Consulum, and on the Roman Calendar, he wrote in Latin; as to his identity there cannot be the least doubt. From Dionysius we see that he had peculiar views with regard to Roman antiquities. He made researches concerningthe monuments of ancient times, even in Etruria, thereby forming an exception to the most of the Romans. What Dionysius has taken from him, cannot be known for certain. A fragment of his in Festus, throws especial light on the relations between the Romans and Latins.
Likewise in Greek, only a little later (after 570), C. Acilius writes Roman annals down to the war with Antiochus. He is quoted for the Myth of Romulus; and by Dionysius with reference to the restoration of the sewers. His work was translated into Latin by a certain Claudius; he too seems to have been a very estimable writer.
Some more Romans afterwards wrote in Greek; it is, however, uncertain, whether the whole of the history, or merely memoirs of their time. There are mentioned A. Postumius Albinus, a contemporary of the elder Cato (about 600); and Cn. Aufidius, a contemporary of Cicero in his youth.
It was soon afterwards, towards the beginning of the war with Perseus, that Q. Ennius composed his Annals. The denomination of annals is a strange one, quite ill suited to a poem. Ennius was by far too poetical to write down history year by year. His poem was the first real imitation of the Greek model: the earlier ones of Nævius were still in the old lyric style. We are able to gain a general view of the work in the fragments; if the older quotations were only somewhat more trustworthy in the numbers, the whole of its argument might be restored. So much is certain, that the oldest times of the Trojan arrival and of the kings were contained in the three first books; and the quotation may also be pretty sure, that the war of Pyrrhus had been the subject of the fifth book.[11]He occupied himself little with the domestic struggles; and would probablyspeak of the wars only, according to the notions of epic poetry which were then entertained. The 225 years between were therefore contained in one book; the wars against the Samnites perhaps only in a slight sketch. The first Punic war, as Cicero tells us, he altogether left out, because Nævius had sung it; that of Hannibal he treated with the utmost prolixity, so that it must have begun already in the seventh book, and have been still continuing in the twelfth. In the thirteenth book, the subject was the war with Antiochus; in the fifteenth, the Istrian; so that the last six books only extended over twenty-four years. There were in all eighteen books. Of Scipio, and of M. Fulvius Nobilior, he sung the praises with peculiar richness of detail. The latter he accompanies into the Ætolian war. He was born in 513, according to Cato’s chronology, and died 583, continuing his poem almost to the time of his death.
The sources of Ennius for the earliest times were theAnnales Maximi; for the times of the kings, the old lays, and theCommentarii Pontificum; in the middle times, Timæus, Hieronymus, Fabius; in the last years, he was a cotemporary. He is to be blamed for his vanity, since he placed himself on a level with Homer; and for his bad hexameters. One cannot but be annoyed at his speaking in a disparaging tone of the old poems. On the other hand, however, there are fragments extant of his, which bespeak a true poetical spirit. He had some similarity to Klopstock, who like him despised the ancient forms, without knowing the Greek ones sufficiently to distinguish himself in them. It may be presumed that it was he from whom Livy took his noble description of the time of the kings.
As to the assertion, that the division of his books had originated with Q. Vargunteius, a positive denial may be given to it. Suetonius only states, that Vargunteius had critically reviewed the books of Ennius, as Lampadio did Nævius.
The fragments of Ennius have been collected by several; with much minuteness by Hieronymus Columna, at the end of the sixteenth century, accompanied by a commentary which, although prolix, is very instructive. Some verses in it are taken from Claudius Sacerdos, who is still lying in manuscript at Vienna.[12]Soon after him, a Netherlander, Paul Merula, edited them anew in a different order, and with many additions. Among the latter there are some verses which Columna had overlooked. But Merula says that he had a great number of verses from L. Calpurnius PisoDe Continentia Veterum Poetarum, in which the older poets were compared with those of his own time (that of Pliny), and the latter also among themselves; that the manuscript was in the library of S. Victor in Paris; that he was however afraid of its not being safe there. This is altogether strange. Another statement is that the manuscript had been bound together with a copy of Lucan, and had afterwards been cut out. Indeed such a copy of Lucan exists still in Paris, where Bekker has seen it; yet this proves very little after all. It is possible that in this Merula has committed a fraud, which is quite in the manner of his time. The detached verses which he quotes from Nævius and Ennius, are to my belief suspicious without exception. Those from Nævius are decidedly spurious; for in their case, he was ignorant of the rhythm. The verses of Ennius are hexameters; but they nowhere bear the stamp of genuineness, like his other fragments. Why has not Merula copied and edited that MS., if indeed he entertained any misgivings that it might be purloined?
