PA 
 
Edited by JOHN RICHARD GREEN. 
 
 L I V Y: 
 
 VV. W. CAPES, M.A., 
 
 \\ 
 
 FELLOW OF HERTFORD COLLEGE 
 
 AND 
 READER IN ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 1879- 
 
 [ The Right o/ Translation and Reproduction is Reserved, ] 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 "L 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE. 
 LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME. ... 3 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A GENERAL ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 12 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE AGE OF THE KINGS ...... 26 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH TO THE DESTRUCTION 
 
 OF ROME BY THE GAULS ..... 34 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FROM THE INVASION OF THE GAULS TO THE END 
 
 OF THE SAMNITE WARS ..... 49 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CRITICISM OF LIVY'S METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE . 65 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LOST DECADE, WITH ITS ACCOUNTS OF PYRRHUS 
 
 AND OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR . . .75 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SECOND PUNIC WAR ...... 79 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA AND THE PRO- 
 
 CLAMATION OF GREEK FREEDOM . . -99 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST AND POLICY IN GREECE 108 
 
LIVY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME. 
 
 Rome as the Capital of the World. Livy, like 
 most of the great Latin authors, was not of Roman 
 birth, but the native of a country town of Italy, 
 attracted to Rome in later years. In our own days 
 men of letters flock to London or to Paris, or to some 
 other of the capitals of Europe, where they find the 
 readiest market for their literary wares, or easiest 
 access to the shifting currents of new thought. In 
 Livy's time Rome was the capital of the whole civilised 
 world, and as such the centre to which all eyes and 
 all ambitions turned. For seven hundred years the 
 city of the Seven Hills had fought and schemed and 
 conquered ; it had cost her centuries of constant war- 
 fare to spread her arms through Italy; she had been 
 locked with Carthage in a struggle for life or death 
 which, three times renewed, was ended only by the 
 total ruin of the Queen of Trade ; Macedonia, rely- 
 ing on the proud memories of Alexander's conquests, 
 dared her to a trial of strength, but only to be crushed, 
 dismembered, and annexed ; the royal thrones of Asia 
 toppled and fell before the tramp of the invading 
 legions ; in the West the peoples of Spain and Gaul 
 bowed their necks perforce to receive the yoke of 
 Rome, which stood at last supreme in the old world 
 in the solitude which she had made, with a ring of 
 uncivilised races only on her border. The age of 
 conquest was succeeded by a period of Civil Wars, 
 
 B 2 
 
4 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 in which the rival claimants for Imperial power dis- 
 puted the prize which had been won. The com- 
 manding genius of the great Caesar triumphed in the 
 field only to fall before the assassins' knives. His 
 nephew stepped into the vacant place, and played a 
 warier game of force and guile, till he swept his rivals 
 from his path, and the Augustan age at last gave peace 
 to the world and prosperity to Rome. 
 
 Livy left his native Padua. New-comers flocked 
 from every quarter to the seat of empire and of 
 fashion; motley crowds jostled each other in the 
 streets, for curious wonder and the spirit of adventure 
 drew them by thousands from their homes. Thither 
 came Livy like the rest. He left his native Padua, 
 then called Patavium, and settled as a man of letters 
 where he might find books and literary circles, or 
 materials for wider studies. 
 
 Livy as a literary man at Rome. In public 
 life indeed there was little opening for his special 
 talents. The arts of peace had languished sadly 
 during the long years of Civil War, when the soldier's 
 trade alone was prized. Quiet and plenty were re- 
 stored once more; the temple of Janus had been 
 closed the symbol of universal peace which had been 
 unknown for ages but the old days had not come 
 back when eloquence alone could raise the orator to 
 the highest posts of honour. The Republic had 
 passed away for ever. The mass-meetings of the 
 streets, roused to fury by the hot words of a party- 
 leader ; the passionate debates in the National Assem- 
 blies, whose virulent invectives shock our calmer 
 tastes; the Criminal Trials, in which the rival advocates 
 were politicians straining every nerve to gain a party 
 triumph these \vere now memories of the past when 
 the name of Freedom was often sullied by turbulent 
 misrule. Power was now divided between the Em- 
 peror and the Senate. The former was Commander- 
 in-Chief of all the armies of the State, governing by 
 his deputies the great countries, then called Provinces, 
 which needed military force, and though in name 
 
I.] LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME, 5 
 
 only Supreme Magistrate, was really almost absolute 
 Monarch. The latter was made up of ex-officials, 
 who took their seats for life in the Great Council; 
 through it the noble families of Rome seemed still 
 to rule the capital and half the provinces; but the 
 master of the armies held the power of the sword ; 
 his will, disguised though it was by many a mask, was 
 felt in every detail of public life, influenced the course 
 of every debate, and determined the career of every 
 statesman or aspirant. The arts of Rhetoric were 
 studied as of old, and the young trained themselves in 
 all the fence of words, but eloquence no longer pro- 
 mised a career of usefulness or honour. Livy was not 
 born, as we have seen, among the governing families 
 of Rome, nor was he started early in official life, but, 
 happily for us, his genius turned soon, if not at first, 
 to literary labours, and found a fitting subject to fire 
 his fancy and to occupy his life in following the 
 i history of Rome from the earliest ages down to his 
 I own days. It would have been hard indeed to find a 
 worthier theme or a better time to handle it. 
 
 He found a worthy subject. It might well stir 
 the imagination of the visitor to Rome to think that a 
 quiet word spoken hard by in the palace would carry 
 the weight of law throughout the civilised world : that 
 in the strangers who elbowed him as he passed along 
 the streets were men of almost every race and tongue : 
 that the great highways which started from the central 
 milestone in the city ran on to the furthest ends of 
 the great Empire where the legions of Rome were 
 stationed to keep watch and ward against the far-off 
 races of barbarous names and unknown story, while 
 all within enjoyed unwonted peace. In the very year, 
 as it would seem, when Livy's history was begun the 
 old era had been closed and the Empire had been 
 born. But it was not the policy of Augustus rudely to 
 disturb the associations of the past. Old formalities of 
 office were observed ; the annual pageants of the 
 Commonwealth passed along the streets ; old buildings 
 full of earlier memories were carefully restored; the 
 
LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 name even of the Republic was retained. Outside the 
 city along the highways ran the long line of funeral 
 monuments on which many a tale might still be read 
 of the generals and statesmen of a bygone age. Within 
 in every square and market-place, wherever there were 
 crowds to gather and curious eyes to look, were the 
 unnumbered statues of the men who had added to 
 the glories of their fatherland, and whose forms were 
 still ranged along the streets in a sort of National 
 Gallery of the undying dead. The temples served as 
 public archives, and on their walls were stored the 
 tablets of bronze and stone on which were written the 
 laws, the treaties, and the proclamations of the State. 
 Without the deadening influence of custom few could 
 walk unmoved among such scenes, and while they 
 were still fresh they may perhaps have stirred the 
 historic tastes of Livy, and given a life and interest 
 to his studies. It was a theme which none as yet 
 -V had treated worthily. Some writers had taken part 
 too keenly in the present to study calmly the lessons 
 of the past ; others lived amid the struggle of bal- 
 anced forces, and to them the course of events was 
 quite obscure ; but by this time the story of the great 
 Republic was like a drama which was played out to 
 the end ; the curtain had dropped when the last act 
 was over, and critics now could moralise about it as 
 a whole, and see the proportions of the several parts. 
 
 He was sure of sympathy at Rome. It was a 
 subject sure to meet with sympathetic interest in the 
 literary circles which formed the glory of the Augustan 
 age. There were many gathered there at Rome to 
 encourage or advise. There was Virgil, once familiar in 
 his Mantuan home with the farmer's simple pleasures 
 and laborious cares which he set to tuneful verses 
 in his Georgics, now weaving romantic tales about 
 the wanderers from Troy, together with the homespun 
 legends of old Italy, into the tissue of the epic poem 
 which was to spread a halo round the cradle of the 
 Julian line, whence sprung alike the founders of Rome 
 and of the Empire. There too was Horace, weary of 
 
"-vv.^ 
 
 I.] LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME. 7 
 
 the restlessness and passions of the Civil War, thank- 
 ful for the genial peace which the world owed to its 
 ruler, and ready to turn the lessons of the past to good 
 account for his philosophy of moderation and good 
 sense. And Ovid too was to be met with there, the 
 spoiled darling of the fashionable circles, whose facile 
 Muse, though sadly befouled by dalliance with coarser 
 themes, was preparing for a higher flight among the 
 tales, half-legendary, half-historic, which were strung 
 together by tradition, and grouped round the holy days 
 of the official calendar or Fasti. Maecenas, the great 
 minister of Augustus, loved to gather round him such 
 a galaxy of talents to throw a lustre on the capital; 
 his subtle courtesies could win their confidence and 
 prompt their genius to favourable themes through 
 which to influence the spirit of the age. It was not 
 his policy to break rudely with the past: rather the 
 period was to count as one of restoration. The Com- 
 monwealth was in name at least revived; the ancient 
 temples were rebuilt; the old discipline and state re- 
 ligion were enforced by potent sanctions; there was 
 ample show of civil liberty, together with the blessings 
 of calm and security hitherto unknown. The historian's 
 labours might safely be encouraged, for if the lessons 
 of the past were truly written, men must feel how sub- 
 stantial was the gain to civilised life in passing from 
 the long period of revolution with all its memories of 
 turbulence and bloodshed to the quietude of universal 
 peace. 
 
 The circle of Maecenas. So little indeed is told 
 us of the details of Livy's life that we are not sure 
 that he was one of the circle attracted round Mae- 
 cenas. But there is no reason to doubt it, for he was 
 on a friendly footing with the Emperor himself, and 
 appeals to his evidence as an eye-witness in connec- 
 tion with a visit which they made perhaps together 
 to the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. But not a word 
 of flattery can be charged upon his memory, not a ! 
 phrase of more than due respect for the real master 
 of the Roman world, to whom the courtly poets even 
 
8 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 of the highest order paid their homage as to a being 
 more than man. According to the well-known story, 
 his sympathies in the first phase of the Civil War 
 were so pronounced in favour of the Senate's party, 
 and he spoke so doubtfully of the great Caesar, that 
 Augustus called him playfully a Pompeian. What 
 might seem still more hazardous perhaps, he spoke in 
 terms of praise of Brutus and Cassius, murderers 
 though they were of Caesar, and champions of the 
 fallen cause. But his relations with the Emperor do 
 not seem to have been clouded by his frankness ; he is 
 said to have still seen much of his family, and to have 
 urged the young Claudius to write a history when the 
 boy showed a growing taste for letters. 
 
 He had access to materials. Happily indeed 
 until the later years of Livy there was no repression of* 
 free speech, no censorship of literary works ; Maecenas 
 played a warier game; for while his courtesies drew 
 praises of the Empire from many a gifted pen, he left 
 the bolder spirits unassailed, and never suffered them 
 to pose as martyrs. Livy's intimacy with the ruling 
 family, while it did not cramp his freedom, must have 
 given him easy access to historic sources from which 
 only the privileged could draw. There were public 
 documents, buried away from sight in the archives of 
 the State, or exposed only to official eyes. Not every 
 would-be historian or dilettante student might turn 
 over those valuable stores, But a word from Augustus 
 was enough to open every Record Office, and give 
 admission to the Library of every Sacred College. It 
 may be doubted whether Livy used his opportunities 
 aright in this respect, but the Public Libraries, which 
 had been lately opened, contained the works of all the 
 annalists, of many of whom he often speaks, and from 
 whom he seems to have drawn freely. There he 
 studied doubtless to good purpose, and with their help 
 he published from time to time the instalments of his 
 noble work, which found a welcome speedily not only 
 in the cultivated society of Rome, but in far-distant 
 corners of the Empire, as at Gades, whence a traveller 
 
I.] LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME. 9 
 
 came, as the old story tells us, on his long journey to 
 the capital, content to take one look at Livy and be 
 gone. 
 
 His Preface. If we turn now to his Preface, we 
 may see in what spirit he approached his work. After 
 a few modest words about the greatness of the task, 
 and the writers who had gone before him, he proceeds 
 as follows : ' I have no doubt that my readers for the 
 most part will find little interest in the story of the 
 earliest ages, and will be impatient to come down to 
 recent days, when the race long dominant turned its 
 strength against itself in fatal struggle. But for my 
 own part I would hope that my task may bring me 
 thus much profit, that for a while at least I may turn 
 my eyes away from the many evils of our own time, 
 while I busy myself wholly with the far-off past, where 
 I shall have no influence to fear, such as might disturb 
 the peace, even if it did not bias the judgment of the 
 writer. The traditions of the times before the city. was 
 founded or even planned rest on little evidence of 
 genuine fact, but are embellished with poetic fancies, 
 and I have no wish to maintain or to disprove their 
 truth. Antiquity may claim the license of lending 
 mystery to the birth-time of a State by confusing the 
 limits of the human and divine. If any people have 
 the right, the Romans surely may claim a divine 
 parentage and early consecration. Such is their re- 
 nown in war, that all the races which recognise their 
 sway may calmly listen to their boast that they are 
 sprung through their founder from the God of War. 
 But the feeling or the judgment of my readers on such 
 points can interest me little. I trust however that they 
 will note with care what was the life and character of 
 the men who made the Empire, and by what skill in 
 the arts of peace and wa"r they spread its bounds ; 
 they should then see how discipline was gradually 
 relaxed, and moral order first gave way a little, then 
 tottered more and more, till it fell at last in total ruin 
 in our own times, when we can neither bear our vices, 4- 
 nor the remedies that might cure them. The use of 
 
10 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 history mainly consists in this, that we may read therein 
 the notable examples of every moral lesson, that we 
 may find patterns there to copy in public and in 
 private life, as well as warnings to make us shrink 
 from what is hideous alike in its birth arid in its issues. 
 
 No State stood ever higher in moral principle 
 
 and virtuous examples, none withstood so long the 
 inroads of avarice and luxury, none set so high a value 
 
 on contented thrift it is but lately that wealth 
 
 and unstinted pleasures have brought with them in their 
 train the greed and wanton license which recks not of 
 ruin to self and all beside/ 
 
 Its moral tone. This Preface serves to illustrate 
 some features of Livy's character and historic work. 
 First we may see in it the traces of a healthier moral 
 sentiment than was usual in the writers of the age. 
 At Rome itself the tone of public thought was sadly 
 low ; society was often heartless and corrupt, and high 
 and. low alike had suffered from the outburst of revo- 
 lutionary passions. But homely simplicity and antique 
 virtues lived on still among the country towns, where 
 the extremes of poverty and wealth were not so great 
 as at the centre, and social rivalries were not so in- 
 tensely keen, nor the solvent of Hellenic thought so 
 subtle in its action on the old moral and religious 
 codes. The reaction* of the provinces upon the capital 
 was soon to be begun. New families of robuster 
 conscience stepped into the place of the outworn 
 aristocracy : statesmen and administrators, called from 
 their distant homes to serve the Empire, brought with 
 them traditions of unselfish probity which breathed a 
 new spirit into the governing families of Rome. Long 
 afterwards, in Pliny's days, Patavium was noted for the 
 austere morals of its people, and Livy therefore was 
 faithful to the teaching of his earlier home when he 
 mourned over the decay of domestic virtues and of 
 national honour which disgraced the later days of the 
 Republic. He often speaks of this again, with no 
 affectation or satiric wit, but in tones that have the 
 ring of genuine earnestness. 
 
I.] LIVY AS A LITERARY MAN AT ROME. n 
 
 Practical aim of his work. He avows indeed 
 that his interest in history is chiefly moral, and that he 
 values it for himself and for his readers mainly because 
 of the great lessons and pictures of true heroism which 
 may be studied there, to be if possible applied in other 
 spheres. We need not look therefore to find much 
 antiquarian lore, or nice criticism of constitutional 
 questions ; he loves to dwell on men and manners, \ 
 and to paint dramatic scenes, which may stir the fancy 
 of the reader, and haply avail to touch his heart. 
 
 Its patriotic feeling. Livy writes however as a 
 patriot, not with dispassionate interest in human nature, 
 for he was a Roman citizen in early years, when his 
 birthplace was included in the civic tribes. It was 
 no quiet country town, like Plutarch's Chaeroneia, 
 remote from the stir of busy life, where the student 
 must learn chiefly from his books. Patavium was a 
 great commercial centre, and ranked among the first 
 cities of the Empire. It had been true to Rome in 
 the great crisis of the Punic struggle, and must have 
 suffered in the long agony of the Civil Wars, in the 
 first stage of which it took the Senate's side, and so 
 perhaps decided the so-called Pompeian sympathies 
 of Livy. Like the capital, it also had its foundation 
 legends, and traced its origin to a wanderer from Troy, 
 Antenor, driven like ^Eneas to find a home in the far 
 West. Both therefore of these mythic ancestors 
 appear together in the opening pages among those 
 creatures of the fancy which the historian had no wish 
 either ' to maintain or to disprove.' 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 A GENERAL ESTIMATE OF LIVY's CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 The divisions of Livy's work. We may now 
 
 turn to Livy's work, to see how the vast subject was 
 mapped out, and to form some general estimate of 
 its characteristic qualities, some of which will be after- 
 wards discussed in connection with the subjects which 
 may illustrate them best. His history began with the 
 meagre outlines of tradition which traced the fortunes 
 of the Trojan colony planted by JEneas down to the 
 foundation year of Rome 753 B.C., and after that the 
 current of his narrative flowed regularly on to the 
 events of his own days, ending abruptly in the year 
 8 B.C., and spreading over no less than a hundred and 
 forty-two books. It is probable that he intended to 
 carry the work down still further to the last year of 
 Augustus, and thus to complete the full tale of a 
 hundred and fifty books. They seem to have been at 
 first composed in separate decades, so arranged that 
 each collection of ten books, and even sometimes of 
 five, should have some sort of unity and completeness 
 in itself, as dealing with a period more or less distinct. 
 But this design was never carried out entirely. Of 
 these books only thirty-five are now remaining, namely 
 i-x and xxi-xlv, though we have scanty summaries 
 (periochae] of nearly all the rest. 
 
 Many authors are referred to. In the remaining 
 books of Livy a mere fragment, it is to be remem- 
 bered, of the whole there are many distinct authorities 
 expressly mentioned, not indeed to be compared in 
 number with the long lists of authors referred to often 
 
BAP. ii.] ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 13 
 
 n a modern work, but still enough to prove that he 
 lad read some parts at least of the chief books already 
 written upon his subject. From the contemporaries 
 )f the First Punic Wars, Fabius Pictor and Cincius 
 \limentus, who were the earliest historians of Rome, 
 nearly all those who are known to us from other 
 sources are in some way referred to in his pages. 
 
 Not all perhaps read by him. It does not how- 
 sver follow that he read them all himself in their 
 entirety. He may easily have known the earlier writers 
 chiefly. through the accounts which he found of them 
 in the later, and certainly the meagre chronicles which 
 were based upon the dry official records were far less 
 to his taste, and far less likely to be largely used by 
 him than the diffuser works of the annalists who were 
 nearer to his own time. Like Cicero he must have 
 found it very hard to read the formless narratives which 
 dated from the rude beginnings of the art, when finish 
 of style and literary beauties were uncared for. The 
 books however, which he often mentions, . of Caelius 
 Antipater, Licinius Macer, and Valerius Antias, came 
 nearer to the canons of his own age, inferior as they 
 might be to the history which eclipsed their fame, and 
 in the long run superseded them entirely. 
 
 Some writers were freely copied. Livy's mode 
 of dealing with these writers can be studied best in the 
 single case where ample fragments still are left us of 
 the originals from which he borrowed. For fifteen 
 books we find that Polybius was closely followed, in 
 regard to all that happened in the East, and so far 
 there is no trace of the use of any other author. We 
 should come to a like conclusion, though on far less 
 evidence, from the tokens of agreement with what we 
 know of Caelius Antipater for the Second Punic War, 
 as also from the comparison of portions of Dionysius 
 and Livy where they seem to be both copying 
 from the same original in the treatment of the same 
 events. The analogy of the mediaeval writers amply 
 illustrates the practice. We may suppose there- 
 fore that Livy took some standard author for each 
 
14 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 period, working in other elements where it seemed 
 absolutely needful, but in the main caring chiefly to 
 improve the style and manner, at the suggestion of 
 his own finer taste and richer fancy. In questions of 
 importance, when he was set upon the track of in- 
 consistent evidence, he may perhaps have consulted 
 various sources for himself, to put his readers in 
 possession of the facts. But the manual labour of 
 comparing so many bulky rolls, without the modern 
 help of indices or chapters of contents, was one quite 
 alien to his temper, and to the literary canons of 
 his age. 
 
 Not much study of original documents. There 
 is still less reason to believe that he was at much pains 
 to study the various documents or records which lay 
 ready to the historian's hand. The sacred colleges, 
 or confraternities of pontiffs, augurs, fetials and the 
 like, as we have seen already, had in their archives 
 ample stores of such materials, official journals, legal 
 formularies, constitutional precedents of every kind, 
 which had perhaps been largely used already, but 
 from which much more could doubtless have been 
 gleaned to illustrate historic studies. Every great 
 temple was a storehouse of like data: laws, treaties, 
 resolutions of the Senate, could be reckoned in Rome 
 alone by thousands on the bronze tablets which were 
 set up in places of safety or resort. Every country 
 town could have furnished more of the same kind. 
 The funeral notices upon the tombs, the legends even 
 on the coins, had each their history to tell. It is 
 curious enough that the earliest of the epitaphs we 
 have remaining, one of the great house of the Scipios, 
 gives us a record of events which does not tally with 
 the corresponding page of Livy at the period of the 
 Samnite wars. He speaks of one annalist at least as 
 careful in such matters (diligens talium monumenlorum 
 aucfor), and we know that long before in Greece 
 special collections had been made of like classes of 
 materials ; literary nicknames even were invented for 
 the ' Old Mortalities ' who showed more ardour than 
 
ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 15 
 
 discretion in researches of this nature, but we may be 
 sure that Livy's interest and temper did not point in 
 that direction. 
 
 He was not an antiquarian. He had none of that 
 scientific curiosity which is attracted to the obscurest 
 problems, which would spare no pains to verify a name 
 or date, and laboriously piece together scattered data 
 gathered from widely distant sources to reconstruct 
 the history of an institution or the picture of an epoch. 
 To the antiquarian busy with the civilisations of the 
 past, nothing comes amiss which helps him to realise 
 the actual life of the societies that he would study. 
 Any relic which they may have left behind them ; the 
 results of their industry, the creations of their art, the 
 records of their economic troubles, their thoughts of 
 the unseen world, their legal usages and sense of 
 duty any of these excite his interest as well as the 
 pomp and circumstance of politics or war ; he would 
 gladly pore over the fading characters in which some 
 message of the past may possibly have reached us, in 
 the hope that the deciphered text may fill up one of 
 the many gaps in our fragmentary knowledge of these 
 subjects. Even now that so many centuries have 
 passed away, whole chapters of Roman history have to 
 be re-written, as new materials come to hand from the 
 monumental records which are still being disinterred. 
 Livy too could certainly have given us more accurate 
 and lifelike pictures of antiquity if his interest had been 
 more many-sided and his scrutiny of the materials 
 more inquisitive and minute. 
 
 He was not a critic. In drawing from his sources, 
 it is true, he lacked critical insight and definite historic 
 canons. It is the work of the later annalists, as we have 
 seen, that he most closely followed, and yet he could 
 hardly fail to feel that the fragments of rude Latinity 
 contained in the old formularies which they copied from 
 the priestly archives breathe another spirit and belong 
 to other times than the fine sentiments and the 
 mature lessons of statecraft which he found before 
 him or invented in the speeches of the ancient worthies. 
 
1 6 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 The ideal of his earliest society, statesman, general, 
 debater, agriculturist by turns, is not quite the person 
 to have been content in his religious life with the 
 Pharisaic scruples and the soulless prayers to the 
 mysterious powers that presided over the processes of 
 weeding, grubbing, and of sowing (sarritor, subruncator, 
 saeturnus). He does not quite correspond to the 
 society for which the elder Cato wrote in his work 
 on farming, with its hard, positive, austere, and un- 
 imaginative counsels of perfection. It is true that when 
 on any question there is a conflict of authorities, he 
 often says that we shall do best to prefer the state- 
 ments of the earliest author, but then again at times 
 other reasons are avowed, such as that a certain 
 version of the story is in itself more credible, or more 
 pleasant to believe, or more creditable to the national 
 honour. There is no general estimate of the extent 
 to which the annalists might be depended on for the 
 earliest ages, or of the means which we might have 
 of checking or confirming any of their statements, nor 
 is there an attempt to compare their relative value, to 
 determine their individual bias, and therefore to enable 
 us to qualify or to correct their narratives. 
 
 He does not discuss the credibility of the 
 legends. It is natural enough therefore that there 
 was no serious effort on his part to disentangle the 
 threads of fiction and of fact that may have been 
 intertwined in the history of the remotest ages. He has 
 no mind indeed, he tells us, to maintain or to disprove 
 the legendary tales, with all their machinery of marvels, 
 with their heaven brought very near to solid earth, and 
 confusion of the human and divine. It would need a 
 robust faith, he owns, to accept all this early growth 
 of national fancy, but the cradle of a race so potent as 
 the Roman was not to be rudely touched with hands 
 profane, and the old traditions, whatever may have 
 been their source, had at least this value, that they 
 represented the nation's thought about its past: they 
 were so implied in the language of poetry and art, had 
 shaped themselves so long in literary form, and become 
 
n.] ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 17 
 
 so linked to constitutional and religious customs, that 
 they could not be entirely ignored in Tater ages, even 
 by those who could no longer accept them with unhesi- 
 tating faith. We can see indeed how many of the stories 
 probably grew up as the artless efforts of the popular 
 fancy to account for the names of familiar scenes and 
 monuments, or for ancient customs and proverbial 
 phrases, but Livy never pauses to discuss such theories 
 of legendary matters, but calmly lets his graceful narra- 
 tive flow round these creatures of the fancy in a style 
 which is, at times, half poetry, half prose. 
 
 He has no clear ideas of early society. It is a 
 far more serious omission that he took little pains to 
 gather clear conceptions of even the leading features 
 of the early society of Rome. He could not realise the 
 rude simplicity of ancient manners, the matter-of-fact 
 and unimaginative character of the old Italian faiths, 
 the origin or growth of the clients, plebs, and senate ; 
 the relations of the distinct comifoia to the consti- 
 tutional life; the real character of the earlier party 
 struggles. As a literary man he had not the practical 
 experience of public life to guide him, and he seems 
 to have accepted readily the various statements of the 
 later annalists, who threw back into the remotest ages 
 the political passions of their own days, and found the 
 same party-questions, and similar war-cries in widely 
 remote periods of natural life. 
 
