PROSE LITERATURE--HISTORY. FABIUS PICTOR--MACER (210-80 B.C.).
There are nations among whom the imagination is so predominant that they
seem incapable of regarding things as they are. The literature of such
nations will always be cast in a poetical mould, even when it takes the
outward form of prose. Of this class India is a conspicuous example. In
the opposite category stand those nations which, lacking imaginative
power, supply its place by the rich colouring of rhetoric, but whose
poetry, judged by the highest standard, does not rise above the sphere of
prose. Modern France is perhaps the best example of this. The same is so
far true of ancient Rome that she was unquestionably more productive of
great prose writers than of poets. Her utilitarian and matter-of-fact
genius inclined her to approach the problems of thought and life from a
prosaic point of view. Her perceptions of beauty were defective; her sense
of sympathy between man and nature (the deepest root of poetry) slumbered
until roused by a voice from without to momentary life. The aspirations
and destiny of the individual soul which had kindled the brightest light
of Greek song, were in Rome replaced by the sovereign claims of the State.
The visible City, throned on Seven Hills, the source and emblem of
imperial power, and that not ideal but actual, was a theme fitted to
inspire the patriot orator or historian, but not to create the finer
susceptibilities of the poet. We find in accordance with this fact, that
Prose Literature was approached, not by strangers or freedmen, but by
members of the noblest houses in Rome. The subjects were given by the
features of national life. The wars that had gained dominion abroad, the
eloquence that had secured power at home, the laws that had knit society
together and made the people great; these were the elements on which Prose
Literature was based. Its developments, though influenced by Greece, are
truly national, and on them the Roman character is indelibly impressed.
The first to establish itself was history. The struggles of the first
Punic war had been chronicled in the rude verse of Naevius; those of the
second produced the annals of Fabius and Cincius Alimentus.
From the earliest period the Romans had a clear sense of the value of
contemporary records. The _Annales Maximi_ or _Commentarii Pontificum_
contained the names of magistrates for each year, and a daily record [1]
of all memorable events from the regal times until the Pontificate of P.
Mucius Scaevola (133 B.C.). The occurrences noted were, however, mostly of
a trivial character, as Cato tells us in a fragment of his _Origines_, and
as we can gather from the extracts found in Livy. The _Libri Lintei_,
mentioned several times by Livy, [2] were written on rolls of linen cloth,
and, besides lists of magistrates, contained many national monuments, such
as the treaty between Rome and Carthage, and the truce made with Ardea and
Gabii. Similar notes were kept by the civil magistrates (_Commentarii
Consulares, Libri Praetorum, Tabulae Censoriae_) and stored up in the
various temples. The greater number of these records perished in the
capture of Rome by the Gauls, and when Livy speaks of them as existing
later, he refers not to the originals, but to copies made after that
event. Such yearly registers were continued to a late period. One of the
most important was discovered in the sixteenth century, embracing a list
of the great magistracies from 509 B.C. till the death of Augustus, and
executed in the reign of Tiberius. Another source of history was the
family register kept by each of the great houses, and treasured with
peculiar care. It was probably more than a mere catalogue of actions
performed or honours gained, since many of the more distinguished families
preserved their records as witnesses of glories that in reality had never
existed, but were the invention of flattering chroniclers or clients.
The radical defect in the Roman conception of history was its narrowness.
The idea of preserving and handing down truth for its own sake was foreign
to them. The very accuracy of their early registers was based on no such
high principle as this. It arose simply from a sense of the continuity of
the Roman commonwealth, from national pride, and from considerations of
utility. The catalogue of prodigies, pestilences, divine visitations,
expiations and successful propitiatory ceremonies, of which it was chiefly
made up, was intended to show the value of the state religion, and to
secure the administration of it in patrician hands. It was indeed
praiseworthy that considerations so patriotic should at that rude period
have so firmly rooted themselves in the mind of the governing class; but
that their object was rather to consolidate their own power and advance
that of the city than to instruct mankind, is clear from the totally
untrustworthy character of the special gentile records; and when history
began to be cultivated in a literary way, we do not observe any higher
motive at work. Fabius and Cincius wrote in Greek, partly, no doubt,
because in the unformed state of their own language it was easier to do
so; but that this was not in itself a sufficient reason is shown by the
enthusiasm with which not only their contemporary Ennius, but their
predecessors Livius and Naevius, studied and developed the Latin tongue.
Livius and Ennius worked at Latin in order to construct a literary dialect
that should also be the speech of the people. Fabius and Cincius, we
cannot help suspecting, wrote in Greek, because that was a language which
the people did _not_ understand.