Not long after the time of Ennius, whom we rightly reckon among the Roman historians, Roman history began to be written in Latin prose; and the first workof this kind was the most important which has ever been composed on the history of ancient Italy, viz. the Origines of the elder Cato. They show that Cato had indeed found out the only right way of treating Roman history. He wrote not the history of the Romans only, but also that of Italy. As he described the widening the Roman sway in Italy, he seems to have told the history of each Italic people separately. We know from Nepos the plan of his seven books. In the first, there was the history of the kings; in the second and third, the subjugation of Italy; in the fourth book, the first, and in the fifth, the second Punic war; in the sixth and seventh, the later wars down to the time with which he concluded. Cato was a great man in every respect, he rose far above his age. Of his work we have many detached quotations; but of real extracts we have only one in Gellius, viz. the passage of the Tribune Q. Cædicius, which is from the second Punic war, and consequently belongs to the fourth book. It shows Cato’s peculiar manner of writing; and we understand from it why Cicero, who on the whole vacillates between praise and censure with regard to Cato, distinguishes him above all his contemporaries. He wrote about the year 600. In Livy there is a strange anachronism in the discussions about thelex Oppia, when, in the year 561, the tribune cites against Cato his Origines. But so slavish was formerly the belief in Livy, that the most positive information was less considered than that passage. Gerh. Jo. Vossius is the first who points out that Livy was here most likely rather speaking himself. What we have from the work of Cato is unfortunately very little, but all of it excellent. This book and that of Fabius are by far the most important accounts which we might wish for Roman history. His work stands alone in the whole collection of Roman annals.
A short time after Cato, about the time of the destruction of Carthage, the history of Rome was written by L. Cassius Hemina, of whose work we have historicalquotations in the Grammarians. Several writers call himantiquissimus auctor, which is not said of Piso and others. He had concerning Alba still the old native chronology: the earlier times of Rome he made to synchronize with Grecian history. He began from the very earliest times; and, what was indeed quite different from all the annalists, from before the foundation of the city. One finds of him several things concerning the Sicilian towns in Latium; from whence it would appear that the archæology of the towns was his principal object. As to his style we may form an idea of it from a single larger fragment: it is worse than that of Cato. The fourth book, according to Priscian, had for its titleBellum Punicum Posterior; consequently at the time when he wrote the third war had not yet begun. The secular festival, 607 according to Varro, he has indeed mentioned; yet it may have been quite at the end of his work. We must not, however, believe that his history consisted of four books only; as the whole of the fourth was taken up by the second Punic war, and thus there must have been at the very least five or six of them.
From that time, history was written repeatedly, and therefore no original way of treating the subject is any more to be thought of. TheRhetores Latinihave surely made use of the books which then existed, and have besides consulted the ancient annals. How far this may have been the case with each of them in particular is indeed no more to be decided; but on the whole we shall not be mistaken in this supposition. It is in this time that the Fabius Pictor is to be placed, whom Cicero mentions in his work—de Oratore. He was a learned writer: his work entitledRes Gestæ, seems to have been very diffuse, as it mentions the burning of the city by the Gauls in the fourth book; yet the number of the books is unknown. No fragment of any import has been preserved of it. His name was Servius, or perhaps Sextus; for in the Brutus of Cicero Ser.Fulvius, and then Ser. Fabius is spoken of, whom he termsjuris pontificii peritissimus. Yet the books de Oratore and Brutus, which seem to have such an excellent text, are corrupted in many little passages, which a clever copyist of the sixteenth century furbished up. Of the books de Oratore, only one old manuscript has been found in Milan, which is particularly indistinct. The Brutus does not fare better: none of the manuscripts date higher than 1430. There is therefore much doubt about the names in these books. A MS. at Heidelberg has Serius Fabius, and it is probable that it ought to be Sextus, as the prænomen Servius is unheard of in the family of the Fabii. Perhaps this Pictor is the same as he who in a fragment quoted is called Fabius Maximus Servilianus, since he at least belonged to that time. The fragment refers to the arrival of Æneas.