 He makes inconsistent statements. Another 
 blemish seems to be the natural result of his usual 
 practice of copying largely from a single author at the 
 time, and then passing abruptly to the guidance of 
 another. Sometimes as we have seen he did so for 
 a period of time, sometimes only for a distinct class of 
 events, as where he adheres closely to Polybius for all 
 that happened in the East, while for the Western world 
 he turns to a Roman writer, such as possibly Valerius 
 Antias. But it needed care to fuse the different elements 
 into one harmonious narrative, with no traces of incon- 
 gruous patchwork. But our author was not always on 
 his guard, and there is many a mark of carelessness and 
 
1 8 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 haste. The story of a siege already given is repeated 
 in a later chapter in slightly different language, as 
 drawn perhaps from another annalist who referred it 
 to a different epoch ; towns are taken and retaken, 
 colonies revolt afresh, we find conflicting explanations 
 of names, phrases, institutions ; promised descriptions 
 are omitted, official arrangements are variously stated, 
 and chronological data are confused. In most of 
 these cases we may almost certainly assume that matter 
 extracted from one author is not brought into harmony 
 with the accounts gathered from another, and where 
 as in the fourth decade the two streams flow on for a 
 long time side by side the obscurities or contradictions 
 most frequently recur. 
 
 Traces of party spirit. Another result of Livy's 
 debts to earlier writers is an occasional unfairness in 
 the description of a party struggle. The speeches 
 indeed, which seem to be peculiarly Livy's own, 
 balance the arguments on either side, while they give 
 the intensity of passion to the interests at stake. But 
 the patrician bias of the originals referred to may be 
 often clearly seen in their pictures of the leaders of 
 the commons, in the rancour with which they speak of 
 the noble renegades who were faithless to their order 
 and espoused the people's cause, in the sinister aims 
 and the unworthy motives confidently assumed, in a 
 word, in the antedating of the prejudices and the actual 
 circumstances of the later age of revolution. 
 
 Traces of national prejudice. To the same 
 cause may be perhaps ascribed the influence of national 
 pride in distorting the proportions of the truth. Livy 
 no doubt was jealous of the Roman credit, and fully 
 identified his sympathies with its good name. The 
 love of country was to ancient sentiment so strong a 
 duty, that few historians would have felt reluctance to 
 magnify the virtues and to gloss over the failings of 
 their race or city. But that work had been fully done 
 already; the earlier Romans were supposed to have 
 right always on their side, and to be always waging 
 just and pious war (jus turn piumque duellum), while 
 
IT.] ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 19 
 
 their enemies were arrogant and treacherous and 
 fickle. When victory is slow in coming it is because 
 the strength of Rome is distracted by her civil feuds, 
 or because the soldiers will win no laurels for the 
 generals whom they hate ; yet for all that the triumph 
 is not long delayed, for none can long withstand the 
 conquering eagles. That this tone was a common one 
 in earlier writers is clear from the misgivings which 
 Livy himself cannot at times suppress. The numbers 
 of the slain seem to stagger his strong faith ; victories 
 are reported which are too fruitless of results to satisfy 
 his reason ; and Roman perfidy or meanness is ex- 
 posed in its true colours in the speeches which he puts 
 into the mouth of Samnite or Greek or Carthaginian 
 speakers. Yet for all that, though his candour seems 
 to have been shocked by the gross partialities of earlier 
 writers, he cannot quite rise himself above the same 
 temptations. While following Polybius closely, he 
 omits many a passage that might be distasteful to a 
 citizen of Rome, tones down or disguises questionable 
 acts, and ignores the lower motives which he found 
 ascribed to statesmen whom he loved to honour. 
 
 The good old times are overpraised. No doubt, 
 as we may gather from his Preface, he was predisposed 
 throughout to take a favourable view of Rome's policy 
 and conduct in the past. In the k>ng career of her 
 success he saw the proof of the moral virtues of the 
 soldiers and the statesmen who had raised her to such 
 eminence, and the keen sense with which he realised 
 the degradation of his own times tended to throw 
 still more into relief the simple heroism and the sturdy 
 worth of the men of the good old times. It was 
 indeed probably a fond delusion. With all their 
 political instincts and their powers of organisation, 
 the nation's story shows few traces of anything gen- 
 erous and unselfish, few of the finer qualities of heart 
 and temper, such as the world had learned to admire 
 in Livy's days, thanks to the varied culture due to the 
 fusion of so many different races. But the earnest 
 spirits of annuity, when they mourned over the vices 
 c 2 
 
20 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 of their times, looked backward wistfully to an imagin- 
 ary past, when truth and honesty prevailed on earth 
 and men lived for their country rather than for party 
 or for self. They were haunted by few dreams of 
 future progress, but their moral ideal lay far behind 
 them, and all since had been corruption and decline. 
 
 His high moral ideal. And the moral ideal of 
 Livy was, for a Roman, singularly high. Writing as he 
 did in a licentious age, when men even of high character 
 condoned the vilest sensuality, and spoke lightly, almost 
 jestingly at times of nameless vices, he kept his pages 
 absolutely free from an impure suggestion, and felt him- 
 self and helped to inspire in others a genuine enthusiasm 
 for all that was really good or great. By far the larger 
 portion of his work is lost, and in it all the later books 
 in which he treated of the times whose degeneracy he 
 mourned so deeply. Before there were only passing 
 references to the contrast between the manners of the 
 heroic age and the revolutionary passions, the misery 
 and the cure of which were to living men alike un- 
 bearable. We may be sure that he would have spoken 
 frankly of the evils, traced them to their fountain-head, 
 and described their natural outcome in the break-down 
 of the whole social fabric. He professes to write 
 history with a moral purpose, and if his aim as stated 
 by himself is somewhat narrow, he certainly ennobles 
 it by his. sympathy for what is good and pure. 
 
 The merits and defects of oratorical training. 
 Livy began to write probably with a moral aim, but he 
 certainly brought to the composition of his work the 
 tastes and training of an orator, and round that central 
 feature we may group many of the characteristics of 
 his style. It was natural for Polybius to write what he 
 called ' pragmatic history/ in which to study the causes 
 of social progress and the laws which governed the 
 relations of the different sides of national life, and of 
 the different races which played a part together or in 
 succession on the stage. But Livy would appeal to 
 the emotions more than to the philosophic judgment. 
 He chooses especially the topics which- lend themselves 
 
ii.] ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 21 
 
 to a dramatic treatment, like the excitement and the 
 pomp of war with all its thrilling pictures of the tramp 
 of armies, and the fall of pillaged cities, and the carnage 
 of the battle-field. Even the rivalry of interests and 
 the clash of civil factions he throws into dramatic form, 
 developing in lengthy speeches the claims and griev- 
 ances of either side, with all the varied colour and 
 intensity of living passions. We have therefore a 
 gallery of brilliant pictures and historic portraits full 
 of vivid and pathetic touches, but we have also many 
 a commonplace of rhetoric, and many a diffuse 
 description of an unimportant scene, suited doubtless 
 to the taste of the readers of his own day, and true to 
 the maxims of the schools, but dull and wearisome to us. 
 We are often disappointed when we come to matters 
 which require patient analysis and not stage effects or 
 showy treatment ; civil struggles are obscure because 
 the motives and the issue are never carefully ex- 
 plained ; a long war like the Samnite leaves no 
 definite memories because he fails to give us an 
 account of the guiding policy and strategic aims. 
 Tactics and geography do not stir his fancy, and for 
 want of a little study of them he often throws but 
 scanty light on a battle or campaign. The sides of 
 social life which do not lend themselves so easily to 
 oratorical display, like economic data, or the principles 
 of law, or the nice points of the constitution, are only 
 noticed in a few brief words, or drop out of his pages 
 altogether. 
 
 The beauty of his style. While referring to the 
 more brilliant side of Livy's talents the ancient critics 
 praised his eloquence with one accord. The habit of 
 inserting lengthy speeches in the narrative was a 
 common one in Greece and Rome, and few ventured 
 to object that it was hardly natural for the sentiments 
 of all alike, whether soldier or statesman, foreigner or 
 Roman, to flow uniformly forth in the same harmonious 
 periods. It may make the work seem less historical 
 to us, but it was no blemish to the Roman reader, and 
 in this respect the books of Livy would have satisfied 
 
22 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 the taste of his own age, as they actually found favour 
 with so keen a critic as Quintilian. But their language 
 refers in part also to the graces of his style (mirae 
 facundiaejucunditatis], and of those it seems difficult 
 to speak too highly. Full of poetic finish as it passes 
 lightly over the fancies of the legendary age, weighty 
 and sonorous when it carries with it the debates of the 
 Forum or the Senate, it can be very tender and pathetic 
 when it describes the sufferings of the weak and help- 
 less, or strikes upon the chords of human sympathy. 
 Scarcely any writer is so many-sided, so free from 
 mannerisms and monotony in the choice of words, in 
 the grammatical structure of his sentences, or in the 
 rhythm of his periods. Richer in colour and in fancy 
 than the easy simplicity of Caesar, his style does not 
 seem to be striving for effect and epigram like Sallust's, 
 nor surfeit us with pregnant brevity like that of Tacitus, 
 but like the river's stream, it varies in its local form 
 and colour with the tracts through which it flows. 
 
 Supposed Patavinity. A severe censor like Asi- 
 nius Pollio might affect to see in Livy's style the traces 
 of the author's Patavinity, as in a different way Niebuhr 
 was reminded by it of the rich colouring of the Venetian 
 painters, but we can scarcely understand the meaning 
 of the adverse criticism, though it evidently points to 
 some provincial flavour in his words or phrases, 
 brought with him it was thought from his native 
 Padua, which offended the fastidious ear of some 
 literary circles in the capital. 
 
 But the popular verdict was expressed in very 
 different language, and Livy seems to have been 
 raised almost at once to the first place in the prose 
 literature of Rome. A few years before and Cicero 
 had complained that there was scarcely any Latin 
 history to compare with the great works of Greece, 
 and had dismissed in a few contemptuous phrases the 
 claims of the annalists to such an honour. He would 
 have owned, had he lived on a generation later, that 
 the reproach could be justly urged no longer. As a 
 natural result the earlier chronicles remained unread in 
 
II.] ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS. 23 
 
 the dust of the great libraries, and the Latin world 
 speedily accepted Livy as the accredited historian of 
 the great Republic. So decisive was this popularity, 
 that ere long Caligula, who could bear no rival near 
 the throne, talked in his mad caprice of putting under 
 his imperial ban two authors, Virgil as the representa- 
 tive of Latin poetry, and Livy as the acknowledged 
 master in the domain of prose. 
 
 His general popularity due to style, to moral 
 earnestness. This was largely due, no doubt, to the 
 varied beauties of his style, which was far superior 
 to that of any rival in the same literary fields. But 
 many other causes tended to the same result. His 
 moral earnestness and high religious feeling were in 
 full accord with the marked change of public sentiment 
 that followed closely on the Revolution. The active 
 statesmen and the Roman world of letters had been 
 for the most part until lately hopeless and unbelieving 
 to the core, affected by the frivolous tone of the 
 Greek sceptics, frankly Epicurean in their morals, and 
 speculatively balancing their Academic doubts in mat- 
 ters of reason and of faith. It had been a time of 
 upheaval and revolt against authority and ancient 
 usage ; the national creeds had lost their hold, and 
 there were no others to replace them. But the Empire 
 ushered in an age of reconstruction, and the new princi- 
 ples of Law and Order sought alliance with a sterner 
 sense of Duty and of reverent Faith. This was due not 
 only to the personal influence of Augustus, who rebuilt 
 the decaying temples and sharpened the sanctions of 
 morality, but the movement was continued under other 
 rulers. The Stoic dogmas found a wide acceptance 
 and gave far higher guidance to the enlightened con- 
 science ; finer sentiments found utterance in the pages 
 of the moralists, and literature of all kinds became 
 more earnest and devout. Livy's work first struck the 
 note, which was taken up by other voices, and dis- 
 cordant sounds grew gradually fewer. 
 
 His generous and tolerant temper. The first 
 generation of the Empire was an age also of amnesty 
 
24 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 and toleration. The vanquished parties were left to 
 rest in peace, while the subject world willingly accepted 
 the regime which secured it the blessings of repose and 
 began an era of material prosperity before unknown. 
 It was with a sigh therefore of relief that, now that the 
 temple of Janus had been closed, men contrasted the 
 turmoil and the miseries of the Civil Wars which filled 
 a large part of Livy's books with the tranquillity which 
 they at last enjoyed. But they were in no mood to see 
 injustice done to the champions of the fallen cause. 
 So many had borne a part in it themselves, or had at 
 stake the reputation of their kinsmen, that the people's 
 history must not be written in the spirit of a partisan, 
 but must show generous forbearance to the failure and 
 the follies of the leaders of the Revolution. It was one 
 of Livy's crowning merits one which we may fail to 
 note aright because the books which would illustrate it 
 best are lost that he was so tolerant and large-hearted 
 in his estimates of public men. He was, said ancient 
 critics, candidissimus auctor (Seneca), unsparing of his 
 praises of all that was excellent in human nature, slow 
 to impute unworthy motives, or to taint and fly-blow a 
 character by mean suspicions. Augustus might call 
 him a Pompeian in reproachful jest, for treating the 
 republicans with such respect, but he had no covert 
 satire to resent in the praises of his conquered rivals. 
 The nobles of Rome too, discontented as they were, 
 must own that while the historian pointed to the 
 undoubted gains of peace and order, he had no word 
 of fulsome flattery to lavish on the Imperial Ruler. 
 
 His conformity to the standard of his age. To 
 understand this popularity we should remember also 
 that every age has its own standard, and that Livy 
 amply satisfied their ideal of what a history should be. 
 We may think him a little blind at times to the greed 
 and violence and sophistry of the old Roman character, 
 but they regarded it as natural enough that a writer 
 should deal tenderly with his country's reputation, and 
 in treating of her foreign wars should give, not so much 
 an impartial verdict on the justice of her cause, as an 
 
ii.] ESTIMATE OF LIVY'S CHARACTERISTICS, 25 
 
 eloquent glorification of success. The rhetorical 
 features which perhaps offend us by their constant 
 repetition did not jar upon their taste, for the Roman 
 genius was prone to somewhat high-pitched and 
 emphatic moods ; and oratory, which played so large a 
 part in public life, had retired only to the schools of 
 declamation, through which it still influenced the public 
 taste, and left its mark on many a literary work. We 
 look for philosophic handling of great subjects, as did 
 Sempronius Asellio, who complained that the preceding 
 annalists had written stories to please children rather 
 than histories for grown up men, but Livy's readers 
 found materials enough for thought in the general les- 
 sons of moral corruption and decay which he exhibited 
 in concrete form in the story of the Eastern wars, and in 
 the long agony of the Revolutionary struggles. The 
 annalistic treatment which disturbed the natural con- 
 nection of events in earlier books gives place as he 
 goes on to a freer treatment of the subject, where the 
 causal relation is brought out more clearly, and the 
 speculative interest is more deeply stirred. 
 
 It may perhaps be said too that our historic study 
 tends to become so laboriously minute, to follow up so 
 many distinct threads of thought, to analyze so many 
 scientific problems, to explain so much to satisfy the 
 curious reason, that there is danger that the play 
 of the dramatic action may be too long arrested, and 
 the living forces fail to stir our hearts. 
 
 To the ancients history was not a science but an 
 art, and it found in Livy a keen sense of beauty, and a 
 . graceful and most varied style. It was not a disserta- 
 tion but a drama, and his scenes are full of movement, 
 and his characters embodied passions. It was not a 
 fragment but a living unity : the long career of the 
 Republic was his theme ; its stages from childhood to 
 decay passed before the reader in the several parts of 
 the great connected whole which was to furnish to the 
 coming generations well-nigh all that Rome cared to 
 know henceforth about her past. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE AGE OF THE KINGS. 
 
 The early legends. The first book brings before 
 us many of the legendary tales which clustered round 
 the rude beginning of the city's life. Gods and demi- 
 gods are seen to walk upon the solid earth, and no 
 chilling gusts of doubt disperse the eery forms that flit 
 awhile in the dim twilight of romantic fancy. We see 
 ^Eneas, pious son of heavenly Venus, arrive from far- 
 off Troy, and land upon the coast of Latium, where 
 he weds the fair Lavinia, and braves the hate of the 
 suitors and neighbours of his Latin queen. The legend 
 soon wafts him from our sight, and leaves him only to 
 the fancy as a guardian spirit, watching over the for- 
 tunes of the long line of princes who left little but their 
 names to mark the course of some three hundred years 
 during which the Trojan dynasty held rule at Alba. 
 And then at last the story brings us to the Palatine, 
 and points out the well-known scenes familiar to the 
 reverent fancy of a later age. There is the hill-side 
 where the Arcadian Evander worshipped the Lycaean 
 Pan and named the spot after the Pallanteum of his 
 native land. Yonder is the cave where Cacus hid the 
 stolen kine of Hercules, and paid for the outrage with 
 his life ; hard by is the grot where Mars came down 
 to woo his earthly bride, the princess Rhea Silvia, con- 
 demned by an usurper to pine for ever in a cloistered 
 life. We see the swollen Tiber overflow its bed, and 
 reach the spot where the young twins were left to die 
 by a jealous uncle's order, but the waters tenderly bear 
 up the tiny cradle, and leave it safely stranded on the 
 dry hill-side, where the wolf suckles the children with 
 her cubs, and the shepherd's wife comes up in time to 
 
CHAP, in.] THE AGE OF THE KINGS. 27 
 
 save them, like Pharaoh's daughter to the infant Moses. 
 The God of War watched over his children, who lived 
 a hardy life among the shepherds, or in conflict with 
 the outlaws of the woods. So might he also bless the 
 sturdy and adventurous race who were one day to 
 follow the wolfs nurslings and found a new city on 
 the banks of Tiber. 
 
 The reign of Romulus. * Good onset bodes good 
 end/ we know, but the first days of Rome were clouded 
 by ominous signs of future strife. The twins dispute 
 about the hill where they shall build, and when the 
 signs from heaven point out that the Palatine must be 
 the site, still the quarrel is not ended till the hand of 
 Romulus stains the rising walls with a brother's blood. 
 The settlers, few in number at the first, are forced to 
 offer an asylum to the outlaws who flock thither from 
 other lands ; the neighbouring peoples look askant at 
 the new-comers, and refuse to give their daughters to 
 such questionable suitors. But they are too masterful 
 to brook refusal, and take advantage of a festive 
 gathering to carry off their brides by force, as the sons 
 of Benjamin took wives of the virgins who came out 
 to dance at Shiloh. The injured fathers fly to arms 
 to rescue or avenge their daughters. Some march in 
 hot impatience, thinking only of the justice of their 
 cause, but give way before the Roman valour, while 
 their leader falls by the hand of Romulus, who offers 
 up to Jupiter Feretrius the prize the so-called spolia 
 opima of the arms taken from a chieftain slain by 
 another in fair fight. The Sabines move more slowly, 
 but their onset is more terrible. The height of the 
 Capitoline falls into their hands, for the maid Tarpeia, 
 won by the promise of their glittering bracelets, opens an 
 unguarded gate, through which they pass, shewering not 
 their trinkets but their shields upon the traitress, whose 
 warning story links her name to the Tarpeian rock. And 
 now the rival hosts are parted only by the space between 
 the hills ; the shock of war is felt in what was to be in 
 after days the forum, the very centre of the busy life 
 of Rome. But lo! between the combatants appear 
 
28 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 the cause of all the strife, once Sabine maids, now 
 Roman matrons, who with loud entreaties beg the 
 warriors to stay their arms, since every fatal blow 
 would make an orphan or a widow of those they love 
 so well. Husbands and fathers listened to the cry and 
 sheathed their swords ; two peoples, each with its own 
 king, lived together as one race side by side upon the 
 neighbouring hills. Other nations felt their growing 
 power and the martial ardour of their king, till in due 
 time, as men believed, the God of War would have 
 Romulus his son beside him, and caught him up to 
 heaven in a whirlwind. 
 
 Numa. The Sabine Numa mounted next upon the 
 throne, a man of piety so rare that while he reigned 
 heaven seemed brought nearer to the earth, and peace 
 and good-will prevailed among his people. The cere- 
 monial forms and ordinances of religion were his special 
 care. To him a later age ascribed its calendar of 
 holy days, and the priestly brotherhoods which watched 
 over the ritual of religious life. Men thought that all 
 he said or did was inspired by more than human 
 insight, and later ages pointed out the grotto of Egeria 
 where, so ran the tale, the immortal Nymph deigned 
 to pour into his ears her mystic lore. Then first in 
 those days of unbroken peace was the shrine of Janus 
 closed, the symbol of security which for centuries was 
 only once repeated, till after the victory at Actium 
 Augustus once more barred the doors almost in the 
 year when Livy's history was begun. 
 
 Tullus Hostilius. Tullus Hostilius, the third king 
 was far more of the soldier than the priest. He 
 quarrelled with Alba, mother city as she was whence 
 the first founders of Rome had issued, but to spare 
 more general bloodshed three brothers on each side, 
 themselves the children of two sisters, entered the lists 
 to do battle for their country. At the first charge two 
 Romans fell, but the one Horatius was left unhurt, 
 while the Alban Curiatii were all wounded. He feigned 
 to fly while his opponents dragged themselves after 
 him as best they could, and pressed forward with un- 
 
in.] THE AGE OF THE KINGS. 29 
 
 equal speed. And so he drew them on till they were 
 far parted from each other, then turned at last and 
 smote them singly down ere each could strike a blow 
 to help the others. The victor was led home in 
 triumph, but on his way his sister met him, only to 
 see her brother decked with the spoils of her betrothed, 
 who had just fallen by his hand. She could not stay 
 her grief, but her wail of agony stung the victor to the 
 soul, and he dealt her a death-blow with the words, 
 * So die whoever grieves when the enemies of Rome 
 have fallen.' The murderer was condemned to die, 
 but the people to whom appeal was made, horror- 
 stricken though they were, spared him his doom, for 
 to old Roman eyes the love of country was a nobler 
 thing and a more abiding duty than the love even of 
 parent or of child. Alba, pledged as she was to serve 
 as an ally, played a treacherous part in the next war, 
 but vengeance was not long delayed. Her ruler 
 Mettius was bound between two cars, whose horses 
 furiously driven asunder dragged his mangled limbs to 
 pieces. His subjects were forced to leave their ancient 
 home, and people a new quarter of Rome upon the 
 Coelian hill, while the old city was levelled to the 
 ground. For this romantic story of the fall of Alba 
 evidence was found in the tombs of the champions 
 who fought on either side, and of the Horatia who fell 
 a victim to her grief, in the senate-house which was 
 built for the counsellors of a people thus enlarged, and 
 was called Hostilia after the king's name, as well as 
 in the memories of clans who traced their origin in 
 after days from Alba. With it were linked also by 
 tradition two of the oldest formularies known, whose 
 rude Latinity and antique style date from the text- 
 books of a primitive age : one that of the solemn ritual of 
 treaty guarded by the college of the fetials, the servitors 
 of international law ; the other drawn up for the use 
 of the two Ministers of Justice, avengers of blood, 
 as we may call them, from whose grasp Horatius 
 appealed. 
 
 Ancus Martins. Ancus Martius, who succeeded. 
 
30 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 was looked upon in later times as the father of the 
 Plebs or Commons, for he enclosed the Aventine and 
 quartered on it many thousands of the settlers from 
 'the conquered towns of Latium. From this reign 
 dated ancient forms long afterwards in use among the 
 fetials whenever they crossed the frontier to claim 
 redress for injuries done, or to declare war against 
 the offending power. To it also were ascribed the 
 oldest bridge in Rome the pons sublicius and the 
 fort on the Janiculum to which it led, as also Ostia> 
 the ancient port of Rome. 
 
 The dynasty of the Tarquins. With the dynasty 
 of the Tarquins the horizon widens. The legend 
 brings them from Etrurian Tarquinii, and a generation 
 further back from Corinth. The adventurous Lucumo 
 seeks a new home where the alien may suffer from no 
 stigma, and lo ! at the very gates of Rome an eagle bears 
 away his cap in flight, but only to replace it soon upon 
 his head. Tanaquil, his Tuscan wife, can read the 
 portent and see in it the pledge of future greatness, and 
 what the fates ordain, his wealth and courtesy and tact 
 secure. A favourite soon alike in the court and with 
 the people, he mounts upon the throne when the old 
 ruler dies, whose sons must wait awhile their chances 
 of succession. 
 
 Their great works. Now we may see the features 
 of an age of foreign influence and grander aims. From 
 this period date the great works of the kings, the vast 
 sewers (cloacae] vaulted with colossal blocks, the lines 
 of walls which our own days have seen uncovered, 
 the Circus Maximus where Rome made holiday, the 
 temples built to lodge the deities of Greece, with other 
 products of Hellenic art. Changes such as these no 
 doubt did violence to many a scruple, seemed perhaps 
 to set at nought the fears of the old priesthoods and 
 the fancied will of heaven. In token of this a later 
 age pointed to the statue of Attius Navius, the famous 
 augur, holding in his hands the razor with which he cut 
 the whetstone through, to convince the mocking king 
 who thought meanly of his art, that man could 'do by 
 
in.] THE AGE OF THE KINGS. 31 
 
 faith whatever the portents of the gods foretold. The 
 story of the times is rife with marvels, and soon the 
 king is startled by another. 
 
 Servius Tullius. The son of a bondwoman, or 
 a captive princess, for so fancy explained the name 
 of Servius Tullius, was sleeping calmly in the palace, 
 when flames were seen to light upon his head, and 
 curl and flicker harmlessly around him. The queen 
 was quick to read therein the will of heaven. She 
 reared the lad to man's estate, gave him her daughter's 
 hand in marriage, and smoothed his way to mount the 
 throne. And then begins that tragedy of horrors with 
 which the story of the dynasty was closed. Assassins 
 hired by the jealous sons of Ancus murdered the old 
 Tarquin, but with the help of Tanaquil and the favour 
 of the people Servius stepped at once into the vacant 
 place, and began the work which linked his name for 
 ever to the extension of the city and the constitution of 
 the State. Three hills, the Viminal, Quirinal, Esquiline, 
 were brought within the circuit of the walls which bore 
 his name, while the citizens, ranged in classes according 
 to their means, voted or fought in centuries where each 
 man knew his place. 
 
 Tarquinius Superbus. But the peaceful work of 
 statesmanship was soon cut short by the ambition of 
 a younger Tarquin, married like his brother to a 
 daughter of the king. We need not dwell upon the 
 dark features of the story, or describe at length the 
 crimes by which Tarquinius the Proud made his way 
 up to the throne, how brother and wife were swept 
 aside by poison that two paramours might wed in 
 peace, how a reckless woman lashed her horses over 
 a father's fallen body to seize the crown she would 
 not wait for, and bespattered with his blood the stones 
 of what was called thenceforth ' the accursed street.' 
 Tradition told of a people weaned out by taskwork to 
 indulge their ruler's pride of power, of neighbouring 
 states cajoled by fraud or overawed by force, of the 
 king's sister's son constrained to hide his natural 
 temper under the cloak of folly and the name of 
 
32 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 Brutus, of the insolent license of the younger members 
 of the house, and of the grievous wrong done to the 
 chaste Lucretia by a prince's lust. But this was more 
 than they could bear, and an explosion of fierce passion* 
 hurled the tyrants from their seat of power, and drove 
 them forth to exile and an ignoble grave. 
 