Belonging to an ancient house whose traditions were exclusive and
aristocratic, FABIUS (210 B.C.) addressed himself to the limited circle of
readers who were conversant with the Greek tongue; to the people at large
he was at no pains to be intelligible, and he probably was as indifferent
to their literary, as his ancestors had been to their political, claims or
advantages. The branch to which he belonged derived its distinguishing
name from Fabius Pictor the grandfather of the historian, who, in 312 B.C.
painted the temple of Salus, which was the oldest known specimen of Roman
art, and existed, applauded by the criticism of posterity, until the era
of Claudius. This single incident proves that in a period when Roman
feeling as a rule recoiled from practising the arts of peace, members of
this intellectual _gens_ were already proficients in one of the proscribed
Greek accomplishments, and taken into connection with the polished
cultivation of the Claudii, and perhaps of other _gentes_, shows that in
their private life the aristocratic party were not so bigoted as for
political purposes they chose to represent themselves. [3] As to the value
of Fabius's work we have no good means of forming an opinion. Livy
invariably speaks of him with respect, as _scriptorum longe
antiquissimus_; and there can be little doubt that he had access to the
best existing authorities on his subject. Besides the public chronicles
and the archives of his own house, he is said to have drawn on Greek
sources. Niebuhr, also, takes a high view of his merits; and the
unpretending form in which he clothed his work, merely a bare statement of
events without any attempt at literary decoration, inclines us to believe
that so far as national prejudices allowed, he endeavoured to represent
faithfully the facts of history.
Of L. CINCIUS ALIMENTUS (flor. 209 B.C.) we should he inclined to form a
somewhat higher estimate, from the fact that, when taken prisoner by
Hannibal, he received greater consideration from him than almost any other
Roman captive. He conversed freely with him, and informed him of the route
by which he had crossed the Alps, and of the exact number of his invading
force. Cincius was praetor in Sicily 209 B.C. He thus had good
opportunities for learning the main events of the campaign. Niebuhr [4]
says of him, "He was a critical investigator of antiquity, who threw light
on the history of his country by researches among its ancient monuments.
He proceeded in this work with no less honesty than diligence; [5] for it
is only in his fragments that we find a distinct statement of the early
relations between Rome and Latium, which in all the Annals were
misrepresented from national pride. That Cincius wrote a book on the old
Roman calendar, we are told by Macrobius; [6] that he examined into
ancient Etruscan and Roman chronology, is clear from Livy." [7] The point
in which he differed from the other authorities most strikingly is the
date he assigns for the origin of the city; but Niebuhr thinks that his
method of ascertaining it shows independent investigation. [8] Cincius,
like Fabius, began his work by a rapid summary of the early history of
Rome, and detailed at full length only those events which had happened
during his own experience.
A third writer who flourished about the same time was C. ACILIUS (circ.
184 B.C.), who, like the others, began with the foundation of the city,
and apparently carried his work down to the war with Antiochus. He, too,
wrote in Greek, [9] and was afterwards translated into Latin by Claudius
Quadrigarius, [10] in which form he was employed by Livy. Aulus Postumius
Albinus, a younger contemporary of Cato, is also mentioned as the author
of a Greek history. It is very possible that the selection of the Greek
language by all these writers was partly due to their desire to prove to
the Greeks that Roman history was worth studying; for the Latin language
was at this time confined to the peninsula, and was certainly not studied
by learned Greeks, except such as were compelled to acquire it by
relations with their Roman conquerors. Besides these authors, we learn
from Polybius that the great Scipio furnished contributions to history:
among other writings, a long Greek letter to king Philip is mentioned
which contained a succinct account of his Spanish and African campaigns.
His son, and also Scipio Nasica, appear to have followed his example in
writing Greek memoirs.
The creator of Latin prose writing was CATO (234-149 B.C.). In almost
every department he set the example, and his works, voluminous and varied,
retained their reputation until the close of the classical period. He was
the first thoroughly national author.
The character of the rigid censor is generally associated in our minds
with the contempt of letters. In his stern but narrow patriotism, he
looked with jealous eyes on all that might turn the citizens from a
single-minded devotion to the State. Culture was connected in his mind
with Greece, and her deleterious influence. The embassy of Diogenes,
Critolaus, and Carneades, 155 B.C. had shown him to what uses culture
might be turned. The eloquent harangue pronounced in favour of justice,
and the equally eloquent harangue pronounced next day against it by the
same speaker without a blush of shame, had set Cato's face like a flint in
opposition to Greek learning. "I will tell you about those Greeks," he
wrote in his old age to his son Marcus, "what I discovered by careful
observation at Athens, and how far I deem it good to skim through their
writings, for in no case should they be deeply studied. I will prove to
you that they are one and all, a worthless and intractable set. Mark my
words, for they are those of a prophet: whenever that nation shall give us
its literature, it will corrupt everything." [11]
With this settled conviction, thus emphatically expressed at a time when
experience had shown the realization of his fears to be inevitable, and
when he himself had so far bent as to study the literature he despised,
the long and active public life of Cato is in complete harmony. He is the
perfect type of an old Roman. Hard, shrewd, niggardly, and narrow-minded,
he was honest to the core, unsparing of himself as of others, scorning
every kind of luxury, and of inflexible moral rectitude. He had no respect
for birth, rank, fortune, or talent; his praise was bestowed solely on
personal merit. He himself belonged to an ancient and honourable house,
[12] and from it he inherited those harsh virtues which, while they
enforced the reverence, put him in conflict with the spirit, of the age.
