THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES 61ft From the Library of Henry Goldman, Ph.D. 1886-1972 NIEBUHR'S LECTURES ON ROMAN HISTORY. VOL. I. NIEBUHR'S LECTURES ROMAN HISTORY TRANSLATED FROM THE EDITION OF DR. M. ISLER, BY H. M. CHEPMELL, M.A., AND F. DEMMLER, PH.D. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL.1. fLoniran: CH AT TO &WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 1875. PREFACE. IT has been the object of the translators of this work, to give a faithful version of the original into English without any additions of their own. In so doing, they follow in the steps of the German editor, Dr. Isler, who likewise confined himself to "the purely philological task of producing a genuine text." Niebuhr twice delivered a course of lectures on Ro- man History at Bonn, the first in the winter term of 1826-27, and the second in the winter of 1828-29, and in the following summer. In the latter of these, he went down to the fall of the Western Empire, whereas the course of 1826 was broken off at the times of Sylla, owing to his having entered rather fully into critical disquisitions. The form in which these Lectures are here given, is that of the later course. Everything, however, that was important or interesting in the earlier series, has been inserted. Dr. Isler moreover assures us, that in his compilation, not a thought, and indeed hardly a word is to be found, which Niebuhr had not really spo- ken. As Niebuhr lectured quite extemporaneously, the only sources for this work are the notes taken by his hearers, several of which have been collated to ensuro correctness. VI PREFACE. Although, from the nature of things, the result can- not be looked upon as a finished and elaborate history, yet, no one who reads it can fail to be struck with its great value, even for those who are acquainted with Niebuhr's other writings ; for as Dr. Isler remarks, there are many things set forth in these Lectures more clear- ly, more precisely, and more at length than in the greater work. Of this, we may find examples in the introduction on the sources of Roman History, and in the account of the Saturnian verse. They also give us the last opinions of Niebuhr. The first volume of his Roman History dates most of it from the year 1826, and the additions in the third edition from J 827 ; but a mind like his was always active, and he went on with his investigations, even when all the leading points were settled. In several instances, fragments of ancient authors which had newly come to light, have led him to modify his views. This is particularly the case with that part of the Roman History treated in his third volume, which had been originally arranged for the press in 1812, and therefore would, if he had been spared to revise it, have undergone many qualifications. ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE, SANDHURST. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION, SOURCES OF ROMAN HISTORY, . 2 Its authenticity, ..... 2 The use of letters of great antiquity among the Romans, 4 Annales maximi, Annales pontificum, . . .5 Fasti, ...... 9 Commentarii pontificum, . . , .10 Libri pontificum, augurales, . . . 10 Laudationes funebres, . . . . 11 Poetical traditions, ... ^ 12 Family chronicles, . . . . .15 Cn. Nsevius, . . . . . 16 Q. Fabius Pictor, . . . . .18 Numerius Fabius Pictor, . . . . 21 Other historians, bearing the name of Fabius, or Pictor, 21 L. Cincius Alimentus, . . . . .22 C. Acilius, A. Postumius Albinus, Cn. Aufidius, . 23 Q. Ennius, . . . . . .23 M. Porcins Cato, ..... 26 L. Cassius Hemina, ..... 26 Servius Fabius Pictor, .... 27 Cn. Gellius. Vennonius, . . . .28 L. Calpurnius Piso, .... 29 Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, . . . .30 Q. Valerius Antias, . . . . 32 C. Licinius Macer, .... 33 Junius Gracchanus. Fenestella, . . . 34 Forged historians, .... 34 Q. Mlins Tubero. T. Pomponius Atticus, . 35 Cicero, ..... 35 C. Sallustius Crispus, .... 36 L. Cornelius Sisenna, . . . .37 Diodorus Siculus, ..... 37 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, . . . .38 T. Livius, ...... 45 Velleius Paterculus, . . . .57 Vlll TABLE OP CONTENTS. Page Fabius Rusticus, . . . . 58 Epitome of Livy. L. Annasus Florus. Eutropius, 58 Orosius. Plutarch, . . . . .59 Appian, ..... .60 Dio Cassius Cocceianus, . . . .61 Xiphilinus, ..... 64 Joannes Zonaras, . . . . .65 The middle ages, ..... 66 The modern times, . . . . .68 Glareanus, Panvinius, Sigonius, ... 68 Stephen Pighius, John Freinsheim, ..... 70 James Perizonius, Montesquieu, Bayle, . .71 Beaufort, Rollin, Hooke, Ferguson, Levesque, Micali, .... Auxiliary sciences. Geography, Mannert, Cluverius, D'Anville, . . . Keichardt, . . . . . .77 IMPORTANCE OF ROMAN HISTORY, . 78 MANNER IN WHICH THE EARLY HISTORY OF ROME ORIGINATED, . 79 Impossibility of the earliest history, . . .80 Numerical system in the chronological statements, Sacula of the Etruscans, . . . .83 Ancient lays, ..... Etruscan historical works. Emperor Claudius, . 87 The Saturnian verse, .... 89 Neniae, . . . . . .91 Epic poems, family records, family vanity, National vanity, spirit of caste, . . .93 THE EARLIEST HISTORY, . 94 Pelasgians, their spreading, . . . .95 Samothrace, ..... 96 Siculians, Italians, . . . . .97 CEnotrians, Peucetians, Liburnians, Tyrrhenians, Opicans, Apulians, Volscians, ./Equians, Sabellians, Umbrians, . . . . . .99 Siculians in Italy, Aborigines, . . . 100 Latins, . . . . .101 The same traditions often told in contradictory ways, 101 Cascans, ..... 103 TABLE OP CONTENTS. IX Page Sacranians, ver sacrum, Priscans, Prisci Latini, Origin of the Latin language, .... 105 Traditions concerning the Troian origin of Rome, 106 Alban chronology, . . . . .107 Alba longa. Populi Albenses, . . . 107 Thirty Latin towns, .... 108 Roma, town on the Palatine mount, . . 110 ROMULUS. Tradition concerning his descent, . Ill Interpretations of the legend, . . . Romulus and Remus. Remuria, . . . 114 Asylum, ...... 116 Rape of the Sabines, . . . . .117 Union of the Romans and Sabines, . . 118 End of Romulus, . . . . . 118 Organic division of the population, . . 119 Sabines, . . . . . .120 Towns on the Palatinus and the Quirinal, . . 121 Double state, . . . . . .122 Union of the two states, .... 123 NUMA POMPILIUS, . . . . .125 TULLUS HOSTILIUS, .... 125 War with Alba, . . . . .126 Formular of the declaration of war, . . 127 Third tribe of the population, .... 129 ANCUS MARTIUS, ..... 131 War with the Latins, . . . . .131 Foundation of Ostia, . . . .132 Origin of the Plebes, . . . . .133 TARQUINIUS PRISCUS. His Greek descent, . 133 His Latin origin, ..... 135 Building of the Cloaca maxima, . . . 138 Traces of a powerful Roman state, . . 139 The number of the centuries doubled, . . 140 Etruscans, . . . . . .141 Tyrrhenians, ...... 143 Caeles Vibenna, ..... 154 SERVIUS TTJLLITTS. Mastarna, . . .155 Constitution of Servius Tullius, . . . 157 Gentes, ...... 159 Curies, ...... 161 Clients, ...... 170 Tribes, ...... 172 Centuries, ...... 174 Census, ...... 179 Further legislation of Servius Tullius, . . 184 Relation to the Latins, .... 185 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Enlargement of the city, . . .187 Tunnel, . . . . . .189 Wall of Servius Tullius, . . . .190 The legend of Mastarna criticised, . . 1'JO L. TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS, , 193 War with the Latins, . . . 195 Alliance with Carthage, . . . .195 Military system, . . . . . 197 THE REFUGIUM. ROME A REPUBLIC, 198 L. Junius Brutus, . . . . . 1!H Abolition of the regal dignity, . . . -<>2 The consulate, . . . . .203 Valerius Poplicola. The Valerian laws, . 207 Porsena, . . . . .208 War of the Etruscans against Rome, . . 210 Mucius Scsevola, . . . . .210 Peace of Porsena. Reduction of the tribes, The Latins take the position of equals, . . 214 Battle at the Regillus, . . . Isopolity, ...... 219 League of Sp. Cassius ; union of the Romans, Latins and Hernicans, . . . . . 219 Dictatorship, . . . . .221 War with the Auruncians, .... 222 SECESSION OF THE PLEBES. LAW OF DEBT. INSTITUTION OF THE TRIBUNATE, 224 Counter-revolutionary attempts, . . . 224 Law of debt, . . . . . .226 Nexum, ...... 230 Refractoriness of the Plebes, . . . .232 Secession of the Plebeians, . . . 236 Peace between the two orders. Tribuni Plebis, . 239 WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS AND ^QUIANS. LEAGUE WITH THE HERNICANS, . 244 The legend of Coriolanus shown to be out of place here, 244 Division of the Volscian wars, . . . 245 Alliance with the Hernicans, .... 246 Sp. Cassius, ..... 248 TABLE OF COXTEST3. XI Page THE AGRARIAN LAW. SP. CASSIUS. EMIGRATION OF THE FABII. THE PUBLILIAN ROGATIONS, 249 The agrarian law, ..... 250 Difference between ownership and possession, . 254 Lex Cassia, ...... 256 Execution of Sp. Cassius, .... 257 Elections of the consuls exclusively performed by the senate and the curies, .... 259 Consular elections divided between the curies and the centuries, ..... 261 War against the Veientines, .... 261 The Fabii pronounce themselves for the plebeians, 262 Settlement of the Fabii at the Cremera, . . 262 Defeat at the Cremera, .... 263 Consuls arraigned by the tribunes, . . 265 Murder of Cn. Genucius, .... 267 Volero Publilius. Rogations of Publilius, . 268 Public proceedings in the popular assemblies, . . 269 Opposition of Appius Claudius, . . . 272 WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS AND ^QUIANS. PLAGUE. CINCINNATUS. C.ESO QUINCTIUS. CORIOLANUS, 274 Wars with the Volscians and .2Equians, . . 274 Plague in Rome, . . . . .276 C. Terentilius Harsa. Lex Terentilia, . . 277 Cseso Quinctius, . * . . . 280 Cincinnatus, ..... 281 Surprise of Appius Herdonius, . . . 283 Condemnation of Volscius . . 284 Coriolanus, . . 285 Peace with the Volscians, .... 293 Changed relation of the Latins to Rome, . . 293 Fermentations in Rome. P. Mucius, . . 294 LEGISLATION OF THE TWELVE TABLES, 295 Embassy to Athens, ..... 295 Hermodorus, ..... 296 First decemvirate. The rights of the patricians and plebeians balanced, . . . . . 298 tiecond decemvirate. New constitution, . . 299 Unrestricted right to make a will, . . . 301 TABLE OP CONTENTS. Law of debt, .... 303 Centuries, general national tribunal, . . . 304 Tyranny of the decemvirs, . . . 307 Death of Virginia, . . . m . .310 Secessio of the Plebes. Overthrow of the Decemvirs, 311 The old constitution restored, . . . 312 Veto of the tribunes. Patrician tribunes, . . 314 Death of Appius Claudius and Sp. Oppius, . 316 Imprisonment, . . . . .317 Penal laws of the Romans, . . . I'. IS Amnesty, ...... 31 ( J LEX HORATIA VALERIA. FURTHER CHANGES IN THE CONSTITUTION. MILITARY TRIBUNATE. CENSORSHIP. SP. WLELIUS. VICTORY OF A. POSTUMIUS TUBERTUS OVER THE VOLSCIANS AND -EQUIANS. CONQUEST OF FIDEN/E AND VEII, 320 Lex Horatia Valeria, .... 320 Growth of the constitution, the later Publilian law, the Hortensian law, . . . . .321 Victories over the ^quians and Sabines, . 324 Quaestors elected by the centuries, . . . 325 QucEstores parricidii, Qucestores classic^ . . 325 Intermarnage between patricians and plebeians allow- ed. Canuleian law, .... 326 Military tribunes, ..... Censorship, ...... 332 Famine in Rome. Sp. Maelius, . . . 337 Executive power of the consuls, . . . 339 Qusestorship thrown open to the plebeians, . 340 The right of deciding on war and peace passes from the curies to the centuries, . . . .340 Plebeian senators, . . . . :!}<) The people of the Campanians forms itself, . . 341 Victory of Postumius Tubertus over the JKquians, 344 Agrarian law, ..... 345 Colonice Romance. Mutiny of the soldiers, . . 346 War with Veii, ..... 347 Destruction of Fidense, .... 348 Manner of warfare, .... 350 Pay of the army, ..... 351 Siege of Veii, ..... Draining the Alban lake, . . . .357 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii Conquest of Veii, ..... 360 Quarrels of the patricians and plebeians after the tak- ing of Veii, ..... 361 War with the Faliscans, with the Vulsinians, . 361 Camillas, 362 His banishment, ..... 363- CONQUEST OF 363 Migration of the Gauls, .... 364 Invasion of the Gauls into Italy, . . . 371 Embassy of the Romans to the Gauls, . . 372 Manners of the Gauls, .... 374 Battle at the Alia, ..... 376: The Gauls in Rome, .... 37* Peace with the Gauls ; their departure, . . 383 RESTORATION OF THE CITY. MANLIUS CAPITO- LINUS. THE LICINIAN ROGATIONS. CONFU- SION IN THE CHRONOLOGY. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PRAETOR UKBANUS AND OF THE jEDILIS CURULI8, . . . 385 Consequences of the Gallic conquest, . . 385 Rebuilding of the town, .... 387 Fcenus unciarium, .... Etruscan wars with Rome, ... 389 Four new tribes formed, . . . .391 Usury. Manlius Capitolinus takes the part of those oppressed, ...... 393 His execution, ..... 395 Tribunate of C. Licinius and of L. Sextius Lateranus, 396 The Licinian. Rogations, .... 396 Confusion with regard to the chronology, . 399 Dictatorship of Camillus. Temple of Concordia, . 402 The consulate divided between the patricians and ple- beians. The praBtorship established, . . 403 jEdttis curulis. One day added to the Ludi Romany 405 INVASION OF THE SENONIAN GAULS. LEAGUE WITH THE LATINS AND HERNICANS. CHANGES IN THE DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF ROME, . 407 Triumviri rei publicce constituenda, . . . 407 Invasion of the Senonian Gauls, . . . 400 TABLE OP CONTENTS. Alliance with the Latins and Hernicans, . . 409 Alliance with the Samnites, . . . 411 War in Etruria. Arrangement of the debts, . 413 Third invasion of the Gauls into Italy, . . 414 Enlargement of the rights of the plebeians, . . 415 C. Marcius Hut ill us, first plebeian dictator, . 415 THE FIRST WAR WITH THE SAMNITES. PRO- GRESS OF LEGISLATION, . . 416 Position of the colonies, . . . . 417 Origin of the Samnites, .... 418 Rising in Capua, . . . . . 419 Constitution of the Samnites, . . . 420 Outbreak of the war, .... 422 M. Valerius Corvus, ..... 425 Battle near the Mount Gaurus, . . . 427 P. Decius Mus saves the Roman army, . . 429 Military insurrection of the Romans, . . 430 Progress of the legislation, .... 432 Military system of the Romans, . . . 434 THE WAR AGAINST THE LATINS. THE LAWS OF THE DICTATOR Q. PUBLILIUS PHILO. FUR- THER EVENTS, . . . . .436 Peace with the Samnites. Relations with the Latins, 436 War with the Latins, .... 