REPUBLICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY AND LIVY
The Romans, like all builders of empires, were avid readers and writers
of history. Their first two epics were the stories of the growth of
Rome; the numerous autobiographies of the Republican period were the
political _apologiae_ of public men like Marius, Sulla, Scaurus, and
Lucullus, who had given all their time to the affairs of state; before
Livy composed his great work, at least a score of historians had written
bulky accounts, now all lost, of the whole or some part of Rome’s amazing
story. Now that we have only fragments left of that splendid historical
library it is easy to fall into serious misconceptions regarding the
ideals and aims of those who wrote the nation’s history. To these errors
the Middle Ages contributed not a little by canonizing all the ancient
authorities so that when modern historical criticism came into vogue the
reaction against authority went too far and skepticism overleaped the
mark. Furthermore, a group of modern critics, who know little about the
past, impressed by the absence of rationalism in the medieval writers,
have invented a theory of progress which denies all intelligence to human
beings who lived before the eighteenth century. A recent book, misnamed
_The Making of the Modern Mind_, actually begins its account with the
dark ages, thereby succeeding fairly well in creating an impression of
consistent progress, but it wholly neglects the great civilization which
had reached the heights and fallen before the period discussed. One might
with equal fairness write a biography of Ruskin by ignoring his creative
early period and beginning with his emergence from his mental coma during
his old age.
As archaeological discoveries at Rome are confirming much of the
tradition which Mommsen and his successors rejected, it is becoming
necessary for us to revise our conception of the methods of the early
Roman historians. We now know that in its essentials the traditional
picture of a large and prosperous Rome at the end of the regal period is
correct.[1] We know something of its extensive walls, of its imposing
temples, and of its far-reaching commerce. We are gaining no little
respect for Livy’s conception of a strong Sabine element in Rome, of
the participation of Latins and Etruscans in the revolutionary wars
that ended the regal period, and of a temporary weakening of Rome
in the early decades of the Republic, when the Latins gained their
independent status and the Sabellic tribes threatened the existence of
the Latin League. If Mommsen were writing today, he would certainly
accept a large part of early political history, for he himself in his
_Staatsrecht_ rehabilitated much of the constitutional history which he
had previously excluded from his volumes. I do not mean that we are
ever going to reinstate the embroidery of fictitious battle-scenes and
long senatorial debates woven from family legends into the accounts of
the early period. Livy himself, who has left us the best account of this
picturesque tradition, warns the reader adequately when he explains why
he has freely included legend in the first part of his work. But with the
archaeological evidence before us, it is now possible to estimate what
knowledge of the earlier Republican period was available to the annalists
and to judge from this what use they made of their knowledge. We know,
for example, that they had access to large collections of laws, senatus
consulta, treaties, and priestly annals, and that they drew the correct
inferences from the extensive remains of the city about them, a city
which did not greatly change its ancient aspect until after the Second
Punic War. The fact that in the attempt to synchronize the consular list
with temple records which did not quite accord, they fell into a slight
discrepancy of a few years in the chronology of the early period does not
materially affect its value.
Various recent books on historiography[2] make little or no reference
to these revisions of our knowledge. They are being written as though
nothing had been discovered since Wachsmuth and the early critical work
of Pais. What is equally disturbing, they continue to assume that Roman
senators like Fabius and Cato, who constantly had to consult Rome’s laws
and treaties in order to direct senatorial debate on intricate matters of
international relations, immediately forgot the value of facts when they
undertook to write history. It is no longer justifiable, however, to
group all Roman annalists together in one category. If the early annals
of Rome tell practically the same story as the remains, there must have
been a great difference between the statesmen who first recorded the
facts and the romancers of Sulla’s day who wrote popular books for the
purpose of entertainment.