No man could have set before himself a more uphill task than that which
Cato struggled all his life vainly to achieve. To reconstruct the past is
but one step more impossible than to stem the tide of the present. If Cato
failed, a greater than Cato would not have succeeded. Influences were at
work in Rome which individual genius was powerless to resist. The
ascendancy of reason over force, though it were the noblest form that
force has ever assumed, was step by step establishing itself; and no
stronger proof of its victory could be found than that Cato, despite of
himself, in his old age studied Greek. We may smile at the deep-rooted
prejudice which confounded the pure glories of the old Greek intellect
with the degraded puerilities of its unworthy heirs; but though Cato could
not fathom the mind of Greece, he thoroughly understood the mind of Rome,
and unavailing as his efforts were, they were based on an unerring
comprehension of the true issues at stake. He saw that Greece was unmaking
Rome; but he did not see that mankind required that Rome should be unmade.
It is the glory of men like Scipio and Ennius, that their large-
heartedness opened their eyes, and carried their vision beyond the horizon
of the Roman world into that dimly-seen but ever expanding country in
which all men are brethren. But if from the loftiest point of view their
wide humanity obtains the palm, no less does Cato's pure patriotism shed
undying radiance over his rugged form, throwing into relief its massive
grandeur, and ennobling rather than hiding its deformities.
We have said that Cato's name is associated with the contempt of letters.
This is no doubt the fact. Nevertheless, Cato was by far the most original
writer that Rome ever produced. He is the one man on whose vigorous mind
no outside influence had ever told. Brought up at his father's farm at
Tusculum, he spent his boyhood amid the labours of the plough. Hard work
and scant fare toughened his sinews, and service under Fabius in the
Hannibalic war knit his frame into that iron strength of endurance, which,
until his death, never betrayed one sign of weakness or fatigue. A saying
of his is preserved [13]--"Man's life is like iron; if you use it, it
wears away, if not, the rust eats it. So, too, men are worn away by hard
work; but if they do no work, rest and sloth do more injury than
exercise." On this maxim his own life was formed. In the intervals of
warfare, he did not relax himself in the pleasures of the city, but went
home to his plough, and improved his small estate. Being soon well known
for his shrewd wit and ready speech, he rose into eminence at the bar; and
in due time obtained all the offices of state. In every position he made
many enemies, but most notably in his capacity of censor. No man was
oftener brought to trial. Forty-four times he spoke in his own defence,
and every time he was acquitted. [14] As Livy says, he wore his enemies
out, partly by accusing them, but still more by the pertinacity with which
he defended himself. [15] Besides private causes, he spoke in many
important public trials and on many great questions of state: Cicero [16]
had seen or heard of 150 orations by him; in one passage he implies that
he had delivered as many as Lysias, _i.e._ 230. [17] Even now we have
traces, certainly of 80, and perhaps of 13 more. [18] His military life,
which had been a series of successes, was brought to a close 190 B.C., and
from this time until his death, he appears as an able civil administrator,
and a vehement opponent of lax manners. In the year of his censorship (184
B.C.) Plautus died. The tremendous vigour with which he wielded the powers
of this post stirred up a swarm of enemies. His tongue became more bitter
than ever. Plutarch gives his portrait in an epigram.
_Pyrron, pandaketaen, glaukommaton, oude thanonta
Porkion eis aidaen Persephonae dechetai._
Here, at 85 years of age, [19] the man stands before us. We see the crisp,
erect figure, bristling with aggressive vigour, the coarse, red hair, the
keen, grey eyes, piercingly fixed on his opponent's face, and reading at a
glance the knavery he sought to hide; we hear the rasping voice, launching
its dry, cutting sarcasms one after another, each pointed with its sting
of truth; and we can well believe that the dislike was intense, which
could make an enemy provoke the terrible armoury of the old censor's
eloquence.
As has been said, he so far relaxed the severity of his principles as to
learn the Greek language and study the great writers. Nor could he help
feeling attracted to minds like those of Thucydides and Demosthenes, in
sagacity and earnestness so congenial to his own. Nevertheless, his
originality is in nothing more conspicuously shown than in his method of
treating history. He struck a line of inquiry in which he found no
successor. The _Origines_, if it had remained, would undoubtedly have been
a priceless storehouse of facts about the antiquities of Italy. Cato had
an enlarged view of history. It was not his object to magnify Rome at the
expense of the other Italian nationalities, but rather to show how she had
become their greatest, because their truest, representative. The divisions
of the work itself will show the importance he attached to an
investigation of their early annals. We learn from Nepos that the first
book comprised the regal period; the second and third were devoted to the
origin and primitive history of each Italian state; [20] the fourth and
fifth embraced the Punic wars; the last two carried the history as far as
the Praetorship of Servius Galba, Cato's bold accusation of whom he
inserted in the body of the work. Nepos, echoing the superficial canons of
his age, characterises the whole as showing industry and diligence, but no
learning whatever. The early myths were somewhat indistinctly treated.