438 T. Manlius, ...... 440 Organisation of the Roman army, . . 441 Battle on the Veseris. P. Decius, . . . 443 Battle near Trifanum, .... 444 Conditions of the submission of the Latins, . . 445 Q. Publilius Philo. His laws, . . . 446 End of the Latin war, .... 448 Miiitii-i/iin, ...... 448 Latin colonies, . . . . .451 The prsetorship thrown open to the plebeians, . 454 War with the Sidicinians, .... 455 Colonies in Gales and Fregellse, . . . 455 New relations, ..... 456 Rome's relation to the Greeks, Tarentum, ...... 459 Alexander of Epirus , . . . 463 Rebellion of Privernum, .... 465 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV Peace with the Gauls, .... 468 Embassy to Alexander of Macedon, . . 468 THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR, . 470 Palasopolis and Neapolis, .... 470 Outbreak of the second Samnite war, . .474 M. Valerius Corvus, L. Papirius Cursor, Q. Fabius Maximus, ..... 481 Victory of Fabius over the Samnites, . . 483 Fabius flees from Papirius, . . . 484 Death of Papius Brutulus, .... 486 Defeat near Caudium, . . . .487 The Romans break the peace, . . . 491 Defeat of the Romans near Lautulse, . . 494 Progress of the Romans. Colony in Luceria, . 496 The Romans build a fleet, . . . 498 Fine arts flourishing among the Romans, . . 498 Rising of the Etruscans, .... 499 Conquest of Bovianum, . ... . 500 Papirius Cursor appointed dictator, . . 501 The northern confederation pronounces itself in favour of the Samnites, . . . . .501 War of the Romans with the Hernicans, . . 502 Subjection of the Hernicans, .... 503 Battle near Bovianum. End of the war, . . 504 The JEqnians conquered, .... 505 Alliance of Rome with the Marsians, . . 505 THE ETRUSCAN WAR. OTHER EVENTS DOWN TO THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR, . 505 The Ciminian forest, .... 506 Battle near Sutrium, ..... 507 Fabius breaks through the Ciminian forest, . 508 End of the war, ..... 509 Colony at Narnia, . . . . 510 Cleonymus, . ... . . SlOj Appius Claudius the Blind, . . . 511" Via Appia, Aqua Appia, .... 518 Cn. Flavius, . . . . . 519 Jus Flavianum, . . . . .521 The Nexum abolished, .... b'2t Lex Ogulnia, ...... 523 XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR, . {,24 The war is transferred into Etruria, . . 525 Battle near Sentinum, .... 528 P. Deci us devotes himself to death, . . 531 End of the war, ..... 534 WAR WITH THE SABINES. AGITATIONS AT HOME. IJSX HORTENSIA. LEX M^ENIA, 535 War with the Sabines. M'. Curius, . . 535 Embassy to Epidaurus, .... 536 Draining of the Velinus, waterfall of Terni, . 538 The Maenian law, . . . . .539 The Hortensian law, .... 540 Triumviri capitales, . . . . . 543 EXTERMINATION OF THE SENONIAN GAULS. C. FABRICIUS LUSCINUS. WAR WITH TARENTUM. PYRRHUS OF EPIRUS. EVENTS IN SICILY DOWN TO THE FIRST PUNIC WAR, . . 544 War with the Senonian Gauls, . . . 646 C. Fabricius Luscinus. M'. Curius Dentatus, . 547 Ti. Coruncanius, ..... 548 Outbreak of the war with Tarcntum, . . 549 Pyrrhus of Epirus, . . . , . . 552 Cineas, ...... 558 Battle near Heraclea, .... 558 Pyrrhus tries to march against Borne, . . 560 Pyrrhus sends Cineas to Rome, . . .561 Pyrrhus returns to Tarentum, . . . 562 Roman embassy to Pyrrhus, .... 563 Battle near Asculum, .... 564 Pyrrhus goes to Sicily, .... 666 Siege of Lilybaeum. Pyrrhus returns to Italy, . 567 Battle near Taurasia (Beneventum), . . 568 Pyrrhus' death. Peace with Samnium, . . 669 Tarentum falls into the hands of the Romans, . 570 Subjection of Italy, .... 571 Campanian legion at Rhegium, . . . 573 Earlier history of Sicily, .... 574 Mamertines in Messana. Hiero, . . . 577 Hiero and the Carthaginians defeated by the Romans, 581 Peace with Hiero, . . . .581 TABLE OP CONTENTS. xvil 1'; gd Vetranio. Gal;-.:s. Julian, . . 306 Gftllus made Cassar, ..... 306 Julian made Casar, .... 307 His successes in Gaul and Germany, . . 308 Julian proclaimed emperor by the soldiers, . 308 Death of Constantius. The bishop Athanasins. . 309 Persecution of the Homoousians, . . . 309 Julian as a writer. His opposition to Christianity, 310 Revolt in Antioch. Misopogon, . . . 312 War against Persia, . . . . .312 Julian's death, . . . . . 314 Jovian. Valentinian I. Valens,* . . .315 Gratian, ...... 316 Breaking in of the Goths and Huns, . . .317 Reception of the Goths in the Roman empire, . 318 Insurrection of the Goths in Marcianopolis, . . 318 Battle near Adrianople. Fall of Valens, . . 319 Theodosius, colleague of Gratian, . . . 319 Campaigns with the Goths, . . . 320 Murder of Gratian. Maximus, emperor of the West, 321 Valentinian II. Arbogastes. Eugenius, . . 321 Battle near Aquileia, .... 321 Rufinus. Division of the empire, . . . 322 LITERATURE, AND FINE ARTS. Ansonius. Epitomes. Grammar. Donatus. Chare- sius, Diomedes, ..... 323 Servius. Festus. Nonius Marcellus. Macrobius, 323 Ammianus Marcellinus, .... 323 Rhetoricians. Marius Victorinus Symmachus. Pane- gyrists, . . . . . .324 Claudian. Merobaudes, .... 324 Sidonius Apollinaris. Renatus Profuturus, . . 325 Christian Literature. St. Jerome. St. Augustine, 325 Sulpicius Severus. Cselius Sedulius. Claudius Ma- mertus. Salvian Prudentius. Pope Hilary, . 326 Pope Leo, ...... 327 Greek literature. Historians, . . . 327 Eunapius. Priscus. Mulchus. Candidas, . 327 Architecture. Mosaic, .... 327 DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE. HONORIUS. ARCADIUS. STILICHO. ALARIC. RADAGAISE. ADOLPHUS. CONSTANTINE. GERONTIUS. PLACIDIA. VALEN- b TAB.I.Z OF CONTEXTS. TIKIAN III. BOXIFACE. .ETIUS. GENSERIO. ATTILA. PETRONIUS MAXIMUS. AVITUS. RI- CIMER. MARJORIAN. SEVERUS. ANTHEMIUS. OLYBRIUS. GLYCERIUS. JULIUS NEPOS. ORES- TES. ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS. Arcadius. Honorius. Stilicho. Rufinus, . . 328 Alaric, ..... 329 Stilicho conquers Alaric near Pollentia, . 330 Restoration of the walls of Rome, . . 330 Monte Testaccio, ..... 330 Radagaise driven back by Stilicho, . . ;!.il Weight of taxation in Gaul, . . . .:;;;! Bagaudce, ...... :i.;i.' Conspiracy against Stilicho. He is murdered, . 333 Alaric appears in Rome. Capitulation. Alaric for the second time turns towards Rome. . . . 333 Attains, . .... :;::;; Burning of Rome. Death of Alaric, . . . 334 Adolphus. Placidia, . . . .334 Constantine in Britain. Gerontius, . . 334 Maximus. Constantius, .... 335 Theodosivs II. Johannes, .... 335 Valentinian III. Placidia. Boniface. Ae'tius, . 336 Boniface calls the Vandals into Africa, . . 337 The Donatists, ..... Genseric makes himself master of Carthage, . . 337 Piracy of the Vandal fleets. The Huns, . Aetius. Battle in the Campi Catalaunici, . . 340 Attila in Italy. Founding of Venice, . . 341 Murder of Aelius. Death of Valentinian III., . .'542 Petronius Maximus, .... Pillage in Rome by the Vandals, . . . 342 Anetus. Ricimer. Marjorian, Libius Severus, ..... M44 ^Egidius, Marcellinus, .... Anthemius. Olybrius, Ricimer conquers Rome, . ... Glycerius, ...... 340 Julius Nepos, Orestes. Romulus Augustulus, . . . Odoachar. End of the Roman empire, Fine cu ts and literature, . fr*7 LECTUEES ON EOMAN HISTOEY. INTRODUCTION. ANCIENT history divides itself into the history anterior to the rule of Rome, which has many centres, and into the history of Roman rule, wherein there is but one centre, Rome, the action of which extends on all sides. Other nations, like the Egyptians, have acted by their intellectual power upon the foreigner, but were defi- cient in mind ; others, as the barbarian nations of the Celts and other races, became important merely by the mightiness of their conquests ; Greece, by her mind ; but Rome combines every thing, the greatest political fj> perfection, might, and mind. Here is an influence which has become still more lasting and ineffaceable v^MrW> than that of Greece : it continues to the latest centuries, even to this very day. The Roman history has to ex- hibit the greatest characters, achievements, and events ; it is the development of the whole life of a people, the like of which is unknown in all the rest of history. Of the history of the East, as far as regards the stages of its progress, we know nothing whatever. The Egyp- tians we find already in castes, consequently in fixed forms, in which they abide throughout every century ; they exist unalterable, of which their mummies are the emblem, and all the changes which we remark in them are a mere dying away. The Romans we see almost growing under our eyes; indeed, they also are early moulded into fixed forms, but their origin is no riddle A 2 SOURCES OF to us. The other nations are as buds still folded up in their petals ; they grow, but before they expand, they die away or only open imperfectly, as it also ever occur* with individuals, that among many thousands few only are not checked in their development. In modern his- tory the English alone have had a career like that of the Romans. In a cosmopolitical point of view there fore, these two histories must ever remain the most important ones. Here now the whole history of the twelve ages, which in the legend of Romulus have also been fore- told as the duration of Rome, is to be set forth ; in the beginning the history of the nation and the town, then that of the empire and the aggregate of people who bore the name of Romans. But first of all, let us make ourselves acquainted with the sources. SOURCES OF ROMAN HI3TOBT. 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 Scaligcr, who had far more knowledge than we, received with- out any hesitation the details of ancient history, deem- ing, 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 educa- tion was purely philological, and derived from books only. Iu the seventeenth century, when in England, ROMAN HISTORY. 3 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, how- ever, 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 after- wards, the Germans. As early as towards the end of the sixteenth century lived Pighius, a native of the pro- vince of Cleves, who had original ideas with regard to historical criticism, but who has commenced much and finished nothing. Then followed Perizonius' able criti- cism, and then the sceptical works of Bayle and Beau- fort. 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 be- lieve in the Roman history as they found it. that Perizonius had gone on with the work which he had begun, and had formed the conviction that he must ar- rive at an historical result, without which belief no man can advance and succeed ; or, that others had proceed- ed in his track ! But he was wanting in self-confidence, and others set themselves to the work with less com- prehensive powers. Beaufort, a clever man, but whose studies had not been sufficiently comprehensive, forms at this time an epoch ; but his literary and personal im- perfections caused him to root up the tares with the wheat. Already before had Pouilly, in the ' Memoires de 1' Academic 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 given 4 SOURCES OF birth 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 in- quiry. 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 al- ready 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 ; * but that writing was used in Rome very early is shown by the census, which required very extensive book-keep- The use of letters on the whole is very ancient. It has a threefold root : .in Ejfjpt. (or perhaps in /Ethiopia.) in I'lm-nicia, and in Babylon, all three of which are independent of each other. That in Kurope writins is of more ancient date than the time in which we place Homer, is undeniable, as we have written monuments from such an earl; period, leaving, however, the question untouched, whether Homer baa com- mitted his lavs to writing or not. ROMAN HISTORY. O ing. 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 ilia tempera litterce rarce erant, this is only partly correct. Authors there were at that time none at all (by which appellation I desig- nate those who write with a view of being read by a public). And when moreover he says of written litera- ture, (litterce), una cuatodia fidelis memories rerum aesta- rum, he goes too far. We have parallels in the German and other histories. Among the Greeks, Polybius men- tions 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 debettati. 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 era a regibus exactis, the consuls being at the same time registered, and the principal events put down. To these annals belong the Annales Maximi, more rarely called Annales Ponlificum, an authentic and more 6 SOURCES OF comprehensive arrangement of annals, the object of which was to record every thing that was to be pre- served for public memory. Cicero, de Oratore II, 12. and Servius ad Virg. Mn. 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, the Edictum Prcetorium and others. Now Cicero states, that the not- ing down of the annals had been made ab initio rerum Romanarum to 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 ob- served from the first ; that the annals had been pre- served entire in his time, he does not mention any where. Vopiscus mentions, that they had been kept ab 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 to ROMAN HISTORY. 