Here I also mention the tedious Cn. Gellius, a credulous, uncritical, and second-rate writer. The time when he lived is uncertain. Vossius conjectures that he is the very same against whom Cato the Censor made a speech; but we have fragments of his which do not seem to tally with such an early period. Much rather should he be placed in the second half of the seventh century; partly on account of his style, and partly because he already criticizes, and tries to make the improbabilities of the old tradition more credible by small but dishonest alterations. The numbers of his books, as they were quoted, betoken an immense prolixity. Charisius cites the ninety-seventh book, and that distinctly written in full letters in the Neapolitan original Codex. Other citations do not go beyond the thirtieth book.
Cicero mentions after Pictor an annalist, Vennonius, of whom we have only one passage in Dionysius, referring to the history of the kings. He therefore most likely wrote annals from the building of the city. In that fragment, he shows himself to be a man withoutjudgment; which also corresponds with Cicero’s unfavourable opinion of his manner of writing.
An author whose period we cannot fix with certainty, is L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi Censorius, an opponent of C. Gracchus, a supporter of the aristocratical party, but an honest one. The time of his censorship occurs between the tribunates of the two Gracchi, and he may have written his history not long afterwards. He has quite a peculiar character. He wished to bring the old historical matter, which his predecessors unconcernedly rendered just as they found it in ancient poems and Fasti, into the consistency of an actual possibility, and thus to fashion out a true history by cutting off the improbabilities. He finds, for instance, that Tarquinius Superbus could not possibly have been the son of Tarquinius Priscus; and so without any further ado, he makes him at once his grandson. He is also startled at the fact of Tarpeia’s having had a tomb on the Capitol; not considering that she was a Sabine heroine to whom such a tomb had been erected on the Capitol,[13]as Tatius had a monument on another hill. He is therefore the original author of all those falsifications,—a sad prosy undertaking which Cn. Gellius also has entered into. That magnificent story of Curtius he explains thus, that a warrior with his charger had been swallowed up in a gulf on the same spot, which could only have happened when Romulus and Tatius were waging war against each other; and that Curtius must therefore have been a Sabine general. It does not occur to him, that a whole army cannot find a footing in a place where the general sinks down. In the same spirit, it has once been attempted to change the northern Sagas into history; and there were people who affected to see in the struggle of the Nibelungen an historical war of the Burgundians. A similar course was adopted forty or fifty years ago with regard to the interpretation of theNew Testament. The title of Piso’s book wasAnnales. He was a plodding man; for it is to be seen that he has made use of sources like the Fasti and such like. The number of his books is undecided. In his third book, he treats of Cn. Flavius (450); in the seventh, of the year 516. He came down to his own times, since he mentions the Secular Games of the year 607.