We may classify the historical writers of the Republic into three
distinct groups with reference to their methods and their employment of
their sources. In the century before Gaius Gracchus, we know of some
eight statesmen who told the story of Rome from the beginning up to their
own day. These are Fabius Pictor, senator and pontifex, who had served
in the army in 225 B.C., L. Cincius Alimentus, a praetor and general
in the Hannibalic war, Cato, consul and censor, C. Acilius, a senator,
Postumius Albinus, a consul, Cassius Hemina, Fabius Servilianus, consul
and commentator on pontifical law, Calpurnius Piso, consul, censor, and
reformer of the courts, and Sempronius Tuditanus, a jurist, who while
consul conquered Histria. They all wrote at a time when there were few
“general readers,” and their works were in the main intended for the
information of magistrates, senators, jurists, and a small circle of
readers closely connected with the ruling classes. These men were all
thoroughly acquainted with Rome’s laws and treaties.
After the Gracchan revolution we find a decided change in the tone and
purpose of history. The democratic upheaval had enlarged the circle of
readers by bringing large masses into the political arena, and had
created a demand for histories that were more easy to read and more
sympathetic toward the aspirations of the common people. In addition, a
diffusion of the knowledge of Greek, which made available the colorful
histories that Alexandrian culture had produced, and which fostered a
taste for a more florid style in written and spoken Latin, tended to
turn readers away from the dry factitive annals of the preceding century
and to encourage professional writers to satisfy the new taste. The
first story-teller to meet the new demand was apparently Cn. Gellius
of the Gracchan age, who seems to have filled in the meager outline of
early Republican history with an abundance of interesting legends. The
period that had been covered in seven rolls by the sober Piso required
ninety-seven in the library that Gellius produced.
This feat marks an epoch in Roman historiography. Where Gellius found
all his material we are not told, but we may surmise with some degree
of accuracy. He seems not to have added much to the legends of the
regal period, for even the earlier annalists had, with due warning to
the reader, repeated the household tales of that epoch. Most of the
padding appears in the section devoted to the first two centuries of
the Republic. In this portion the older statesmen-historians had shown
their restraint by excluding oral tradition and confining themselves
practically to the bare statements found in the priestly annals and in
the archives. Piso, for instance, gave only two books to the two hundred
years from 500 to 300 B.C., an average of about twelve lines a year. He
apparently adhered closely to archival material. Gellius devoted about
twenty books to this period. To do so he must have consulted heads of
old families and gathered up all the colorful stories they had to tell
of their ancestors for the period before the Third Samnite War. After
him Sempronius Asellio and Claudius Quadrigarius, although both were
popularizers, nevertheless reverted to a conservative treatment of the
semi-historical period, but Valerius Antias of the Sullan age, the most
successful of the romancing historians, followed the dangerous example
of Gellius. It seems to have been his ambition to retell in a more
persuasive form all the more interesting tales collected by Gellius.
Thereafter it was quite impossible to satisfy the general taste in
history without including the legendary stories of the middle period. It
was this group, writing for a large semi-educated public, and providing
patriotic, dramatic, and attractive volumes—in which vivid pen-pictures
served the purpose of modern colored illustrations—that destroyed the
taste for the sober old annals.
During the same period and catering to the same taste, many histories
of special periods and propagandizing biographies appeared. Caelius
Antipater, a professional writer, produced a history of the Second Punic
War in which dramatic composition and stylistic values counted for more
than accuracy. He wrote not for the information of statesmen but rather
for the delectation of the young and the leisured dilettanti. Some of
the autobiographies and histories of the time were produced by important
statesmen, but their value was in many cases marred by a willingness to
cater to the lower critical standards of the day and no less by a desire
to excuse their political behavior at a time when factional strife had
raised dangerous animosities. Fannius, indeed, seems to have written with
some sobriety regarding his part in the Gracchan struggle, but Aemilius
Scaurus, Sulla, Marius, and Catulus pleaded their cases with more or less
open partisanship. Of similar tendency, though more restrained, were men
like Licinius Macer, Cornelius Sisenna, and Sallust, who, having engaged
in the factional struggles of their day, wrote history with a political
bias, and furthermore, heeded the new demand for stylistic attractiveness
to the extent of disregarding now and then the requirements of accuracy.
The third group of writers, the professional researchers, appears during
the Ciceronian period. As the first extension of a superficial culture
had created a demand for easy and interesting general histories, so
the spread of a more thorough education produced a class of readers
who became suspicious of popular accounts and demanded solider works
on special topics. Furthermore, the increasing number of writers
desired reference books that presented details in more compendious and
reliable form than did the voluminous histories of the Sullan age. It
was in response to such demands that dry antiquarians now wrote their
crabbed commentaries and encyclopaedias. Aelius Stilo, best known for
his grammatical work, also delved in the sources of political history.