7 the Anncdes Pontificum; at that time not even the twelve tables were rescued, now could these Alba have 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 the Annales Maximi were destroyed, yet many other annals (of private persons liv- ing perhaps in the Capitol, and others) might have been preserved. Thus in China, the old books were destroy- ed 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 inven- tion of the reading of hieroglyphics, one wanted to re- pudiate 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 after- wards. In like manner, the Annales Maximi may have been restored for the time anterior to the burning by the Gauls. A striking proof that the authentic Annales Pontificum were not preserved beyond the destruction of the city by the Gauls is afforded by the passage in Cic. R. P. 1, 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, was 8 SOURCES OF mentioned in the Annales Pontificum as an extraordi nary phenomenon, and put in connexion with the pas sage 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 di- vided into eighty books. It is to be remarked, how- ever, that this passage of the Scholion is not found in the Codex Fuldensis, but only in several other manu- scripts, the trustworthiness of which is indeed rather doubtful ; yet it is not to be understood, how any one could have told stories precisely on tliis subject. Cicero, in the introduction to the books De legilus, says more- over concerning the Annales Maximi, quibus nihil po- test esse jucundius, which is quite enigmatical. The manuscripts of the books De legibus have all of them in the fifteenth century, from the year 1420, been copied from one single manuscript. Ursinus conjectures in- stead of jucundius, jejunius, which indeed has much in its favour ; others propose incomtius. A first-rate au- thor, however, may sometimes easily venture upon an expression which puzzles and distracts us; and thus Cicero may have written in this passage jucundius, merely in order to designate the enjoyment which his- torical 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 the resgesta populi Romani are (in the ROMAN HISTORY. 9 present tense) noted down by the pontiffs and scribes. Now authors like him are to be taken cum grano salts, 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 writ- ten 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 later acta diunia may about this time have commenced, a sort of town gazette, which also con- tained the acts of the senate. The farther develop- ment of these acta diurna (afterwards diurnale, journal) together with the rise of literature is probably the cause of the Annales Pontificum having 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,* con- tains at the time of Pope John the Eighth, annotations made quite in the old language of the annals concern- ing the Ostenta, 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 remark- able events were inserted, as when an Emperor ascend- ed 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 the Fasti Capitolini and Triumpltales, in- * Comp. concerning this chronicle Archive for Ancient German Histo- rical Research, v. p. 146. Pertz has afterwards (1839) published it, Monum. Germ. Hist. Script, torn. iii. p. 695 sq. Note of the German Editor. 10 SOURCES OF complete, 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 concern- ing 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 the Annales Pontificum commence. Another source of information concerning the earliest Roman history are the Commentarii Pontificum. They were a collection of law cases from the old public and ceremonial law, together with the decisions of the pon- tiffs in cases which came under their jurisdiction, simi- lar 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 concern- ing the inheritance of females. With reference to the case ofjudicium perdudlionis, it is stated how Horatius had slain bis 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 the Lilri Pontificum and ROMAN HISTORY. 11 Libri Augurales. From them the historians quote the declarations of war in that definite formula which An- cus is said first to have introduced. The forms of sur- render, the formula foederis 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 the laudationes fuiiebres, spoken of by Livy and by Cicero in Brutus, from which latter it comes out, that very old specimens, dat- ing as far back as from the times before the war of Pyr- rhus, were in existence. They were kept in the Atrium, near the images of the ancestors (imagims). 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 other- wise possessed, had an extraordinary vanity with re- gard to political and family relations, deeming them- selves bound in duty to extol their state and their fami- lies. For this reason forged victories and triumphs are contained in those laudationes. This was the material when the first historians arose. They had besides, it is true, many laws and other docu- mentary records ; but these were a buried treasure no- ticed 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 cer- tain inscription in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius,* iv. 20. 12 SOURCES OP 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 his- tory, 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 cohe- rence. 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 Co- riolanus, 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.* 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 _ * Very interesting in thin respect are the recently published tradi- tions or the Sandwich islanders, partly narrations, and partly gongs, which have been collected by missionaries. ROMAN HISTORY. 13 (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 thir- teenth century. How many phases may there not have occurred in the interval between 1 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 Ro- man history. The quotation of some verses from the ' Nibelungen ' in Aventinus,* 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 Gre- cian 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 Tyrtseus. Then comes the time long before a literature exists, when men who have a true vocation write his- tory ; as, for instance, the author of the excellent Chro- By some mistake, as it seems, Xiebuhr mentions here the Nibelun- gen instead of Waltliarius. which is a Latin poem of the tenth centurv, and from which Aventinus cites the verses I. 9 toll. He often refers to the oid German heroic poems, without, however, quoting them verbatim. Or. VT. iJrimm's Geruiiin Heroic Tradition (Heldcnsage), p. 302. Note of the German editor. 14 SOCRCES OF nicle of 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 bi- shops, 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 Chro- nicles, 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 liter- ature of history commenced; that is to say, before au- thors 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 (in ROMAN HISTORY. 15 the last book of the first decade of Livy), the relations seem to be taken from such and similar documents ; un- less 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 Han- nibal, 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, Fa- bius possibly, or what is more likely, Cincius Alimentus and M. Licinius Macer first made use also of the docu- ments 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 the Commentarii Pontificum in 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 the 16 SOURCES OF Capitol ; which possessed a painter like C. Fabius Pic- tor ; which made a sarcophagus like that of Scipio Bar- batus, takes certainly a high stand in mental cultiva- tion. And such we must deem their written literature to have been, not composed in Greek forms, but endow- ed with beauties peculiarly its own. The grammarians knew still the moral maxims of Appius Claudius Caecus, 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 contempo- rary history is the first Punic war of Cn. Nsevius, who had himself served in that contest. If concerning this greatest of all ancient wars, we had more positive ac- counts, such as we possess of the second Punic war, it would be better appreciated. That Naevius 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 litera- ture 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 Naevius first brought out a play on the stage is undecided. It was somewhere about the year 520 ; two passages in Gellius concerning it are contra- dictory.* 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. Ntevius was a Campanian, and it may safely be presumed that at Capua there was already a greater movement in * XVII, 21 Gellius says that Noevius had come nut in the same rear tlmt the divorce of Sp. Carvilius Rugra took place, vi/.. in 519 ; hut in IV, -i. he dates the latter fact from the vear OiW, and thus comvmni- -t n H M.;i ranee of \iovius also a difference is made of four vpar* Hitschl I'arerga 1'lautina. Lips. 1845. torn. I. p. 68-70. Note of the German editor. ROMAN HISTORY. 17 literature than there was in Rome at the same time. The poem consisted of seven books. According to Sue- tonius, it was originally written continents 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 Nsevius at all ; he only seems to have known from older commentators that Virgil had borrowed from him the argument of his first book. Naevius treated in it of the destruction of Troy, of Dido, and JEneas. It is very natural to surmise that he also derived already the rivalry between Rome and Carthage from the faithless- ness of .35neas.* Yet it was hardly an elaborate Roman history. It is known that Naevius by some libellous verses against the Metelli was brought into great trou- bles, and that he is said to have been thrown into pri- son. But it is enigmatical how a Roman citizen could have been thrown into prison for the publication of a liber 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. Naevius was a Campanian, and the Campanians lost in the war of Hannibal all the benefits of their rights as citizens. Naevius, who was now friendless and helpless, must as a Campanian have been twxce deditus to the Metelli, and have been confined, not in the public pri- son, but in the house of the Metelli, in a dungeon such as the Romans frequently had in their own houses for * For the juster estimation of Virgil, it is to be remarked, that fre- quently, without directly contradicting the historical statements, he ensconces himself in the old poetical tradition. Thus he evidently takes Romulus to be the grandson of ^Eneas by Ilia, whence also the misplac- ing of .(Eneas at the time of the foundation of Carthage. He has there- fore been unjustly censured with such vehemence for his chronological inaccuracy precisely by the age which idolized him. There has not on the whole enough been done by a great deal for the elucidation of VirgU. B j g SOURCES OF the confinement of debtors. Just as incorrect is the statement in the Chronicon of St. Jerome, that Naevm: had died in the year of Cato's era, 547 (according t Varro 549), at Utica ; for as Utica was attached during the war of Hannibal to the party of Carthage, he would even as a transfuga have been very badly received there. According to Cicero, Varro placed the death of Nsevius at a later period than others did. There existed there- fore at that time already some uncertainty about it. After the second Punic war, there arose several au- thors 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 advis- able ; 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 ex- tant 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,* and Cincius Ali- mentus, both of them very high-born Romans, 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 of FabiuB wrote the history of his people two hundred years after He- rodotus ; by so much therefore the Roman literature of history is later Uian the Grecian, ROMAN HISTORY. 19 the emperor Claudius, and was most probably a battle piece representing the victory of Consul Junius over the .JSqui. To him already we must give credit for having been familiar with the Greek language and man- ners, as the practice of painting, according to genuine Roman views, would not have been seemly for a patri- cian. His son was ambassador to Alexandria, and con- sequently 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 JEneas we know not, but most likely from the primar- dia urbis. He described, as Dionysius states, the earlier times xt.aiu^ui, those which were nearer to his own more circumstantially, a feature which he has in com- mon 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 jus- tify bis 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 evi- dence in proof, as most of the quotations from him re- fer to the very earliest times of Roman history. The title of his book we know not ; nor do we find it men- tioned 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 Diodorus 20 SOURCES OF Siculus; but surely we have many things from him where we do not read his name mentioned, dent and certain that Diodorus took 01. 8, 1. to be the date of the building of Rome, just as Fabius did. Diodorus in the several years contains notices concei ing Roman history, which are very much at variance with the statements of Livy, but which, although in- deed very scanty, are by no means to be despised. These he can only have taken from Fabius or Timseus ; but the former is more likely on account of the accord ance just alluded to. Appian, on the occasion of the embassy to Delphi, mentions Fabius, S t .Ji t AM. gviyc^i; and he too certainly has borrowed from him Appian was very little conversant with Latin, and had not the least research; where Dionysius of Halicarnas- sus went before him he closely followed his track, jus as Zonaras did with regard to Dio Cassius. Fabius Pic- tor had likewise written in Greek, (Dion. Hal. V procem.), so that Appian could read him. Now he also agrees in a remarkable manner with Zonaras, who 1 lows in the wake of Dio Cassius, whose keen glance recognised Fabius as the best authority. We owe there- fore to Fabius an immense debt of gratitude for most precious and invaluable information. And cer- tainly the careful language used concerning the earlier constitution by Dio Cassius, who consistently calls populus )p*r. andjpfofc f^t or *;, 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. Censo- rious people have railed at the idea that we in the nine- teenth century should pretend to understand the Ro- man 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 i mountable difficulty belonging to literary history in the ROMAN HISTORY. 21 manner in which Cicero de Divinat. I, 21 speaks of him, -where he mentions somnium jE/iece ex Numerii Fabii Pictoris gratis anrudibus. This Numerius Fabius Pictor reappears in no other place. The praenomen of Quintus Fabius Pictor is a point quite settled, as it oc- curs 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 books De Divinatione have 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 praenomen 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, cites AnnalesFabii with- out any cognomen. A writer of the name of Pictor, * 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 entitled Q. 