[21] His account of the Trojan immigration seems to have been the basis of
that of Virgil, though the latter refashioned it in several points. [22]
His computation of dates, though apparently exact, betrays a mind
indifferent to the importance of chronology. The fragments of the next two
books are more copious. He tells us that Gaul, then as now, pursued with
the greatest zeal military glory and eloquence in debate. [23] His notice
of the Ligurians is far from complimentary. "They are all deceitful,
having lost every record of their real origin, and being illiterate, they
invent false stories and have no recollection of the truth." [24] He
hazards a few etymologies, which, as usual among Roman writers, are quite
unscientific. Graviscae is so called from its unhealthy climate (_gravis
aer_), Praeneste from its conspicuous position on the mountains (_quia
montibus praestet_). A few scattered remarks on the food in use among
different tribes are all that remain of an interesting department which
might have thrown much light on ethnological questions. In the fourth
book, Cato expresses his disinclination to repeat the trivial details of
the Pontifical tables, the fluctuations of the market, the eclipses of the
sun and moon, &c. [25] He narrates with enthusiasm the self-devotion of
the tribune Caedicius, who in the first Punic war offered his life with
that of 400 soldiers to engage the enemy's attention while the general was
executing a necessary manoeuvre. [26] "The Laconian Leonides, who did the
same thing at Thermopylae, has been rewarded by all Greece for his virtue
and patriotism with all the emblems of the highest possible distinction--
monuments, statues, epigrams, histories; his deed met with their warmest
gratitude. But little praise has been given to our tribune in comparison
with his merits, though he acted just as the Spartan did, and saved the
fortunes of the State." As to the title _Origines_, it is possible, as
Nepos suggests, that it arose from the first three books having been
published separately. It certainly is not applicable to the entire
treatise, which was a genuine history on the same scale as that of
Thucydides, and no mere piece of antiquarian research. He adhered to truth
in so far as he did not insert fictitious speeches; he conformed to Greek
taste so far as to insert his own. One striking feature in the later hooks
was his omission of names. No Roman worthy is named in them. The reason of
this it is impossible to discover. Fear of giving offence would be the
last motive to weigh with him. Dislike of the great aristocratic houses
into whose hands the supreme power was steadily being concentrated, is a
more probable cause; but it is hardly sufficient of itself. Perhaps the
omission was a mere whim of the historian. Though this work obtained great
and deserved renown, yet, like its author, it was praised rather than
imitated. Livy scarcely ever uses it; and it is likely that, before the
end of the first century A.D. the speeches were published separately, and
were the only part at all generally read. Pliny, Gellius, and Servius, are
the authors who seem most to have studied it; of these Pliny was most
influenced by it. The Natural History, especially in its general
discussions, strongly reminds us of Cato.
Of the talents of Cato as an orator something will be said in the next
section. His miscellaneous writings, though none of them are historical,
may be noticed here. Quintilian [27] attests the many-sidedness of his
genius: "M. Cato was at once a first-rate general, a philosopher, an
orator, the founder of history, the most thorough master of law and
agriculture." The work on agriculture we have the good fortune to possess;
or rather a redaction of it, slightly modernized and incomplete, but
nevertheless containing a large amount of really genuine matter. Nothing
can be more characteristic than the opening sentences. We give a
translation, following as closely as possible the form of the original:
"It is at times worth while to gain wealth by commerce, were it not so
perilous; or by usury, were it equally honourable. Our ancestors, however,
held, and fixed by law, that a thief should be condemned to restore
double, a usurer quadruple. We thus see how much worse they thought it for
a citizen to be a money-lender than a thief. Again, when they praised a
good man, they praised him as a good farmer, or a good husbandman. Men so
praised were held to have received the highest praise. For myself, I think
well of a merchant as a man of energy and studious of gain; but it is a
career, as I have said, that leads to danger and ruin. But farming makes
the bravest men, and the sturdiest soldiers, and of all sources of gain is
the surest, the most natural, and the least invidious, and those who are
busy with it have the fewest bad thoughts." The sententious and dogmatic
style of this preamble cannot fail to strike the reader; but it is
surpassed by many of the precepts which follow. Some of these contain
pithy maxims of shrewd sense, _e.g._ "Patrem familias vendacem non emacem
esse oportet." "Ita aedifices ne villa fundum quaerat, neve fundus
villam." The Virgilian prescription, "Laudato ingentia rura: exiguam
colito," is said to be drawn from Cato, though it does not exist in our
copies. The treatment throughout is methodical. If left by the author in
its present form it represents the daily jotting down of thoughts on the
subject as they occurred to him.