 The way in which these legends grew up. 
 Such were the legends of the Regal Age, which had 
 linked themselves to venerable scenes, or grown up 
 round old usages and names as artless wonder gave 
 them birth. Livy's narrative flows calmly on with no 
 apparent protest or misgiving at the marvellous features 
 of the story. A halo gathered round the cradle of the 
 State, and he was well content to see the figures of the 
 past loom in unearthly grandeur through the mist. 
 But the story was not written out till centuries after 
 any of the kings had ceased to reign, and there could 
 be little evidence to point to save the dim memories 
 and floating fancies which gradually crystallised around 
 fixed points. For we may note that almost every 
 legend gathers round some spot in Rome, some 
 ancient phrase of ceremonial usage, which may serve 
 not indeed to prove its truth but to explain its growth. 
 Some in the very sound or look suggested a meaning 
 to the wondering fancy : thus Servius must have been a 
 bondmaid's son, and the 'accursed street' be named 
 after a scene of horror, and later forms of marriage 
 naturally point to the old story of the Sabine brides. 
 We must remember also that the spirit of Roman law 
 was rigorously formal, and every public act must have 
 its proper symbol and its prescriptive phrase. The very 
 words of these were sacred, and as such noted in the 
 text-books of the priests, with the earliest precedents 
 of Which record could be found. Out of such ex- 
 planatory stories, and the scattered hints in books of 
 ritual, variously enlarged in the course of many genera- 
 tions and often with conflicting versions, grew at last 
 the narrative, such as we have it, of the Regal Period 
 of Rome. 
 
 The ballad theory. Were there any lays or 
 
in.] THE AGE OF THE KINGS. 33 
 
 ballad-poems, we may ask, which embodied such 
 beliefs, and gave a definite shape and substance to 
 what might else have been but vague traditions ? It is 
 possible that there were such. It was natural enough 
 in early days to chaunt in rude verse the chieftain's 
 praises or stirring tales of marvellous adventure. 
 Most peoples have had such verse before a literature 
 in prose was born, though the old Roman genius was 
 of no poetic type, and little tuned to dalliance with the 
 Muses. But even assuming that there were such 
 ballads we have no data to determine what they were 
 or of what date, nor if we had them would they help 
 us much to disentangle the threads of fiction from the 
 homely truth. 
 
 Historical traces of the regal period. Unlike 
 the early kings of whom we read elsewhere in classic 
 story, those of Rome succeeded by election and by no 
 hereditary right. We find some evidence of this in 
 the usage and the name of inter rex, given to the 
 senators in later days who stepped for a while into 
 a vacant place till a new magistrate could be ap- 
 pointed. Tradition indeed, as we have seen, makes 
 the choice so free and open that even aliens are called 
 at times to mount the throne. But there is little in 
 the story as we find it to account for the horror of 
 Royal Power which seems to have been a strong and 
 abiding sentiment at Rome, so much so that the dread 
 of it was turned with fatal force against ambitious 
 statesmen, when the ominous cry was raised in party 
 struggles that any of them was plotting to make him- 
 self a king. It was no genuine experience of misrule, 
 for there is little such recorded in the legends, but the 
 distasteful facts of Eastern royalty surrounded by its 
 servile crowds which branded the lesson on the 
 Roman conscience. Livy does not throw any light 
 upon this subject, excepting in so far as he uses his 
 darkest colours for the picture of the later Tarquin, and 
 sees the charter of Roman liberty in the Valerian law, 
 passed in the early years of the Republic, which de- 
 nounced the would-be monarch as an outlaw. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH TO THE DESTRUCTION OF 
 ROME BY THE GAULS. 
 
 The early Commonwealth. The Regifuge, or 
 Banishment of the Tarquins, prepared the way for the 
 Republic. The place of the king was taken by two 
 consuls, holding office only for a year, and assisted by 
 the Senate, the great Council of the State. Below was 
 the Assembly (Comitia) of the Burghers ranged in 
 Classes and Centuries according to the amount of land 
 each owned. At first the people watch with jealous 
 fears over their new-born freedom. The whole clan of 
 the Tarquins must retire, even Collatinus, consul though 
 he was, and husband of Lucretia the victim of the 
 banished prince. Then Valerius excites suspicion 
 because his house frowns like a fort from the hill-top, * 
 and he must build down in the valley, and lower his 
 fasces symbol of his rank before the sovereign 
 people. That done he might go on to win their favour^ 
 and be styled Publicola, ' the people's friend/ for his 
 laws which denounced kingly power, and secured for 
 the oppressed right of appeal to their own order. 
 
 Its dangers from within. But the young Re- 
 public had not yet made good her claim to rule 
 herself. The first danger came from enemies within. 
 Noble malcontents conspired to bring back the Tar- 
 quins, and among them the sons of the very Brutus 
 who had stirred the State against them. A loyal slave, 
 Vindicius, disclosed the plot. The patriot father in his 
 consul's dress pronounced their doom, and saw un- 
 
CHAP, iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 35 
 
 moved the heads of his own children roll upon the 
 scaffold. 
 
 Lars Porsena. That peril past, Lars Porsena of 
 Clusium mus.ered his Etrurian hosts to reinstate an 
 old ally. They swept all before them as they marched, 
 and startled Rome saw the enemy upon the heights, 
 and the bridge almost within their grasp. One hero, 
 Horatius Codes, stood at bay against a host, and held 
 his ground till the citizens had cut the bridge behind 
 him, then plunged into the stream, and made his way 
 in safety to the bank. For centuries a bronze statue 
 in the Forum bore his name, and as they passed it 
 fathers told their children the story of that gallant deed. 
 Roman pride dwelt fondly also on the picture of the 
 bold Mucius, who started forth alone to slay Porsena 
 among his royal guards, and when detected thrust his 
 hand into a blazing fire to show what was the temper 
 of a Roman's courage, saying that three hundred such 
 as he had sworn to kill the king. Half in fear and 
 half-admiring the enemy withdrew his forces, and left 
 Rome free to choose her rulers, and to echo the praises 
 of the bold Mucius, whom they called Scaevola, ' the 
 left-handed/ He even left, so generous was his 
 mood, his camp stores and the trappings of his tent, 
 which the people sold by auction as they pleased, 
 and from age to age men told the story when they 
 used the familiar proverb that ' the goods of king 
 Porsena were up for sale/ or as they passed along the 
 4 Tuscan street/ There were indeed other and less 
 flattering stories which implied that Rome was con- 
 quered, and in token of her degradation made to beat 
 her iron arms to ploughshares ; but this only showed 
 how little certainly was known, and Livy's national 
 pride preferred to dwell upon the brighter side of the 
 tradition. 
 
 The Latin League. Then the League of the 
 Latin Towns struck a last blow for the old Tarquin. 
 So great was the alarm at Rome that it seemed needful 
 that one strong hand should wield the forces of the 
 State now that all was to be risked upon a single die. 
 D 2 
 
36 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 The two consuls must give place to a dictator, from 
 whom there might be no appeal, and whom no citizen 
 dare refuse to serve. The leaders fought like Homeric 
 chieftains in the ranks at the battle of the Lake 
 Regillus, and fell in that ' Mort of Heroes ' on the 
 fatal field. 
 
 Legends of local growth. Men fancied that they 
 saw the divine brothers, Castor and Pollux, in the 
 foremost ranks, and that they vouchsafed to bear the 
 tidings of the victory to Rome. But Livy would not 
 crowd his page with marvels, and tells us only of the 
 general's vow to build the temple, which was raised 
 to them in the Forum when the war was over. Indeed 
 as before we see the stories growing round the monu- 
 ments or scenes of Rome. The Campus Martius was 
 part of the banished Tarquin's land, seized by the 
 State, and hallowed to the god of war; the crops 
 cut upon it and flung into the Tiber formed the first 
 beginning of the island which soon rose above the 
 stream. The name even of the faithful slave Vindicius 
 was thought to be the source of the form in which 
 freedom was often given, ' per vindictam/ 
 
 Discontent and Discord. The scene suddenly 
 is changed, and we see only distress and discontent 
 within the city. The rich oppress the poor, and 
 make bondsmen of their debtors. But general terms 
 may fail to touch us, so to stir the imagination of the 
 reader an old man is brought before us, disfigured with 
 unkempt hair and squalid rags, but known by the 
 bystanders as a veteran who had served bravely in a 
 post of honour. As the crowd gathered round him 
 he began to tell how a border foe had burnt his 
 homestead and driven away his flocks, till he was 
 forced to borrow money to restock his farm. But the 
 interest of the loan took all he had, and his creditors 
 at last laid hands upon him, and forced him to work like 
 a galley-slave beneath the lash. To prove his tale the 
 scars of the cruel blows were still to be seen upon 
 his back. The crowd is all aflame at what it hears, 
 and clamours loudly for redress. First they try to stop 
 
iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 37 
 
 the levies, but are won awhile by fair words or national 
 pride, till at last they rise against the nobles, and draw 
 sullenly aloof to the Mons Sacer, a few miles from the 
 city, where they claim as the price of peace to have 
 Tribunes of their choice, to be the spokesmen of their 
 wrongs and the guardians of their order, and as such 
 sacrosanct, or screened by law from personal outrage. 
 A few words of explanation here are needed. 
 
 The early history of the Plebs. Primitive 
 Rome seems to have grown out of a union of houses 
 (gentes), each of which lived with its own slaves and 
 retainers (clients) as a patriarchal whole. The house- 
 fathers (pa/res) came together as a council or a Senate 
 to debate on questions which concerned them all. 
 Trade and war gathered others round them, who were 
 not bound by any of these corporate ties immigrants 
 or conquered peoples or clients whose clan-leaders had 
 died out. Such may have been the plebs at first, 
 growing fast in numbers and importance, as the later 
 kings enlarged their borders, or strengthened the Third 
 Estate against the nobles. The downfall of royalty 
 destroyed the balance, and the plebs lost their natural 
 protectors, till they gained Tribunes in their stead. 
 But troubled times bore hardly on husbandmen of 
 scanty means. Border warfare ruined their home- 
 steads or destroyed their crops. There was little 
 capital, and bad security, and the rate of interest was 
 very high, while to protect the lenders the laws of 
 debt were terribly severe. The older families alone 
 had hoards to lend, and history pourtrayed them as 
 hard Shylocks, who would have their ' pound of flesh/ 
 Again and again therefore in the earlier ages we hear 
 of economic evils, and the State is appealed to for 
 relief. Sometimes the cry is to protect the person of 
 the debtor, who may no more be bound or sold to 
 slavery in default of payment. Now the rate of 
 interest must be lowered, and a maximum enforced 
 by law ; or at the worst the burden must be lightened, 
 and creditors be forced to accept a part in payment 
 of the whole. The present aspect of each grievance 
 
38 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 is often vividly described by Livy, as in the story of the 
 veteran above. We see the sturdy yeoman leave his 
 homestead for the wars, and come back only to find 
 wife and children homeless; we see the bonds of 
 usury tighten on him, and hear at last the fetters 
 clanking on his limbs as he drudges hopelessly for 
 a hard master. The passionate sympathy, the wide- 
 spread discontent, the clamours for redress are pictured 
 to our fancy or reflected in the speeches of the people's 
 leaders. But his pages do not always show us how 
 each grievance is redressed, or the popular clamour 
 silenced. The first cry is from the ruined debtors, and 
 it leads to a secession which secures no change in the 
 laws of debt, but instead the appointment of the 
 Tribunes. Then the stir is for allotments of the 
 State domain, but after -a while that dies away, and 
 its place is taken by a movement for a code of 
 written law. There is no explanation offered why 
 one thing is asked for and another given, nor indeed 
 as to how far the social evils have been cured. But 
 we can see that meantime the plebs is feeling its own 
 strength, and we can trace the several stages of its 
 self-assertion. Obscure as is its social movement,, its 
 political progress is defined more clearly. 
 
 The progress of the Plebs. In the tribunes it 
 had recognised champions; it secured a regular as- 
 sembly (comitia tributa) as a machinery for organised 
 action, and the resolutions passed in it gained in due 
 time the weight of law. Then it aspired to have the 
 right of intermarriage with the nobles, and from that 
 level to gain a place in all the offices of State. It was 
 nearly a century before it made its way even to the 
 lowest rank, among the quaestors, who were little more 
 than clerks of the treasury, or paymasters in the camp 
 (B.C. 421). That gained, it was easier to go forward. 
 To save their pride, the dominant order spread for a 
 time the name and powers of the consuls over a more 
 numerous board, styled Consular Tribunes , among 
 whom the plebs might hope to have a place. But at 
 length, after fifty years of ceaseless struggle, the Li- 
 
iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 39 
 
 cinian laws seated a plebeian consul as of right in the 
 first rank (B.C. 367), and after that it was a question of 
 a few years only when a dictator of like birth should be 
 called on in the hour of need to save his country, and 
 the privileged houses should be forced to see their 
 rivals hold the censorship with all its large powers of 
 control over the civic status and the Senate's roll, and 
 the praetorship even, with its rights of jurisdiction, 
 which had been long and jealously maintained. 
 
 General conditions of the struggle. There is 
 no clear and comprehensive sketch in Livy of these 
 changes, owing perhaps to the arrangement of his 
 Annals by which the events of every year are separately 
 stated, and there is much repetition in describing the 
 debates and character of the party struggles. If we 
 gather up the general features which recur most often 
 we shall see that the patricians throughout were the 
 war-party, ready to meet the movement of reform by the 
 cry that the enemy was in the field and Rome's honour 
 was at stake. At other times they trusted to the spell 
 of their haughty self-assertion, to the social influence 
 of their ancestral dignities, to the voting power of their 
 clients or retainers, to the intrigues by which they 
 fostered strife among the tribunes, to timely con- 
 cessions to the gathering storm, at times even to 
 strong-handed violence to overawe opponents, or to 
 scandalous abuse of the machinery of the State religion, 
 through which they might find some bar or technical 
 objection to any public act. The commons however 
 had time and numbers on their side. Their champions 
 could stop the levies, if need were, by screening the 
 citizen who would not answer to the call, by fiery 
 appeals to the outraged feelings of their order, by 
 arraigning insolent nobles before the popular as- 
 sembly, and by persistent pressure of their measures 
 of reform in the teeth of constant opposition. These 
 are the commonplaces of the great constitutional 
 struggle. r . 
 
 Apologue of Menenius Agrippa. But such are 
 not the social topics in which Livy finds most interest. 
 
40 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 There are others interspersed, which better admit of a 
 pictorial treatment. Such is the scene in which 
 Menenius Agrippa, envoy of the nobles to the com- 
 mons on the Sacred Mount, tells them the homely 
 parable of the belly starved by the discontented 
 members who refuse to work for it any more, but 
 soon find out to their cost that ' if one member suffers, 
 the other members suffer with it.' 
 
 Story of Coriolanus. Another tale caught Shak- 
 speare's fancy and passed by his hand into an English 
 dress. The young Marcius, who gained a name from 
 conquered Corioli, was a hot noble, hateful to the 
 plebs, whom the tribunes hounded on against him. 
 Popular fury drove him from the land to seek a home 
 among the Volscians, the enemy he once had routed. 
 They gladly gave him house and honours, trusted him 
 even with their army in the field. Rome woke one 
 day in panic to find her bravest son scouring the plain 
 of Latium and marching to her gates. Resistance 
 seemed hopeless, but entreaties might prevail. Envoys, 
 magistrates, and venerable priests pleaded for mercy, 
 but in vain, till as a last hope his wife and mother 
 went forth with a long line of noble matrons and 
 moved his stubborn heart to shame. He led his 
 Volscian forces homeward, and they who loved him 
 saw his face no more. 
 
 It does not bear criticism. We are taken by 
 the story into the romantic realms of fancy, where 
 sober doubts are out of place ; else we might ask why 
 the nobles gave their champion up so tamely to the 
 fury of the people, and why the Romans cowered 
 behind their walls like startled deer when he drew 
 near, or why the Volscians followed him so blindly, 
 alien though he was, "and let him lead them back when 
 the prize seemed in their grasp. 
 
 The self-devotion of the Fabii. In impassioned 
 rhetoric he describes the gallant offer of the Fabian 
 house to keep watch and ward for Rome in the 
 fortress on the Cremera in sight of the old enemies 
 of Veii. No clan bore a nobler name, or was more 
 
THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 41 
 
 rich in generals and statesmen. Year after year 
 seven members of the family were consuls, and now 
 it volunteered to bear the brunt of danger in the field. 
 We see the warriors before us pacing in slow pro- 
 cession through the gate ill-omened afterwards to 
 Roman eyes followed by the blessings and glad hopes 
 of thousands, but only to fall soon after in the fatal 
 ambuscade, from which only one youth at Rome was 
 spared to save his family from extinction. 
 
 Homely simplicity of Cincinnatus. When 
 occasion offers Livy loves to dwell upon the rude simpli- 
 city of primitive manners in contrast to the luxury and 
 license of his own days. He gladly draws a moral 
 from the homely life of Cincinnatus, who was called 
 in the supreme hour of need to save the State. The 
 messengers went in haste to summon the dictator, to 
 tell him that the army was surrounded by the Aequian 
 forces, and that his country called him to the rescue : 
 but they found him stripped almost to the skin, with 
 his oxen harnessed to the plough on the tiny farm 
 which bore his name in later days. He donned 
 the general's dress and marshalled his volunteers for 
 service, and after speedy victory laid down his office to 
 go back in sixteen days to guide his plough. 
 
 Examples of patrician insolence. In contrast 
 to such modest worth he pourtrays for us patrician 
 insolence in all its darker moods, now with the 
 petulance of youth assaulting quiet citizens in wanton 
 riot, now abusing the dignity of magistrate and judge 
 till it provoked the cry for a fixed statute law, or for 
 provisions to limit magisterial license, such as issued 
 finally in the Commission of Decemvirs, entrusted for a 
 time with ample powers to keep the peace and make 
 the laws as- sole agents of the State. 
 
 The Claudian family. One family, the Claudian, 
 beyond all others is singled out to point a moral and 
 illustrate the characteristic fixity of Roman types. 
 An Appius Claudius is always headstrong and ad- 
 venturous, impatient of restraints of law, full of 
 audacious self-reliance and haughty contempt for all 
 
42 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 below him. Livy never seems to 'weary, though his 
 readers may, of descriptions of their proud words 
 and insolent deeds, which bring them into conflict 
 with the commons and its leaders. 
 
 Appius Claudius the decemvir. None is de- 
 scribed with more detail of circumstance than Appius 
 Claudius the decemvir. He was the moving spirit, as 
 it appeared, of the new board of ten co-regents, whose 
 character was seen to change entirely, as he gave the 
 word. In their first year of office they were intent 
 to rule with justice and to frame good laws, and 
 when men heard that their work was not quite done, 
 they were well-pleased to give some of them at least 
 another year of power. But all at once another mood 
 came over Appius and his fellows. The new laws 
 which were added to make up the code of the Twelve 
 Tables put a ban on alliances between the orders ; their 
 rule was harsh and overbearing, a legalised machinery 
 of greed and rapine. The year came to an end, 
 but they gave no sign of leaving office. They braved 
 the murmurs of the Senate and the brooding dis- 
 content of every class. But they carried their insolence 
 too far at last. A gallant veteran, Siccius Dentatus, 
 hero of a hundred fights, was left to die by his own 
 general, like Uriah at a word from David, because his 
 tongue had wagged too freely in the camp. At home 
 a flagrant wrong done to the maid Virginia covered 
 the name of Appius with infamy and roused people 
 and soldiery alike to arms against his rule. He cast 
 his lustful eyes upon the girl, and bade his freedman 
 claim her as his slave, while he sat himself upon the 
 seat of justice. Her kinsmen, her betrothed, her 
 father even called in hot haste from the camp, were 
 ready to disprove the charge, but Appius adjourned 
 the case, and gave the claimant possession of her 
 person, until the suit should be finally decided. 
 Then the father in despair begged the officers to 
 stay their hand a moment, led his daughter a few 
 steps aside, and seizing a knife that lay upon a 
 butcher's block hard by, took her life with his own 
 
iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 43 
 
 hand, since he knew not else in what way to save . 
 her honour. 
 
 Characteristic speeches in Livy. Great as was 
 the pictorial skill of Livy, we must own that the actors 
 in the early history were often too shadowy and indis- 
 tinct to live in our memory as real persons. But his 
 undoubted powers found ample scope in the rhetorical 
 handling of a great party question, where principles 
 must be charged with electric currents by the passions, 
 and brought in a concrete shape before the fancy. 
 To this end he freely employs the speeches, often of 
 great length, which he puts into the mouth of the chief 
 agents. The ancient historians seldom scrupled to do 
 this, and most of them took little trouble to make the 
 speeches vary in their style, or cause the reader to 
 forget the writer's skill in rhetoric. In Livy they con- 
 tain the philosophy of the dramatic action. Instead of 
 moralising on the lessons of a story, or tracing the 
 intertwining causes and effects, he brings in the party 
 leaders, like advocates before the bar, to exhaust all 
 that can be urged on either side by appeal to reason 
 or to feeling. The speakers may be else but little 
 known, tribunes or consuls taken from the monumental 
 rolls. We are not tempted to forget the historian in 
 his subject, but we cannot but admire his skill in mar- 
 shalling the topics that lead up to it, or group them- 
 selves around the main issue of the question in dispute. 
 
 The debate on the bill of Canuleius. One 
 of the earliest of such examples, where there is 
 much fulness of detail, is to be found in the debate 
 on the bill of Canuleius to sanction intermarriage 
 between the rival orders of the State, the bar to which 
 doubtless rested on old usage, and not, as Livy tells 
 us, on a new law of the decemvirs. To the nobility 
 the claim might well appear presumptuous, a break- 
 ing down of the old landmarks, an encourage- 
 ment of the fond hopes of revolutionary spirits. It 
 was not only a radical but irreligious change, for 
 it tended to disturb the corporate relations which 
 were consecrated by religious forms, and to need- 
 
44 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 lessly offend the powers of heaven whose sanction 
 was thus set at nought. As such it was alike an 
 outrage in Church and State. But there were con- 
 clusive answers to such fears. The growth of the body 
 politic thus far had been a series of innovations. New 
 clans had been enrolled in early ages, and the proud 
 Claudian itself was a late comer : all intercourse 
 between these tended to efface the old distinctions, 
 consecrated as they were by separate worships. The 
 State Church should be something larger than the 
 religious usages of any of its own component groups, 
 and wrongs continued in the name of heaven were 
 the worst outrage on the justice of the gods. 
 
 Party bias shown in story of Sp. Maelius. 
 In dealing with such questions Livy's impartiality 
 comes out to view, or his power as an advocate to 
 take up either side by turns and to do justice to its 
 merits. In the great debate between the orders his 
 sympathies seem fairly balanced, though the turbulent 
 recklessness of the last tribunes, and the worthless- 
 ness of the Roman rabble of his own days, gravely 
 affect his judgment in many a passage of old history. 
 Even here it is most likely that he repeats without 
 misgivings the prejudiced statements of some earlier 
 chronicler, who wrote in the interest of his order or 
 his party. We may probably ascribe to such a source 
 the story in the form we have it of Spurius Maelius, 
 the people's friend, whose liberal largesses of corn in 
 time of dearth won wide-spread favour, till his head 
 grew dizzy with the fumes of popular applause, and 
 wild hopes of royal power fired his fancy. But his 
 treasonous ambition, if such indeed, was doomed to 
 speedy ruin, for the patricians, less patient than the 
 later nobles, proclaimed martial law through a dictator 
 before Maelius could call his friends to arms, and had 
 him struck down as a traitor in the streets. Perhaps 
 the story grew out of the regret of after times that 
 the Senate could not dispose as easily of every pestilent 
 tribune who would curry favour with the mob by loosing 
 the purse-strings of the State. Yet men showed the 
 
iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 45 
 
 spot in after ages which was called the Aequimaelium, 
 and was thought to be so named because the house of 
 Maelius had been there levelled to the ground. 
 
 Obscurity and repetitions in early wars. 
 Political passions, however antedated, give life and 
 vivid colouring to many of the themes in Livy's pages. 
 But he is not always so successful when he treats of 
 military matters. The wars of the Romans were for 
 ages mainly border forays, petty skirmishes, and hasty 
 sieges, tedious to dwell upon at any length. But 
 year after year the earlier annalists whom he followed 
 recounted the same incidents with like details, drew 
 upon their fancy for rhetorical descriptions of a battle 
 equally possible and valueless in any case, and shame- 
 lessly exaggerated the numbers of the slain. Livy's 
 sober sense is shocked at times by the figures which 
 he copies out. How could the same petty enemy, he 
 asks, recruit so rapidly its losses, and put such vast 
 armies in the field ? He is weary, he confesses, of such 
 monotonous accounts. But still, as before, he makes 
 the Aequians and Volscians join hands behind the 
 cover of the dark woods of Algidus, and pounce upon 
 some Latin township, or spread terror through the 
 Roman homesteads, till the legions arrive upon the 
 scene and scatter them as dust before the wind. Still 
 Etruscan towns are taken and retaken, and the din of 
 arms is ever heard, but we can trace no order and no 
 progress in the wars, and for a century or more the 
 frontiers are not visibly extended. 
 
 The siege of Veii. At length there comes a 
 crisis. A great effort is made, and a crowning 
 victory gained. Rome's rival and close neighbour 
 Veii, often defeated in the field, is at last besieged 
 in earnest. Winter and summer the beleaguered city 
 is close watched, and the lines are drawn more closely, 
 till after a siege well-nigh as long as that of Troy, 
 she falls. Portents and mysterious signs meantime 
 had not been wanting. The waters of the Alban 
 Lake had risen high above their natural level, and 
 none could tell the reason, till an old soothsayer made 
 
46 LIVY. [CHAP; 
 
 captive by a Roman soldier told a prophecy which he 
 had read in Etruria's sacred books that Veii was 
 doomed to ruin when those swelling waters fell. It 
 sounded like an idle tale, but the god Phoebus from 
 his distant shrine at Delphi sent like warning, and at 
 last a passage was cut through the solid rock to draw 
 the flood away. Then the siege was pressed more 
 closely, and pay given for the first time to the soldiers, 
 who tunnelled their way beneath the rock to the middle 
 of the citadel itself. Strange to tell, the besiegers burst 
 through the mine in time to snatch from the priestly 
 hands the very sacrifice which promised victory to 
 those who offered it, and Juno's statue showed her 
 willingness to quit the doomed city and betake herself 
 to Rome. So signal was the triumph that there was 
 much talk of moving Rome itself to the old site of 
 Veii, or of founding a twin state between the two. 
 Even the general himself was dizzied by success, 
 claimed the honours due to heaven, or the right to 
 deal too freely with the spoil, till the people grew 
 suspicious, and were persuaded by his enemies to fix a 
 slur upon his name. But this he could not brook, and 
 left the city praying that the gods would soon make his 
 countrymen regret their loss. Nor was the answer 
 long delayed. 
 