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 grand- son had sacrificed himself like his grandfather and his father, t Cicero is particularly incorrect sometimes * The cognomen Pictor occurs rarely by itself; Appian has it, how- ever. t I have a good memory, and yet it has often happened to me before now that I have made mistakes in names. Cicero relates a similar 22 SOURCES OF with regard to the praenomens, as for instance, contrary to every other writer, he calls the father of Virginia Decimus Virginius. The praenomen Numerius was more- over very common in the Fabian family, so that it might have been more familiar to Cicero. Lastly, Diodorus mentions the same dream of ^Eneas, which Cicero treats of in other places, as being taken from Q. Fabius (Diod. fragm. ap. Syncell.). In Korte's edition of Sal- lust, 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 praetor 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 dis- tinguished 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 Livy Maximus Auctor, and his statement cited by the latter as decisive. His works De Potestate Consvlum, 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 re- gard to Roman antiquities. He made researches con- error of hlmnelf in the letters to Atticus, where the latter had pointed out to him that he ought to write 1'hliasii instead of Phliuntu. ROMAN HISTORY. 23 cerning the 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 es- timable writer. Some more Romans afterwards wrote in Greek ; it is, however, uncertain, whether the whole of the his- tory, or merely memoirs of their time. There are men- tioned A. Postumius Albinus, a contemporary of the elder Cato (about 600) ; and Cn. Aufidius, a contempo- rary 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 Naevius were still in the old lyric style. We are able to gain a general view of the work in the frag- ments ; 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 con- tained 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.* He occupied himself little with the domestic struggles ; and would probably * Merula places the war of Pyrrhus in the sixth book, because he could not believe that Ennius had devoted one book only for the times between. But Ennius has surely not merely versified the Fasti consu- lares, but very likely he strung together the principal events only. 24 SOURCES OP speak 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 al- together left out, because Nsevius 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 thir- teenth 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 No- bilior, he sung the praises with peculiar richness of de- tail. The latter he accompanies into the JEtolian war. He was born in 513, according to Gate's chronology, and died 583, continuing his poem almost to the time of his death. The sources of Ennius for the earliest times were the Annales Maximi; for the times of the kings, the old lays, and the Commentarii Pontificum; in the middle times, Timaeus, Hieronymus, Fabius ; in the last years, he was a cotemporary. He is to be blamed for his van- ity, 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 suffi- ciently to distinguish himself in them. It may be pre- sumed 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 Lam- padio did Naevius. ROMAN HISTORY. 25 The fragments of Ennius have been collected by several ; with much minuteness by Hieronymus Colum- na, 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.* 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 num- ber of verses from L. Calpurnius Piso De Coitfinentia Veterum Poetarum, in which the older poets were com- pared 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 al- together strange. Another statement is that the manu- script 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 Naevius and Ennius, are to my belief suspicious without exception. Those from Nae- vius 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 ge- nuineness, like his other fragments. Why has not Merula copied and edited that MS., if indeed he enter- tained 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 work Hieron. Columna and Natalis Comes have both of them the vanity of pretending to have read authors, who do not either exist at all, or in Scholiasts only, whom they may indeed have read in more complete MSS. than we do. Niebuhr. Claudius Sacerdos is now printed in End- licher's Analecta grammatica. Note of the German Editor. 26 SOURCES OF of 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. Caedi- cius, which is from the second Punic war, and conse- quently 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 the lex 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 pas- sage. 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 de- struction of Carthage, the history of Rome was written by L. Cassius Hemina, of whose work we have historical ROMAN HISTORY". 27 quotations in the Grammarians. Several writers call him antiquissimus aitctor, 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 syn- chronize 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 archaeology of the towns was his prin- cipal 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 title Bellum 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 in- deed 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. The Rhetores Latini have 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 entitled Res Gestce, seems to have been very diffuse, as it mentions the burning of the city by the Gauls in the fourth book ; yet the num- ber of the books is unknown. No fragment of any im- port has been preserved of it. His name was Servius, or perhaps Sextus; for in the Brutus of Cicero Ser. 28 SOURCES OF Fulvius, and then Ser. Fabius is spoken of, whom he terms juris poiitificii peritissimus. Yet the books de Oratore and Brutus, which seem to have such an ex- cellent 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 manu- scripts 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 praenomen Servius is un- heard 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 ./Eneas. Here I also mention the tedious On. Gellius, a credu- lous, 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 be- cause he already criticizes, and tries to make the im- probabilities 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 dis- tinctly 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, refer- ring 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 without ROMAN HISTORY. 29 judgment; which also corresponds with Cicero's unfa- vourable 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 Tar- quinius 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,* 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 Eomulus 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 his- tory ; 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 the * Festus v. Tarpeise. E. 30 SOURCES OF New Testament. The title of Piso's book was Annales. 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 books ad Herennium were written, 680, or rather about the date of Cicero's con- sulship, two who wrote a general Roman history, Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, and Q. Valerius Antias. Both of them, according to Velleius, are later than Coalius Antipater and than the older contemporaries of Sisenna. They wrote after the time of Sylla. Quadrigarius be- longs to those authors who, in later times, after the res- toration of the older literature, were frequently read. He forms, as did Cassius Hemina, an exception to the general rule, according to which the annalists com- menced 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 cur- sorily. 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 asser- tion, is a statement of Plutarch, that a certain Clodius (Kx'2/ f ) said that nothing whatever could be grounded Upon the older Roman accounts ; as owing to the cala- ROMAN HISTORY. 31 mitous invasion, 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 thir- teenth, 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* are not yet at all to be thought of, are found in Gellius; and they fully j ustify Cicero's opi- nion with regard to the old writers. The Chronicles of Cologne and Limburg are for the most part much bet- ter 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 Gel- lius t 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 re- spects having greater breadth and fulness. Afterwards spirit rather, and wit, were called forth into existence ; every thing was required to be expressed, and was ex- pressed, 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 car- ried every thing to the highest pitch, this manner of * The mode of writing in periods among the Romans commences with Cato, and was particularly elaborated by C. Gracchus, who is on the whole to be considered as the father of Roman prose. The periodology has, as well as the hexameter, most likely been engrafted on the Roman language from the Greek, flX, 13. 32 SOURCES OF thinking 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 preced- ing it, and turned to the earliest times, in which he found a relish. Valerius Antias is of all the Roman historians cer tainly the most untrue, the only one who can be directly taxed with falsehood. Livy says of him, adeo mentiendi, nullus modus at, and si Valeric Antiati credere lib*. 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, numbers of the latter are not at all meant to deceive any one ; they merely mention a number (e. g. sexcenti, prfgi.1. ter centum tonat ore deus in 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 to many. 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 ; neverthe- less he has not been able to compose a circumstantial and lively narrative, but has drily recorded the detach- ed 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 a aentilis of the Maximi and Poplicolae. He might have been so in the widest sense ; but he did not belong the gens of the patrician Valerii. In the war of Han- ROMAN HISTORY. 33 nibal, one meets with a L. Valerius Antias, who proba- bly was a citizen of Antiuin. 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 pas- sages 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 docu- ments, 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 books de 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* 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. Yet John James Mascor, born 1689 at Dantzic, lived as professor of his- tor.v nt Leipsic, where he died 1761. TRANSLATOR. C 34 SOURCES OF Cicero 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 Grac- chanus, a friend of C. Gracchus, which accounts for bis cognomen. Gracchus exercised a marked influence up- on many, and especially on younger men. Both of the brothers were men of a deeply earnest heart. Grac- chanus 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 Lydus de Magistratibus, who has derived it from Gaius' commentary on the twelve tables, originates undeniably with Gracchanus.* 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 the Scriptores Minores Rerum Romanarum, there is a book, Origo Gentis Romanas, attributed to Whenever Gaius stands upon his own legs, he has no substantiated historical statements. ROMAN HISTORY. 35 Victor. In this most of the earlier annalists are quot- ed ; also the Antiales Maximi (even for the settling of ^Eneas), Sextus Gellius, Domitius, Egnatius, M. Octa- vius ; and authors besides, who occur nowhere else. Andreas Schottus has first edited it. From the simi- larity 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 pe- riod, 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, Fenestella De Magistratibus, and others in that collection, date from the same period. Octavius may have been got at second hand by the au- thor 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 Caesar's stay in Gaul, Q. JElius 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 them 36 SOURCES OP we read nowhere ; so that we may infer, that in all like- lihood there were many such books of which we know nothing. * In that introduction of wondrous beauty to his books De 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 books De Republica, we see with how incre- dibly little previous reading he set about the descrip- tion of the constitution. He seems not to have made any use of Gracchanus ; but to have derived his know- ledge 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, Scau- rus, and others, part of whom have written in Greek.f 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 his- tory 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 de- tached parts of Roman history, which were perhaps in- It was a necessity to reduce history, which had become too volu- minous, to abstracts. Such were also the tables of Cornelius Nepos after the example of Apollodorus. t These authors were not mentioned by Niebuhr in his lectures. The brief notice which is given has been taken from the few MS. leaves of hi* papers which I was allowed to make use ot Editor. ROMAN HISTORY. 37 tended at 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 there- fore 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 revolu- tion 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 the ojptimates, the boni. Between the time of Jugurtha and the consulate of Lepidus, the historical work of Sisenna formed the con- necting 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 Augus- tus 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 Caesar's death, Diodorus Siculus wrote,' to whom the Roman history is merely a secondary af- fair. It is probable, that Timaeus 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 synchronis- tical order ; first in large periods, and then year by year, down to the consulate of Caesar, when the latter com- menced the Gallic war. He concludes before the civil war, in order to avoid the offence, which he might have 38 SOURCES OF given 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 conclu- sion of the troubles. That he composed his history after the death of Caesar, is evident from the introduction, in which he mentions that event, and calls Caesar Diviis. 