In two points the writer appears in an unfavourable light--in his love of
gain, and in his brutal treatment of his slaves. With him farming is no
mere amusement, nor again is it mere labour. It is primarily and
throughout a means of making money, and indeed the only strictly
honourable one. However, Cato so far relaxed the strictness of this theory
that he became "an ardent speculator in slaves, buildings, artificial
lakes, and pleasure-grounds, the mercantile spirit being too strong within
him to rest satisfied with the modest returns of his estate." As regarded
slaves, the law considered them as chattels, and he followed the law to
the letter. If a slave grew old or sick he was to be sold. If the weather
hindered work he was to take his sleep then, and work double time
afterwards. "In order to prevent combinations among his slaves, their
master assiduously sowed enmities and jealousies between them. He bought
young slaves in their name, whom they were forced to train and sell for
his benefit. When supping with his guests, if any dish was carelessly
dressed, he rose from table, and with a leathern thong administered the
requisite number of lashes with his own hand." So pitilessly severe was
he, that a slave who had concluded a purchase without his leave, hung
himself to avoid his master's wrath. These incidents, some told by
Plutarch, others by Cato himself, show the inhuman side of Roman life, and
make it less hard to understand their treatment of vanquished kings and
generals. For the other sex Cato had little respect. Women, he says,
should be kept at home, and no Chaldaean or soothsayer be allowed to see
them. Women are always running after superstition. His directions about
the steward's wife are as follows. They are addressed to the steward:--
"Let her fear you. Take care that she is not luxurious. Let her see as
little as possible of her neighbours or any other female friends; let her
never invite them to your house; let her never go out to supper, nor be
fond of taking walks. Let her never offer sacrifice; let her know that the
master sacrifices for the whole family; let her he neat herself, and keep
the country-house neat." Several sacrificial details are given in the
treatise. We observe that they are all of the rustic order; the master
alone is to attend the city ceremonial. Among the different industries
recommended, we are struck by the absence of wheat cultivation. The
vineyard and the pasture chiefly engage attention, though herbs and green
produce are carefully treated. The reason is to be sought in the special
nature of the treatise. It is not a general survey of agriculture, but
merely a handbook of cultivation for a particular farm, that of Manlius or
Mallius, and so probably unfit for wheat crops. Other subjects, as
medicine, are touched on. But his prescriptions are confined to the rudest
simples, to wholesome and restorative diet, and to incantations. These
last have equal value assigned them with rational remedies. Whether Cato
trusted them may well be doubted. He probably gave in such cases the
popular charm-cure, simply from not having a better method of his own to
propose.
Another series of treatises were those addressed to his son, in one of
which, that on medicine, he charitably accuses the Greeks of an attempt to
kill all barbarians by their treatment, and specially the Romans, whom
they stigmatise by the insulting name of _Opici_. [28] "I forbid you, once
for all, to have any dealings with physicians." Owing to their temperate
and active life, the Romans had for more than five hundred years existed
without a physician within their walls. Cato's hostility to the
profession, therefore, if not justifiable, was at least natural. He
subjoins a list of simples by which he kept himself and his wife alive and
in health to a green old age. [29] And observing that there are countless
signs of death, and none of health, he gives the chief marks by which a
man apparently in health may be noted as unsound. In another treatise, on
farming, also dedicated to his son, for whom he entertained a warm
affection, and over whose education he sedulously watched, he says,--"Buy
not what you want, but what you must have; what you don't want is dear at
a farthing, and what you lack borrow from yourself." Such is the homely
wisdom which gained for Cato the proud title of _Sapiens_, by which, says
Cicero, [30] he was familiarly known. Other original works, the product of
his vast experience, were the treatise on eloquence, of which the pith is
the following: "Rem tene: verba sequentur;" "Take care of the sense: the
sounds will take care of themselves." We can well believe that this
excellent maxim ruled his own conduct. The art of war formed the subject
of another volume; in this, too, he had abundant and faithful experience.
An attempt to investigate the principles of jurisprudence, which was
carried out more fully by his son, [31] and a short _carmen de moribus_ or
essay on conduct, completed the list of his paternal instructions. Why
this was styled _carmen_ is not known. Some think it was written in
Saturnian verse, others that its concise and oracular formulas suggested
the name, since _carmen_ in old Latin is by no means confined to verse. It
is from this that the account of the low estimation of poets in the early
Republic is taken. Besides these regular treatises we hear of letters,
[32] and _apophthegmata_, or pithy sayings, put together like those of
Bacon from divers sources. In after times Cato's own apophthegms were
collected for publication, and under the name of _Catonis dicta_, were
much admired in the Middle Ages. We see that Cato's literary labours were
encyclopaedic. In this wide and ambitious sphere he was followed by Varro,
and still later by Celsus. Literary effort was now becoming general.