In the course of the same century, several historical books were written. I do not, however, mean to speak here of those who merely composed a history of their own time, but of such only who wrote the entire Roman history. Among these, there were in Cicero’s youth, about the period when the booksad Herenniumwere written, 680, or rather about the date of Cicero’s consulship, two who wrote a general Roman history, Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, and Q. Valerius Antias. Both of them, according to Velleius, are later than Cœlius Antipater and than the older contemporaries of Sisenna. They wrote after the time of Sylla. Quadrigarius belongs to those authors who, in later times, after the restoration of the older literature, were frequently read. He forms, as did Cassius Hemina, an exception to the general rule, according to which the annalists commenced from the building of the city. Whilst the latter went yet much farther back than this, Claudius began his history with the destruction of the city by the Gauls. We have of him some considerable fragments from which this is evident. For, in the numerous fragments of his first book, much is told of the Gallic war; likewise the beginning of the war against the Samnites,—we have even the battle near Caudium; one of them alludes to the end of the third Samnite war; and all this not cursorily. As therefore he comprehended in it a period so ample and rich in incidents, he could not have had room for the older history. Another argument for our assertion, is a statement of Plutarch, that a certain Clodius (Kλώδιος) said that nothing whatever could be grounded upon the older Roman accounts; as owing to the calamitousinvasion, the old documents had been destroyed, and all that remained was merely the production of family vanity. In the second, or third book, he speaks of Pyrrhus; in the fifth and sixth, of Hannibal; in the eighth, of Tiberius Gracchus the father; in the thirteenth, of Metellus; in the nineteenth, of Marius: there are quotations from him as far as the twenty-third book. His history was brought down to about the time of Cicero’s consulship. Fragments, in which we may clearly recognise the unwieldiness of language of these old annalists in general, in whose writings regularly constructed periods[14]are not yet at all to be thought of, are found in Gellius; and they fully justify Cicero’s opinion with regard to the old writers. The Chronicles of Cologne and Limburg are for the most part much better written. Little was therefore read of Roman prose writers before Sallust and Livy. Gellius finds the old writers pleasant; which may be accounted for by the fact that the taste of his time was completely palled, so that it now betook itself to highly spiced dishes, and then to ice. Let only the fragment of Claudius in Gellius[15]be consulted. The golden age of Roman literature was certainly under Augustus, as that of the French was in the days of Louis XIV.; but precisely because this was its first blossom, the thoughts and ideas were more simple, the language more calm, and in some respects having greater breadth and fulness. Afterwards spirit rather, and wit, were called forth into existence; every thing was required to be expressed, and was expressed, in more terse, polished, and pointed language. Thus the time down to Tacitus was like the age of Louis XV. in France. But now, when the Romans carried every thing to the highest pitch, this manner ofthinking and writing was also overstrained: it was still to be made more and more pointed, more polished, and more witty; and then they reached that extreme which borders very closely upon what is absolutely spiritless and insipid. At this period lived Gellius, a very clever man, who was so tired of this tendency of his age, that he had no more feeling for the better literature preceding it, and turned to the earliest times, in which he found a relish.
Valerius Antias is of all the Roman historians certainly the most untrue, the only one who can be directly taxed with falsehood. Livy says of him,adeo mentiendi nullus modus est, andsi Valerio Antiati credere libet. He knows the most circumstantial details of the old times, and is always inclined to exaggerate without bounds, especially with regard to numbers. His fictions have a character quite different from the older ones. The numbers of the latter are not at all meant to deceive any one; they merely mention a number (e. g. sexcenti, μύριοι,ter centum tonat ore deusin Virgil,) in order to denote an indefinite quantity. This poetical mingling of what is definite with what is seemingly indefinite, every where pervades the Roman legends. Thus the thirty Sabine maidens are in fact no definite number, but an equivalent tomany. Valerius Antias, for his part, has five hundred and forty-seven. Thus he has written an immense huge work, in the latter portion of which especially he becomes quite prolix; nevertheless he has not been able to compose a circumstantial and lively narrative, but has drily recorded the detached incidents. He is cited as far as the seventy-fifth book. In the second, he mentions Numa; and in the twelfth, the tribune Tib. Gracchus. Fragments, from which we might judge of his style, are not extant.
One might be inclined to take this Valerius for agentilisof the Maximi and Poplicolæ. He might have been so in the widest sense; but he did not belong to the gens of the patrician Valerii. In the war of Hannibal,one meets with a L. Valerius Antias, who probably was a citizen of Antium. From him our annalist may have descended.
It is strange, that although Livy himself repeatedly acknowledges the untrustworthiness of Valerius Antias, there are nevertheless in his own first book some passages which he can only have taken from him.