 The Invasion of the Gauls, B.C. 390. The 
 Gallic hordes had crossed the Alps long since, and 
 settled in North Italy, but now stirred by some rest- 
 less instinct they moved southward, sweeping all before 
 them. First they fell upon Etruria, whose cities, en- 
 gaged in a fierce struggle for life, had no strength or 
 time to rescue Veii from her fate. Soon the invaders 
 were at Clusium, which sent in haste to Rome for help, 
 and envoys were despatched to warn the aliens to be- 
 gone. But the ambassadors forgot their mission, and 
 took part in an affray where a Gallic chieftain fell. 
 Rome when appealed to would grant no redress, and 
 the Gauls in their fierce anger raised the siege of 
 Clusium, and marched with all speed on Rome. On 
 Allia's fatal field the legions were routed almost with- 
 
iv.] THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH. 47 
 
 out a blow, and such was the panic that the gates were 
 left unbarred ; the city lay at the mercy of the Gauls, 
 whose ranks were seen at sunset near the walls. They 
 passed the gates upon the morrow, and roved as they 
 pleased about the streets, where all was still. The citi- 
 zens had fled away: only here and there an aged 
 senator was sitting in his porch in perfect calm, while 
 the wild strangers stared and wondered. At length 
 the spell was broken. One of the old men smote with 
 his ivory staff a Gaul who stroked his beard, and his 
 gray hairs were soon dabbled in his blood, and all was 
 given up to massacre and pillage. The Capitol alone 
 held out, and that was nearly lost in an unlooked-for 
 night assault. The enemies had almost scaled the 
 ramparts, when the sacred geese of Juno gave the 
 alarm, and the brave Manlius rushed up in time to beat 
 off the assailants. But time went on and still no suc- 
 cour came, while famine thinned the ranks of the 
 defenders. There was nothing for it but surrender on 
 such terms as they could gain. The Gauls were ready 
 to retire for a thousand pounds of gold by weight. 
 But they brought false balances to test the sum, and 
 on dispute their chieftain Brennus threw his sword into 
 the scale, and cried Vae victis, ' woe to the conquered ' 
 who dispute the right of might. But in that hour of 
 direst need unlooked-for help was near. Camillus had 
 reformed meantime the scattered legions, and now 
 arrived upon the scene, defied the Gauls to do their 
 worst, and appealed in his turn to the decision of the 
 sword. The battle ended in the total rout of the 
 invaders, whose scattered hordes withdrew in haste to 
 their old homes about the Po. 
 
 Destruction of Rome and of sources of early 
 history. But fire and sword meanwhile had made 
 havoc of the city, which lay in ruins where all memo- 
 rials of the past were swept away. For three centuries 
 and a-half all history must rest on the insecure tradi- 
 tions which lived in the memory of the people, or 
 gathered round great names, with few stable data of 
 substantial fact defined by sure evidence of earlier 
 
48 LIVY. [CHAP. iv. 
 
 times. The scanty chronicles kept by the College of 
 the Pontiffs, the family histories which gathered up the 
 memories of noble houses, these or the like if they 
 existed must have perished when Rome was fired and 
 pillaged. Lists of the great officials were carried no 
 doubt further back, but Livy's frequent hesitations as 
 to the date of consuls or dictators prove that these 
 lists were only the reconstructions of a later age for 
 which sure data must have oftentimes been wanting. 
 
 

 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FROM THE INVASION OF THE GAULS TO THE END OF 
 THE SAMNITE WARS. 
 
 Hard times at Rome. The second half of the 
 first decade opens with a time of gloom when Rome 
 was slowly rising from her ruins, and the fierce 
 marauders might return at any moment, and her old 
 enemies were still on the alert. But the danger from 
 without could not drown the din of jarring animo- 
 sities within. After the losses of the past, capital was 
 scarce and risk seemed great. The poor who had 
 suffered heavily were loud in their complaint that the 
 rich had no mercy on their helpless neighbours, but 
 were pitiless in their enforcement of the law of debt. 
 The landless clamoured for their portion of the ground 
 that had been won as the frontiers were extended at 
 their enemies' expense. The leaders of the Commons 
 on their side were urgent that their legal right to rise 
 to the consulship should be conceded. 
 
 Story of M. Manlms Capitolinus. The patri- 
 cian Manlius, styled Capitolinus for his timely defence 
 of the citadel against the Gauls, was full of sympathy 
 for the poor debtors and did his utmost to relieve 
 them. His order looked upon him as a renegade 
 and railed against him, going so far at last as to im- 
 prison him as a disturber of the peace. The clamours 
 of the populace forced them to release him, but fired 
 by ambition or revenge he stirred the plebs against the 
 governing classes by wild charges which he could not 
 prove. When put upon his trial again he touched 
 E 
 
5 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 men's hearts by appealing to the Capitol which he had 
 saved; his accusers had to adjourn and call the court 
 elsewhere before they could have him doomed to death 
 at last. He was followed to the grave by the hatred of 
 his order, and their feelings found an echo in the lan- 
 guage of the later annalists who handed down his story 
 with all the treasonous imputations on his honour. 
 
 Supposed origin of movement for Reform. 
 It was left to the natural champions of the Commons 
 to succeed by constitutional means where Manlius had 
 wholly failed. The movement is ascribed by Livy, it 
 is true, to very personal and petty causes. A noble, 
 Fabius, had two daughters, married the one to a patri- 
 cian, the other to a plebeian of distinction. The latter 
 on a visit one day to her sister was startled by the 
 lictors or bedells who smote with their staves upon the 
 door, as they escorted home the master of the house, 
 then serving in high office. Stung by her sister's 
 mocking words as she expressed surprise, as well as 
 by the deference of all around the husband, she went 
 away to brood over the thought that no such honours 
 could give lustre to her own plebeian home. Her father 
 when he saw her foolish sorrow bade her take heart, 
 for she might have her will one day. Then he took 
 counsel with his son-in-law Licinius, and the issue of 
 their schemes was a bold project of Reform. 
 
 The Licinian bills, B.C. 367. Three bills, called 
 the Licinian, were brought in together to deal at once 
 with the three great questions of land, of debt, and 
 honours. Put forward thus together they united in 
 their favour the various classes of the malcontents, and 
 were therefore sure of powerful support. The patri- 
 cians strained every nerve to thwart the measures; they 
 relied on the moral influence of the Senate : on the 
 voting power of their clients : on the pressure of war 
 and the levies for the legions : on dissensions sown 
 among the tribunes: and at last on the appointment 
 of a dictator to put down possible mob-riot. But the 
 tribunes, C. Licinius and L. Sextius, were bold and 
 resolute statesmen. Year after year they procured their 
 
v.] THE AGRARIAN LAWS. 51 
 
 re-election as a pledge that the people were in earnest. 
 They met the intrigues of the patricians with a startling 
 blow, suspending all the elections through their tribu- 
 nician veto, and thus bringing all the business of the 
 State to a dead-lock. At length after a struggle of ten 
 years the government sullenly gave way ; the bills were 
 passed, and as a symbol of the triumph Sextius became 
 chief magistrate of Rome. There was nothing revo- 
 lutionary in the laws affecting land and credit. As 
 regards the latter the capitalists had to suffer somewhat 
 for the relief of the hard-pressed, and to that end 
 simple interest only and not compound might be 
 reckoned on the debts, and payment be allowed by three 
 annual instalments. The Agrarian measure had a 
 further aim, and calls for some words of explanation. 
 
 Objects of Agrarian measures. On the sub- 
 mission of a conquered enemy to Rome most of the 
 land was left in the same hands, but a part was confis- 
 cated as the price of peace. Of this some was often 
 sold to pay for the expense of the campaign, and some 
 from time to time divided in small lots among the 
 poorer citizens, who farmed them as they could. Often 
 as the condition of the grant, they were forced to leave 
 their homes and do their duty in the frontier garrisons, 
 which though called by the same name as our modern 
 colonies, served a military purpose in securing the 
 conquests already made. The remainder of the land 
 annexed was occupied by the great families, but not 
 on any freehold tenure, and subject to the State's right 
 to resume what was provisionally dealt with. But the 
 occupants, or possessores, had never been disturbed : by 
 the connivance of the chief officials wide tracts of land 
 were parcelled out among a few landowners, and the 
 tithes or other dues with which they had been saddled 
 were allowed to fall into arrears, if not entirely remitted. 
 Colonial allotments were resisted by the governing 
 classes, who coveted the occupation of fresh lands, to 
 the manifest neglect of the military and economic in- 
 terests of Rome. To deal with this growing evil the 
 Licinian law enacted a maximum of 500 jugera, beyond 
 
52 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 which no citizen could hold any of the State-domain. 
 The excess in any case was to be at once resumed, 
 and care to be exercised in future grants. The measure 
 brought immediate relief, and for a long time we hear 
 no more of the Agrarian question. 
 
 Livy's account inadequate. It must be owned 
 that Livy's treatment, of the struggle at this period is 
 far from clear or adequate. It is not creditable to his 
 judgment to accept a petty personal cause for a great 
 movement, as in the foolish story which ascribed the 
 policy of the Licinii to the wounded vanity of a daugh- 
 ter piqued by the status of a favoured sister who had 
 passed into a patrician house by marriage. He never 
 clearly states the nature of the constitutional weapons 
 at the disposal of each order, nor explains how the 
 struggle can have dragged on so many years. In 
 dealing with the land-law more especially he betrays a 
 want of analysis and of definite details. He says nothing 
 of the State-domain, nor of the manner of its occupa- 
 tion and the growth of the estates which were the 
 special object of this legislation. It is mainly by the 
 light reflected from the period of the Gracchi, and 
 from the descriptions given in other authors of the 
 interests then in question, that we are able to under- 
 stand the earlier movement. 
 
 The Legend of the Curtian Lake. To relieve the 
 graver themes of constitutional progress, the annalists 
 of the period found a place for the story of the Curtian 
 Lake, which illustrates most vividly the Roman ideal of 
 self-devotion. A chasm yawnedf so ran the tale, upon 
 a sudden in the Forum, in the very centre of the busy 
 life of Rome. It would not close again, and none 
 could fill it up, and the scared people vainly asked the 
 meaning of the portent, till the seers told them it was 
 written that one offering could avail to close the gulf, 
 but that must be the main source of all their strength. 
 Men questioned what this offering could be, till Marcus 
 Curtius a gallant soldier asked if any treasure could be 
 more precious to the State than the arms and valour of 
 her children, and as he spoke he stretched his hands 
 
v.] MILITARY PROGRESS. 53 
 
 aloft in prayer to the deities in heaven, and then turned 
 them downwards to the powers of the nether world ; 
 that done he spurred the horse on which he rode, and 
 with one great plunge he launched himself into the 
 yawning chasm, which closed over him for ever, while 
 the populace was strewing its thank-offerings and fruits 
 upon his heaving grave, on the spot which was called 
 the Lacus Curtius in later ages. 
 
 Military progress. There were few matters now 
 at issue to disturb the harmony between the orders, 
 and the military history exhibits the strength of the 
 union thus secured. The career of conquest hitherto 
 had been very slow and gradual, and few even of 
 Rome's nearest neighbours were decisively subdued. 
 But now instead of border forays we begin to hear of 
 great wars undertaken ; distinct armies operate in con- 
 cert instead of the old desultory movements, race after 
 race is beaten down, until within seventy years the 
 whole of Central Italy is hers, and she takes rank already 
 as one of the great Powers of the world. At the be- 
 ginning of the period there were still occasional rumours 
 of a ' Gallic tumult:' such was the name they gave to 
 the excitement caused by the invaders from the North : 
 roving bands made their appearance now and then in 
 the neighbourhood of Rome, and national pride dwelt 
 fondly on the laurels won in single combat by the 
 heroes, like T. Manlius Torquatus, who gained a sur- 
 name from the collar stripped from the body of the 
 fallen Gaul, or like Valerius Corvus, who struck his 
 foeman to the ground, thanks to the friendly crow 
 which blinded his opponent in the hour of need. 
 Greek corsairs even scoured the neighbouring seas, 
 and once at least they landed on the coast of Latium, 
 and made good their footing for a while against the 
 natives, till at last they were beaten back upon their 
 ships. None knew whence or how they came, though 
 Livy thinks they must have been the navy of some 
 Sicilian tyrant else unknown. 
 
 Discontent of the Latin League. There was 
 grave danger also from an unexpected quarter. For 
 
54 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 more than a century the league of Latin towns had 
 been faithful to their old alliance, and their soldiers 
 had served in the wars beside the legions. They had 
 borne the brunt of the attacks from the untiring 
 enemies of the Aequian highlands and the Volscian 
 lowlands, who could only join hands and strike at 
 Rome through them. The frequent wars had left 
 behind a fiery track of pillaged homesteads, and the 
 thunder-cloud had often burst on them while it spared 
 their powerful neighbour. They found themselves 
 growing weaker, while Rome was gaining strength and 
 profiting by the wars from which they suffered. No 
 wonder that they grew impatient, and when Rome 
 was struck down by the Gauls there was a restless stir 
 of self-assertion in the plain of Latium, and some of the 
 stronger cities drew themselves visibly aloof and talked 
 of snapping the old ties for ever. News came to 
 Rome that Latin deputies had met at the old trysting- 
 place in the grove of Ferentina, and that they would 
 send no soldiers to fight any more beside the legions. 
 They would keep their forces for their own defence, 
 and the proud city must take a humbler tone if she 
 wished to have their help. But they were slow to 
 move or to combine, and ere they knew it, the oppor- 
 tunity had passed away. The chance was given by 
 Rome's first war with the Samnites. 
 
 The Samnites. These highlanders of Central Italy 
 were the proudest and most resolute of the men of the 
 Sabellian stock, which had pushed gradually southward 
 along the main ridge of the Apennines and spread 
 under various names through the rugged mountain 
 valleys from Sabinum almost to the Straits of Sicily. 
 They clung for the most part to the rude habits of their 
 simple life as shepherds and husbandmen, cherishing 
 the primitive independence of their cantons, which they 
 quitted only as their population outgrew its narrow limits, 
 and fresh swarms went forth to right and left to find new 
 homes. These poured over the inland valleys till they 
 came into contact with the Etruscans in Campania and 
 the Greek settlers on the southern coast, among whom 
 
v.] THE FIRST SAMNITE WAR. 55 
 
 they sometimes lorded it as masters, while others sold 
 their swords as soldiers of fortune to the highest bidder. 
 The various branches of this wide-spread stock were 
 only larger or smaller groups of scattered townships, 
 bound to each other by a loose federal tie, with no vivid 
 sense of national unity, rallying at times together for a 
 strong spasmodic effort, which jarring interests rendered 
 commonly shortlived or futile. One branch alone, the 
 Samnites, seemed capable of fixed aims and organised 
 coherence. Strongly intrenched already in their cen- 
 tral highlands they exerted a powerful influence on the 
 kindred races, as also on the mixed people, Etruscan, 
 Greek, Sabellian, which occupied the fertile regions of 
 Campania. They barred therefore Rome's progress 
 southward, and she could only extend her frontiers at 
 their expense. The cause of the strife between them 
 is not far to seek. It began perhaps, as Livy tells us, 
 in a dispute for ascendancy in the rich Campanian 
 plains, but it ended in a struggle for existence. 
 
 Origin of the First Samnite War, B.C. 343. 
 The lowlanders of Capua had rashly meddled in a 
 quarrel on their borders, and brought upon themselves 
 the vengeance of the Samnites. They found themselves 
 too weak not only to protect their neighbours, but even 
 to defend their city into which they were driven in 
 confusion. They sent messages in haste to Rome to 
 beg for succour, but the Senate felt that it was bound 
 by treaty not to take part in the struggle, and could 
 not stir without a breach of faith. Then the envoys, 
 acting on instructions given, made over by a formal 
 act their city, lands, and all they had to Rome, and 
 bade them deal as they would with what was now their 
 own. The senators were moved to see a people once 
 so potent brought to such a piteous plight, they were 
 strongly tempted with the offer of the wealthy city with 
 its rich domains, and sophistry might plead that no 
 treaty could bar the natural right to protect what had 
 already passed into their hands. They closed there- 
 fore with the offer and sent at once to the besiegers 1 
 camp to tell them what had taken place, and to warn 
 
56 LIVY. [CHAP. I 
 
 them that the subjects of Rome must be respected. 
 The Samnites on their side were in no mood to be 
 baulked of their prey without a struggle : they set at 
 naught the idle claim and flung defiance in the teeth 
 of Rome. The contest for the mastery was sharp and 
 short. The general Valerius, whose surname Corvus 
 recalled the legend of the heaven-sent crow, and who 
 was popular as well as gallant, triumphed in a hard- 
 fought battle near Mont Gaurus. The conquerors 
 avowed that they had never met an enemy more 
 worthy of their swords; the Samnites, brave as they 
 were, gave way at last and fled by night, telling those 
 who marvelled at their panic that the eyes of the 
 Roman soldiers flashed with fire, and a strange frenzy 
 gave them an unearthly force. The other consul 
 marched meanwhile to attack the highlanders in their 
 own valleys, but he nearly lost his army in the tangled 
 country through which he rashly pushed his way, and 
 was only rescued from the toils by the coolness and the 
 daring of a military tribune, P. Decius Mus, thanks to 
 whom a signal victory was gained. A third time they 
 met in battle and with like result, and this brought the 
 enemy soon afterwards to sue for peace, and shortly 
 closed the first war against the Samnites. 
 
 The Mutiny among the Legions. But one 
 danger followed soon upon another. Ugly rumours 
 soon were spreading that the Roman soldiers in Cam- 
 pania were covetously eyeing the wealth and luxury 
 around them, and were plotting to seize Capua for 
 their own hand, to exchange their rude life for ease 
 and plenty. The generals were prompt and wary, and 
 recalled the ringleaders to Rome. But they stopped 
 short^ upon the road, suspecting danger, till other 
 malcontents could join them, and the mutiny could 
 spread among the legions. They found a Quinctius of 
 high birth in his country-house, and him they forced 
 under pain of death to be their leader ; and soon they 
 reached the city and were almost at the walls, when 
 Valerius Corvus the veteran commander met them as an 
 envoy from the Senate, and pleaded to their better feel- 
 
v.] THE LATIN WAR. 57 
 
 ings, and won them back to discipline and honour. 
 Their grievances were partially redressed, but Livy fails 
 to throw much light upon their motives, or to connect 
 them with the local causes of the outbreak. 
 
 Outbreak of the Latin War, B.C. 340. The 
 mutiny and Samnite war were over, and the Latins 
 were still wavering in an attitude that was neither 
 one of peace nor war. But now that the thunder- 
 cloud had rolled away and their rivals' hands were 
 free once more, they began to talk in more defiant 
 tones, claiming their liberty of independent action ; 
 and encouraged by appeal made to them from Cam- 
 pania they armed without waiting for Rome's sanction, 
 and at last venturing to send in their ultimatum. In- 
 stead of the old federal equality they claimed to have 
 corporate fusion. There should be one central govern- 
 ment, they urged, in which one consul and half the 
 Senate should be Latin. Just as these demands might 
 be in theory, they were far more than the old Roman 
 pride could brook. To the consul of the year, Tor- 
 quatus, they seemed too monstrous to be spoken of 
 with patience. He would resist them to the last, he 
 vowed, even if he stood alone, and would strike down 
 with his own hand any Latin who dared to take his 
 seat among the Senate. The sovereign deity of Rome 
 would surely resent an intrusion so profane into his 
 presence. But then, so ran the story dear to pre- 
 judiced ears, the Latin envoy, Annius, mocked in 
 bold defiance of the wrath of heaven, and straight- 
 way, as in answer, came the crash of thunder, and 
 men saw the lifeless form of Annius falling down 
 the marble steps of the temple in which the Senate 
 met. The long smouldering fire burst out at once, 
 and it remained only to appeal to the decision of the 
 sword. They prepared for strife in solemn earnest, 
 for each knew the temper of the other, and was little 
 tempted to despise his foe. Their soldiers had served 
 as comrades side by side on many a hard-fought field ; 
 their discipline and tactics were the same ; their kins- 
 men had settled together as colonists on the land their 
 
58 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 arms had won ; and the coming conflict must have 
 seemed to them like civil war. The generals chosen 
 for the crisis were of the sternest military type, and the 
 stories told of them in later ages showed how strong 
 was the supposed need of discipline, and how much 
 was thought to hang on the issue of the strife. 
 
 Manlius as a type of military discipline.- 
 While the armies faced each other in their camps all 
 single combats were forbidden by Manlius the consul. 
 His son alone forgot himself and, fired by the insult of 
 a challenge, fought and slew his man. He brought 
 back his spoils in triumph, but his father turned his 
 eyes away as he drew near, spoke briefly of the breach 
 of discipline, the penalty of which was death, and, like 
 another Brutus, bade the ministers of justice do their 
 duty. 
 
 The self-devotion of P. Decius Mus. Men spoke 
 with admiring horror of the father's deed; but they 
 had reason to be proud of their other general, 
 P. Decius Mus. His was the far happier lot, for duty 
 called him only to sacrifice himself. When the crash 
 of battle came under Vesuvius he heard from the 
 sacrificing priest what the portents seemed to point to 
 as the will of heaven. Then calmly and cheerfully he 
 bade the priest repeat the solemn ceremonial forms, 
 and vowed his life as a peace-offering to the powers of 
 earth, to win if might be victory for Rome. That 
 done he plunged into the thickest ranks and fell covered 
 with the wounds he seemed to court. The soldiers' 
 valour or the general's death decided the fortunes of 
 the day, and the Latins, bravely as they fought, were 
 routed with great loss. They made one more ineffec- 
 tual stand, and then submitted to their old ally. The 
 federal league was broken up ; the ties of intercourse 
 were rudely snapped, and each town, isolated from the 
 rest, was brought into direct dependence upon Rome, 
 with varying degrees of privilege and right. In one 
 case, that of Antium, a new colony was sent to guard 
 the coast, and the beaks of the war-galleys in which 
 the strength of Antium lay were brought to Rome to 
 
v.] THE LATIN WAR. 59 
 
 deck the raised platform in the Forum from which the 
 statesmen and the magistrates addressed the people, 
 and which gained the name of Rostra from these 
 trophies. 
 
 Suspicious features of the story of the War. 
 Such is the account we find in Livy of the downfall of 
 the old Latin league, and we may accept the more 
 important data as to the cause of the struggle and its 
 main results. There are indeed features of the story 
 more picturesque than credible, and as such preferred 
 probably by our historian for their imaginative or 
 moral value. The anecdotes connected with the name 
 and character of Manlius are of a sort often found 
 in slightly different forms elsewhere, the self-devotion 
 of the Decius is repeated in another generation of the 
 same family; other accounts, resting on authority as 
 good, wholly ignore the battle near Vesuvius, and date 
 the crowning victory of the war from a later conflict 
 hastily dismissed by Livy. There is reason enough 
 to feel assured that we have not reached as yet firm 
 ground of solid fact, and that scanty data from 
 official records have been dressed up in a later age 
 with typical anecdotes and fanciful descriptions. 
 
 The treatment of Privernum. The story of 
 another struggle comes probably from a like source 
 and lived in popular fancy before it found a place in 
 books. Privernum, a little stronghold upon the Vol- 
 scian frontier, had twice defied the power of Rome, 
 and twice been taken. Once more it rose in arms 
 with like result, and then the Senate sat in council to 
 decide the fate of the rebellious city. Ere the debate 
 began they asked the envoy from Privernum what 
 punishment he thought his countrymen deserved. 
 1 Such treatment/ were his words, * as they deserve 
 who feel that they are fit for freedom.' Then the 
 consul asked again how long they would keep the 
 peace if Rome were willing to show mercy. ' If you 
 offer good terms/ was the answer, ' you will have firm 
 and lasting peace, but if the terms be hard, we shall 
 not long observe them.' The senators heard the bold 
 
60 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 words with respect, declaring that men of such a spirit 
 should be Roman, and they gave without delay the 
 rights of the franchise to Privernum. A like tale is 
 repeated by another writer, but not referred to the 
 same date. 
 
 Origin of Second Samnite War, B.C. 327. The 
 conquering Republic had little breathing space from 
 war allowed her, for her formidable rivals in the South 
 were once more upon the move. They had bitterly 
 resented a fortress built on the upper Liris at Fregellae, 
 in the country which they claimed to hold by right of 
 conquest, and which commanded one of the great 
 roads from Latium to the South. On their side they 
 used influence over the mixed race upon the coast, 
 and stirred intrigues against the power of Rome in the 
 Greek cities of Campania. It was left only to appeal 
 to the decision of the sword, and war began again 
 between them in 326 B.C. At first the success of 
 Rome was rapid. The presumptuous city, variously 
 called the Old (Palaepolis) or New (Neapolis), was 
 surrendered either by treachery or fear, and in Sam- 
 nium itself the legions marched to and fro, till 
 repeated victories made the enemy humbly sue for 
 peace. 
 
 The dictator and his master of horse. One 
 campaign above all others was remembered for its 
 bearing on the rigour of Roman discipline and the 
 temper of the generals. The dictator L. Papirius 
 Cursor, when called away on some religious duty to 
 the city, left strict orders with his master of the horse, 
 Q. Fabius Rullianus, not to risk a battle in his absence. 
 But Fabius was venturesome and lucky, and sent a 
 despatch to tell of his success, not to his general, but 
 to the Senate. The dictator hastened to the camp to 
 avenge the signal breach of discipline, for which the 
 penalty was death. But the culprit was rescued by the 
 soldiers and escaped to Rome, still pursued by his 
 indignant chief, who would grant no pardon even 
 when the Senate asked for mercy. At last the tribunes 
 interposed in pity for a father's prayers. As they had 
 
v.] THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR. J 61 
 
 no right to bar the course of martial law, they begged 
 Papirius to spare his life, and at last wrung from him 
 his consent. The soldiers in the camp had little relish 
 for such antique rigour, and fought with little zeal, for 
 they grudged their general the laurels of a triumph. 
 But he set himself to win their love by courtesy and 
 gallant bearing, and that secured, it was an easy matter 
 for him to gain great successes in the field. But Rome 
 was too elated with her fortune to offer peace on 
 reasonable terms ; a great reverse was soon to follow, 
 and her pride was to be humbled almost to the dust. 
 