FULVIUS NOBILIOR, the patron of Ennius and adversary of Cato, published
annals after the old plan of a calendar of years. CASSIUS HEMINA and
Calpurnius Piso, who were younger contemporaries, continued in the same
track, and we hear of other minor historians. Cassius is mentioned more
than once as "_antiquissimus auctor_," a term of compliment as well as
chronological reference. [33] Of him Niebuhr says: "He wrote about Alba
according to its ancient local chronology, and synchronised the earlier
periods of Rome with the history of Greece. He treated of the age before
the foundation of Rome, whence we have many statements of his about
Siculian towns in Latium. The archaeology of the towns seems to have been
his principal object. The fourth book of his work bore the title of
_Punicum bellum posterius_, from which we infer that the last war with
Carthage had not as yet broken out."
About this epoch flourished Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS SERVILIANUS, who is known to
have written histories. He is supposed to be miscalled by Cicero, [34]
Fabius Pictor, for Cicero mentions a work in Latin by the latter author,
whereas it is certain that the old Fabius wrote only in Greek. The best
authorities now assume that Fabius Maximus, as a clansman and admirer of
Pictor, translated his book into Latin to make it more widely known. The
new work would thus be indifferently quoted as Fabius Pictor or Fabius
Maximus.
L. CALPURNIUS PISO FRUGI CENSORIUS (Cons. 133), well known as the
adversary of the Gracchi, an eloquent and active man, and staunch adherent
of the high aristocratic party, was also an able writer of history. That
his conception of historical writing did not surpass that of his
predecessors the annalists, is probable from the title of his work; [35]
that he brought to bear on it a very different spirit seems certain from
the quotations in Livy and Dionysius. One of the select few, in breadth of
views as in position, he espoused the rationalistic opinions advocated by
the Scipionic circle, and applied them with more warmth than judgment to
the ancient legends. Grote, Niebuhr, and others, have shown how
unsatisfactory this treatment is; illusion is lost without truth being
found; nevertheless, the man who first honestly applies this method,
though he may have ill success, makes an epoch in historical research.
Cicero gives him no credit for style; his annals (he says) are written in
a barren way. [36] The reader who wishes to read Niebuhr's interesting
judgment on his work and influence is referred to the _Introductory
Lectures on Roman History_. In estimating the very different opinions on
the ancient authors given in the classic times, we should have regard to
the divers standards from time to time set up. Cicero, for instance, has a
great fondness for the early poets, but no great love for the prose
writers, except the orators, nearly all of whom he loads with praise.
Still, making allowance for this slight mental bias, his criticisms are of
the utmost possible value. In the Augustan and early imperial times,
antiquity was treated with much less reverence. Style was everything, and
its deficiency could not be excused. And lastly, under the Antonines (and
earlier [37]), disgust at the false taste of the day produced an
irrational reaction in favour of the archaic modes of thought and
expression, so that Gellius, for instance, extols the simplicity,
sweetness, or noble vigour of writings in which we, like Cicero, should
see only jejune and rugged immaturity. [38] Pliny speaks of Piso as a
weighty author (_gravis auctor_), and Pliny's penetration was not easily
warped by style or want of style. We may conclude, on the whole, that
Piso, though often misled by his want of imagination, and occasionally by
inaccuracy in regard to figures, [39] brought into Roman history a
rational method, not by any means so original or excellent as that of
Cato, but more on a level with the capacities of his countrymen, and
infinitely more productive of imitation.
The study of Greek rhetoric had by this time been cultivated at Rome, and
the difficulty of composition being materially lightened [40] as well as
its results made more pleasing, we are not surprised to find a number of
authors of a somewhat more pretentious type. VENNONIUS, CLODIUS LICINUS,
C. FANNIUS, and GELLIUS are little more than names; all that is known of
them will be found in Teuffel's repertory. They seem to have clung to the
title of annalist though they had outgrown the character. There are,
however, two names that cannot be quite passed over, those of SEMPRONIUS
ASELLIO and CAELIUS ANTIPATER. The former was military tribune at Numantia
(133 B.C.), and treated of that campaign at length, in his work. He was
killed in 99 B.C. [41] but no event later than the death of Gracchus (121
B.C.) is recorded as from him. He had great contempt for the old
annalists, and held their work to be a mere diary so far as form went; he
professed to trace the motives and effects of actions, rather, however,
with the object of stimulating public spirit than satisfying a legitimate
thirst for knowledge. He had also some idea of the value of constitutional
history, which may be due to the influence of Polybius, whose trained
intelligence and philosophic grasp of events must have produced a great
impression among those who knew or read him.