All these authors had still something old-fashioned in their manner, and stood in the same relation to the later ones as the German writers in the beginning of the eighteenth century did to those who came out at the time of the seven years’ war.
Towards the end of the seventh century, after all these authors, who were very much of the same cast, there appeared C. Licinius Macer,—the father of the orator and poet Calvus, who flourished at the same period as Catullus, about the year 700,—a distinguished and original writer. His tribunate dates about 680, before Pompey’s first consulate. Of the character of his works, we may form a sufficient estimate from the quotations in Livy and Dionysius. He did what only two before him had done; he wrote history from documents, and may have retained much belonging to those times, which the later writers have left out, because it did not agree with the idea which they had formed, and with the generally received statements in the Fasti and elsewhere. Pliny frequently mentions him among his sources; and certainly the treaty of Porsena with the Romans, which we read in Pliny, was taken from him. In the introduction to the booksde Legibus, Cicero speaks unfavourably of him; and he may have partly been justified in asserting that as an author he had by no means deserved the praise which is due to him as a critic. When we Germans praise Mascov[16]as the first who has written a history of Germany, we do not mean by it to assert that his work was a perfect history. YetCicero perhaps gave an unfavourable judgment for this reason also, that Macer and he belonged to different political parties; Macer having had a considerable share in the restoration of the tribunician power. The State had at that time lost its soundness, and was in that condition, in which people see the lesser evil to be on one of the two sides, very much as is now the case in France (1828). The loss of the history of Macer is very highly to be regretted. A speech in the fragments of Sallust’s History shows an accurate knowledge of the old constitution, which Sallust cannot be given credit for. He is quoted to the sixteenth book. How many books he has written is undecided: he may have begun from the earliest times, and he probably went on as far as his own.
An historian of the old constitution is Junius Gracchanus, a friend of C. Gracchus, which accounts for his cognomen. Gracchus exercised a marked influence upon many, and especially on younger men. Both of the brothers were men of a deeply earnest heart. Gracchanus has written the history of the constitution; and, quoting the yearly dates, has given a description of the changes which it had undergone. He is often cited in the law books, in Ulpian, in Censorinus, in Tacitus, and elsewhere. The era of the beginning of the consulship, which is particularly used by Lydusde Magistratibus, who has derived it from Gaius’ commentary on the twelve tables, originates undeniably with Gracchanus.[17]He has drawn from the most authentic sources, and is deserving of unlimited confidence, as I can assert with the firmest conviction.
Of Fenestella nothing is quoted that refers to the earlier ages: it seems therefore that he did not treat of Roman history in its full extent.
Among theScriptores Minores Rerum Romanarum, there is a book,Origo Gentis Romanæ, attributed toVictor. In this most of the earlier annalists are quoted; also theAnnales Maximi(even for the settling of Æneas), Sextus Gellius, Domitius, Egnatius, M. Octavius; and authors besides, who occur nowhere else. Andreas Schottus has first edited it. From the similarity of the book to the writings of Fulgentius, of the Scholiast on Ibis, and other commentators of the time, who likewise cite known and unknown writers, one might be induced to place the author in the same period, namely, the fifth or sixth century. But the whole of the book is a fabrication of more modern times; not by Schottus himself, but by a forger, of whom indeed there were so many towards the end of the fifteenth century. Messala also, FenestellaDe Magistratibus, and others in that collection, date from the same period. Octavius may have been got at second hand by the author from the Scholiast of Horace; and Sextus Gellius from Dionysius, who says, “I write, what the Gellii and others have written.” The quotations from Cato in this book are in direct contradiction to the most positive evidence which we have with regard to Cato in Servius and others.
This was the state of Roman history in the time of Cicero. During Cæsar’s stay in Gaul, Q. Ælius Tubero, a friend of Cicero, wrote the Roman annals anew. He was with Q. Cicero as legate in Asia; he belonged to the party of the Optimates, and was a very honest man. Livy cites his history from the earliest times. What is quoted of him, gives an impression of his respectability as a historian; though it is evident from it, that he no longer knew the old style of language, and that he did not see the difference between the institutions of his own day and those of primitive times. He too made use of documents; but he was not to be compared with Macer in importance, unless he has been wronged by those who are our authorities.