 The Caudine Forks, The disaster of the Cau- 
 dine Forks a defile between Campania and Samnium 
 left a vivid impress on the national memory, for it 
 was there that the legions were enclosed as in a trap 
 and forced to an ignominious surrender. The enemies 
 themselves, we read, startled at such unheard-of fortune, 
 sent in haste to ask Herennius Pontius, the aged father 
 of their general, how they should act in such a crisis. 
 His answer was that they should let them all go freely 
 forth unhurt, and so appeal to all their best and 
 warmest feelings ; or failing that, put them all without 
 distinction to the sword, that the loss might cripple the 
 State for many a year. There was no safe course, he 
 said, between the two extremes. Yet the Samnites 
 tried to find one. They made their prisoners lay down 
 their arms, and pass under the yoke, each with a 
 single garment only, while the officers of highest rank 
 bound themselves as sponsors for a treaty which was 
 to free the soil of Samnium from the arms and colonies 
 of Rome, and leave the rivals fairly balanced as before. 
 But Rome was in no mood to ratify such terms. The 
 general Posthumius, who had just signed the contract, 
 was the first to raise his voice against it in the Senate, 
 and to vote that the State should disown the act, sur- 
 rendering him and others who had given their sanction 
 to the treaty. The advice was acted on without delay, 
 the Samnites protesting, but in vain. They had lost 
 the solid fruits of victory, but they were too high- 
 minded to wreak their vengeance in cold blood, and 
 
62 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 they sent back the scapegoats to their camp, sorely 
 though they suffered for their idle confidence in 
 Roman honour. They soon found to their cost that 
 the aged Pontius had warned them truly, for the 
 legions were once more upon the march against them, 
 eager to wipe out the memory of their disgrace, and 
 to prove in a fair field their ancient valour. Two 
 consular armies moved towards the South, and the 
 successes which they won balanced the memory of the 
 great disaster. 
 
 Livy's picturesque treatment. In describing 
 the events which have been just sketched the narrative 
 of Livy exhibits a high degree of literary skill, and is 
 full of variety and animated scenes : he recounts in 
 picturesque style the humiliation of the conquered 
 army, the Samnites' generous weakness in catching at 
 the hopes of peace and trusting to a captive's word, 
 the Senate's sophistry and Rome's tarnished honour, 
 in receiving her prisoners of war and casting their 
 pledges to the winds. 
 
 Want of method in dealing with the War. In 
 the remaining period of the war there is many a 
 , brilliant page in which full justice has been done to 
 the pertinacity and valour of the combatants on either 
 side, but the interest is dispersed over a long series of 
 campaigns, which are recorded year by year in such 
 detail that we lose all sense of order and of definite 
 progress, and only gather incidentally some of the 
 most important data. 
 
 The re- appointment of the dictator Papirius 
 Cursor. We have indeed a graphic picture of the 
 struggle in the breast of the consul Fabius between 
 personal rancour and a sense of duty to his country. 
 His colleague was far away and hard pressed by the 
 enemy; the Senate would have a dictator, Papirius 
 must be the man, and Fabius, so ancient custom ruled 
 it, must himself appoint the stern martinet who had 
 once pursued him so relentlessly. It was a hard thing 
 to forget the past, but public spirit was intensely 
 strong, and at dead of night the consul rose alone, and 
 
v.] THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR. 63 
 
 spoke the solemn form of words by which the chief 
 magistrate resigned all the powers of the State into the 
 hands of a dictator. The leader named at such a 
 sacrifice of personal feeling proved himself worthy of 
 the Senate's trust. He won a victory which was long 
 remembered, for the Samnite shields embossed with 
 gold and silver were hung up as trophies in the Forum, 
 and ages afterwards, in days of triumph, the decora- 
 tions of that time were copied by the Aediles. 
 
 No clear account of the policy of the War. 
 We must not look to Livy for any general account of 
 the forces of the warring powers or of the causes of 
 the final issue. He. gives no explanation of the 
 advantages which Rome enjoyed in her organised 
 unity and central strength supported by the ready 
 obedience of her subject peoples, as compared with 
 the Samnite league of independent townships, any of 
 which might lose heart in the hour of danger and 
 desert the common cause. The colonial settlements 
 made during the war are mentioned in his pages, but 
 scarce a word is given to show that these frontier 
 garrisons were a main part of the military policy of 
 Rome, holding down as they did with a grip of iron 
 every inch of ground that had been won, while they 
 contented on the other hand the needs of the im- 
 poverished yeomen who were looking for new homes. 
 We may see, if we look with care, how steadily the 
 great roads were pushed on Southwards, secured by 
 one stronghold after another, dismembering the hostile 
 states, and leaving a watch-tower on every dangerous 
 border, till the clutch of Rome seemed to be riveted at 
 last on the central highlands and resistance to have 
 wholly died away. But the historian tells us little of 
 the policy which Rome adopted, and we only gather 
 from the number of the conquered forts and from the 
 ease with which the legions made their way that the 
 end was near at hand. Even then there seemed a 
 ray of hope when Etruria stepped into the fray, and 
 distracted the attention of the conquering Republic. 
 But she was soon defeated, and the general Fabius 
 
64 LIVY. [CHAP. v. 
 
 was not contented with routing her forces in the field. 
 Rome woke with a strange panic when she heard that 
 the consul had followed in pursuit, and was lost awhile 
 to sight behind the dark Ciminian Forest, which had 
 been as yet the limit of their progress to the North. 
 But while ignorant fancy magnified the danger, Fabius 
 was pushing on, and his successes showed the weak- 
 ness of the Etrurian cities, and forced them soon to 
 sue for peace. Samnium in her turn thus left alone, 
 was at last humbled to submission, B.C. 304. 
 
 The Third Samnite War, B.C. 298. But there 
 could be no lasting peace between the rivals till one 
 of the two was quite exhausted, and Rome speedily 
 had cause to fear that the Samnites were still strong 
 enough to annex the regions of Lucania and dispute 
 the mastery of Southern Italy. She decided to act 
 while there was still time, and her insolent message 
 to them to be still, roused them to arms again in a 
 Third Samnite War. The legions under veteran 
 leaders swept again through Central Italy, and carried 
 all before them where they marched : but even then, 
 when all seemed hopeless, a last effort was made ; 
 alien races which had never yet combined found links 
 of union in the hatred of a common foe : North and 
 South ; Gauls, Etruscans, Samnites joined hands in 
 their despair to strike a final blow for freedom. But 
 the hour had passed for all such hopes, and the great 
 Republic, which in weaker days had by the good 
 favour of Fortune been able to cope with her rivals 
 one by one, was now in her hour of strength powerful 
 enough to crush the united force of the allies in the 
 battle of Sentinum, where a second Decius died to 
 save his country after solemn forms of self-devotion 
 like those recorded in the Latin war. The Samnites 
 struggled on a few years longer, till at last they sullenly 
 submitted, and Rome became Mistress of Italy, which 
 she ruled henceforth without a rival. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CRITICISM OF LIVY'S METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE. 
 
 Progress at home and abroad. We have now 
 reached the close of the first decade, and we may stay 
 to note in general terms some of the characteristic 
 features of Livy's treatment of his subject. In the 
 period comprised in it we trace the progress and 
 completion of two momentous changes: one a work 
 of diplomacy and war by which Rome passed into the 
 sovereign state of Italy; the o-ther a process of con- 
 stitutional reform by which the patricians and plebs 
 ceased to be rival orders and were fused in perfect 
 union. Civil development went gradually forward 
 even while the work of war was going on and the 
 frontiers were constantly pushed further. 
 
 Livy's omissions in military matters. The 
 military side is treated at great length by Livy. Year 
 after year we seem to hear the tramp of the legions 
 and the din of battle, but it must be owned that there 
 is often a signal want of logical order and of clearness 
 in bringing out to view the moving forces and the main 
 results. In geographical description the outlines are 
 all vague and shadowy; the scenes of the campaign 
 are rarely figured to our fancy with the help of minute 
 and circumstantial touches. We are always hearing 
 of Etruscans, Aequians, Volscians, and Samnites, but 
 there is no opening sketch of the definite position, 
 antecedents or political condition of each people, nor 
 any general estimate of their strength or of the causes 
 of decline. In purely military matters there is indeed 
 
66 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 an antiquarian account of the formation of the legion, 
 but the real problem is left quite untouched as to the 
 secret of Rome's success in war, and the main causes 
 of her conquering progress. Once indeed he seems 
 tempted for a moment to deal in earnest with the 
 question. He looks beyond the bounded range of 
 Italian politics to think what might have been the issue 
 if the phalanx of Alexander had been marshalled by 
 his genius against the legions, and East and West had 
 been brought so early into conflict. But he deals only 
 with the surface of the problem, and does not study 
 or compare the tactics and the discipline of ancient 
 states, or show how the faulty generalship of the 
 commanders, changing as they did from year to year, 
 was saved often from disaster only by the steady valour 
 of the militia troops of Rome. 
 
 Constitutional questions. In his treatment of 
 the great constitutional changes there are signal merits 
 balanced by great defects. The debates between the 
 Orders are brought before our fancy with dramatic 
 power; the abstract principles at issue are fired and 
 coloured with party passions ; the hopes and fears of 
 either side, the logic of their rival claims translated into 
 lively rhetoric, appear vividly before us in a series of 
 impressive speeches, in which the writer clothes his 
 theories of political causation. The actual struggles 
 in the city when laws are to be passed or magistrates 
 elected are described as fully as the movements of the 
 armies on the battle-field. But in both cases alike the 
 pictures are too disconnected, and there is too little 
 sense of law and order to give meaning and pro- 
 portion to the whole. It may be doubted even 
 whether Livy had clear ideas about the early con- 
 stitution. Certainly he leaves important questions 
 unexplained. Political terms are not defined; and as 
 the starting-points are never clearly stated, the exact 
 nature of the change is often left obscure. It may be 
 well to justify the charge by some examples. 
 
 No clear ideas of early society. First there is 
 no attempt to realise the primitive structure of society 
 
vi.] LIVY'S METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE. 67 
 
 before the family or patriarchal clan expanded to the 
 tribe, and tribes coalesced to form a state. The clans 
 (genteS) curiae) were powerful units, ruled by their own 
 headmen, observing their own customs, and free in a 
 large measure from any state control. Traces of early 
 usage lingered on in the patria potestas, or the father's 
 despotic rule, in forms of marriage, in the domestic 
 council, in the rights of property, and in the separate 
 character of family worship. Livy does not gather up 
 these hints, or discuss in any way the early law, or 
 explain by what expedients Rome succeeded better 
 than her neighbours in fusing these separate and often 
 jarring atoms into one strong organic whole. 
 
 The clients. Closely related to the old families 
 were the clients or retainers, bound not by contract but 
 by hereditary ties to do service to their patrons such as 
 law or usage could enforce, and which grew perhaps 
 out of mild forms of old domestic slavery. But Livy 
 tells us nothing of their status or their origin. He 
 throws as little light upon the more important order of 
 the plebs, spoken of as already in existence in the 
 regal period, but which grew up outside the privileged 
 clans as alien elements were drawn to them, we know 
 not definitely how. 
 
 The plebs. The plebs was barely tolerated at the 
 first, and had few rights or scant power to enforce 
 them. Its attempt to rise began almost in a struggle 
 for existence, but it ended in complete self-assertion 
 and equality. The tribunes were its champions in 
 the struggle, and the power of veto was their engine 
 of offence. But when was this privilege conceded, or 
 how did it grow to such dimensions ? Not a word 
 does Livy give to solve the problem. It may be that 
 their right .was limited at first to the power to screen 
 any member of their order from attack, or to protect 
 him from patrician magistrates. But the threat to use 
 the power was soon effective. Laws, elections, reso- 
 lutions of the Senate were of no avail, if the tribunes 
 would not sanction what was done or allow the law to 
 be applied when any plebeian was in question. So 
 F 2 
 
68 LIVY. [CHAP, 
 
 the veto, if made thorough-going, might bring all 
 public business to a standstill. 
 
 The comitia. Nor is there any definite explanation 
 given of the origin of the various National Assemblies, 
 or of their relation to each other. Of the centuriate 
 or Servian comitia we read indeed that it was organised 
 to be an army in the field, and a legislative body in 
 the city, so arranged that the voting power should be 
 mainly in the hands of the substantial classes. But 
 the Assembly of the Tribes (Comitia Tributd) comes 
 into life unnoticed. Yet, strange to say, we find that 
 ere long patricians are arraigned before it by the 
 tribunes and submit to take their trial, and at last, 
 when the equality of the Orders is secured, its reso- 
 lutions gain the force of law, though not without a 
 struggle, for the sanction was three times re-enacted. 
 It is probable enough that the plebs first held in- 
 formal meetings to discuss its interests, and voted 
 through the machinery of the tribes ; and that as they 
 felt the power of organised numbers they ventured to 
 usurp the right of trying the worst enemies of their 
 own order by a sort of formalised lynch-law, as it has 
 been called, and that as time went on, and patricians 
 took their places and voted in the tribes, they claimed 
 a legislative power, untrammeled in theory at least by ( 
 the sanction of the Senate. But all this is only in- 
 ference from the meagre data found in ancient writers, 
 and Livy has not thought the subject of sufficient 
 interest to discuss it, or even to form any distinct 
 conception for himself. Of course an historian does 
 not write in the first place for future ages, but for the 
 men and women of his own day, and they are often 
 too familiar with the forms of their own social life 
 to need detailed description of them all. But the 
 machinery in question had in great measure ceased to 
 act in Livy's time ; its arrangements had been altered 
 long before, some of its functions had been changed, 
 and an ancient reader without more special help would 
 not have understood these early matters better than 
 ourselves. It is therefore a capital defect in Livy's 
 
vi.] LIVY S METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE. 69 
 
 treatment that he should deal at such great length with 
 many of the stages of the struggle between the Orders, 
 and yet leave primary questions so obscure, without a 
 word to excuse or to deplore the fact. 
 
 The early religion. There is another side of 
 national life which he leaves also unexplained. We 
 might read him carefully and yet gain no idea that 
 there was any difference of note between the religious 
 thought of Greece and Rome. In the Augustan age 
 indeed all distinctive features" were effaced. Hellenic 
 culture had given a form to the language of the 
 educated world, and the deities worshipped in the 
 Roman temples were supposed to be the same as the 
 members of the Greek Pantheon, though slightly dis- 
 guised under their Latin names. But such had not 
 been the primitive religion of the Italian peoples before 
 the exotic fancies of the poets had overlaid with their 
 luxuriant growth the native products of the Latin 
 mind. For information on such questions we must 
 turn to antiquarian writers who give us the rude 
 phrases of the ancient liturgies, handed down with 
 scrupulous care by priestly hands, and stored in the 
 archives of the Sacred Colleges. Many of such books 
 of ritual were preserved at the end of the Republic, 
 and it only needed a little interest and leisure to 
 picture to the fancy by their help much of the religious 
 life of early days. Had Livy only had an interest in 
 such studies he might have shown us how the Roman 
 husbandman analysed by cool reflection all the pro- 
 cesses of common work and daily life, and at every 
 stage worshipped some mysterious power of Nature 
 which might influence his destiny for weal or woe. 
 The names he gave them were uncouth, answering in 
 meaning to the process of husbandry, or the mood of 
 nature, or the fragment of domestic work of which he 
 thought. There was little in their qualities to stir the 
 fancy of the poet, or give birth to a mythology, for 
 they sounded only like the sexless deities of abstract 
 reason, wholly different from the fantastic shapes that 
 were dreamed of on Olympus. But they were the 
 
7 LIVV. [CHAP. 
 
 real growth of the Italian thought, and as such they 
 were still believed in and still worshipped in the home- 
 steads of the farmers, long after they had been for- 
 gotten by the dwellers in the cities, familiar only with 
 the religious language of the fashionable world. Livy 
 does not write indeed in any frivolous or irreligious 
 spirit. Rather he has a strong respect for the earnest < 
 piety of earlier ages, and sorrows deeply over the 
 degradation of his own unbelieving times. It may 
 seem strange therefore that in collecting materials for 
 his great work, he should not have come into contact 
 with such data, or have reproduced them in his pages. 
 This may lead us to inquire a little deeper into the 
 nature of his historic studies, and to determine as we 
 may what were the authorities that he consulted and 
 the evidences on which he could rely. 
 
 The earlier annalists. There can be no doubt 
 that the earliest prose-writers who dealt with Roman 
 history in any literary form were Fabius Pictor and 
 Cincius Alimentus, both of whom took part in public 
 life during the Second Punic War, almost a century, 
 that is, after the last events which the first decade 
 comprises. Even these did not write in Latin, which 
 was then too rugged and unformed for the tastes of 
 men of letters, but they naturally chose Greek, which 
 was in their time the language of the cultivated world. 
 Their interest lay chiefly in the events of their own 
 days, where they were witnesses as well as agents, but 
 they also wrote a summary sketch of the remoter past 
 as a preface to the fuller history of their own times. 
 They were followed by a long series of authors known 
 to us by name, who wrote of the earlier as well as 
 of the later ages, who thought more indeed as time 
 went on of the graces of style and rules of rhetoric, 
 but had no more special claim to deep historic 
 insight. These are the annalists whom Livy followed, 
 whom he often cites, though sometimes perhaps at 
 second-hand, who seem to have agreed in the main 
 features of their narrative, though they often differed 
 about matters of detail. But the earliest of these 
 
vi.] LIVY'S METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE. 71 
 
 were far removed from the period of which they wrote, 
 and it is important to inquire what materials lay ready 
 to their hand for the history of by-gone ages. 
 
 The official chronicles. The most authentic 
 and complete of these seem to have consisted of 
 the records kept from year to year by the Supreme 
 Pontiff, and at first published by him on a whitened 
 tablet that all might read the National Calendar, then 
 collected in a lengthy digest, and stored with due care 
 in the archives. We are told indeed that the fire and 
 havoc of the Gauls swept away all such memorials. 
 In succeeding years however the records seem to have 
 been kept with greater fulness, as the use of writing 
 spread more widely; but the main facts of public life 
 were barely stated, without a trace of literary style or 
 comment, but with disproportionate space perhaps for 
 the fasts and festivals, portents and eclipses, which 
 concerned the priests most nearly. This dry and 
 scanty chronicle was the starting-point of Roman 
 history, and its meagre outlines were filled out by the 
 fancy of the later writers, with the help no doubt of 
 other data. Whether Livy referred to it himself or 
 not we cannot say, for the information which is drawn 
 from it in his pages may have been taken at second- 
 hand from other sources, and the term annales which 
 he often uses was applied indifferently to the official 
 record and the enlargements of the men of letters. 
 
 Precedents and formularies. There were other 
 materials besides collected by the pontiffs and the 
 remaining priestly guilds liturgies of prayer, with 
 which alone it was thought safe for worshippers to 
 approach the power of heaven, formularies which 
 prescribed the ceremonial acts to be scrupulously 
 observed, precedents followed in all important cases. 
 For the Roman mind was intensely conservative in all 
 such matters ; its religion did not make appeal to 
 moral feelings or to spiritual cravings, but was a thing 
 of forms and ceremonies and symbolic acts, and for 
 these the priests required the help of an elaborate 
 ritual preserved from one generation to another 
 
73 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 Primitive religion was closely intertwined with many 
 sides of national life. Every important change left its 
 traces in the ritual, or was associated with some 
 venerable usage. Some of these formularies are 
 embedded in the narrative of Livy, but we have no 
 reason to believe that he gleaned them for himself, or 
 ever explored the Record Office of the priests. Such 
 data had perhaps little power to stir his fancy, nor did 
 he see their value in helping us to picture fully to our 
 thoughts the national life of far-off times. 
 
 Monumental data. He seems to have found as 
 little interest in the monumental evidence which lay 
 around him in abundance. The ancients did not 
 entrust the documents of State to paper or to parch- 
 ment, or to anything less durable than bronze or stone. 
 Laws, treaties, proclamations, resolutions of the Senate, 
 dedications to the gods, epitaphs upon the tombs, 
 these were to be found in every public place or temple, 
 and formed a constantly increasing store in spite of 
 the ravages of decay and fire. Not in Rome only, 
 but in every town of Italy such evidence lay ready to 
 the hand of those who would try to reconstruct the 
 past in fancy. From time to time reference is made 
 by Livy to such data, and he speaks with respect of 
 Cincius as versed in antiquarian lore. But his quota- 
 tions are confessedly at second-hand. He had no 
 mind to endanger his fine style by much reading of 
 the crabbed stuff engraved on the old marbles ; he had 
 no leisure to pore over the archives to correct a name 
 or date, still less to wander through the land in search 
 of more antiquities. It was easier far to turn to a 
 Valerius Antias or Licinius Macer, annalists nearest to 
 his time, and accept in the main their version of the 
 facts, though startled now and then by inconsistencies 
 or prodigious numbers. 
 
 Family documents. Besides the official docu- 
 ments already mentioned, there were many others 
 doubtless to be gleaned from the chests of the ruling 
 families of Rome. No people ever was more scrupu- 
 lous in keeping its accounts; none carried out more 
 
vi.] LIVY'S METHOD IN THE FIRST DECADE. 73 
 
 thoroughly the principle of book-keeping in private 
 life. The magistrates of course were as careful in 
 the business of State, but they carried to their homes 
 in earlier ages all their registers when their official 
 work was over. These were sometimes no doubt an 
 easy prey for moths or damp, but often they were 
 scrupulously guarded as heirlooms among the proud 
 memories of high estate. With these were kept the 
 funeral notices of the illustrious dead, which ha,ve been 
 spoken of above, and sometimes the speeches even 
 pronounced by them on great occasions in the Senate 
 or before the people. Out of these and the traditions 
 associated with old names it was easy in later times 
 for men of letters or their educated clients to construct 
 the family chronicles which served to illustrate the 
 ancestral busts that lined their walls, or to train the 
 younger members of the house in due respect for the 
 great qualities of their forefathers. It is in this way 
 probably that we may best explain the fact that at 
 certain periods a single family, such as the Fabian, 
 Claudian, or Quinctian house, seems to appear almost 
 alone upon the stage, and to decide the fortunes of 
 the State. Nothing could be more natural if the 
 pedigrees and chronicles of the ruling houses were 
 pieced together to eke out the fragmentary data drawn 
 from other sources. It must be owned indeed that 
 these are matters of conjecture, but it is hard else to' 
 understand why the narrative becomes at times so full 
 and circumstantial, and then again, as the scene shifts, 
 the outlines are so shadowy and indistinct. In a 
 society that grew out of a union of clans and tribes 
 traditions would concentrate themselves within the 
 closer bodies, and be guarded jealously as an exclusive 
 right. 
 
 Original sources probably were little used. But 
 it is impossible to say how far the genuine traditions 
 may have been disfigured by fanciful embellishments 
 and marvellous details, the spontaneous growth of the 
 imagination, or the work of literary clients catering for 
 the pride and vanity of wealthy patrons. Ancient 
 
74 LIV\ r . [CHAP. vi. 
 
 writers seldom refer in any but a vague and general 
 way to the sources from which they draw ; and though 
 Livy complains of such distortions of the truth, we 
 cannot tell whether he made any effort to sift or verify 
 these data for himself. The earlier annalists indeed 
 he often names, and balances conflicting statements, 
 accepting commonly what seemed to rest on the 
 evidence of most or of the oldest writers. But he 
 does not often travel further back, to confront the 
 historians and their proofs, or to construct any critical 
 methods of inquiry. Certainly there is much in the 
 first decade which can rest on no solid basis of con- 
 temporary proof, much that seems like an afterthought 
 of recent fancy challenged to account for an old name 
 or phrase or usage, much commonplace rhetoric that 
 offends us by its lengthy speeches in debate, and its 
 descriptions of battles, sieges, acts of personal prowess 
 as minute as if the armies of antiquity had had their 
 special correspondents in their camp, and reporters 
 for the journals were always sitting in the Senate. 
 
 The Roman character was conservative. Yet 
 still we must remember that the Roman genius was 
 essentially methodical and formal, appealing constantly 
 to precedents, tenacious of established rules and phrases, 
 sure to call at an early stage for text-books and 
 authoritative records. The civil progress of the past 
 was marked in its chief stages by the constitutional 
 language of the present; the great victories won in 
 the struggle for equality were the proud memories of 
 the plebs and part of the charter of their freedom; 
 and while we trace the slow and orderly development 
 of the Republic both in the forum and the field we 
 feel that we are treading on the firm ground of solid 
 fact. And if we are sometimes impatient of the length 
 at which he deals with the more questionable features 
 of his story, we shall do well to remember that four 
 hundred and fifty years are disposed of in a single 
 decade, while the three hundred that followed spread 
 over nearly half as many books. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LOST DECADE, WITH ITS ACCOUNTS OF PYRRHUS 
 AND OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 
 
 Few relations so far between Rome and 
 Greece. The first decade of Livy deals in a great 
 measure with ages so remote, that we find it hard to 
 understand how the narrative is often full of minute 
 and circumstantial data. Unluckily his pages fail us 
 as we near the times for which contemporary records 
 were of easier access. The second decade has been 
 lost, and the writer's guidance is therefore wanting for 
 a period of seventy years, early in which the name of 
 Rome was heard far beyond the bounds of Italy, and 
 passed into the history of neighbouring nations. She 
 had lived as yet her separate life apart, scarcely heeded 
 by the older civilisations of the world. In legendary 
 times indeed we read of envoys sent from her to con- 
 sult the oracle at Delphi, or to gather in Greek cities 
 the materials for the Code of the Twelve Tables, but 
 these may probably have been the afterthoughts of 
 later writers anxious to account for much that seemed 
 borrowed from Hellenic sources, and there were but 
 few fixed points of definite contact to bring into close 
 relation the histories of neighbouring countries. The 
 capture of the city by the Gauls and the decisive 
 battle of Sentinum found an echo in the pages of 
 Greek writers ; and in return the attention of the 
 Romans had been drawn to the movements of the 
 Greek adventurers who appeared from time to time in 
 distant parts of Italy. 
 
76 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 The Greek Pirates at Padua. One such of 
 unknown source had special interest for Livy, and he 
 draws on the traditions of his earlier home when he 
 tells us of the roving corsairs who pushed from the 
 coast into the mainland, making havoc as they went, 
 till the citizens of Patavium beat them off, and set up 
 their spoils in public as a memorial of their prowess. 
 But most of them grew out of the constant wars 
 between Tarentum and her neighbours. That restless 
 trading city, when hard pressed by the rude races on 
 her borders, naturally looked across the seas to Greece, 
 whence her Spartan emigrants had started to settle in 
 their home in Italy. There was no lack of veterans 
 and skilful generals there ready to answer to a call 
 which promised hard fighting and good pay. First 
 came Alexander of Epirus, with the hope perhaps to 
 conquer a fair kingdom in the West, as his nephew of 
 Macedon was at the same time forming a new empire 
 in the East, but his career of conquest was speedily 
 cut short by treachery and death. Then they turned 
 to Cleonymus, of the ruling line of Sparta, but he soon 
 passed away, leaving only a confused memory of rapine 
 in his track. A new era began with the appearance of 
 Pyrrhus on the scene, and from that time Greece and 
 Rome could not ignore each other any more. 
 