We have now mentioned three historians, each of whom brought his original
contribution to the task of narrating events. Cato rose to the idea of
Rome as the centre of an Italian State; he held any account of her
institutions to be imperfect which did not also trace from their origin
those of the kindred nations; Piso conceived the plan of reducing the
myths to historical probability, and Asellio that of tracing the moral
causes that underlay outward movements. Thus we see a great advance in
theory since the time, just a century earlier, when Fabius wrote his
annals. We now meet with a new element, that of rhetorical arrangement. No
one man is answerable for introducing this. It was in the air of Rome
during the seventh century, and few were unaffected by it. Antipater is
the first to whom rhetorical ornament is attributed by Cicero, though his
attainments were of a humble kind. [42] He was conspicuous for word
painting. Scipio's voyage to Africa was treated by him in an imaginative
theatrical fashion, noticed with disapproval by Livy. [43] In other
respects he seems to have been trustworthy and to have merited the honour
he obtained of being abridged by J. Brutus.
In the time of Sulla we hear of several historians who obtained celebrity.
The first is CLAUDIUS QUADRIGARIUS (fl. 100 B.C.). He differs from all his
predecessors by selecting as his starting-point the taking of Rome by the
Gauls. His reason for so doing does him credit, viz. that there existed no
documents for the earlier period. [44] He hurried over the first three
centuries, and as was usual among Roman writers, gave a minute account of
his own times, inserting documents and speeches. So archaic was his style
that his fragments might belong to the age of Cato. For this reason, among
others, Gellius [45] (in whom they are found) greatly admires him. Though
he outlived Sulla, and therefore chronologically might be considered as
belonging to the Ciceronian period, yet the lack of finish in his own and
his contemporaries' style, makes this the proper place to mention them.
The _period_, [46] as distinct from the mere stringing together of
clauses, was not understood even in oratory until Gracchus, and in history
it was to appear still later. Cicero never mentions Claudius, nor VALERIUS
ANTIAS (91 B.C.), who is often associated with him. This writer, who has
gained through Livy's page the unenviable notoriety of being the most
lying of all annalists, nevertheless obtained much celebrity. The chief
cause of his deceptiveness was the fabrication of circumstantial
narrative, and the invention of exact numerical accounts. His work
extended from the first mythical stories to his own day, and reached to at
least seventy-five books. In his first decade Livy would seem to have
followed him implicitly. Then turning in his later books to better
authorities, such as Polybius, and perceiving the immense discrepancies,
he realised how he had been led astray, and in revenge attacked Antias
throughout the rest of his work. Still the fact that he is quoted by Livy
oftener than any other writer, shows that he was too well-known to be
neglected, and perhaps Livy has exaggerated his defects.
L. CORNELIUS SISENNA, (119-67 B.C.), better known as a statesman and
grammarian, treated history with success. His daily converse with
political life, and his thoughtful and studious habits, combined to
qualify him for this department. He was a conscientious man, and tells how
he pursued his work continuously, lest if he wrote by starts and snatches,
he might pervert the reader's mind. His style, however, suffered by this,
he became prolix; this apparently is what Fronto means when he says
"_scripsit longinque_." To later writers he was interesting from his
fondness for archaisms. Even in the senate he could not drop this affected
habit. Alone of all the fathers he said _adsentio_ for _adsentior_, and
such phrases as "_vellicatim aut sultuatim scribendo_" show an absurd
straining after quaintness.
C. LICINIUS MACER (died 73 B.C.) the father of the poet Calvus, was the
latest annalist of Rome. Cicero, who was his enemy, and his judge in the
trial which cost him his life, criticises his defects both as orator and
historian, with severity. Livy, too, implies that he was not always
trustworthy ("Quaesita ea propriae familiae laus leviorem auctorem facit,"
[47]) when the fame of his _gens_ was in question, but on many points he
quotes him with approval, and shows that he sought for the best materials,
_e.g._ he drew from the _lintei libri_, [48] the books of the magistrates,
[49] the treaty with Ardea, [50] and where he differed from the general
view, he gave his reasons for it.
The extent of his researches is not known, but it seems likely that, alone
of Roman historians, he did not touch on the events of his day, the latest
speech to which reference is made being the year 196 B.C. As he was an
orator, and by no means a great one, being stigmatised as "loquacious" by
Cicero, it is probable that his history suffered from a rhetorical
colouring.
In reviewing the list of historians of the ante-classical period, we
cannot form any high opinion of their merits. Fabius, Cincius, and Cato,
who are the first, are also the greatest. The others seem to have gone
aside to follow out their own special views, without possessing either
accuracy of knowledge or grasp of mind sufficient to unite them with a
general comprehensive treatment. The simultaneous appearance of so many
writers of moderate ability and not widely divergent views, is a witness
to the literary activity of the age, but does not say much for the force
of its intellectual creations.
NOTE.--The fragments of the historians have been carefully collected and
edited with explanations and lists of authorities by Peter. (_Veterum
Historicorum Romanorum Relliquiae_. Lipsiae, 1870.)
APPENDIX.
_On the Annales Pontificum._
(Chiefly from _Les Annales des Pontifes_, Le Clerc.)