Varro, his pupil, compiled reference books on Roman law, on religious
institutions, on the Roman _tribus_, and on geography. The great jurist
Sulpicius wrote commentaries on the Twelve Tables and a history of the
praetorian edicts. Licinius Macer[3] and Aelius Tubero attempted to find
new archival materials in the priestly offices and financial bureaus,
various men made up convenient _libri magistratuum_, and even Cicero so
far entered the field of the specialist as to write a history of Roman
oratory, in the preparation of which he read hundreds of orations. Such
special studies naturally did not supplant the popular accounts—in fact
a score of less serious writers were busy at the same time—but their
influence upon historiography was abiding. Livy, for example, not only
used their digests of material but learned from them to be skeptical
of the Sullan romancers and to respect the data provided by the early
annalists whose books were no longer in general circulation. Hence, while
endeavoring to create a great work of art that might supplant the most
fascinating of his predecessors, he also attained to a higher standard of
accuracy than his rivals.
In this brief sketch of Republican historiography it becomes apparent
that it is in the second period, the time of popularization and of
Hellenistic influence, that the historical conscience weakened. We
must now revert to the earlier annalists to see how they worked and to
understand how it was that they succeeded in preserving the essential
basis of facts that modern discoveries are verifying. The field covered
by these annalists may be divided into three parts: (_a_) the regal
period (largely legendary); (_b_) the first two centuries of the Republic
(500-280 B.C.), for which some archival materials existed; and (_c_)
the period after 280 B.C., in which archival material could safely be
supplemented by reports of eyewitnesses, partly Greek, and later by the
native written records. Critics of the nineteenth century popularized
the view that Fabius Pictor must have worked with unsafe conceptions
of history because he told several of the early legends in full. This
criticism misses a vital distinction which the Romans themselves
recognized. The early annalists knew that the regal period provided no
reliable sources, but, with due warning to the reader, they reported
the legends for what they might be worth. Fabius[4] seems to have been
rather meticulous in giving these exactly as he had heard them without
any attempt to rationalize them, for Dionysius enjoys pointing out their
unplausible elements. Where we must test the scientific attitude of the
early annalists is in their treatment of the second and third periods.
As regards the second period, we have seen that Piso, the last of the
group—whose statements are as full as any—has in this portion an average
of only about twelve lines per year. There is for this second period
no trace of legendary material in the fragments of any of the earliest
historians, and we can well understand why Cicero constantly compares
the oldest accounts with the wiry _Annales Maximi_, why Dionysius says
that in this portion they touched only upon outstanding facts, and why
Asellio complains that no annalists before him had adequately discussed
the causes of the events which they recorded.
The archives had some material of value for the whole of these two
centuries. The high priests’ tablets of the Regia, though originally
intended only as a record of sacrifices to be performed, contained
many noteworthy items because the pontifex was usually one of the most
distinguished statesmen and accordingly interpreted political events
as of sacred importance. Each year’s tablet included the names of
the consuls, and contained references to the declarations of war, to
victories, defeats, famines, pestilences, destructive fires, earthquakes,
and eclipses, or other events that had called for expiations or
thank-offerings. We are told that when the contents of the _Annales
Maximi_ were published about the Gracchan time they filled eighty
volumes. Since the period covered was nearly four centuries we may
assume on the average a volume, presumably of about a thousand lines,
for every five years, or about two hundred lines a year. If only a tenth
of the material was of interest to an historian these annals would still
contain enough to fill the earlier books of a writer like Piso. In the
Capitoline temple were stored almost all of Rome’s treaties, engraved
upon bronze or stone. Since Rome’s fetial customs were carefully observed
during the long period of expansion, these treaties provided a dependable
record of her external history. Before Vespasian’s reign, as we happen
to hear, three thousand of these documents had accumulated. In Fabius’
day, judging from the extent of Rome’s federation, we may safely assume
at least a hundred. In the temple of Saturn were kept the laws passed by
the centuriate assembly, in the temple of Ceres the important decrees
of the senate. There were also temple records, inscriptions upon public
buildings and, furthermore, independent local records in Rome’s various
colonies, which in some measure provided a check for those at Rome.