 Livy's accounts of Pyrrhus are lost. Only 
 meagre summaries are left us of the three books which 
 dealt with the arrival and the doings of the brilliant 
 adventurer who was thought to be the greatest warrior 
 of his age. Livy's powers of vivid portraiture and 
 dramatic treatment must have found ample scope in 
 the description of the giddy people of Tarentum, who 
 rushed into war with a light heart after unprovoked 
 assault upon the ships of Rome, and wanton insult to 
 the person of her envoy. The character of the knight- 
 errant Pyrrhus doubtless caught his fancy, and we may 
 believe that he also did ample justice to the startling 
 effect produced upon the Roman mind by the scientific 
 strategy of the great captain, and the ponderous me- 
 chanism of the Macedonian phalanx. He would how- 
 
VIL] THE LOST DECADE. 77 
 
 ever have described with fuller pleasure and with more 
 detail the steady resolution with which the Romans 
 faced defeat till they learned in the school of Pyrrhus 
 how to conquer, and that fine scene in the Senate-hall 
 when blind old Claudius came forth once more into 
 public life to raise his voice in protest against any 
 peace or truce with Pyrrhus, and pleaded with his 
 countrymen to fight on to the bitter end while an 
 alien remained in arms upon the soil of Italy. 
 
 The First Punic War, B.C. 264. The four books 
 which followed would have proved a still more grievous 
 loss, if the corresponding chapters of Polybius had not 
 fortunately been preserved to give us in an authori- 
 tative form the history of the First Punic War. The 
 Greek historian was indeed inferior to Livy in many 
 of the qualities of a literary artist. He had none of 
 his pathos and brilliancy of style, none of his power 
 to vivify the shifting scenes of the historic drama, or 
 to transfuse passion into his words at will until the 
 feelings and the interests of the past rise up as living 
 beings before our kindling fancy. But to balance 
 these shortcomings he had also signal merits which 
 Livy could not always rival. Himself a statesman and 
 diplomatist, he had a clearer insight into the political 
 machinery of statecraft ; his wider travels taught him 
 more of the peoples and governments of foreign lands ; 
 he had severer canons of historic credibility, and could 
 better disentangle the connected threads of causes and 
 effects. His sketch therefore of the First Punic War 
 is clear and orderly and comprehensive. We have not 
 indeed from him such a gallery of historic portraits as 
 Livy might have left us. He would have drawn with 
 a freer hand the character of the rough soldier Regulus, 
 sweeping all before him at the first upon the coast of 
 Africa, till over-confident and weary of inaction he 
 wrote to beg to be recalled upon the plea that his 
 little glebe was being neglected by his farmer, but 
 doomed only to return a prisoner on parole to bring 
 terms of peace from Carthage and to urge his coun- 
 trymen to spurn them. He would have left a vivid 
 
78 LIVY. [CHAP. vn. 
 
 memory in the reader's mind of the Claudius who 
 risked defeat with the headstrong daring of his race, 
 and flung the sacred birds into the sea when the 
 augurs told him that they would not eat, saying mock- 
 ingly ' then let them drink/ fit brother of the haughty 
 dame who, when the crowd thronged round about in 
 the streets, wished that he could lose another battle to 
 rid the capital of its superfluous numbers. Roman as 
 he was, Livy must have felt a genuine admiration of 
 the great Hamilcar, who trained his motley levies into 
 a gallant band of veterans with which he baffled for 
 long years the efforts of the legions, and stood at bay 
 at last in his rocky stronghold on the coast like a lion 
 on whom the hunters dare not close. The language 
 of Polybius is somewhat tame and commonplace in 
 dealing with such themes, but he describes clearly for 
 us the earlier relations between Rome and Carthage, 
 and the immediate antecedents of the war in the 
 struggle to secure for Rome first a foothold and then 
 ascendancy in Sicily. The different periods of the 
 conflict are well defined, as he was not hampered by 
 the annalistic form like Livy, nor prone to overload 
 his pages with rhetorical expansions. The main con- 
 ditions therefore of the war stand out in strong relief. 
 The superiority of the legions in the field, where their 
 steadiness and weight shattered the loose array of mer- 
 cenaries whom the merchant princes sent to do their 
 fighting; the energy with which Rome created a war- 
 navy to dispute the mastery of the seas which her rival 
 had long held ; the inventive skill which baffled the 
 experience of Punic sailors, and locked the ships toge- 
 ther for steady fighting as on solid land ; the resolution 
 with which she bore the repeated blows of Fortune in 
 the great reverse in Africa, and in the storms which 
 wrecked her fleets, till her patience was at last rewarded 
 by success, and decisive victory closed the war these 
 are the chief outlines of a story which Livy may have 
 pictured perhaps more vividly, but cannot have described 
 more clearly. 
 
 ve 
 ed 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 
 
 Livy and Polybius drew from the same sources. 
 
 The third decade of Livy covers the period of the 
 Second Punic War, for the opening years of which we 
 have also the guidance of Polybius, and on comparing 
 many passages of the two writers it may be seen that 
 there is very close resemblance in their narratives, and 
 that at times the agreement is too minute and circum- 
 stantial to be due merely to the accurate description 
 of the facts recorded. It has been therefore commonly 
 supposed that the later historian borrowed freely from 
 the earlier, though without acknowledging his debt, 
 as often was the case with ancient writers. But on 
 nearer scrutiny it may be seen that even in the 
 passages where there is very close resemblance there 
 are commonly some incidents in Livy's pages, which 
 form distinct additions to the story of Polybius, 
 and which therefore point to other literary sources. 
 There are other passages which he hardly could have 
 'written, if the narrative of the Greek historian had 
 been at the time under his eyes, as where he gives 
 details which the latter had exposed already as ab- 
 surdities or exaggerated tales. At a later period we 
 know that he followed Polybius more closely, trans- 
 lating or abridging lengthy passages, without collating 
 other sources, and with no such minute and numerous 
 variations as have now to be accounted for. It seems 
 therefore more probable that both used the same 
 authorities, rather than that one borrowed from the 
 
8o LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 other. But Livy must have adhered closely to them in 
 their fuller form, while the edition which Polybius gives 
 is a summary and corrected one. 
 
 Possibly both followed Silenus. If we ask what 
 were these common sources from which both writers 
 drew, we should first note that the resemblance is most 
 marked in passages which deal with the march of the 
 invading army, and the vicissitudes of the campaigns 
 in which Hannibal is the moving spirit of the scenes, 
 and the narrative reads like that of an eye-witness, or 
 of one who drew his information from the Carthaginian 
 camp. Livy cites himself (xxvi. 49. 3) the Greek Silenus, 
 who is said to have served through the whole of 
 Hannibal's campaigns, and to have written with great 
 care the history of his wars. He was certainly re- 
 ferred to by the Roman writers on the Punic struggle, 
 and a painstaking author like Polybius can hardly 
 have neglected evidence of so high an order. Silenus 
 therefore may have been the fountain-head to which 
 many of the passages in question in both writers may 
 be ultimately traced. But though Polybius may have 
 consulted him directly, there is reason to believe that 
 Livy used his evidence in the form in which it was 
 presented by some annalist of earlier date, who had 
 worked it up with the materials drawn from purely 
 Roman sources. 
 
 Livy may have borrowed largely from Caelius 
 Antipater. The earliest of such annalists, we know, 
 were Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus, who both 
 took part in the great Punic War, and helped to make 
 history as well as write it. Like these, most of the 
 chroniclers who followed chiefly aimed at brevity, and 
 are spoken of by Cicero with much disdain as his- 
 torians without a style. But Caelius Antipater, who 
 lived a century later, is said by the same critic to have 
 written with much more literary care, and was evidently 
 in good repute at the end of the Republic. Cicero 
 mentions specially his history of the Punic War, and 
 also tells us that in this he followed Silenus very 
 closely. In the third decade Livy explicitly refers to 
 
vnij THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 81 
 
 him more often than to any other writer, and in 
 language which implies that his evidence ranked high, 
 and should have w r eight in any conflict of authorities. 
 There is good reason also to suppose that he was 
 often used when his name was not directly mentioned. 
 It was natural that a writer of repute like Caelius, 
 whose literary style contrasted favourably with the 
 rugged chronicles of earlier days, should have been 
 freely used by Livy without much care to turn to his 
 authorities, or to balance and harmonise conflicting 
 evidence. It was enough for him to note and exercise 
 his judgment on the discrepant accounts reported by the 
 older writer, without much effort to decide the question 
 by fresh data. The critical standard of the age did 
 not require him to unfold and to collate the long rolls 
 in which the ancient chronicles were written, and to 
 risk his own fine style by dwelling on their archaic 
 diction. His readers would have much preferred a 
 brilliant piece of rhetoric to proof of antiquarian re- 
 search, and we need not be surprised that Livy was 
 content to satisfy the tastes of the society for which he 
 wrote. To sum up then, in the earlier books the 
 evidence seems to point to Silenus as the common 
 authority of both historians, and to Caelius as the 
 compiler of the Roman version of the story. But 
 later in the decade other materials seem to have been 
 turned to more account, such as memoirs current in 
 the circle of the Scipios, or native chronicles of Africa, 
 like those said to have been consulted by king Juba, 
 and later works, as of the diffuse and credulous Valerius 
 Antias. 
 
 The origin of the Second Punic War, B.C. 218. 
 The main cause of the Second Punic War is found by 
 Livy in the ambition of the great generals who pushed 
 on their career of conquest in the south of Spain, and 
 longed to vindicate the national honour, which had 
 been tarnished by the disasters at the close of the last 
 war. The immediate occasion of the renewal of the 
 struggle was the defiance hurled in the teeth of Rome 
 by striking down Sagunfcum her ally. This account 
 G 
 
8a LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 agrees with all the facts which can be gleaned from 
 other sources. But there are some antecedents of the 
 War which seem unduly slurred over or neglected in 
 his pages. Roman sentiment passed lightly over the 
 outrage done to Carthage when Sardinia was wrested 
 from her grasp in the dire straight of the Mercenary 
 war, and the mere attitude of self-defence was shame- 
 lessly resented ; it did not care to own that the 
 alliance with Saguntum was a real intrusion and a 
 menace aimed at Carthage, explained but not justified 
 by precedents like the dealings with Messana and with 
 Capua, which had provoked the earlier struggles ; it 
 glossed over the fact that the jealousy of Rome had 
 long been roused by the spread of Carthaginian power 
 in Spain, and that only the accident of the Celtic rising 
 on the Po distracted her attention for a while, and gave 
 Hannibal the chance of striking the first blow; it 
 glibly spoke of Punic perfidy, as though the act were 
 one of unprovoked aggression, and Rome's honour 
 in like cases was quite spotless. 
 
 The assumed unwillingness of the government 
 of Carthage. But Livy gives no countenance to the 
 alleged dislike of the government of Carthage to the 
 war, on which much has been said with little proof. 
 It is one thing to make, as he does, Punic envoys, 
 while pleading for peace in later years before the 
 Roman Senate, shift all the blame on Hannibal, as the 
 firebrand who, set the strife ablazing without the wish 
 or sanction even of the State, and quite another thing 
 to say with Fabius Pictor that the army really forced 
 the war on a reluctant nation, which dared not thwart 
 its general, or disown his bold defiance of the claims 
 of Rome. Polybius had disposed already of this fancy in 
 a few strong words, and Livy describes more than once 
 the course of the debate among the senators of 
 Carthage, where the advocates of peace were few, and 
 war or its supplies were voted for with acclamation. 
 It is true that the ancients often spoke of the long 
 struggle as the Hannibalic war, because the general 
 himself was the soul of the whole movement, and the 
 
vin.] THE SECOND TUNIC WAR. 83 
 
 home government was too far away to guide his 
 policy or control his action; it is true also that we 
 hear but seldom, of money or reinforcements sent 
 from Carthage, and so far there may be some colour 
 for the charge that the jealousy or coldness of the 
 ruling classes left him to fight his battles single- 
 handed, relying only on the unparalleled resources of 
 his military skill. But we must remember that the 
 merchant city was no longer mistress of the seas, and 
 that though her corsairs swept the Italian coasts, they 
 could not safely convoy the great fleets that were 
 needful for the transport of an army. Spain was the 
 favourite recruiting-ground, which could furnish hardy 
 soldiers in abundance ; there the levies were pushed 
 forward which were to follow the track of Hannibal 
 across the Alps, and furnish a new army in the heart 
 of Italy for a last decisive blow. But this policy was 
 thwarted by the chequered fortunes of their arms in 
 Spain, where pressing need at times diverted reinforce- 
 ments levied for service under Hannibal. Meantime 
 we cannot fairly argue from the silence of the Roman 
 writer that he was left without supplies in money to 
 raise or to maintain his forces. His country hailed, as 
 Livy tells us, with enthusiasm the news of his suc- 
 cesses; she was not so niggardly or sordid as to 
 starve him into failure; and when disaster came at 
 length after fifteen years of superhuman efforts, she 
 did not withhold her confidence from her great son, 
 whom she had recalled, if possible, to save her, and 
 saw gladly at her helm amid the troubled waters. 
 
 Disputes as to the route of Hannibal. The 
 route of Hannibal across the Alps was a matter of 
 dispute in ancient times, and has remained so to the 
 present age. Almost every pass along which an army 
 could have marched, and some which none but 
 practised mountaineers could cross, have been at some 
 time advocated as the track of the invading host. But 
 many of these attempts are hopelessly at variance with 
 the nature of the mountain ranges as at present known, 
 or with the chief data of the ancient writers, and the 
 
 G 2 
 
84 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 books or pamphlets written in their behalf are only 
 monuments of misplaced ingenuity or learning. 
 
 Livy's description of it. If we turn to Livy 
 we shall find no definite statements as to the place at 
 which the Rhone was crossed, but after the passage 
 we are told that Hannibal pushed on inland to avoid 
 all contact with the Roman army which was following 
 in pursuit and barred the way along the coast. It 
 is far more probable however that his route was 
 decided on beforehand, and that he was guided by the 
 Gauls, who had invited him to Italy, and who would 
 naturally lead him through the passes which would 
 bring him with most ease into their country. He 
 marched onward in four days to the district enclosed 
 between the Rhone and the Isere the insula Allo- 
 brogum of later days, where he took part in a civil feud 
 between the native chieftains.- After that he is repre- 
 sented as turning to the left ad laevam in his way 
 towards the Alps. This phrase is very difficult, and 
 many explanations have been offered. The most 
 likely one assumes that he retraced his steps across 
 the Isere and down the Rhone a movement however 
 as to which Livy is quite silent and then turned to 
 the left up the banks of the river Drome. Only thus 
 could he have passed at this stage through the borders 
 of the Tricastini, whose chief town was probably 
 Aoste on the Drome, and then through the Voconlii, 
 whose frontier on the south-east extended far along 
 the road to Embrun, through which country Hannibal 
 may have led his troops, skirting the lands of the 
 Tricorii who were spread to the north-west. This 
 road would have brought him to the Durance, and by 
 Brian9on across the Mont Genevre, which was known 
 as the Alpes Juliae to Caesar, but afterwards named 
 Cotliae from the chieftain who improved the mountain 
 roads in his own neighbourhood. 
 
 The account in Polybius. Another detailed de- 
 scription of the route is given us by Polybius, who was 
 born during the war, and lived at Rome in the society 
 of public men whose fathers probably took part in the 
 
vin.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 85 
 
 great struggle. He was at special pains, as he informs 
 us, to consult contemporary evidence, and even travelled 
 himself among the Alps, to get further knowledge of 
 the scenes. The various stages of the whole journey 
 from Cartagena to the Italian plains are definitely 
 measured in his pages, and his language points to a 
 passage of the Rhone somewhere near the town of 
 Orange, and to a four days' march onward to the 
 Isere. From that point he records no names until 
 he makes Hannibal issue from the Alps among the 
 Insubres, the leading power among the Gallic tribes 
 which were then at war with Rome. He explains this 
 silence in the general ignorance that prevailed of the 
 exact position of the Alpine tribes and passes. But 
 he definitely states that from the district between the 
 Rhone and the Isere Hannibal marched in ten days 
 eight hundred stadia along the river y before he began 
 to climb the Alps, and that in the plain country which 
 he traversed the barbarians were kept in check by his 
 own cavalry as well as by native aid. There can be 
 little doubt that the river of the whole narrative is the 
 Rhone, and Polybius expressly says that they kept 
 near to it to the entrance of the mountain pass. His 
 language seems to indicate the route which follows 
 the Rhone up to Vienne, and leaving it for a while in 
 its great bend, meets it again at St. Genix, and runs on 
 to the pass of Mont du Chat, from which the way 
 would naturally lead through the Tarantaise, and over 
 the Little St. Bernard to the valley of Aosta. This pass, 
 over the range called afterwards the Graian Alps, was 
 one of the best known and earliest used across the 
 mountains. Its neighbourhood was by far the most 
 fertile of them all, and as such best suited to supply an 
 army on the march. It led most directly to the cantons 
 of the Gallic tribes which sent to invite the Punic forces. 
 Their envoys would naturally know it best, and be 
 most likely to guide the invaders on that course. 
 Accordingly Polybius tells us that Hannibal recruited 
 first his soldiers' strength among the friendly Gauls, 
 and then at their desire made war upon the tribe of 
 
86 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 the Taurini, whose town bequeathed its name, though 
 not perhaps its site, to the Turin of modern times. 
 It was known in later times that this tribe was attacked 
 before the collision with the legions, and it was natural 
 to infer that they came into hostile contact as soon 
 as he issued from the mountains, and because they 
 denied him passage through their valleys. This seems 
 to have been the popular legend of two centuries later, 
 and the Roman historian admits that there was no 
 sure evidence before him, but that he relied mainly on 
 tradition. The account of Polybius he does not 
 notice, though he refers to Caelius Antipater, whose 
 account, as far as we can judge, agreed in the main 
 with the Greek writer. 
 
 General conclusions. On the whole then, the 
 most probable conclusion is that the route traced by 
 Livy was that from the Drome to the Durance, and 
 across the Mont Genevre, the Alpes Cottiae of later 
 times. But Polybius appears to have believed the army 
 to have made a longer circuit by the Rhone and the 
 Tarantaise, across the Graian Alps, or what is now 
 the Little St. Bernard. It is very hard to force the two 
 accounts into agreement, and if they are at issue, there 
 can be little doubt that the authority of Polybius should 
 have the greater weight, as he was the earlier and more 
 accurate historian, and had made more special studies 
 on the subject. Niebuhr and Mommsen therefore 
 have accepted his account in favour of the Graian 
 Alps. 
 
 Roman rancour towards Hannibal. Generosity 
 was not a Roman virtue, and there was little colour of 
 it in the relentless rancour with which Italian legend 
 blackened the memory of their greatest enemy. Poly- 
 bius indeed could sift and compare the evidence of 
 living men, and thus was able to ignore contemptu- 
 ously or disprove most of the malignant charges 
 brought against him. But later writers were less 
 scrupulous in this respect, and scandalous stories, due 
 to credulous fear or hatred, gathered round the name 
 of Hannibal, and found a place in history. They are 
 
vin.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 87 
 
 reflected even in the narrative of Livy, though they ill 
 agree with his own generous love of truth, or with the 
 facts which he records elsewhere. 
 
 Gross scandals as to his early character. First 
 he gives us, probably from Punic sources, what the veter- 
 ans may have told each other of their great captain's 
 earlier years, of his hardihood and gallant bearing and 
 perfect mastery of all a soldier's trade. We hear how he 
 shared the coarse fare, and daily drudgery, and nightly 
 watch of the meanest soldier in the ranks, till he won the 
 confidence of every grade alike, and was foremost in 
 every post of trust or danger. But then almost on the 
 same page we read of scandal too gross to be repeated, 
 due to the coarse banter of the camp, or to the reckless 
 slander of a rival faction in the city, and as such un- 
 worthy of a grave historian's notice. 
 
 The early campaigns. In describing the first 
 campaigns in Italy Livy does ample justice to the 
 general's consummate skill, which forged such a 
 mighty thunderbolt of war out of the motley levies of 
 Numidians, Spaniards, Gauls, who were fighting for a 
 cause in which they had no natural stake, and for 
 a country where they had not even civic rights. He 
 makes us feel the moral influence of the commander 
 who sustained the courage of his men in the long and 
 toilsome march through mountain ranges, the dangers 
 of which were magnified by fear, as they were two 
 centuries later by Livy's credulous horror. When the 
 shock of battle comes we see that Punic armies are 
 made now of other stuff than those which in the First 
 War seldom faced the legions save to be defeated. 
 The veterans trained in the school of Hamilcar his 
 father might be trusted to go anywhere and do any- 
 thing, but with the genius of Hannibal to lead them, 
 even Roman courage found their onset almost irresist- 
 ible. It was no secret of strategy in which the merit 
 lay, such as could be gradually learnt by others, and 
 turned in time against its author, but a fund of resource 
 and a subtlety of rapid insight which could see at a 
 glance the fatal point of weakness, and constantly. 
 
88 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 combine fresh methods of attack. No State but Rome 
 could have survived such terrible disasters as befell her 
 at Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae, and it was only 
 thanks to her walled towns and entrenched camps that 
 she held at bay the skilful strategist whom her legions 
 were no match for in the open field. Her consuls 
 shrunk from risking an encounter, and were content 
 to watch him from afar, thinking it, as Livy tells us, 
 almost a triumph to cross swords with him without 
 defeat. As time went on the brilliant victories were 
 fewer, for Roman generals were grown more wary, and 
 their allies of Central Italy were faithful in the strong- 
 holds, which were safe from an enemy who had no 
 siege-train in his camp. But even then, when his 
 veterans were thinned by death, and he had lost his 
 hold on all but a corner of Southern Italy, and his last 
 hope of help from Spain was wrecked by the defeat of 
 Hasdrubal, even then the Roman armies which were 
 closing round him dared not face his tiger spring. 
 In a striking passage (xxviii. 12) Livy owns that his 
 greatness was as unquestioned then as in the days of 
 his success, for his ascendancy was still as marked 
 over both friend and foe, there was not a whisper of 
 disloyalty among the bands whom he had gathered 
 round his standards, men of various nationalities and 
 manners, who bore in his service cheerfully hardships 
 and dearth of food and arrears of pay, the like of 
 which in years gone by provoked the fierce explosion 
 of the Mercenary war. 
 
 Hannibal's supposed vices. But in the character 
 of Hannibal, which Livy sketches at the outset, the 
 lights and shadows are both very deep. His brilliant 
 qualities were balanced, he tells us, by inhuman cruelty, 
 more than Punic perfidy, and absolute disregard of all 
 that men and God hold sacred. It might be enough 
 to set against so sweeping an indictment the general 
 denial of Polybius, who was too critical to leave such 
 charges quite unsifted, and had been familiar in the 
 circle of the Scipios with a more generous sentiment 
 towards the fallen foe. For one defect indeed he 
 
vin.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 89 
 
 allows that there was more evidence ; the well-informed 
 spoke of his avarice as admitted by the fellow-country- 
 men who knew him best. Yet even this perhaps 
 chiefly reflects the gossip of the camp and the dis- 
 content of soldiers who chafed when their greed for 
 plunder was reined in too sharply. Their commander 
 had to husband his resources, and make war support 
 war with an eye to future years, and could not tolerate 
 such wanton waste or licensed brigandage as a Tilly or 
 Wallenstein in later ages. 
 
 His cruelty. The charge of cruelty, as Polybius 
 explains, was partly due to a confusion between him- 
 self and an ill-famed namesake in his army who left 
 behind him many a memory of shame. But the advice 
 ascribed to him that the soldiers should be trained to 
 live on human food was doubtless only a grim jest at 
 the scanty commissariat from which they suffered. 
 But indeed apart from any such mistake, it was natural 
 enough that much of the misery of those fifteen years 
 of ceaseless war should be linked to the name of 
 Hannibal himself. As the tramp of armies passed 
 across the land, and the wail of anguish rose from 
 pillaged farms and desolated homes, the invader's 
 name became a sound of terror with which mothers 
 hushed their little ones to rest, and the sufferers were 
 in no mood for nice distinctions when they thought of 
 the cruel outcome of the bloody war. But if we turn 
 to questions of detail we see that the authorities whom 
 Livy followed gave little evidence to justify such state- 
 ments. He dismissed the Spanish waverers to their 
 homes when they shrunk from the hazards of that 
 plunge into a world unknown; he gave his Italian 
 prisoners their freedom, and was willing that the 
 Romans should be ransomed : Livy does not tell us 
 even that he sold them into slavery, when he Senate 
 left them to their fate, and it is only in much later 
 writers that we read of the horrors said to have 
 befallen those whom their country had abandoned to 
 his mercy. A Roman governor could massacre in 
 cold blood the defenceless citizens of Enna whom he 
 
90 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 had summoned to him with the mask of peace ; the 
 garrison of Casilinum could make themselves secure 
 against a rising from within by murdering all whom 
 they thought dangerous; a Marcellus could so far 
 forget the loyalty of Syracuse under Hiero's long 
 reign, and his promise of protection to a people 
 overawed by mutineers and traitors, as to ruin an 
 undeserving city while he wreaked his vengeance on 
 the guilty. But Hannibal was patient with the noble 
 of Capua who defied him to his face, and only sent 
 him into exile when he stirred the citizens to arms, and 
 Livy himself scarcely records a single act of special 
 cruelty that could be proved during his long career in 
 Italy, until the eve of his departure, when he slew, so 
 ran the tale, in Juno's shrine many of his Italian soldiers 
 who would not follow him across the seas. The history 
 of Polybius fails us at this period, but it was not thus 
 that Hannibal had dealt with the Spaniards who refused 
 to cross the Alps ; Livy silently ignores elsewhere, as 
 we can see, much of the foul slander which later writers 
 have repeated, and we may safely say that such a pur- 
 poseless atrocity is inconsistent with the whole tenour 
 of his life. 
 
 The charge of perfidy not proved. The charge 
 of perfidy is even less sustained. The well-known re- 
 proach of Punic craft may have grown perhaps in earlier 
 days out of the shrewd bargains of Phoenician traders. 
 But the Romans had no right to accuse Carthage of 
 bad faith in her dealings with them, and Livy gives no 
 data to justify his statement about Hannibal. In one 
 case even where the annalists had accepted a malignant 
 story, he admits that all the evidence points to his 
 having acted with perfect honour in the matter (xxiii. 19). 
 Subtle schemer as he was, he did succeed in outwitting 
 the second-rate generals of Rome, passing where he 
 would between their armies, and hurling himself with 
 lightning speed upon them when they thought him 
 far away. He was always ready with stratagems to 
 baffle his opponents, but wiles like those were fair in 
 war, and there is no evidence that he proved ever 
 
viii.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 91 
 
 faithless to his soldiers or allies. Rather the loyalty 
 with which they clung to him in spite of every hardship, 
 the absence of mutiny or disaffection in his camp, the 
 spell of personal influence which never failed him, are 
 alone enough to disprove such vague and unsubstantial 
 charges. 
 