The _Annales_, though not literature in the proper sense, were so
important, as forming materials for it, that it may be well to give a
short account of them. They were called _Pontificum_, _Maximi_, and
sometimes _Publici_, to distinguish them from the _Annales_ of other
towns, of families, or of historical writers. The term _Annales_, we may
note _en passant_, was ordinarily applied to a narrative of facts
preceding one's own time, _Historiae_ being reserved for a contemporary
account (Gell. v. 8). But this of course was after its first sense was
lost. In the oldest times, the Pontifices, as they were the lawyers, were
in like manner the historians of Rome (Cic. de Or. ii. 12). Cicero and
Varro repeatedly consulted their records, which Cicero dates from the
origin of the city, but Livy only from Aneus Martius (i. 32). Servius,
apparently confounding them with the _Fasti_, declares that they put down
the events of every day (ad Ac. i. 373); and that they were divided into
eighty books. Sempronius Asellio (Gell. v. 18) says they mention _bellum
quo initum consule, et quo modo confectum, et quis triumphans introierit_,
and Cato ridicules the meagreness of their information. Nevertheless it
was considered authentic. Cicero found the eclipse of the year 350 duly
registered; Virgil and Ovid drew much of their archaeological lore
(_annalibus eruta priscis_, Ov. Fast i. 7.) and Livy his lists of
prodigies from them. Besides these marvellous facts, others were doubtless
noticed, as new laws, dedication of temples or monuments, establishment of
colonies, deaths of great men, erection of statues, &c.; but all with the
utmost brevity. _Unam dicendi laudem putant esse brevitatem_ (De Or. ii.
12). Sentences occur in Livy which seem excerpts from them, _e.g._ (ii.
1).--_His consulibus Fidenae obssesae, Crustumina capta, Praeneste ab
Latinis ad Romanos descivit_. Varro, in enumerating the gods whose altars
were consecrated by Tatius, says (L. L. v. 101), _ut Annales veteres
nostri dicunt_, and then names them. Pliny also quotes them expressly, but
the word _vetustissimi_ though they make it probable that the Pontifical
Annals are meant, do not establish it beyond dispute (Plin. xxxiii. 6,
xxxiv. 11).
It is probable, as has been said in this work, that the _Annales
Pontificum_ were to a great extent, though not altogether, destroyed in
the Gallic invasion. But Rome was not the only city that had Annales.
Probably all the chief towns of the Oscan, Sabine, and Umbrian territory
had them. Cato speaks of Antemna as older than Rome, no doubt from its
records. Varro drew from the archives of Tusculum (L. L. vi. 16),
Praeneste had its Pontifical Annals (Cic de Div. ii. 41), and Anagnia its
_libri lintei_ (Fronto, Ep. ad Ant. iv. 4). Etruria beyond question
possessed an extensive religious literature, with which much history must
have been mingled. And it is reasonable to suppose, as Livy implies, that
the educated Romans were familiar with it. From this many valuable facts
would be preserved. When the Romans captured a city, they brought over its
gods with them, and it is possible, its sacred records also, since their
respect for what was religious or ancient, was not limited to their own
nationality, but extended to most of those peoples with whom they were
brought in contact. From all these considerations it is probable that a
considerable portion of historic record was preserved after the burning of
the city, whether from the Annals themselves, or from portions of them
inscribed on bronze erstone, or from those of other states, which was
accessible to, and used by Cato, Polybius, Varro, Cicero, and Verrius
Flaccus. It is also probable that these records were collected into a
work, and that this work, while modernized by its frequent revisions,
nevertheless preserved a great deal of original and genuine annalistic
chronicle.
The _Annales_ must be distinguished from the _Libri Pontificum_, which
seem to have been a manual of the _Jus Pontificale_. Cicero places them
between the _Jus Civile_ and the Twelve Tables (De Or. i. 43.) The _Libri
Pontificii_ may have been the same, but probably the term, when correctly
used, meant the ceremonial ritual for the _Sacerdotes_, _flamines_, &c.
This general term included the more special ones of _Libri sacrorum_,
_sacerdotum_, _haruspicini_, &c. Some have confounded with the _Annales_ a
different sort of record altogether, the _Indigitamenta_, or ancient
formulae of prayer or incantation, and the _Axamenta_, to which class the
song of the Arval Brothers is referred.
As to the amount of historical matter contained in the Annals, it is
impossible to pronounce with confidence. Their falsification through
family and patrician pride is well known. But the earliest historians must
have possessed sufficient insight to distinguish the obviously fabulous.
We cannot suspect Cato of placing implicit faith in mythical accounts. He
was no friend to the aristocratic families or their records, and took care
to check them by the rival records of other Italian tribes. Sempronius
Asellio, in a passage already alluded to (ap. Gell. v. 18), distinguishes
the annalistic style as puerile (_fabulas pueris narrare_); the historian,
he insists, should go beneath the surface, and understand what he relates.
On comparing the early chronicles of Rome with those of St Bertin and St
Denys of France, there appears no advantage in a historical point of view
to be claimed by the latter; both contain many real events, though both
seek to glorify the origin of the nation and its rulers by constant
instances of divine or saintly intervention.