Atticus’ annals seem to have been only tables; but a very valuable work. Quotations, however, from themwe read nowhere; so that we may infer, that in all likelihood there were many such books of which we know nothing.[18]
In that introduction of wondrous beauty to his booksDe Legibus, Cicero speaks of having been asked to write the Roman history, as a duty the fulfilment of which his country expected from him. He expresses himself on the subject in such a manner, as clearly to show that he would certainly have liked the work, but that indeed he had never thought of it in right earnest. Had he done so, we may, without losing sight of the reverence due to so great a man, assert, that he would have taken upon himself a task for which he was quite unsuited. From the booksDe Republica, we see with how incredibly little previous reading he set about the description of the constitution. He seems not to have made any use of Gracchanus; but to have derived his knowledge chiefly from Polybius, and perhaps from Atticus. His proper calling was that of a statesman, and not of a scholar.
Many authors are yet to be mentioned; Antipater, Fannius, Polybius, Posidonius, Rutilius, Lucullus, Scaurus, and others, part of whom have written in Greek.[19]
Sallust found the Roman history in a neglected state; he expresses himself to that effect in his Catiline, and says, that it would be a task for a man, who had the capacity for writing it. And he would have had the capacity; but the Romans had no more a Roman history than we have a German one. Sallust was a busy practical man, who would not, and could not devote his life to the immense preparatory studies, which were required for it. He therefore wisely chose to write detached parts of Roman history, which were perhaps intendedat a future period to form a whole. Thus he wrote the history of Jugurtha, in which it was his main object to point out to his readers the reaction in favour of the crushed popular party against the aristocrats, who had so shamefully abused their victory. He therefore is careful to show how Rome then in every respect was full of rottenness within. His histories began from the time after Sylla’s death, and described the revolution against Sylla’s ill-judged counter-revolution, and the struggle of Sertorius. Catiline’s conspiracy is to prove, what consummate ruffians, after all, those partisans of Sylla were, who called themselves theoptimates, theboni.
Between the time of Jugurtha and the consulate of Lepidus, the historical work of Sisenna formed the connecting link. With this Sallust no doubt was satisfied; otherwise he would have treated also of that period.
The great change in the Roman world under Augustus had taken place; the history of the republic was brought to a close. It was believed that nothing more was to be hoped from constitutional forms and their development, but that the great mass of the state was to be kept together by outward force. After such a catastrophe, history appears altogether in a different light, and is written in a different spirit. In these times, just as in Greece after the downfall of the Athenian state, many historians come forth before the public. After Cæsar’s death, Diodorus Siculus wrote, to whom the Roman history is merely a secondary affair. It is probable, that Timæus also in his history of Italy and Sicily had interwoven the Roman one; though not beyond a very early period. Diodorus had the idea, which none but a prosaic mind could have conceived, of writing the whole of ancient history in synchronistical order; first in large periods, and then year by year, down to the consulate of Cæsar, when the latter commenced the Gallic war. He concludes before the civil war, in order to avoid the offence, which he might havegiven by his narration to one or the other of the two parties. And it was besides a very convenient break; as in all probability he wrote his work before the conclusion of the troubles. That he composed his history after the death of Cæsar, is evident from the introduction, in which he mentions that event, and calls CæsarDivus. Scaliger had the unfortunate idea of arguing from the passage I, 68 that Diodorus had written as late as 746, that therefore he had left off fifty years before his own time. This opinion passed from Scaliger into the work of VossiusDe Historicis Græcis et Latinis, and from the latter into theBibliotheca Græcaof Fabricius. That passage states concerning the Olympiads, that these were a period of four years which the Romans calledbissextum; and from this Scaliger infers, that he could not have written before 746, because at that time Augustus had fixed theintercalatioat four years. This interpretation is most ingenious; but the passage is an interpolation, as some of the earlier and all the later commentators have remarked, so that Wesseling entirely expunges it from the text. The term χρόνος for year, which occurs there, is modern Greek; just astempusinstead ofannusis met with after the fifth century. Diodorus is an author whose writings have been falsified. These forgeries were made in the age of the restoration of literature, when manuscripts were much sought after, and dearly paid for. There are for the most part omissions; and from the eleventh to the twentieth book he now and then gives fasti, which do not in the least agree with those which we have. The names in them are often not to be recognised at all. All his accounts of the earliest times he probably had from Fabius. Where Polybius begins, he may have made use of him down to the year 608; and he may also have had Posidonius, Rutilius, Sylla and Lucullus.