 Causes of the final success of Rome. If we 
 ask now what were the causes of the ultimate success 
 of Rome, we shall find indeed the materials in Livy for 
 the answer, but no clear estimate of his own. The 
 commanders whom she could send into the field seem 
 like respectable drill-sergeants pitted against the greatest 
 general of that, or perhaps of any age. Her stedfastness 
 in times of trial is matched by the marvellous tenacity 
 with which he clung to Italy in the face of overpowering 
 numbers. Her legions even, staunch as their courage 
 was, could hardly cope at first with the skilful me- 
 chanism devised and trimmed by Punic wit. But, first, 
 the imperial fabric which had been slowly built up in the 
 course of ages was firm enough to stand the strain of 
 the attack, strengthened as that system was by the grip 
 of the colonies on the great roads and posts of vantage. 
 Greeks and Bruttians might fall away to the invader, 
 but the towns of Central Italy were true to Rome; 
 there was little to attract them in the promise of a 
 Punic empire, resting on alliance with the Gauls ; their 
 walls were able to defy attack from an assailant who 
 had no leisure or means to organise machines of war ; 
 their warlike youth vastly outnumbered the recruits 
 whom he could find to fill the gaps which every battle 
 left in his ranks of trusty veterans. Secondly, Carthage 
 was weak where Rome was strong. The subject towns 
 of Africa had little love for the proud mistress who 
 ruled them with a rod of iron, and dared not trust 
 them even with a fence of walls. They fell away 
 therefore when a foreign army set foot upon their soil, 
 or they were powerless to repel attack when made in 
 earnest. The Nomad tribes on whom her yoke 
 pressed heavily were glad to turn against the ruler 
 who had repressed their savage license. The Car- 
 
92 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 thaginians themselves had no love for the soldier's 
 trade, and looked to aliens to fight their battles. 
 Spain had of late been the favourite recruiting-ground, 
 but the march across the Alps was long and toilsome, 
 and their enemies were now on the alert to bar the 
 way. Thirdly, the resources on which Carthage could 
 rely were widely scattered, and a storm, an accident 
 could ruin the most skilful combination, as when the 
 two brothers were ready to join hands in the heart of 
 Italy, and failed after years of effort because despatches 
 had miscarried. Rome lay in the midst of her sup- 
 plies; all around her were the friendly towns from 
 which she drew her soldiers, too strong to storm, too 
 large to be besieged by any Punic force ; she could not 
 be cut off from her natural base, or forced to stake all 
 upon a single battle. 
 
 Little use made of the Wavies. There is one 
 feature of the struggle which, strange to say, Livy 
 passes by without remark. In the First Punic War 
 much of the interest, as well as of the efforts of the 
 combatants, was concentrated on the sea. Each power 
 built and manned enormous fleets, and it was Rome's 
 special glory that she created a war-navy on a sudden, 
 and by the inventiveness, of her constructive skill she 
 triumphed on the waters over the great ship-builders of 
 the ancient world. But in the Second War there is no 
 naval fight of any moment, and we scarcely hear of 
 any fleets on either side save a few Punic consairs on 
 the coasts of Italy, and the transports which conveyed 
 the Roman soldiers to and fro with little danger from 
 the ships of Carthage. For some years indeed the 
 rival powers seem to have changed places, and the 
 great trading city makes no effort to regain her mastery 
 of the seas, while her armies carry all before them on 
 dry land. It was part perhaps of the policy pursued 
 by the great house of Barca to break with the traditions 
 of the past, and to organise a solid power in Spain, 
 where a steady infantry might be brought into the 
 field, unlike the loose levies of the former war, and 
 then to gather the Gallic tribes around the invading 
 
vm.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 93 
 
 army for a combined attack on Italy and Rome. It 
 may be also that the losses of the former war and 
 its indemnity, followed by the terrible struggle with 
 the Mercenaries, had so far drained the treasury of 
 Carthage, that she had not much to spend upon her 
 ships, but in later years she surely rued her naval 
 weakness, which must have sadly crippled all her 
 efforts to reinforce her gallant son in his desperate 
 struggle to maintain his hold on Italy. 
 
 Livy's neglect of geography. In the Third 
 Decade, where we chiefly are concerned with military 
 topics, we feel keenly Livy's carelessness in questions 
 of physical geography. Polybius thought it worth his 
 while to make a special visit to the Alps to explore the 
 scenes of the campaign, but Livy was content to 
 imagine marches and countermarches in his study, or 
 to turn over the rolls of the old chronicles in the 
 Palatine Library hard by, without an effort, so far as 
 we can judge, to see with his own eyes the site of the 
 most famous battle-fields. The natural result is a 
 frequent want of clearness in the outlines and of preci- 
 sion in details. Circumstantial features of the route 
 across the Alps, as given by Polybius, are fitted on to 
 quite a different line of march ; the exact position of 
 the armies at the battles of Trebia and Cannae is still 
 matter of dispute ; the passage of the Apennines and 
 the immediate antecedents of the disaster at Lake 
 Trasimene are vaguely stated ; there is nothing in the 
 neighbourhood of Casilinum to explain how Hannibal 
 could have been almost caught there as in a trap ; in 
 the march even from Capua to Rome he cannot give 
 the local names in proper order, or enumerate correctly 
 the tribes of Central Italy which the invader passed 
 upon his way. Even Polybius, accurate as he was 
 in most respects, is often far from definite in topo- 
 graphical details, but Livy's carelessness is carried 
 further than the loose standards of his age can warrant, 
 and in the last years of the war it throws a whole 
 campaign sometimes into confusion, 
 
 Care in registering portents. There is however 
 
94 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 another feature of the age which Livy illustrates at 
 what may seem often disproportionate length. Long 
 lists of portents are recorded by him, extending some- 
 times over a whole chapter, and recurring year by year, 
 and at especial length when the prospects of the 
 Roman State were darkest. To a modern reader it 
 may seem strange and even ludicrous to read so much 
 about the blood which was seen oozing from the shields 
 stored in the temples, of fiery stones falling from the 
 sky, of blood-stained ears which dropped from the 
 baskets of the reapers, of the spears of soldiers seen to 
 be on fire, and heavens which were rent asunder, while 
 a bright light shone forth from the gap, of prophetic- 
 tablets shrinking, of goats covered with a coat of wool 
 at birth, and cocks and hens whose sex was on a 
 sudden mysteriously changed. But though we may 
 be impatient as we read all this so often, Livy had no 
 wish to trifle with grave topics of religion, and he 
 gravely copied what he found in the older documents 
 before him. The ancient Romans thought it quite a 
 thing of course that the gods should give their warn- 
 ings of their will or their displeasure by unearthly signs 
 or portents. In times of crisis or excitement credulous 
 fancy greedily caught up the wildest stories and dis- 
 torted possibly the plainest facts. We can realise 
 more easily the superstitious spirit of the age, and the 
 gloom which settled on the public mind in those dark 
 days of disaster, when the timid saw around them in 
 the forms of earth and sky little but reflections of their 
 fears, and priests and senators discussed the presages 
 of probable defeat. It was the business of the State 
 through the College of the Pontiffs to take the needful 
 steps to satisfy the gods and set the public mind at 
 rest. Others might shudder and be silent, but they 
 must learn to recognise the voice which spoke in 
 portents, must turn over their old books and profit by 
 the inductions of the past, and read in the unearthly 
 signs some sort of Revelation of the Will of Heaven. 
 For this purpose, after due scrutiny of evidence, the 
 prodigies were chronicled from year to year in the 
 
viii.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 95 
 
 records of the Pontiffs. To isolate them from each 
 other might mislead the student, rather they must be 
 regarded as the scattered phrases of the message sent, 
 and skilled interpreters must piece them all together. 
 Hence we may explain the exceeding length at which 
 they were recorded, and the punctilious care with 
 which historians transferred them to their pages. 
 
 Party bias in the annals. There is good reason 
 to believe that some passages of history may have been 
 disfigured at this period by party spirit or by family 
 pride. Some bias of this kind was natural enough in 
 the chroniclers whom Livy copied, and candid and 
 dispassionate as he may have been himself, we may 
 trace perhaps in what he tells us the influence of such 
 distortions. 
 
 The account of Flaminius. The story of Fla- 
 minius is one of the most familiar of these cases. 
 The lower orders loved him well, for he had shown as 
 tribune that he had the interests of the poorer citizens 
 at heart. His was the first agrarian bill since the days 
 of the Licinii, and in it he proposed to divide among 
 the needy much of the domain-land in Cisalpine 
 Gaul. The nobles in the Senate bitterly opposed the 
 measure, which was pushed through the popular 
 assembly in spite of their resistance. The people 
 raised him in their gratitude to all the highest offices of 
 the State, but in his first consulship men spread the 
 rumour that he risked probable disaster by neglecting 
 the commonest rules of strategy; the Senate sum- 
 moned him to resign his office, on the ground of some 
 technical flaw in his election, but he would not open 
 the despatch till he had ended his campaign, and on 
 his return persisted in entering Rome in triumph, 
 despite the refusal of the Senate. The hatred of the 
 nobles pursued him ever after : they bitterly resented 
 his re-election to the consulship, railed against him as 
 a freethinker displeasing to the powers of heaven, and 
 seemed likely to force him to resign on some religious 
 plea. They spread the tale in after years, we scarcely 
 know how truly for Polybius ignores it, that he stole 
 
96 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 away from Rome in secret, and entered upon office 
 without the due formalities of worship. Early in the 
 campaign, they said, he scoffed at warning portents, 
 neglected all the rules of caution, rushed in his vain- 
 glory to close with the invader, and sacrificed not 
 himself merely but a Roman army in the fatal pass of 
 Trasimene. The whole account seems coloured by 
 the rancorous spirit of faction. His position at 
 Arretium was well chosen for defence, and his plans 
 were probably suggested by the successful campaign 
 against the Gauls in 224. He showed no wish to 
 force an action prematurely, but after sending to his 
 colleague at Ariminum to hasten to the defence of 
 Rome, it was his duty to move southward to effect a 
 junction, and to keep the enemy meantime in view. 
 He was no match mdeed for Hannibal, who closed 
 the trap upon him in the defiles of Trasimene ; but 
 aristocratic writers seem to have taken him as a scape- 
 goat, and to have thrown all the blame of the disaster 
 on the rashness and incapacity of the champion of the 
 commons, pursuing his memory with their unrelenting 
 scorn. 
 
 Terentius Varro. There are traces of like bias 
 probably in the accounts of the crushing blow at 
 Cannae. The Senate had given positive orders to 
 the generals to force a battle ; they commanded the 
 largest army which Rome had brought into the field, 
 and they could not long maintain it in a country which 
 Hannibal had stripped of its supplies. But the 
 annalists deal tenderly with the good name of JEmilius 
 Paulus, whom the nobles trusted. He would be wary 
 like the cautious Fabius who watched his enemy and 
 never risked a battle, but he had to share his power 
 with a colleague, Varro the butcher's son, who was 
 impatient to make good his vapouring words before 
 the populace at Rome, and rid the soil of Italy of the 
 invader, whom the nobles dallied with instead of 
 crushing. It was the rashness of this headstrong 
 darling of the mob that exposed the army to disaster, 
 was the favourite cry among the nobles, but there is no 
 
vm.] THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 97 
 
 proof that the State sanctioned such a view, or lost its 
 confidence in Varro, who lived to serve his country 
 longer, and to fill offices of trust in later years. 
 
 Marcellus perhaps over-praised. If the annal- 
 ists dealt harshly with the memory of some who had 
 risen from the ranks, they were lavish of their praises 
 of the noble champions who stood conspicuous amid 
 the general mediocrity of talent. The brave and reso- 
 lute Marcellus became almost a hero in their eyes 
 because, like Fabius, he kept the field without great 
 losses, or at least watched Hannibal from his intrench- 
 ments and saved the neighbouring strongholds from 
 his clutches. This to be sure was no great triumph, 
 but it gave the Romans time to drill their levies, and 
 to draw tighter the enclosing lines, and to exhaust the 
 resources of their great opponent. But for this they 
 imagined victories that he never won, if we believe at 
 least the explicit statement in Polybius ; they exag- 
 gerated trifling skirmishes, and put vainglorious words 
 into his mouth, as if his prowess had turned the tide 
 after the defeat at Cannae, and he were the chief 
 champion of the State. Livy even scarcely makes a 
 protest against his cruelties at Syracuse and his greedy 
 exactions afterwards in Sicily, and exalts his common- 
 place merits to make him seem a worthy antagonist 
 for Hannibal. 
 
 The legends of the Scipionic circle. The bias 
 is perhaps still more apparent if we turn to the history 
 of the campaigns in Spain, where the legends current 
 in the Scipionic circle were accepted as the truths of 
 history. There was the more ease in such distortions 
 that the interior of Spain was so far out of the Roman 
 ken, and its geography so little known till ages after, 
 that not much could be learnt of the course of the cam- 
 paigns, and the supposed scenes of splendid victories 
 are merely names to us which disappear and leave no 
 certain traces. The great family of the Scipios con- 
 ducted the war for many years as if it were their own 
 peculiar domain in which they ruled by natural right. 
 In the bulletins which they sent home, or in the later 
 H 
 
98 LIVY. [CHAP, viu.] 
 
 stones of the eulogists, were marvellous descriptions of 
 great armies routed, and enormous slaughter made; and 
 even Livy, who complacently records their triumphs, 
 is shocked at times at the excessive numbers. In the 
 main no doubt they were successful, but the fortunes 
 of their arms were far more chequered than family 
 vanity would fain allow, and at times the truth leaked 
 out, and men sharply criticised at Rome their conduct 
 of affairs. But the exaggerations reach their climax 
 when the elder Scipios are slain, and no one dared 
 volunteer to take their places till the future conqueror 
 of Carthage, young as he was, stepped into the breach 
 as a forlorn hope. Rome was poor enough in generals 
 indeed, but she had brave citizens in plenty, whose 
 memory Livy might have spared so cruel a taunt. 
 Scipio did great things in Spain no doubt, as in his 
 unlooked-for spring upon New Carthage, but the 
 annals are too prodigal in their exaggerations when 
 they make Hasdrubal lose 20,000 men upon the field 
 of Baecula, and yet begin almost on the same day his 
 long intended march across the Pyrenees and Alps to 
 reinforce his brother in the heart of Italy. In later 
 books we lose sight of the Roman general bound by 
 traditions of strict discipline, and find in his place a 
 hero of romance, who poses sometimes as a sovereign 
 power unwilling to accept a proffered kingdom from 
 the Spanish tribes, and who sometimes leaves his army 
 and the scene of his command in quest of strange 
 adventures, like a Knight of the Round Table, as in 
 the story which makes him cross the seas and thread 
 his way through many dangers to the court of 
 the Numidian Syphax. 
 

 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA A$T) THE PROCLA- 
 MATION OF GREEK FREEDOM. 
 
 Rome's Wars in the East. In the remaining 
 books of the Fourth and the Fifth Decades fifteen in 
 all we trace the extension of Roman conquest in 
 the East. The great duel with Carthage had been 
 closed at last, and Rome went swiftly forward with no 
 effectual let or hindrance in the career of her ambition 
 till she had spread her arms over the whole civilised 
 world. In the darkest crisis of her struggle with the 
 invaders she heard almost with panic that Philip of 
 Macedon was leagued with Hannibal to compass her 
 destruction. It was but an idle show of coalition, but 
 it was now his turn to suffer for the fears his threats 
 had caused. The neighbouring Greeks whom he had 
 long insulted and oppressed were stirred to arms, and 
 with their help he was driven back within his narrowed 
 borders and stripped of all that had been won by 
 a century of force or fraud. Antiochus of Syria ven- 
 tured to put forward imperial pretensions among the 
 coasts and isles of Greece, where Rome professed to 
 be the arbitress of freedom. He was so rash and over- 
 weening as to try conclusions with the legions, but his 
 multitudinous array was scattered at their onset, and 
 one short campaign sufficed to spread Rome's influence 
 through Western Asia. Macedon was still strong 
 enough to give her trouble, and Perseus seemed to 
 waver between an attitude of peace and war. But 
 Roman diplomatists had little scruple; they began to 
 weave their toils about him till their generals were 
 leady to step in, and when their work was done Mace- 
 
TOO LIVY. [CIIAP. 
 
 donia was left, no more a sovereign power, but a 
 geographical expression. 
 
 Two distinct sources of Livy's remaining 
 books. In Livy's narrative of these events two distinct 
 currents may be noticed, one of which carries us to the 
 East, to the scenes of diplomacy and warfare in Mace- 
 donia, Greece, and Asia, while the other moves to and 
 fro in Rome itself, and gathers up details of the debates 
 and the elections and the social life of the great city. 
 Each of the two flows regularly on, spreading some- 
 times over many chapters, till suddenly the scene is 
 changed, and its place is taken by the other. If we 
 compare them closely we become aware of differences 
 between the two in style and treatment, and even in 
 points of more importance. The order and the causes 
 of political events implied in one fail to agree with 
 what is stated in the other ; the chronological data do 
 not coincide ; there is a marked contrast in the mode 
 of dealing both with questions of strategy and topogra- 
 phical details ; and the standards of value and of mea- 
 sure in the two are almost uniformly different. 
 
 One source is Polybius For the first, comprising 
 more than half of the whole narrative, there can be no 
 doubt that Polybius was the main, if not the only, source. 
 The corresponding portion of his work is not indeed 
 preserved in its entirety, but considerable fragments 
 still remain, all of which agree so closely with the 
 accounts of Livy, as to leave us no reason to suppose 
 that in those matters at least he consulted any other 
 author. But he followed the original not in the letter 
 but the spirit, compressing commonly into briefer 
 compass what he thought tedious or laboured, but 
 adding also from his fancy many a touch of rhetoric 
 to make a story spirited and picturesque, and better 
 suited for his Roman readers. Sometimes there are 
 errors in the rendering of the Greek, due perhaps to 
 carelessness and haste, and now and then national pre- 
 judice seems to have tampered with a passage which 
 may easily have shocked the feelings of the historian 
 or his readers. 
 
ix.] THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA. 101 
 
 Polybius was freely translated by Livy. It 
 
 may surprise us at the first to find that so much of Livy's 
 work was a free translation of an earlier author, and 
 still more that, candid as he was, he did not think it 
 needful to acknowledge the greatness of his debt. He 
 speaks of Polybius indeed with great respect, and 
 implies that he relied. .much on his authority, but he 
 does not say a word from>H^ich we could infer that he 
 was borrowing from him constantly with little but a 
 change of language. We know however that the 
 practice was a common one with the chroniclers of the 
 Middle Ages, and taken as a matter of course and 
 spoken of without reproach. We have good reason 
 to believe that ancient writers often did the same, and 
 that the task of criticism and selection of materials 
 often was confined to the choice of some one standard 
 of authority for a given period or subject, which was 
 used and copied without scruple for a time, and with 
 little effort to fuse it with elements from other quarters, 
 till a new subject was begun, and another original 
 selected, with which the same process was repeated. 
 The rolls of ancient manuscripts were so unwieldy, and 
 the labour of comparing many at one time so great, 
 that only the most painstaking would take the neces- 
 sary trouble, and the loose canons of historic criticism 
 laid no stress upon it. 
 
 This source is of first-rate value. It is fortunate 
 that throughout this period Livy drew so largely from 
 an author of such merit, and that much of what would 
 else have been quite lost to us is thus preserved in 
 Latin dress. The accuracy and learning of Polybius 
 have been dwelt upon already, but the value of his 
 work became much greater as he drew nearer to his 
 own times and to the politics of his own country. It 
 is just here that Livy recognised the special value 
 of his writings, in dealing with events which were 
 most closely connected with the history of Greece, and 
 in regard to which the sources of his information were 
 the fullest. 
 
 The second source was Roman Annalists. The 
 
102 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 second class of records, whose sundered fragments 
 break the connection of the first, shows far less unity 
 of treatment. It is no continuous narrative, designed 
 to bring out the order of causation, as in what the 
 ancients called ' pragmatic history/ but consists often 
 of a number of disjointed statements or bare facts, 
 such as the rites and ceremonies of the state religion, 
 and the lists of magistrates and provinces, and the 
 summary of portents, all of which were copied pro- 
 bably from the official archives as registered by the 
 College of the Pontiffs. Those scanty annals were 
 the groundwork of the later chronicles, which were not 
 content however with such dry details, but varied their 
 monotony with pieces of fine writing, such as rhe- 
 torical descriptions of the battles or the sieges, and 
 grand bursts of declamation after the latest fashion of 
 the schools. In the parts of Livy's history where he 
 depends on such authorities campaigns are described 
 at length, but the outlines are shadowy and indistinct, 
 the numbers are extravagantly large, and the geogra- 
 phical limits ill-defined. The author himself was often 
 startled by the exaggerations which he found in the 
 pages of Valerius Antias, or of the Claudius who trans- 
 lated the memoirs of Acilius, but his frequent references 
 to the former writer, harsh as is their tone, imply per- 
 haps that his was the accepted version of the Annals, 
 most in vogue till Livy's days, and as such to be taken 
 as the literary type. In questions even of imperial 
 policy, discussed as they were in Rome itself, there is 
 little to explain the leading ideas and motives of the 
 ruling classes, but in their stead we find only the pomp 
 and glitter of the surface life, as it might be described 
 in the pages of a Court Gazette ; and while the greatest 
 personages pass away without a word of comment at 
 their death, we are duly told when one or other obscure 
 priest was succeeded by another as unimportant as 
 himself. 
 
 The origin of the war with Philip, B.C. 200. 
 At times even these accounts reflect net so much the 
 real causes or occasions of great movements as the 
 
ix.] THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA. 103 
 
 fallacious pleas or plausible excuses urged by the 
 Senate on a credulous public, and meant only to serve 
 a passing end. An example of this class may be found 
 perhaps in the rumour which was industriously spread 
 that Philip was mustering his forces, and Italy was 
 threatened with invasion. The long-sighted Senate 
 must have seen that war with Macedonia must come 
 soon or late, and that it was wise to push it on before 
 Carthage could recruit her shattered forces and attempt 
 another coalition. In the first war there had been no 
 serious effort on the part of Philip, and quiet citizens 
 who longed for peace could hardly realise the danger 
 that might threaten them one day from the genius of 
 Hannibal with all the united strength of Macedonia and 
 Carthage at his back. The Assembly met therefore in 
 no martial mood, refused even at the first, as we are 
 told, to vote for war. The chroniclers broidered on 
 this simple text, and brought forward tribune and 
 consul to declaim on either side and set forth in stirring 
 language the restless ambition of the Senate and the 
 dangers of Macedonian aggression. But Livy clearly 
 shows us elsewhere, when he takes Polybius as his 
 guide, that the government of Rome looked far ahead, 
 and aimed at crippling Philip's power betimes by rally- 
 ing against him all the states which had had cause to 
 fear or hate the moody tyrant. They sent in an ulti- 
 matum therefore which was sure to be rejected, and 
 came forward as the champions of the Greeks who 
 hardly welcomed their deliverers, and in default of 
 pleas to justify their action caught even at the poor 
 excuse of a late attack on their allies of Athens. 
 
 The accounts of Polybius clear as to tactics. 
 The following campaigns and the operations of the 
 war are described in terms which markedly contrast 
 with the vague commonplaces in so many of the earlier 
 books. Polybius had made a special study of strategy 
 and tactics, and to him we owe the elaborate com- 
 parison between the Roman and the Macedonian 
 systems on various points connected with the skir- 
 mishers, and the intrenchments and the phalanx. 
 
104 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 It is true that even here from careless haste Livy 
 seems in the borrowing to have spoiled some features, 
 as where by mistaking the meaning of a single word 
 he turns the command to advance with levelled spears 
 into an order to fling their spears away and close with 
 their swords in a hand to hand encounter. 
 
 Geographical precision. Another strong point 
 of the Greek historian was his extended knowledge of 
 geography. Thanks to the precision of his statements, 
 as transcribed by Livy, we can definitely fix the scenes 
 of the campaigns, and understand the policy cf Philip, 
 at the time when the chapters of the annalists about 
 the wars in Spain give us only vague ideas of armies 
 marching to and fro in space, and slaughtering 
 myriads of the natives. 
 
 Roman generalship was poor. Here, as often in 
 the earlier stages of their wars, the Roman generals 
 exhibit little skill. More than once they tried to 
 force the western passes into Philip's kingdom, but 
 only to waste their strength in petty skirmishes and 
 toilsome marches through inhospitable highlands. 
 Lying bulletins arrived at Rome, and found a place 
 in the official journals, with their boastful tale of 
 victories won ; but the soldiers in the field grew weary 
 of their hardships, and almost broke out in open 
 mutiny when they contrasted the fond hopes of booty 
 with which they volunteered for service, with their 
 actual experience of hard blows and scanty fare. 
 
 Flamininus more a diplomatist than a soldier. 
 Even the fame of Flamininus rests more on the poli- 
 tician's than the general's talents. The crowning 
 victory of Cynoscephalae was won by the soldiers, not 
 by their commander. He was marching through a 
 hostile country, and had never felt the enemies who for 
 days were close at hand; he blundered into battle 
 without a plan, and it went hardly with him at the 
 first, till the phalanx, formidable as it was when it 
 stood firm with level front, was thrown into disorder 
 as it charged over rough ground, while a tribune with 
 prompt insight turned its flank, and the legionaries 
 
ix.] THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA. 105 
 
 forced their way through the gaping ranks, and cut 
 the spearmen down, encumbered hopelessly with their 
 unwieldy weapons. 
 
 Clear accounts of national characteristics. 
 It adds greatly to the interest of the history of this 
 period that, thanks to the Greek historian, we can so 
 clearly picture to our fancy the characteristic features 
 of the several peoples, and the intricacies of their local 
 politics. Of Carthaginians and Spaniards we read 
 little but lifeless generalities in Livy, but the Greek 
 peoples and their statesmen are pourtrayed in vivid 
 colours. 
 
 The Aetolian. The Aetolian character stands out 
 before us as we read of what they do in the council 
 chamber and the field of battle ; one after another we 
 learn to know their qualities of boastful arrogance 
 and turbulent self-assertion, the greed, the treachery, 
 the ferocious cruelty which made them the most un- 
 lovely race of Greece. 
 
 The Achaean League. We sympathise with the 
 far nobler state of the Achaeans, trying in evil days to 
 maintain the free life of their federal republic, and to 
 raise a national army in spite of the decay of ancient 
 discipline and valour, yet too weak to stand alone and 
 hold the balance between the warring powers, and dis- 
 tracted by the rival influences of Macedonian and 
 Roman factions, till they became in turn the ally, the 
 tool, the victim of Rome's unscrupulous policy of self- 
 aggrandisement. 
 