And finally the existence of the old walls and temples up to the time
of these historians furnished visible evidence of what Rome’s ancient
culture was like.
We are, of course, constantly told that the Gallic fire of 387 B.C.
probably destroyed the old temples together with their records. This
is one of the assumptions that archaeology has disproved.[5] We now
possess a fairly complete analysis of Rome’s building materials and
we have discovered that in almost every instance the old walls of the
ancient temples remained standing into the late Republic and their
materials—being consecrated—were used again in the reconstruction of
those temples after the use of concrete had been discovered (about 150
B.C.). The original Capitoline temple with all its treaties survived
till Sulla’s day; the Regia, in which the pontifical tablets were
stored, remained intact till after the tablets were published; the
original temple of Saturn with its valuable archives stood till it was
rebuilt after Caesar’s death; the temple of Castor survived till it
was rebuilt in 117 B.C., and we know from Pliny that Ceres’ temple,
where the senate’s decrees were kept, remained intact till the Augustan
period. If the Gauls spared the temples in fear of divine vengeance—the
Celts and early Romans were equally religious—they would probably spare
the consecrated contents. There is no longer any excuse for repeating
the unfounded conjecture that all of the early Republican archives
were destroyed in the Gallic fire. The places in which they were kept
certainly survived and the fact that the early annalists to a remarkable
extent stand the test of modern investigation indicates that some of the
archives also survived.
Whether or not such material existed in the temples would, however, be a
futile question, if, as Mommsen held, the Roman historians neglected to
consult their archives. It is certainly true that after the Sullan period
we hear little of research among original documents. But quite apart
from the decay of historical standards, it is obvious that the desired
materials were then largely accessible in published form. After the
Sullan day every few years brought out new biographies and contemporary
histories which incorporated from daily observation the facts of
interest. Such sources became very numerous and men no longer needed to
go to the archives for the kind of material that was wanted in popular
histories. Hence it became customary to turn to books rather than to
stored documents.
The situation had been wholly different during the century before the
Gracchi. Then published source-books were just beginning to be made, and
there were no convenient libraries of extensive histories. There may have
been an anonymous digest of the priestly tablets before Fabius, but of
this we are not sure. A complete edition was not made till the Gracchan
period. An old code of sacred rules existed under the name of _Jus
Papirianum_, and Sextus Aelius (consul in 198) had put out an edition of
the Twelve Tables with a commentary and a list of the _legis actiones_.
That was all. And yet senators were expected to know all the important
documents that might be involved in senatorial debate. As Cicero[6] puts
the matter in his _De Legibus_ (III, 41), “It is necessary for a senator
to know the commonwealth—completely I mean—to know its military and
financial resources, what allies, “friends,” and subjects it has, and the
laws, terms, and treaties by which each attained to its position, and he
must also know the parliamentary rules of the senate and the history of
Rome.” To attain to such command of the archival material in the early
days necessitated much first-hand study and doubtless the making of
individual digests. We are reminded of the medieval law-men of Iceland
who conducted the “thing” in the period when no written codes existed
and when they were compelled to keep all the laws and precedents at the
command of their memories. Such senatorial practice was a preparation
for historical composition which was very different from that attained
by the professional writers of a later period. To assume that Fabius did
not know the source-material because Livy seldom refers to original
documents is to misunderstand the diverse methods that obtained in each
man’s day.
Roman historians of course knew the worth of Fabius Pictor. Livy went
to him to check up extravagant statements; Dionysius refers to his
conciseness and accuracy; Cicero, whose historical material in the _De
Republica_ and the _De Legibus_ was based upon Fabius, vouched for his
lack of rhetorical adornment, and Polybius followed him closely in
the story of early Rome, in the first ten and last two years of the
First Punic War, and in the Roman sections of the period from 241 to
the end of the Second Punic War. The most meticulous of historians,
Polybius, criticized Fabius only on the score of patriotic bias when
giving generalized judgments on recent events. Polybius was of course a
foreigner who could readily detect the nationalistic flavor, and after
observing the aberrations of history during the world war we can readily
comprehend that Fabius may have failed in objectivity in writing of
the wars in which he took an active part. But there is no reason for
supposing that he did not set himself a high standard in recording the
actual events of Roman history.