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 Vossius De Historicis Greeds et Latinis, and from the latter into the Bibliotheca Grceca of Fabricius. That passage states concerning the Olympiads, that these were a period of four years which the Romans called lissextum; and from this Scaliger infers, that he could not have written before 746, because at that time Au- gustus had fixed the intercalatio at 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 en- tirely expunges it from the text. The term zf^'f for year, which occurs there, is modern Greek ; just as tern- pus instead of annus is 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 omis- sions ; 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 ytar 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 of ROMAN HISTORY. 39 his 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 Var- ro). He calls himself the son of Alexander of Hali- carnassus, and was a rhetorician. His rhetorical writ- ings 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 re- marks, 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 * mentions under the name of Caecilius. We cannot wonder at this ; for if he obtained the Roman citizenship, he was obliged to assume the name of a Roman gens. It can hardly mean Atticus, who indeed, but extremely sel- dom, is called by the name of Cascilius. In the lives also of the ten orators, which are found among Plu- tarch's Biographies, the name of Ctecilius occurs, which some took to be that of the quaestor Caecilius, 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 fre- quently 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 Poly- bius, 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 Porphyrogenitus De V. p. 352 c. Aim. 40 SOURCES OF Virtutibus et Vitiis, and De Legationibus ; and also in a collection ixy< bitror'uv nu 'At-ncagmffffiuf, 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. Dionysius was first printed by Robert Stephens, and indeed from a very bad manuscript. He had already EOMAN HISTORY. 41 before that been generally read in a Latin translation. A Florentine, Lapus* Biragus, translated him from a very good manuscript, probably a Roman one, in the time of Pope Sextus IV., who has done very great ser- vices to ancient literature. But Lapus was a bungling translator, with a very scanty knowledge of Greek ; as also were Petrus Candidus, Raphael Volaterranus, Leo- nardus Aretinus. But the works of these men were much read ; and to us they are of importance, because they represent the manuscripts which they made use of.t Sylburg has very judiciously used the translation of Lapus. It agrees almost throughout with the Vatican manuscript. H. Glareanus revised again the version of Lapus, and, as he states, corrected it in six thousand places. He likewise availed himself of a manuscript. S. Gelenius of Cologne made a new translation, and one far better than those of his predecessors. He too may serve as a manuscript. Now was the text itself first published. The second edition is that of Sylburg, 1586, one of the most excellent elucidations of an ancient author any where to be found. He had, as it seems, an incomplete collation of the Venetian manuscript ; but beside that the translations only. It is a pity that Syl- burg should not have restored the text, with the means which he possessed in his apparatus, and in his eminent talent for conjecturing. The annotations are done in a masterly style; and added to this moreover was the double work of a matchless philological index, and of an historical one almost as perfect. No editor has done as much for his author as Sylburg did for Dionysius. Sylburg is not yet sufficiently appreciated. This work, his Etymologicum Magnum, his Pausanias, his Clement of Alexandria, bear evidence that in the faculty of con- jecturing, and in profound knowledge of the language, he was not inferior to any one philologian of the first * Lapus is a Florentine short name for Jacob. 1 The first excellent transition of a Greek author into Latin is that of Herodian, by Angelus Politian. 42 SOURCES OF renown, not even to J. Fr. Gronovius himself. He has contributed much to the Thesaurus of Henry Stephens. Particularly important, besides, is his edition and trans- lation of the Syntaxis of Apollonius. His edition of Dionysius, which was published by Wechel at Frank- fort, is rare. A reprint of it was made at Leipsic 1691. After Sylburg follows Hudson's edition, 1704. Hudson was a friend of Dodwell, and passed in England for an eminent philologian. Bentley was at that time run down, as being a Whig ; and therefore the whole Univer- sity of Oxford had conspired against him, and opposed to him Hudson, whom they lauded as a great classical scholar. But Hudson was a sad bungler. He has not done the least thing for his Geographi Greed Minores, just as Reiz did nothing for Lucian. Hudson had a collation of the excellent Vatican Codex of Dionysius, which is in the notes, but of which he made no use at all. The edition is beautifully printed. Sylburg's an- notations are for the most part not given, or else muti- lated. But the book enjoyed some fame in Germany, and a bookseller of Leipsic had it reprinted. When the first volume was nearly finished, the publisher applied for the correction of the proof sheets to Reiske. The latter was a friend of my father, and I have a high re- gard for him ; but I am not blind to his defects for all that. His mind was extremely versatile, he had an admirable talent for conjecture; but he was too hasty. He had previously only read Dionysius once ; whilst correcting, he inserted into the text readings from the Vatican manuscript, sometimes also his own emenda- tions, of which he gives an account at the conclusion. Yet they are often very unhappy, although now and then very spirited. In Grimme's Synopsis nothing has been done for criticism. If I could get a collation of the Chigi manuscript, I might perhaps undertake some day to make a critical edition of Dionysius. It prepossesses us in favour of Dionysius, who shows himself in his rhetorical writings to have been a man ROMAN HISTORY. 43 of fine judgment, that, as he tells us, he had devoted twenty-two years to that work ; that he had learned the Latin language, and made researches into the annals. His history, which now reaches down only a little be- yond the time of the decemvirs, extended, as already observed, to the beginning of the first Punic war ; at which period Timseus also left off, and Polybius began. He was befriended by many distinguished Romans, and wrote with a true veneration for the greatness of the Roman people. The name of Archaeology appears new in him. When we see that his history does not give in eleven books more than Livy's does in three ; that he takes up a whole book with what happened before the building of the city, and treats of the earliest times so much at length ; this prolixity excites our mistrust not only of the credibility, but also of the judgment of the author. As far as regards this point, it is not to be denied that Dionysius has chosen a plan of which we cannot approve. Not to mention that he looks upon the time of the kings as historical, he made a mistake when he undertook to treat history pragmatically from the very earliest times. Yet the more carefully we examine the work, the more worthy of respect Diony- sius appears to us, and the more we find his book to be a treasury of the most sterling information. As such it has been first acknowledged by genuine criticism only ; before that, it was cried down as a tissue of ab- surdities. Setting his imperfections aside, we cannot indeed assign too high a rank to Dionysius, as a trea- sure of ancient historyprovidentiallypreserved to us. He has borrowed, if not directly, at least indirectly, from the old law books and annalists ; and without him we should not know any thing of the most important changes, to which, however, too often he only lends personifications. The careful. use which he made of his sources renders him invaluable. Even the matter of his speeches he took from the old annalists ; many cir- cumstances at least, which were contained in them, and 44 SOURCES OF which he could not receive into the context of his his- tory, he has introduced in his harangues, so that the latter, in which elsewhere the arbitrary fancy of the his- torian seems to prevail, often retain the traces of tradi- tion. Thus, when there is a rising of the people, these words occur in the speech of a patrician, " If there is no more help for it, why should we not, rather than humble ourselves before these plebeians, grant Isopolity to the Latins ? " Now this Isopolity, as we must take it for granted, is in the subsequent peace imparted to the Latins, which is, however, not mentioned in Dionysius. This is one of the passages in which he introduced a notice found in the annalists, on the occasion of the con- clusion of the peace, as subject matter into a speech. Only we must discriminate between his mistakes, and the substance of the valuable information which he gives. If he had succeeded in comprehending the lan- guage of Fabius, all would have been correct ; but he understood the Greek language as it was current in his own time, and thence all his mistakes arose. He has lost the clue in the history of the development of the Roman constitution : he is not aware of the difference between fopes and Spiix, but he gives all, though it ap- pears to him a riddle, and tries to find a solution. That he is a rhetorician and not a statesman, we indeed see only too clearly. In his criticism he is faulty, but, for all that, not bad : he was a very clear-headed man. With very little exception his language is correct and well suited to its purpose. What we may object to in him, are the harangues, in which the distinctness of individual cha- racter is entirely lost ; an ill-timed imitation of those of Thucydides. I have worked through this author from my early youth, as no one perhaps has done since he has written, and I may say that I entertain infinite re- spect and veneration for him ; and I am convinced that except in the speeches and pragmatical reflections, he has not by any means invented or intentionally omitted anything. He worked out his sources, it is true, with- ROMAN HISTORY. 45 out selection, and cared only for the abundance of the materials which were offered to him. Nothing is more unjust than the opinion formerly entertained, that all that Dionysius had more than Livy was merely the in- vention of his brain. About the same time, 743 according to Cato, and 745 according to Varro, Livy began to write. That he com- menced so late seems authenticated. He was born 693 according to Cato, in the consulship of the great Caesar, at Patavium, and lived during the reign of Tiberius, until 772 according to Cato (774 according to Varro), A.D. 20. Livy commenced his career as a rhetorician. Of his early life nothing is known. He has written on rheto- ric also. There are several grounds for fixing the period in which he began to compose his history at so late a date. His first decade has been called the work of his youth, but the following proofs are against it. Men- tioning Numa, he speaks of Augustus as the restorer of all the temples, consequently after 730 ; moreover he talks of the closing of the temple of Janus, of the building of the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, and he names Csesar Augustus in relating the war of Cossus. Dodwell very seldom hits upon the right conclusion, but in this point we must agree with him. In his Annales Vetteiani he remarks, that from the manner in which Livy wrote about Spain, it is evident that that country had already then been conquered by Augustus. The ninth book is of later date than the campaign of Drusus; for he says in it concerning the Silva Ciminia, that it had been just as impassable quam, nuper fuere Germanici scdtus, and the latter were first entered by Domitius Ahenobarbus and Drusus after 740 only. It might be attempted to make this out to be a later revision ; but it is easy to tell what books are written in one flow of the pen, and which are revised, and those of Livy undoubtedly belong to the former sort. It is in accordance with our supposition, that Dionysius did not know him ; for if a book written in such a masterly style as that of Livy had existed, 46 SOURCES OF Dionysius could not have been ignorant of it ; and it would then have been impossible also for him to com- plain of the utter want of any thing like the working out of the materials of Roman history. In the last books of the first decade, on the other hand, we find several traces that Livy had known Dionysius. From the Excerpta de Legationibus we learn, in what manner Dionysius treated the second Samnite war ; the relation of it by Livy cannot possibly have been taken from Roman Annals, but from Greek sources, especially the account how Naples fell into the power of the Ro- mans, which Dionysius seems to have got from a Neapolitan Chronicle. Livy could not know the latter himself, and yet he gives a circumstantial description of the event. He must therefore have had a Greek source, and this is certainly no other than Dionysius. The comparison also of the might of Alexander with that of Rome leads to the same conclusion. And certainly the histories of Pyrrhus king of Epirus, and of the plunder- ing expedition of Cleonymus, are likewise from the Greek ; so much the rather, as Livy here calls the Sallen- tines Messapians,* probably because he did not know that this was the Greek name for the Sallentines. Al- ready from the eighth book, Livy must have made use of Dionysius. Let no one say that his history has too much freshness for it to be deemed the work of an old man : this depends entirely upon the character of the individual. He had yet, even with his mode of work- ing, nearly thirty years' time for the accomplishment of his immense undertaking. That he did not cut it off where it finishes, but that he died before he had reach- ed his goal, is evident from several circumstances. His history consisted of a hundred and forty-two books, and ended with the death of Drusus without any marked close. The feeling against disproportion in a division By a lapse of memory Nicbuhr refers this Greek mode of expression to the account of the expedition of Cleonymus (X, 2.) whilst it occurs in that of Alexander of Eplrus, VIII, 24. Note of the German Editor. ROMAN HISTORY. 