 The Spartan Nabis. In Nabis of Sparta we may 
 trace the final outcome of Greek tyranny in its latest 
 and its vilest stage, where the usurper holds a city 
 down by the grip of mercenary soldiers or as the 
 armed instrument of a foreign ruler, and there are no 
 showy fruits of literature or industry or art, as in the 
 earlier ages, to justify or to disguise the violence of 
 absolute power. 
 
 Macedonia. Macedonia itself deserves our pity. 
 Its .hardy population had borne much and long from 
 the ambition of its ruling line. For a century and 
 
i6 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 a-half its name had filled a large space in the world's 
 history, and been a sound of terror in the far-off 
 regions of the East. It had been the pioneer of Hel- 
 lenic culture in lands before unknown. It had bred a 
 race of generals and statesmen whose diplomacy and 
 wars had influenced wellnigh every government on 
 earth. Even in the days of its decline it had in Philip 
 a brilliant and audacious ruler, whose talents neigh- 
 bouring states respected even while they loathed his 
 cruelties ; under him the nation gallantly fought on 
 for years against the powers leagued with Rome ; in 
 a single year it faced West and North and South, and 
 drove back on every side the discomfited invaders. 
 But the phalanx was no match for the legion, and 
 could not promptly adapt itself to new conditions ; its 
 veterans had been thinned by constant warfare : the 
 hardy peasantry could not longer raise fresh levies, 
 and Macedonia, crushed by the great defeat at Cynos- 
 cephalae, had to withdraw within its ancient borders, 
 recall its garrisons from every subject state, send 
 home the Greeks who fought under its standards, and 
 pledge itself to curtailed armaments and a policy of 
 peace. 
 
 The famous proclamation of Greek freedom. 
 There are few scenes in history more familiar than the 
 great gathering at the Isthmian Games at which the 
 herald's voice was heard proclaiming to the assembled 
 crowds that Rome had broken happily the links of 
 Macedonian bondage, and was well pleased to give 
 back their freedom to all the States of Greece. It was 
 a picture to kindle Livy's fancy, and he describes in 
 rapturous terms the enthusiasm of the throngs and the 
 lyric fervour of their praises, whose burden was that 
 * there was one race of men on earth willing to wage 
 war and risk their treasure and their lives to secure 
 liberty to other peoples; nor did they bound their 
 sympathy to their near neighbours, or to their own 
 continent alone, but crossed the seas to redress the 
 wrongs of violence in far-off lands, and to see that 
 right had might' (xxxiii. 33). It was largely due to 
 
rx.] THE FIRST WAR WITH MACEDONIA. 107 
 
 Flamininus, the historian tells us, that the boon was so 
 complete. He urged upon the government at home, 
 and the commissioners who acted with him, to win 
 the love of Greece by graceful acts, to silence the voice 
 of calumny, and restore absolute freedom by disarming 
 Chalcis, Demetrias, and Acrocorinthus, the so-called 
 fetters of Greece, which had long held her bound. 
 
 Was the conduct of Rome disinterested? 
 It has been matter of debate in modern times whether 
 Roman statesmen merited such praises, or had any 
 genuine sympathy for Hellenic independence. It may 
 be noticed that the policy pursued by them in this 
 war was in keeping with their usual practice when 
 no lofty sentiment was aired. It was their first 
 care when they attacked an enemy to find allies near 
 the seat of war, whose local knowledge and supplies 
 they might turn to good account, whom they could 
 strengthen when the war was over, and to whose 
 guard they could commit the advantages that had been 
 won. It was thus that they had used Hiero and 
 Massinissa in the wars with Carthage ; it was thus 
 that Rhodes and Pergamum were to help them in the 
 East. The gains of the late war were great enough. 
 Macedonia was no longer to be dreaded ; it might 
 seem a needless burden to keep garrisons abroad 
 when a fringe of free republics would be a watchful 
 check on Philip, while there was too little of real unity 
 among them to cause alarm from their ambition. 
 Matters were hardly ripe for annexation, and it was 
 wise to wait awhile without taking more burdens 
 on their shoulders. There was nothing very sinister 
 in such a policy; nothing to point to far-reaching 
 schemes of conquest : but there was nothing of high- 
 minded sentiment,, or of genuine sympathy for Hellenic 
 freedom. If such there might be here or there among 
 the Roman statesmen, it was kept surely for the 
 study rather than the council chamber, and was too 
 unsubstantial to be weighed in questions of real 
 business. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST AND POLICY IN GREECE. 
 
 The origin of the war with Syria, B.C. 192. 
 
 The conflict with Antiochus of Syria can hardly be ex- 
 plained as due solely to imperial ambition, or to dreams 
 of world-wide conquest. Rome that had withdrawn her 
 legions and her garrisons from Greece, had no present 
 wish to extend her borders in the East, and had no 
 forces near the seat of war. Antiochus, who had seen 
 Philip crushed, could realise the power of Rome, 
 and had little to gain by a defiance. But each was 
 hampered by the claims and obligations of the past. 
 Antiochus had fondly hoped to win again all that had 
 formed part of the kingdom of his fathers. While 
 Philip, his old rival, was fighting for his throne, and 
 the child-king of Egypt was powerless to resist, he 
 promptly seized the territory which had been matter 
 of dispute between them, grasped even at the Greek 
 cities on the coast, and defied the naval power of 
 Rhodes. He had no mind to embroil himself with 
 Rome; but when she used big words about the 
 grievances of her allies, and her mission to protect 
 the independence of the Greeks, he answered in a 
 haughty vein, and denied her right to interfere. The 
 JEtolians, furious because their claims at the close of 
 the last war had been ignored, urged him to cross 
 over into Europe, and malcontents in other states sent 
 specious offers. Hannibal, driven to his court from 
 Carthage by the jealous hate of Rome, was eager to 
 begin the fray, and his genius alone was worth an 
 army. Rhodes and Pergamum on their side pushed 
 
[CHAP, x.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. 109 
 
 matters to extremes, and besieged the wavering Senate 
 with their rumours of menace and aggression. The 
 language of diplomacy grew fiercer, as each hoped the 
 other might give way, and so at last they drifted into 
 war. 
 
 The course of the war. The Romans made 
 ready in good earnest, for when Hannibal was in the 
 field against them, it was no time for half-measures. 
 So vivid was the memory of the past, that they sent a 
 strong army to the South to face the invader when he 
 landed, as they thought he surely would, to ravage 
 Italy with fire and sword. Antiochus was the first to 
 strike a blow. He showed himself in Greece long 
 before the Roman army could appear upon the scene, 
 but he knew not how to profit by his chances, and he 
 let the precious months slip idly by till his scanty 
 forces were outnumbered by the Romans, who forced 
 the passes of Thermopylae where he tried to make a 
 stand, and drove him away in headlong flight. He 
 was conquered but not crushed, and hoped to be 
 left undisturbed perhaps at home. But Rome was 
 resolute to finish what was well begun. Her navy 
 was soon upon the scene, combining with the Rho- 
 dian to keep the Phoenician fleet in check, to the 
 command of which Hannibal, by a strange caprice, 
 had been appointed. The conqueror of Zama, the 
 great Scipio, had volunteered to serve as legate, if his 
 brother were made general-in-chief, and both were soon 
 upon their way. The legions tramped steadily along 
 month after month round the coast of the ^Egean, 
 while Antiochus moved aimlessly about in fruitless 
 efforts to reduce the strongholds that defied him ; they 
 were in Asia ere his plans were ready formed; he 
 asked for peace, but could not bring himself to accept 
 the hard conditions ; he stood for a time irresolute in 
 his intrenchments, and at last staked all on the hazard 
 of a single day, when a policy of caution would have 
 been his only chance. At Magnesia by Mount Sipylus 
 came the crash of battle. The motley armaments of 
 Syria, in which a score of nationalities were curiously 
 
no LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 mingled, were no match for the steady infantry of 
 Rome ; the phalanx stood its ground awhile, then sunk 
 into an unwieldy torpid mass, and the fight became a 
 massacre at last. The war was at an end, for Syria 
 was crushed. She had to give up all that lay beyond 
 the Taurus, and to pay a war-indemnity that was heavy 
 even for her wealthy subjects. 
 
 Hannibal is hunted down, B.C. 183. But great 
 as was the eminence at which Rome stood, she could not 
 breathe in peace while Hannibal was living. She had 
 been mean enough to listen to the lying tales which 
 rancorous partisans had forged against him, and to 
 drive him in hurried flight from Carthage. Her envoy 
 at the Syrian court seems, though Livy tries to mask 
 the sinister design, to have affected friendly confidence 
 to stir the king's suspicious fears ; caprice or jealousy 
 had neutralised his genius in the late war ; yet she set 
 a ban upon his head, and hunted him from one court 
 of Asia to another, her foremost statesmen even to 
 the shame of Flamininus be it said stooping to so 
 low a task, till at last he died by his own hand, that 
 he might not fall into the clutches of his unrelenting 
 enemies. 
 
 The treatment of Philip. Philip, however sorely 
 tempted, had been true to Rome in her late struggle, 
 but he met with scant courtesy and grudging acts. 
 While Eumenes of Pergamum was loaded with rewards 
 for service rendered, Philip was condemned to lose 
 what Antiochus and the ^Etolians before had wrested 
 from him, and what he had reclaimed with his own 
 hand. No wonder if he sullenly retired to brood over 
 his wrongs and hope for better days. 
 
 The insolent self-assertion of Roman generals. 
 While the government itself assumed so haughty 
 and ungenerous a tone we need not be surprised if its 
 generals acted with slight respect for the rights of 
 weaker races. The war was scarcely ended when the 
 consul, Manlius Vulso, made a plundering raid through 
 Western Asia, unknown to the Senate or the people, 
 and overran Galatia, presently returning with his 
 
x.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. in 
 
 booty, like an Arab trader from a slave-hunt. Another 
 general, a few years later, M. Popilius Laenas, made 
 a still more unprovoked attack on a tribe of the 
 Ligurians, claimed a triumph even in defiance of the 
 Senate for the slaughter of the helpless mountaineers, 
 and persisted in his murderous forays till the tribunes 
 threatened to impeach him. 
 
 Their faults are clearly exhibited by Livy. 
 Livy does not palliate their conduct, but he seems to 
 have been struck, not so much with their cruelty and 
 scorn for weakness, as with their insolent self-assertion 
 and the failure of the Senate to control them. He 
 clearly pictures to our fancy the arrogance of the great 
 ruling families, whose members, in their mad haste to 
 sate their greed or their ambition, were deaf to the cry 
 of justice and even to the restraints of law. 
 
 He deals too tenderly with Plamininus. But 
 there is reason to believe that Livy did not deal so 
 frankly with the character of some men of more emi- 
 nence. We have seen how lavish were his praises of 
 the unselfish sympathies of Flamininus. Not content 
 with that, he colours or suppresses facts elsewhere 
 recorded on good evidence, but of a less favourable 
 nature. For he stood by, we read, and made no sign, 
 though privy to the plot which cut off in Boeotia by 
 the assassin's dagger the head of a faction dangerous 
 to Rome. He had hurried negotiations on with Philip 
 for fear that his successor might gain the credit of a 
 triumph. He seems to have urged the young Deme- 
 trius to make a party for himself and rely on Roman 
 help in his ambitious designs upon his father's throne. 
 His conduct of the war with Nabis brought little 
 credit to the Roman arms, for he could not, or he would 
 not overcome the resistance of a petty tyrant, and 
 allowed him to remain, infamous as he was for his 
 misdeeds, to be a thorn in the side of the Achaean 
 league. At a later stage his vanity was hurt by the 
 success of Philopoemen, whom he compelled to stay 
 his hand when he had Nabis almost at his mercy. 
 He allowed the hostile Messenians to be included in 
 
H2 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 the league, but with special encouragement to appeal 
 to Rome in all disputes, and thereby to sow dissen- 
 sions in their midst. Finally, he condescended to run 
 like a bloodhound in the track of Hannibal. When 
 we collect these scattered features, for most of which 
 there is good evidence, we see a character before us 
 that is not very lovely, much as it has been over- 
 praised. 
 
 Unprovoked war with Perseus, B.C. 711. While 
 the generals of Rome assumed the right to pillage or to 
 massacre the weaker races on the frontier, the govern- 
 ment itself resolved on a war of iniquitous aggression. 
 Philip of Macedon had passed away, but his last years 
 had been clouded by a lurid tragedy of domestic 
 horrors. Roman intrigue had pitted brother against 
 brother, each of whom charged the other with plotting 
 to take his life, if not his father's. Demetrius, the 
 younger, was condemned to die as a would-be par- 
 ricide and traitor, but his father soon rued the fatal 
 act, and sunk in sorrow to his grave. Perseus, who 
 succeeded, might have proved an able ruler in more 
 quiet times. He set himself to repair the waste of 
 constant wars, studied finance, developed the resources 
 of the country, scrupulously observed the peace, and 
 only stepped beyond his borders to strengthen himself 
 by marriage ties with the ruling families of Bithynia 
 and Egypt. But Rome eyed jealously his growing 
 power, warned him to beware when he chastised a 
 restless and aggressive neighbour, and trumped up wild 
 stones of his bribing northern hordes to swoop down 
 -jn Italy like the Gauls of earlier ages. Eumenes of 
 Pergamum was an indefatigable spy, construing every 
 act of Perseus into a sign of disaffection, protesting 
 that his own life was in danger because he served 
 Rome faithfully, and that the only wise course was to 
 crush their common enemy ere he grew too strong. 
 The counsel fell on willing ears ; it was decided in the 
 Senate to draw the sword again, and the submissive 
 people sanctioned the unscrupulous act by a vote of 
 the Assembly. Some attempt was made indeed, as 
 
x.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. 113 
 
 we find in Livy's pages, to justify the war by black- 
 ening the character of Perseus, and by lying pretexts 
 only meant for the credulous populace of Rome. But 
 it needed time to prepare an army for the field, to 
 occupy the forts, and call out the allies in Greece, and 
 there was danger lest Perseus, gathering courage from 
 despair, might overrun the undefended country. So 
 they feigned willingness to treat for peace, lured him 
 with false hopes inspired by Marcius Philippus, an old 
 connection of the Macedonian line, and held him in 
 suspense till they were ready to strike home. The 
 faint protest of men of honour in the Senate was over- 
 ruled or silenced, if indeed the writer does not here 
 exhibit in dramatic form the scruples merely of his 
 own historic conscience. 
 
 The war dragged on from want of generalship, 
 But the undertaking needed something more than 
 audacity and cunning. The generals, chosen from a 
 narrow coterie of ruling families, could show no sign of 
 military talent. The army was strong and brave as 
 ever, but they knew not how to use it; they had no 
 knowledge of the seat of war, or could not suit their 
 tactics to the country; they mismanaged the com- 
 missariat ; they could not even lead the soldiers in the 
 field. So the war dragged on for three campaigns, in 
 which scarcely any progress had been made. Mean- 
 while there was wide-spread discontent in all the neigh- 
 bouring countries. The generals, incapable against the 
 enemy, gave the rein to their cruelty and greed in deal- 
 . ing with the allies and subject peoples. They went back 
 to their homes with little glory, but they left behind 
 them a track of pillaged cities, and races driven to 
 insurrection by despair, and commerce made a prey 
 for licensed brigandage. Even Perseus, though never 
 sanguine of success, took the offensive; Rhodes and 
 Pergamum, weary of the struggle and their ruined 
 trade, began to take high tone and talk of mediation. 
 But Rome needed only a competent commander to 
 retrieve the losses of the past, and the chance of the 
 elections fell at length upon a soldier of austerer type, 
 
ii4 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 ^Emilius Paullus, who set himself without delay to 
 restore the ancient discipline and organise the means 
 of conquest. He had not to wait long for a decisive 
 battle. Again, at Pydna, it was proved that on a fair 
 field nothing in the whole world could resist the 
 Roman machinery of war. The legionaries again 
 broke up and slaughtered the unwieldy phalanx ; 
 the Macedonian army became a helpless crowd, and 
 its monarchy collapsed for ever. The fallen ruler 
 turned to fly, but there was no escape for him on 
 earth, and he was guarded to grace the triumph of his 
 conqueror, hardly saved even at last in pitying scorn 
 from the foul air of a Roman dungeon. 
 
 Scandalous stories about Perseus. But history 
 might at least have spared the memory of Perseus 
 some of the ungenerous taunts transcribed by Livy. 
 He was indeed no hero for a national struggle of 
 despair, and had not perhaps his father's brilliant 
 talents, but the Romans who had sown the seeds of 
 fratricidal strife had little right to point the moral ; 
 the fear, perhaps the certainty, of treason may well, 
 have made him seem irresolute, or retire in what was 
 called a groundless panic ; the stories of his avarice or 
 mistrust in dealing with the faithless Eumenes, and in 
 attempting to conceal his treasures, read like the idle 
 inconsistent gossip spread by a credulous and heated 
 fancy. 
 
 The ungenerous treatment of Rhodes. It was 
 the mission of Rome, the poet tells us, to beat down 
 the proud who ventured to resist (debellare superbos). 
 Was she as generous in requiting the services of 
 those who helped her? That question may be an- 
 swered best by the experience of Rhodes. That 
 island state, well-ordered and prosperous beyond her 
 neighbours, foremost among the trading powers of 
 the jEgean, had stood forward gallantly to protect the 
 freedom of the seas against the encroachments of 
 Antiochus and Philip. She had done Rome gopd 
 service in the Syrian war, and loyally borne her share 
 in all its dangers, though her recompense was scanty 
 
x.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. 115 
 
 at the close. She offered a fleet of forty ships to com- 
 bine with the Roman navy against Perseus. But as 
 time went on, and commerce suffered from the war, 
 while Macedonia held its own, and the consul Marcius 
 Philippus perfidiously hinted that mediation would be 
 welcome, they forgot in their silly vanity the measure 
 of their strength, and presumed to send both to Rome 
 and to the seat of war to say that they would arbitrate 
 between the warring powers, and take part against the 
 side which refused to come to terms. The arrogant 
 offer was ill-timed, for it was scarcely sent before the 
 victory of Pydna left Rome secure in her Imperial 
 pride. The frightened envoys tried to disguise or 
 palliate their mission. At Rhodes itself the partisans 
 who had wagged their tongues at Rome fled away at 
 once, but could find no city bold enough to give them 
 shelter. There was a talk even in the Senate of de- 
 claring instant war, and it needed Cato's eloquence to 
 shelve the motion. A few presumptuous words how- 
 ever wiped away the memory of faithful service, and 
 Rhodes lost the dependencies which had been assigned 
 to her a few years before on the mainland; she was 
 forced to sue to be accepted as a subject, no longer as 
 a sovereign ally, and soon saw her revenue drop off 
 and dwindle by the creation of a rival emporium at 
 Delos. 
 
 The treatment of Eumenes. We feel less pity for 
 Eumenes of Pergamum, who was now made to feel that 
 he was but the creature of Rome's policy, which had 
 made his kingdom what it was, and could as easily 
 unmake it. It was largely due to him that the war had 
 been resolved on, for he had nursed suspicion with his 
 lying tales, and worked on their willing minds with eager 
 hate. But later on perhaps he wearied of the struggle 
 or grew doubtful of his patron's strength, and he too 
 began to talk of mediation ; rumours even spread of 
 overtures from Perseus, which fell through however 
 from mutual mistrust. No sooner was the warfare 
 over than he was made to feel that he was only a 
 supple instrument no longer needed. He hurried to 
 
n6 LIVY. [CHAP! 
 
 Italy to sue for favour, but they would not let him 
 enter Rome. At home even his subjects were allowed 
 to see that he was in disgrace, and that they might 
 appeal to a yet higher court of justice. But there was 
 worse yet to follow. They had already in another 
 land set brother against brother, and stirred up strife 
 and murder in the family of Philip. Now the same 
 dark policy was tried again, and Attalus, who 'had 
 been sent to sue for pardon, was tempted to form a 
 party for himself and oust his brother from the throne. 
 But family affection proved too strong, and the baffled 
 plotters in revenge took back the gifts with which they 
 had vainly tried to snare him. 
 
 The latter is disguised by Livy. Livy, it is true, 
 whose sense of honour was naturally shocked at such 
 designs, speaks of them as the work of mean intriguers, 
 and hints that the fancy of Attalus had been fired 
 already by ambitious hopes, but Polybius expressly 
 says that eminent statesmen formed the plot, and the 
 offered bribe of territorial domains was certainly the 
 Senate's gift. 
 
 Home's policy in Greece. Like Rhodes and 
 Pergamum the Achaean league was made to feel, im- 
 mediately on the fall of Perseus, that its alliance had 
 been only one of the stepping-stones convenient for 
 awhile in passing to the conquest of the East, but to 
 be now flung contemptuously aside. It may be useful 
 to recall the general features of Rome's policy in 
 Greece, especially as it is in many points glossed over 
 and disguised by Livy, though Polybius wrote fully 
 with the genuine regrets of patriotic pride. 
 
 This was selfish and ungenerous. It is idle to 
 suppose, as we have seen, that the statesmen and diplo- 
 matists of Rome, who treated the subject-world a few 
 years later with such unmeasured insolence, could have 
 harboured a fancy so romantic as the vision of Hellenic 
 independence. They were beginning as connoisseurs 
 of fine art to admire their paintings and their statues, 
 so much indeed that Fulvius Nobilior shortly after- 
 wards left not a single work of art in all Ambracia 
 
x.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. 117 
 
 considerate it seems in that as Livy quaintly puts it 
 distorting the phrase of the original he took nothing 
 else away with him (xxxviii. 9). But we may find it 
 hard to share the historian's credulous admiration, as 
 we note that it was Rome's invariable practice to caress 
 and to reward at first the new ally who had done good 
 service in a distant war, though each was to be flung 
 aside in turn as a dishonoured tool, or reduced to the 
 common level of subjection. Assuredly if there ever 
 was a transient glow of disinterested feeling, it soon 
 faded in the light of common day. Nabis, as we have 
 seen, was spared, outrageous as had been his license, 
 to be a drag upon the progress of the League. The 
 ^Etolians, who had called Antiochus across the seas, and 
 after his defeat defied the whole power of Rome, were 
 menaced indeed and scornfully entreated, and kept in 
 suspense for many an anxious month, but mercy at last 
 was shewn to them which was alike unusual and unde- 
 served, for their jealous rivalry was reckoned on as a 
 counterpoise to the Macedonian power. What has been 
 said of the Messenians already was true of other members 
 of the union ; each fragment of the sovereign state was 
 encouraged to negotiate with Rome directly, to carry 
 every grievance thither as to a high court of appeal ; 
 each faction even could hope to gain a hearing, and 
 perhaps powerful support for its intrigues. No words 
 can be more emphatic than the language of Polybius 
 in that respect, though from Livy we might rather 
 gather that the senators grew weary of the quarrels of 
 the Greeks, than that they gave a stimulus to them 
 by approval. No wonder if the controlling power of 
 the League was discredited in the eyes of all the 
 federal states, and the links of union were sadly 
 loosened. Local jealousies revived ; extravagant pre- 
 tensions were put forward based upon historic claims ; 
 the statesmen of the League were strong enough to 
 deal with the forces of disruption, but their hands 
 were tied by the selfish policy of Rome, which sternly 
 checked them when they drew the sword, and openly 
 professed that she would look on with patience if the 
 
n8 LIVY. [CHAP. 
 
 foremost cities of the union drew themselves apart and 
 Greece were resolved into its social atoms. Meanwhile 
 the intensity of party-spirit, the inveterate curse to the free 
 life of those republics, was causing rapidly a widespread 
 anarchy and license. The rival partisans of Macedonia 
 and Rome in every city were hardly to be kept from 
 flying at each other's throats, and many a bloody act 
 of repression and reprisal marked the several stages of 
 their bitter feuds. Freedom under such conditions was 
 a curse and not a boon, for the primary safeguards of 
 good government were wanting. The days perhaps 
 had long since passed when Greece could stand alone, 
 relying on her own turbulent energies and civic talents. 
 But Roman intrigues had introduced new elements of 
 dissolution, and thanks to her the problem that was 
 hard before was impossible henceforth. Still the states- 
 men of the Achaean league were wary and made no 
 sign of sympathy with Perseus, offering their con- 
 tingent in the war against him. But they could not 
 silence the traitors in their midst, who when the war 
 was over denounced them as the enemies of Rome, and 
 turned the presence of the returning legions to account 
 to begin a reign of terror in their cities. Even men 
 like Aemilius Paullus looked on, while noble patriots 
 were murdered, and the remnant who appealed to 
 Rome were dragged away to Italy, to spend there long 
 years of exile, and study like Polybius the lessons of 
 the past. 
 
 Livy's later books lost, and in them accounts 
 of ruin of Corinth. Here then the historian's 
 guidance fails us; the later books of Livy are lost 
 in which we might have read how a fierce explosion of 
 unreasoning passion provoked the pitiless vengeance 
 of the Romans, how the fair city of Corinth was utterly 
 destroyed, her inhabitants enslaved, and her lands par- 
 celled out among the conquerors : and how Greece 
 forfeited at last even the semblance, as she had long 
 lost the reality, of freedom. 
 
 The destruction of Carthage. It is a far greater 
 loss that we have not his description of the third and 
 
x.] ROME'S WARS IN THE EAST. 119 
 
 final war with Carthage, which stamped out completely 
 Punic influence and culture almost at the same time as 
 the rude soldier Mummius was making a wilderness 
 where Corinth lately stood. It was a war full of varied 
 interest of the highest order, and Livy's powers of style 
 would have found ample range in dealing with the 
 sudden surprises and vicissitudes of the long siege, 
 and with the despairing energy and heroism of the in- 
 habitants of the devoted city. It would have been a 
 matter of great interest to us to learn to what extent 
 Livy, reflecting national prejudice, disguised the cruel 
 intolerance of the aggression, together with the perfidy 
 and cunning which disgraced the opening chapters of 
 the war. 
 
 Revolutionary struggles at Rome. But Rome 
 herself was not long to be spared some at least 
 of the miseries which she had brought on the sur- 
 rounding nations. The arrogant self-assertion of the 
 ruling families had grown to an unexampled height ; 
 their merciless greed was turning the gardens of the 
 world into a desert, while they were heaping up colossal 
 fortunes for their children ; but the population of Italy 
 was being ruined by constant war and neglect of 
 economic evils ; the sturdy yeomanry was dying out, 
 and their place was being taken by slave-labourers in 
 the country, and a motley populace in the large towns, 
 scrambling for the doles of noble bounty, and claim- 
 ing to subsist as pensioners upon a subject- world. 
 Soon the Gracchi were to appear upon the scene, 
 clamouring for legislation to be carried through and 
 for the lower orders, thus striving to break down the 
 exclusive power of the senatorian rulers, and opening 
 the long period of Revolution, which was to bring un- 
 numbered evils upon Italy, and to be closed only by 
 the Empire. 
 
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