We now come to the two great authors, who were contemporary writers of Roman history. Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his introduction gives a full account ofhis circumstances and his works. He came to Rome after the conclusion of the civil wars, and published his history, 743 according to Cato, (745 according to Varro). He calls himself the son of Alexander of Halicarnassus, and was a rhetorician. His rhetorical writings belong to the earlier time of his life. These are of all the Greek rhetorical works the most excellent, those of Aristotle alone excepted. They are full of fine remarks, and are the produce of an amiable mind and an exquisite taste: it is only a pity that they should have been handed down in such a corrupt state. He is very likely to be the same person whom Strabo[20]mentions under the name of Cæcilius. We cannot wonder at this; for if he obtained the Roman citizenship, he was obliged to assume the name of a Romangens. It can hardly mean Atticus, who indeed, but extremely seldom, is called by the name of Cæcilius. In the lives also of the ten orators, which are found among Plutarch’s Biographies, the name of Cæcilius occurs, which some took to be that of the quæstor Cæcilius, who was in Sicily under Verres, but which seems likewise to mean Dionysius; for all that is quoted of him we find in Dionysius. It is true, that the facts, which we now read in Dionysius, may also have been contained in others; yet the supposition, which we have put forth, is a very probable one, as indeed Josephus also is frequently called Flavius.
His history comprises, in twenty books, the period from the earliest times to the beginning of the first Punic war. It does not go further, either because Polybius,—for whom he has, however, no particular liking,—begins with that period, or because the much-read history of Fabius rises here into greater importance. The first ten books are complete; the eleventh is in a very corrupt state. Extracts from the others are found in the collections of Constantinus PorphyrogenitusDeVirtutibus et Vitiis, andDe Legationibus; and also in a collection ἐκλογαὶ Διονυσίου τοῦ Ἁλικαρνασσέως, which is met with in several libraries, but is dreadfully mutilated. Mai has published them from a Milanese manuscript; Montfaucon had already directed attention to them. I respect and acknowledge the merits of Mai; but he has an unfortunate vanity, and thus I believe, that he has intentionally foreborn to mention, that here he has been led into the right path by Montfaucon, conduct for which he has been taken to task by Ciampi. Yet this is merely a secondary question. The collection itself mostly consists of unconnected sentences, remnants perhaps of books of Const. Porphyrogenitus, which have not come down to us. The advantage gained from this discovery is at all events very considerable. Dionysius himself had made an abridgment of his work in five books, to which Mai quite wrongly wants to have those extracts referred. As to the first ten books, there are more very old manuscripts of them extant than of any other ancient author. The Chigi manuscript is of the tenth, that of the Vatican of the eleventh century; the former is kept by Fea locked up from all visitors,—it has been imperfectly collated by Amati, but the result has never been published, nor would he sell it to me; the Vatican codex has been made use of by Hudson. The eleventh book is only to be found in copies which are quite modern. Ever since the old books were no more written on rolls, those which were voluminous had stated divisions. Thus the Pandects, the Theodosian Code, Livy also, were originally divided into decades; and in all likelihood Dionysius too. Of these, the first volume has been preserved entire. Of the second, a copy very probably long existed;—Photius was acquainted with it still;—yet only a few leaves of it have come into the hands of the first Greek copyists. The text is much more corrupt than that of the first half.