47 by numbers was among the ancients quite decided and developed, and therefore the number itself bears wit- ness to the books not having been completed. There can be no question, but that the division into decades is an original one, and we might see it yet more clearly if we had the second decade left. Even the Greek word decas would not have been invented in later times. The twen- tieth book must have been double the size of the rest, in order that the war with Hannibal might not begin with the twenty-second book. At the end of the war with Hannibal, the books are extremely short, in order that it might finish with the thirtieth book. He can- not therefore have intended to close the work in the middle of a decade. At least the epitome reaches only as far as book 142, so that at all events we should be obliged to assume, that as two books in the middle, thus also at the conclusion some are still wanting. When we attentively consider the work of Livy, we find it written in an astonishingly uneven style. The several decades essentially differ from each other, and in the first decade, the first book from the rest. This one is the very perfection of his manner, and shows how matchless he would have been, had his history been more condensed. Throughout the first decade, a high strain of eloquence prevails. In the third, the mono- tony of the events constantly checks its display ; yet beautifully written are the battles on the Trasimene Lake, and at Cannae. Here, however, is the turning point. In the fourth, the prolixity gains ground more and more, in which traces of extreme old age are to be recognised. The more freely Livy relates, the more beautiful is his composition. The fourth decade is far below the third ; in the fourth and fifth he has to a great extent paraphrased Polybius. He could not have chosen better with regard to credibility ; but here he is hurried, and it happens also that he contradicts himself, and that, telling the same things twice over, he be- comes prolix, which he never is in the first and third 48 SOURCES OP decades. But particularly remarkable is the fragment from the ninety-first book ; which is written in such a manner, that if it were not inscribed T. Livt liber XCI, and that some circumstances bore evidence for it, one would not take it for a work of Livy. Here we under- stand how the old grammarians could have reproached him with tautology and palilology;* here we see how a great writer may become old and garrulous. If the second decade had not been lost also, it would be easy to explain how the later ones have perished, viz. by their being excluded from the grammatical schools. His preface is characteristic, belonging to the worst parts of the whole work, whilst on the contrary the in- troductions in those great practical historians, Thucy- dides, Sallust, Tacitus, are masterpieces. This is to be explained from the fact, that Livy began without being conscious of any definite object, and those other writers with a bold stroke of the pencil drew the results of long lucubration. It is evident that when Livy commenced his work, he was far from being well versed in Roman history ; he had read some of the old books, and he may have been, compared with others, well acquainted with an- cient history : but he was entirely deficient in general and comprehensive historical knowledge. He wrote it, as he himself states in the preface, from the pleasure which he took in history, and for consolation in a cheer- less and most gloomy period ; the rising generation were to be refreshed with the remembrance of the glo- rious times of old ; after having once resolved upon tint work, he had set about it in the first exultation of en- thusiasm. In writing the history of the kings, he ap- parently followed Ennius. We perceive that clearly it is consistent, and of a piece. As he went on, he gradu- ally got hold of more authors, but always a very limited number. As in Dionysius every thing is connected, so The example which the grammarians quote in corroboration, legati domum unde venerant redierunt, i not to be found in our Livy. ROMAN HISTORY. 49 in livy all is isolated. He had not at all made it his task to write a learned and scrupulously sifted history. With foreign histories he is altogether unacquainted. He could not have written that the Carthaginians first came to Sicily in 324, if he had known that fifty yeara before they had already undertaken their first great expedition thither. That of Alexander of Epirus would, according to him, have lasted eighteen years. He also mistakes Heraclitus, Philip's ambassador to Hannibal, for the philosopher of the same name. The ancients were generally in the habit of dictating their works ; this is to be seen in none more clearly than in Livy. He worked out each of the years sepa- rately ; and very often the later ones are in contradic- tion to those which go before, so that we find that he did not even once submit the whole to a connected re- vision. Fabius, Valerius Antias, Tubero, and Quadri- garius, whether this last from the beginning cannot be ascertained, are the authors whom he made use of; and perhaps, though I doubt it, Cato's Origines also. He read himself, or had some one to read to him, the events of a year, and then dictated his narrative from it, taking one annalist in preference as his groundwork ; and therefore in most cases there are no contradictions in the history of the same year. As he went on, he got hold of authors whom he had not known originally ; for instance, the Annales Pontificum for the first time just before the end of the first decade, Polybius not earlier than the middle of the war of Hannibal. The account of the siege of Saguntum, which is so poor in incident, and that of the passage of Hannibal over the Alps, would surely have been differently told by him, if in- stead of Coelius Antipater, he had availed himself of Polybius. It was only when he reached the history of Philip of Macedon, that he looked into Polybius ; in the fourth decade, he translates from him every thing that he has not taken from the next annalists concerning the internal affairs of Rome. Thus he certainly had B 50 SOURCES OP before him Posidonius after Polybius, and then the Memoirs of Rutilius and of Sylla ; in later times, per- haps Asinius Pollio, Theophanes, and others. The far- ther he advanced, the nearer he came to the work for which he was really fitted, only he had unfortunately become old in the meanwhile. The delineation of the character of Cicero from Livy in M. Seneca's Suasoria, is done in a masterly style. One is more and more con- vinced how richly Livy was endowed with a talent for description and narration of the kind which we prize in the novelists of our time. What he is utterly defi- cient in, is comprehensiveness of view. He often takes from an annalist an account, which presupposes quite different circumstances from those which he himself has set forth. Wherever he wants to give a summary, one sees that what a little while since he had written, nay, even what he had quite close before him, was not at all present to his mind. Thus the enumeration of the nations which fell off immediately after the battle of Cannae is entirely wrong, there being several among them who only revolted some years afterwards. He shows himself to be no critic in the war of Hannibal, where he repeats the tales which Coelius Antipater only could have devised ; and moreover we find in him an entire absence of judgment with regard to an event and the actors in it, whether they were right or wrong. In early life, he was on Pompey's side ; that is to say, a partisan of that chaos which had grown up out of the Roman constitution. lie was then very young, being only ten years old when Caesar came to Italy. This bygone time before the dictatorship of Caesar, appeared to his imagination as a golden age. Thus a friend of my youth, a Frenchman and a staunch royalist, remark- ed to me, that the French nobles who at the outbreak of the Revolution were still young, were the most fierce- ly zealous against its ideas, and looked upon the period immediately preceding it as a time of the highest feli- city. Livy seems to have been one of those men who ROMAN HISTORY. 51 never put to themselves the question, What ought then to have happened, if matters had not come to a crisis ? Yet it is natural that after Caesar's victory noble minds should have inclined to Pompey, who seemed to uphold the ancient usages and constitution ; and it is only now that we are able to recognise Caesar to have been the most beneficial of the two leaders. Livy, moreover, ap- plies his party names to persons and to circumstances which were quite different, and he looks upon every thing that belongs to the tribunes as seditious. When he tells us of Tarquin the Proud, how he usurped the dominion over the Latins, and how Turnus Herdonius, evidently with the greatest justice, withstood him, he calls the latter homo seditiosus, usque artibus potentiam nactus. Thus Livy must have proverbially become what is called in France an Ultra. In this sense Augustus called him a Pompeian ; though he did not fear him, be- cause no real effects were to be expected from such day- dreams. Whether the Patavinity with which Asinius Pollio has taxed him, had reference to his history, or to the speeches which he was heard to deliver as a rhetorician, we are no longer able to ascertain. The latter suppo- sition is very likely. Pollio may have said, " one still perceives from the pronunciation of Livy, that he was not bred in Rome," just as in Paris also one can tell provincials. I myself think that I can make out whe- ther the author of a work lived in Paris or at Geneva, and a Frenchman of course discovers it yet more quickly. There may, therefore, have existed some nice shades of distinction, even in style itself, which now-a-days escape our observation. The Latin of Livy in a grammatical point of view is perfectly classical and correct ; yet for all that, it is by no means impossible that either in speaking or in writing, he may have ventured upon many an expression which was not usual at Rome. There remains yet another question. Have we any reason to believe with regard to Livy's history, which was com- 52 SOURCES OP mcnced thirty-one years after Pollio's consulship, that Asinius Pollio could have known it i It is possible. We have an account of his being still living after Caius Caesar's death.* Yet this can hardly be true, as Pliny would in that case have certainly mentioned him among the longcevi. Particularly worthy of notice is the amiable disposi- tion of Livy. The whole of his work breathes a kindli- ness and serenity which does one's heart good in read- ing it. Perhaps we should observe this yet more clearly, if we had the later books. Few writers have had such an influence as Livy. He forms an epoch in Roman literature : with him every attempt ceases to write Roman annals. When Quintilian compares him with Herodotus, this is only correct with regard to the amenity of style which is common to both. Otherwise Livy is particularly deficient in those qualities which Herodotus possesses, than whom none was ever richer in remembrances and ancient lore; than whom there never was a more gifted investigator ; and who was in- deed a master both in observing and in research. Livy's great talent, on the contrary, is that of arranging de- tails, and of narration. Of the old Roman constitution he had no notion whatever. Even of the constitution which still existed during his youth, he seems to have had no very accurate knowledge ; but whatever in the old institutions bore the same name as in his time, he always confounds with what was more recent. On the other hand, he gives accounts which are inappropriate as applying to his own era, but quite correct with re- ference to the olden time. He had a wonderful reputa- tion in his day : it is a known fact that a man came from Cadiz to Rome merely to see him, and then imme- * This account, which is to be found in M. Seneca Excerpt Controv. 1, IV., does not apply to the emperor Caius (Caliyula), but to the son of M. Agrippa, whom Augustus had adopted. It is stated in Seneca, mor- '." in Syria, C. Caxare, which can only be said of the latter. Asinius 1'ollio died in the year 5 A.D. (Hieron. in Euseb. Chron. ad a. MMXX.) and could not at any rate have known Livy's work complete. ROMAN HISTORY. 53 diately went back again. This fame lasted. He was the historian KT' Ufoav, and Roman history was learn- ed from him alone. Whatever in after times was writ- ten by Latins, was scarcely more than extracts from him. Wherever in the later Roman authors any thing is quoted from history, it is taken from Livy : Silius Ita- licus, the most wretched of all poets, has done nothing but paraphrase him. And therefore he was read in the rhetorical and grammatical schools, particularly, as it seems, his first and third decades. These grammatical schools existed in Rome until beyond the seventh cen- tury, in Ravenna even down to the eleventh. It is, however, remarkable that all the manuscripts of the first decade may be traced back to a single one, which was written in the fourth century by a certain Nicomachus for Symmachus and his family, but is most wretchedly done. We have no manuscript in which all the books which have been preserved are contained.- Where the first, third, and fourth decade are together, the fourth is never entire ; and all the manuscripts are very recent, dating from the fourteenth century. One sees that he was little read during the middle ages, as they made shift with the most trivial extracts. Of the first books we have manuscripts of the tenth century. At the re- storation of learning, the first and third decades existed in pretty many manuscripts ; the fourth in few only, and those mutilated. Yet the fourth decade was indeed known and read before that time, as may be seen from a novel of Francesco Sacchetti. But the thirty-third book was entirely wanting ; and the fortieth, from the third paragraph of chapter 37. The latter gap was filled up from a Mentz manuscript in the edition printed in that town, A.D. 1518; but the one in the thirty-third book, from the sixth paragraph of the seventeenth chapter only. The last five books were published from a manu- script of the monastery of Lorsch, of the seventh or eighth century (codex Laurishamensis), now at Vienna, 54 SOURCES OF in the Basle edition of the year 1531. The first sixteen chapters of the thirty-third book have been published at Rome in 1616, from a Bamberg manuscript, and again collated by Gceller (as the Laurishamensis for the last five books was by Kopitar), who has found some important various readings. Yet these have always remained defective. The desire to obtain the missing parts of Livy's his- tory was universal ; and in the days of Louis XIV. espe- cially, people allowed themselves to be taken in by the most extravagant stories. At one moment, they were said to be in existence at Constantinople ;* at another, at Chios; and then, in an Arabic t translation, at Fez. Only a short time ago, one heard of a translation, which was said to have been found at Saragossa. At Lausanne there formerly existed a complete manuscript of the fifth decade ; but it has been lost. A real treasure was found by Bruns of Holstein, who lived at Rome in 1772 and 1773. He discovered a little volume in which some books of the Old Testament, in the Vulgate version but with very differing readings, were contained ; and which almost entirely consisted of re- written leaves, originally from the Heidelberg Library to judge from the hand- writing, perhaps a Bobbian manuscript. In this he found M. Tuttt Ciceroni* Oratio pro Roscio incipit fe- liciter; and seeing that it began differently from the speeches as they usually were, he considered it to be the lost commencement of the oration pro Roscio Comcedo. He called in the learned and ingenious Italian Gioven- azzi, and asked him to examine it ; the latter decided that it was the Oratio pro Roscio Amerino, yet did not observe the excellent various readings, nor discover in what preceded the lost oration pro Rdbirio perduettionis. They turned over some more leaves, and found some very elegant hand writing with the superscription T. Some books of the library of the Greek Emperors may indeed hare remained behind at Constantinople ; but they were probably destroyed In the great fire. t The Arabs nerer translated historians. BOM AN HISTORY. 55 Livt liber nonagesimus primus. The aid of chemical means being as yet unknown in those days, they read it with incredible exertions. It was reserved for me, to do what they could not accomplish. I have read it all through, and completed it. The text is very different in different decades. As far as regards the first of these, all the manuscripts which hitherto have been deemed authentic only follow the recension of Mcomachus Dexter Flavianus, whose subscription is found beneath the Florentine copy, the first of Leyden, and some others. These manuscripts, the text of which that of Florence gives very accurate- ly, are all of them bad. Some various readings are ex- hibited by several English, Harleyan and Lovel manu- scripts ; but these are extremely recent, from philologists of the time of the restoration of learning, who made very free with the text, and therefore they are not of a good description. One single manuscript, of which we have only extracts, shows some quite extraordinary readings, the Codex Clockianus, concerning which we know not where it now is. These variations are so pe- culiar, that I often doubted whether they were always authentic, and whether Clockius really had a manu- script. The Veronese palimpsests exhibit no deviation of consequence from the Florentine manuscript. We cannot therefore hope to get beyond the recension of Nicomachus, at least as far as our present knowledge of the manuscripts enables us to judge. Of the Paris manuscripts, not one as yet has been collated. It is otherwise with the third decade, for which the Codex Puteanus, which Gronovius has made use of, is excel- lent. The text here is sounder than in the first ; for the fourth, the Bamberg and the Mentz manuscripts, and the Editio Ascensiana have a strong claim on our regard. For the fifth decade, the Codex Laurishamensis, now preserved at Vienna, is the only source. From Ita- lian libraries, we can no longer expect much ; as the first editions generally represent the manuscripts, and the. 56 SOURCES OF best manuscripts of Latin authors are, on the whole, not in Italy, but in France and in Germany. As far as regards commentaries, it is really astonish- ing how little has been done in the way of criticism for Livy ; and yet he is one of the first who has been sub- jected to any elaborate criticism. Already was this done by the ingenious Laurentius Valla, whose learning was of the true philological cast, and who even before the invention of printing, wrote short scholia, and likewise an historical disquisition concerning Tarquin the Proud, whether he was a son, or a grandson of Tarquinius Pris- cus ? Then follows M. Antonius Sabellicus, a Venetian, of whom some annotations still exist, which, consider- ing his great ability, are very trifling. Glareanus was a very ingenious and acute man. His attention was especially directed to the historical part, and in his re- marks he frankly pronounces much of it to be unten- able. The emendation of the text was then taken in hand by many persons whose names are not known. Gelenius has certainly aided in the Basil edition, with- out his name being mentioned. When Glareanus had finished, Sigonius of Modena wrote his scholia on Livy. His work is very good and praiseworthy, his criticisms chiefly historical. He most unaccountably bore a strong grudge against Glareanus, and the latter replied in an edition in which he had Sigonius' notes reprinted. Si- gonius has contributed much towards the criticism of the text ; but he has also interpolated a great deal that is untenable, part of which still stands in the text. Then follow almost a hundred years, during which no- thing was done for Livy, until John Frederick Gronovius, sprung from an Holstein family at Hamburgh, appear- ed ; who, when philology was in a dying state, might have given it a new impulse, had the age been suscep- tible of it. His Livy is a masterpiece. He is one of the earliest who conscientiously searched into manu- scripts. His careful grammatical and historical com- mentary gains for him the palm among all who have ROMAN HISTORY. 57 occupied themselves with Livy ; only, when he speaks of the constitution and laws of the State, he has some- times made mistakes, and unjustly censured Brissonius. After him came Clockius, whose conjectures are most unlucky ; and then Tanaquil Faber of Saussure, who, though he was very intelligent, has done very little for Livy ; nor is his criticism much to be relied on. Duker's and Drakenborch's edition holds the first rank among all the editions which we have of ancient authors. Duker's notes are excellent, a striking contrast to his Thucydides, he shows likewise a very correct judg- ment concerning the subject-matter. Drakenborch is far from possessing the same penetration and ability, but for all that he has very good common sense ; his ap- plication, which is scrupulously conscientious, is admi- rable, and he scrutinizes every thing most accurately. The treasure of philological remarks which he has hoard- ed up is really astonishing, and his indices are very much to the point. Drakenborch is a model in this also, that he had already completed the whole of his work before he began to publish it. The subject-mat- ter is quite evenly disposed all through the work. After this, little was done for the criticism of Livy. The emendations of Professor Walch of Berlin are beau- tiful, and it is a pity that he has not realized his inten- tion of editing the whole of Livy. Yet a very great deal remains to be done, especially in the first decade. The nations of Roman language have gained for them- selves little or no distinction with regard to Livy. Livy is one of those authors whose fate it was, like all who form an epoch in literature, that his influence was not wholly beneficial, but also pernicious. He be- came from henceforth an authority, although he was no critic ; people read the Roman history in Livy only, and the old historians were almost entirely forgotten. The only exception which we know of Roman history being written independently of Livy, is that of Velleius Paterculus, who began from the mythic legends, and 58 SOURCES OF wrote as far as the year 783. He divided his work into two books, the first of which ended with the destruc- tion of Carthage ; and besides the Roman, treated also of the earliest Greek history. Unfortunately the second book only is any thing like complete, as in the first the whole of the earlier history is wanting, a loss which is very much to be regretted. Velleius belongs to the writers of evil repute, and it is not to be denied but that a dismal time has crushed him and his independent spirit. He crouches before the tyrant Sejanus ; but one must not overlook the fact, that he was much more in- genious than his contemporaries. He is exceedingly witty, and there is something choice in his remarks ; besides which he is perfectly master of his subject, and shows himself to be a deeply read and deeply learned scholar. He reminds one of the authors in the time of Louis XV. It is not quite decided that Fabius Rusticus has not written the earliest history. He was perhaps the only man in his time who could have done it. The manner in which from henceforth Roman history was written was to epitomize it, of which we have seve- ral examples. There is extant an old table of contents of all the books of Livy, of which two only, the hundred and thirty-sixth and the hundred and thirty-seventh, are wanting, a sort of index for those who wished to search for any thing in the great work, and perhaps nothing more than a collection of the heads which were written in the margin. This epitome bears quite inappropri- ately the name of Floras. The author is unknown, and it is certainly only the work of some copyist. But to us it is invaluable, as many things have been preserved in it alone. Well known and much read was the Roman history of Florus in four books, which, written in the reign of Trajan, is a very wretched piece of work. Yet at the side of many glaring mistakes, there is something which may be turned to use. Florus may have written from ROMAN HISTORf. 59 what he read in Livy ; yet there is in one single pas- sage a deviation from him, so that he must have read others also. Eutropius has evidently every where followed the track of Livy ; but he is so bad a writer, that one can- not believe that he has read Livy. I therefore conjec- ture that there must have existed an abstract besides, forming a sort of medium between the work itself and our epitome ; which Orosius no doubt also read, who likewise implicitly follows Livy, but assigns dates which clash with him, a practice quite in keeping with his ignorance in changing the dates by consuls into those by years. Such an abstract was like that of Trogus from Justin. Orosius' object was simply this, to con- sole his contemporaries in the state in which they were by means of perversions and sophisms in describing the wretchedness of the olden time. Yet there are many points in which his statements have great value, only one must not allow oneself to be misled by him. The influence which Livy had exercised upon the Romans, in putting an end to every thing like original- ity in writing history, did not extend to the Greeks. They directed their attention more and more to Roman history, and found in it a theme for rhetorical and ele- gant composition. One of those who at that time more or less engaged in this task, was Plutarch, who compos- ed his historical works in the reign of Trajan. He had a definite moral purpose, his was a fine soul : yet neither was he a practical man, nor had he a turn for specula- tive thought, but he was made for quiet and cheerful contemplation, like Montaigne. He had an unaffected aversion to all that was vulgar ; and he wrote in this spirit for himself and his friends, the parallels of distin- guished Romans and Greeks. He is just to every body. He loves the Greeks and respects the Romans, and this makes his Lives most delightful reading. But his qua- lities as an historian are of a very secondary order. He is no critic, and does not discriminate between conflict- 60 SOURCES OF ing opinions ; but he follows at one time one authority, and at another time another. In Pyrrhus and Camil- las, one sees that he has used Dionysius ; in Marius and Sylla, Posidonius; and wherever we are able to make this out, his history gains a much more important char- acter for authenticity. The task of ascertaining this point is as yet far from being accomplished. Plutarch, as he himself tells us, understood little of Latin, and was particularly ignorant of the grammar, owing to which mistakes are found in him here and there, though indeed but seldom. About a generation after Plutarch, Appian wrote. He was a jurist from Alexandria, who in the reigns of Adrian and Antoninus Pius, lived in Rome as an agent for his native town, and had the management of law- suits. He was greatly befriended by Fronto, and by his interest got the office of a Procurator Ccesaris. Although he had lived a long time at Rome, and had a great opi- nion of his Latin, yet it is not to be supposed that he was very conversant with that language ; as, owing to Adrian's predilection for Greek, he surely was allowed to plead in it, especially for the transmarini. Having made a fortune at Rome, he returned to Alexandria, and was in his old age treated with much distinction by the Romans. According to one account, he has written twenty-four books on Roman history ; among them four on Egypt, in which he treated with particular prolixity of the Lagides. It was not a continuous history, but arranged after the plan of the Origines of Cato. The first book was called Bv;*a, in twenty books, certainly in Greek, the loss of which we have very much to regret. Even Pliny does no more quote this latter work. But in the sixteenth century two tablets were discovered, on which, fragments of an oration of the emperor Claudius are found, wherein he proposes in the senate to give the Lugdunensian Gauls the full citizenship, and to admit them into the senate, as had long been the case already in the Provincia Ro- incma. The inhabitants of Gaul were Roman citizens, had Roman names, yet they had not the right of ad- mission into the senate. With this right the emperor Claudius presented Lugdunensian Gaul. The two brazen tablets are still left, out of several which contained the speech mentioned by Tacitus ; and they either do not Rerum Hibernicarijm Scriptores, T. I. Prolegom. p. 1. Note of the German Editor, 88 ORIGIN OF THE immediately join each other, or a considerable piece must be wanting at the bottom. Before the French Revolution they were still in the town hall at Lyons ; whether they be still there, I know not. Lipsius had them printed in his edition of Tacitus, Gruter in the Corpus Inscriptionum ; but yet they hava been little read. They give us an idea of the stupidity of Clau- dius, so that we feel assured that the ancients have not done him injustice. In this harangue he says at full length what Tacitus very summarily condensed, that we ought not to say that this was an innovation. In- novations had been made from the beginning of the state ; foreigners had ever been received, as for instance the Sabines of Titus Tatius. Even foreigners had been made kings, Numa ; Tarquin the Etruscan, a descen- dant of the Greeks ; Servius Tullius, who, according to our annals, was a Corniculensian, but according to the Tuscan ones was a Tuscan of the name of Mastarna, a follower of Caeles Vibenna. He emigrated and settled on the Mons Caelius, which was so called by him after the name of his leader, and now called himself Servius Tullius. This is therefore a direct proof of how matters stood at that time with regard to the Roman annals ; for there is nothing whatever in which we can make this Etruscan Mastarna and Servius Tullius, the son of a bondwoman, tally with each other. Undoubtedly therefore the earliest Roman history has sprung from lays. Perizonius quotes examples from other nations ; even in the historical books of the Old Testament, there are such lays. With regard to the Romans, he cites the testimony of Cato, to which Cicero refers in two passages. " Would that the lays were still in existence;" Cicero writes, "for as Cato says, they were sung at table by the guests in praise of deceased men ! " A third mention we find in Nonius Marcellus from Varro, that at banquets pueri honesti sang lays in praise of departed great men, either to the flute, or with- out any accompaniment. This evidence every one EARLY HISTORY OF ROME. 89 must acknowledge as authentic. Among all the nations of whose peculiar original early literature we can form any judgment, there are found either longer historical poems of the epic class, or else very short ones in praise of individual men. In order to pave the way for the assertion that we have still pieces left of both from the Romans, we must first premise some remarks on their most ancient metres. The ancient Romans, before they adopted the Greek poetic system, made use of the Saturnian verse. Horace says oi it, Horridus ille Defluxit numerus Saturnius and several old grammarians have given accounts of it. Atilius Portunatianus and others among them, who knew nothing about its structure, stuck to a couple of verses which had been preserved ; particularly to the following, in which, according to the views which then prevailed, a hypercatalectical Senarius makes its ap- pearance : Malum dabunt Metelli Nsevio Poetae. Terentianus Maurus, who belongs to the end of the third century, speaks of it when treating of the Anacreontic verse, because the first division of the Saturnian bears some resemblance to it. But the real Saturnian verse is quite a different one, which I intend shortly to prove in a detailed treatise. It has many forms, and is alto- gether distinct from Greek metres. The Latin term for Rhythmus, which in later times only was applied to Greek metres, is numeri. But the Greek metre is based on music and quantity, while in theirs the Romans really counted, the syllables being little measured, or rather not at all : a certain degree of rhythm was, how- ever, kept. Our ancestors, in the same way, had no idea of short and long syllables in the Greek manner ; and in the old Latin church hymns likewise short syllables are made long, and vice versa. Plautus and Terence also, in 90 ORIGIN OF THE their iambic and trochaic verses, really observed the ryhthmical measure only, and not the quantity. This is the case with all northern people. The pervading charac- teristic of the Saturnian verse is this, that it must consist of a fixed number of trisyllabic feet. Generally speak- ing there are four of them, in which either Bacchics or Cretics interchange with Spondees. Sometimes the Cretics and sometimes the Bacchics predominate. When kept distinct they have a very fine movement ; but they are usually very much mingled together, so that it ia difficult to make them out. These verses, found from the very earliest times, are quite analogous to the Persian, Arabian, and to our own old German and northern ones, and also to those of the Anglo-Saxon, and to all in which alliteration prevails. The old German verse is divided into two halves, in the first of which two words begin with the same conso- nant, which once more occurs again in the second, and it has four beats. In the old Saxon Harmony of the Gospels there is this quadruple measure, and likewise in Otfrid and others; but five or six measures may also be found. In Persian poetry there are uniformly four feet of three syllables each ; in Arabic this is often the case, but not unseldom there are quadrisyllable ones also. Exactly agreeing with these are the Spanish coplas de arte major, which were in use before the intro- duction of the Alexandrine, and have also passed into the Flemish. In all probability this metre was also used in the longer poems of the Provencal. This old Roman syllabic measure is universal in the Roman poems down to the seventh century. I have found a long string of them, and a chapter of an old grammarian with fragments of wonderful beauty, principally from NiL-vius. This important treatise on the Saturnian verse I shall publish. For this grammarian has really understood that metre,* which in Plautus is worked up to a high degree of beauty. The grammarian whote fragment on the Saturnian Terse U here EARLY HISTORY OF ROME. 91 There are also shorter old poems in this measure. At the funerals of the Romans, Nenice, as they were called, were sung to the flute, which were not doleful sentimental songs, but must have been of the same character as the JJaudationes. The dead had now pass- ed over to their illustrious ancestors ; their glory was made the theme of pride and exultation ; and therefore in these Nenise praise was simply given them. When Horace says, absint inani fwnere nenice, &c. this refers, if there was any singing at all at funerals, to the dirges of the later age. The Romans were not originally ten- der-hearted. They made even the dead man of use to the State, and from the grave itself he exhorted others to follow him in his deeds. Nenise and Laudationes were therefore quite plain and simple, in that old style which did not yet know of any construction of periods, and they are no way to be compared to the xy< r/ avtiffii. All that we know of the Latins is this, that they had a number of towns from Tibur to the river Tiber. How far they extended in the earliest time to the Liris is lost in obscurity. Cato (in Priscian) says, that the plain of the Volscians formerly belonged to the aborigines; certainly all the towns along the coast were at an early period Tyrrhenian, as Antium, Circeii, and many others. At that time, therefore, the * Probably C. Sempronius Tuditanus, the same whom IHonysius A. R. I, 11, calls Koyiurarot rut 'Paf/.aiav ffvyyfiaifiui. Note of the German Editor. 102 THE EARLIEST HISTORY. name of Latium spread far, and so late as immediately after the Roman kings, even to Campania ; it having been first limited in consequence of the great popular migrations soon after the expulsion of the kings. Hesiod of course refers to the earlier time. In the treaty of Rome with Carthage, the coast beyond Terracina, pro- bably as far as Cumae, was called Latium, and the in- habitants Latins. By the Greeks the Pelasgian inhabitants of the whole western coast of Italy were called Tyrrhenians ; by the Latins, Turini, Tusci, i. e. Tusici from Tmus, or Turus; for s in the ancient language stands for r, as in Fusius for Furius. We must bear well in mind that the Pelasgians and Aborigines are one and the same people. If we look over the legends of nations, we repeatedly find the same stories told in different ways which are entirely opposed to each other. The story of a Jew who takes ruthless revenge upon a Christian, as we know it from Shakspeare, in a Roman novel shortly before his time, is found just reversed, so that the Christian wants to cut off the flesh from the Jew. The migrations of the Goths, according to some, proceed from Scandinavia to the south ; according to others, from the south to Scan- dinavia. Wittikind says that the Saxons had come out of Britain into Germany ; the usual account makes them out to have been invited thither from Germany. The Pelasgians near the Hymettus near Athens are re- presented to have come from Tyrrhenia to Athens, and from thence to Lemnos ; in another tradition, the Tyr- rhenians go from the Meonian coast to Italy. Thus Gyrene, according to one legend, is colonized from Thera ; in another, Thera rises out of a clod of earth from Libya. In the earlier account, the Symplegades were in the Eastern Sea, and the Argo sails through them on her voyage out ; in the later, they are in the Western Sea, and impede the progress of the Argo on her voyage home. This exchange of polarity is mani- THE EARLIKST HISTORY. 103 fested also with regard to the aborigines. In spite of etymology, Dionysius so calls the people which, issu- ing from the interior of the country, conquered the ancient inhabitants. Varro did the same, and yet worse than Pliny. He had read an immense deal ; but learned he ought not to be called on account of liis confused- ness.* Varro knows about the close alliance of two of the Latin nations, but he makes a j umble of every thing ; the aborigines are for him the conquering, aad the Sicu- lians the conquered people. Then, following Hellanicus, he brings over the aborigines from Thessaly ; yet thy then migrate from the Upper Anio to the Upper Abruz- zo, whither they are driven by the Sabines, This tra- dition has a lecal and plausible character; for there were many small towns to be found there : large cities, on the contrary, such as the Etruscans possessed, are always a proof of immigration, as the immigrating peo- ple rather settles in a few considerable places. Trent and several other cities are large Lombard colonies. Dionysius may be excused, as he relies on Varro's au- thority ; the latter alone is answerable for the mistake. Here also the designation of the people, the conquering and the conquered one, is confounded. The conquerors were probably called Cascans. This name Servius has preserved from Saufeius, a gramma- rian who seems to belong to the first century of the Christian era. They are also met with under the name of Sacranians, and to this the expression in Dionysius refers, that it had been a h^a. nTf . Part of the people which under the name of Opicans and Oscans inhabited the interior of Italy, or was more likely pushed down from the north, and wedged in between the old Pelas- gian places, settled in the Apennines round the lake Fusinus (at present called Celano), towards Reate. Their chief town was called Lista: they bordered on * I entered upon these researches already as a youth ; but in the last edition only of my history I arrived at clear views. I relied too much on Varro's authority, though I judged correctly as to the main point 104 THE EARLIEST HISTORY. the Siculians, who inhabited the country as far as be- yond Tibur. There was a legend concerning them, that in the war with the Sabines, who had already taken from them Reate, and were driving them before them further and further, they had made a vow of a ver sa- crum. This custom of the Italian nations when evil times befel them, was kept up also among the Romans. It was vowed to consecrate to the gods all cattle, in short, all that should be produced in the ensuing spring ; and to send out in colonies the male children born at that period, as soon as ever they were grown up : the produce was either to be offered up, or redeemed. Thus devoted, the Sacranians marched against Latium, and subjected to themselves the Siculians. In Latium they settled among the old inhabitants, and became united with them into one people, which received the name of Prisci Latini; for, the Cascans must also have been called Prisci. To take Priaci Latini in Livy for Old Lathis would be an absurdity : he has borrowed the for- mula of the declaration of war by the Fetiales, in which the expression first occurs, from the ancient rituals ; it goes back to the time of Ancus Marcius, whilst before that of Tarquin the Proud, there were certainly no La- tin colonies which we may suppose to have been placed in opposition to the rest of the people. Prisci Latini stands for Prisci et Latini, as the Latin language al- ways expresses two necessary centra-positions, or two notions inseparably combined, by an immediate juxta- position of the two words. The earliest Romans made as little use of cement in their language, as in their buildings. Brissonius has very clearly shown this, and has thereby fixed the formula Populus Romanus Quirites; only that he goes too far when he asserts that Populus Romanus Quiritium had never been said, which has been justly controverted by J. F. Gronovius. In the same manner, patres conscripti, instead of qui patres, quigue conscripti sunt; and in legal forms, locati conducti, emti venditi,