Polybius has received very great praise for his insistence upon accuracy.
Professor Shotwell[7] ends an enthusiastic chapter with the sentence:
“But as long as history endures the ideals of Polybius will be an
inspiration and guide.” The praise is deserved, especially when we
remember that Polybius had behind him in Greece nearly two centuries of
extravagant rhetorical history. But when we ask how it happened that he
turned his back upon all that tradition, no explanations are offered. It
is not an adequate interpretation to say that by living in banishment
he was removed from the temptations of historians writing the story of
their own people, for he usually succeeds in being quite objective even
when he writes of the Achaean League. Is it not likely that his contact
with matter-of-fact and legal-minded Roman senators induced him to adopt
some of their manners and methods? His respect for the integrity, sanity,
and uprightness of Roman senators of the Scipionic period he voices
repeatedly[8] in contrasting their qualities with the unreliability,
astuteness, and fickleness of his countrymen. It is also to be remembered
that the first part of his history is based upon Fabius, who therefore
was his first preceptor in historical writing. It would seem at least
worth considering whether Polybius did not owe some of his qualities as
an historian to the fact that he served his apprenticeship in history
among the early Roman annalists and that he adapted his work to the
public which had been brought up on those matter-of-fact books. At any
rate he is well-nigh unique among the Greeks who wrote history after the
classical period.
There is of course nothing to indicate that Fabius and his immediate
followers were in any sense great historians. Without any literary
background, with only such practice in writing as would come from
composing state documents, occupied every day with the concerns of a
rapidly expanding state, they recorded only public acts and public
discussions. What men did and strove for, outside of the voting,
legislating, and fighting groups, was not recorded. Not even within their
chosen field does there appear a penetrative analysis of senatorial
policy. Fabius, to be sure, enumerated the immediate causes of both
of the Punic wars but only with a jurist’s interest in deciding at
what point the enemy had committed the breach for which he deserved
punishment. As historians these men had the limitations of their
qualities and of their occupations. But on the other hand there is no
evidence that they knowingly garbled facts.
One may, then, be permitted to object to a common error of judgment
regarding the nature of what is called the “scientific method” in ancient
history. Students who have to deal with the gullible medieval chronicles
seem to assume that historical criticism has but recently succeeded in
creating a respect for objectivity and honesty in history, as though
the logical processes of the mind were not fully developed in the human
race twenty thousand years before the invention of the historical
seminar. The incubus of religious authority dominant for centuries in
the Middle Ages was a passing phase, as was the overweening respect
for dramatic values in the Hellenistic historians and the eagerness to
glorify families and the state in the Sullan romancers. But just as
Polybius, when transplanted into a soberer atmosphere of action, rid
himself with ease of the Hellenistic methods; as Julius Caesar, when
occupied with absorbing actualities, could free himself from the habits
of his day so far as to record the very crimes for which he was being
assailed by Cato in the senate; as Ari Frodi in Iceland escaped churchly
influence sufficiently to write the history of his island with the same
respect for truth that he used when judging a case at the “thing,” so
the early statesmen-annalists of Rome, when recording what was available
for the historical period of the Republic, employed documents and
personal observations with the same meticulous care that they used when
presiding as praetors in the courts or when as senators arguing cases
of international relations. Their brief historical notes are largely
preserved for us in Polybius, in Cicero’s _De Republica_, in Diodorus,
and in the central skeleton structure of Livy, and the continuous
existence of these notes in Roman times kept the legends from ever
straying wholly beyond the reach of actuality. This also explains why
it is that archaeological knowledge now coming to hand is so frequently
found to fit in with what we have been wont to call “tradition.”
The various currents of Roman historiography united in the vast work
of Livy, so that, Augustan though he is, he may be taken as a typical
product of the several Republican schools. There is no one formula by
which the historian may employ Livy without constant caution. Parts
contain unadulterated legend, parts that seem at first glance to be sound
record are based upon treacherous sources, much is first-rate history;
but who has the magic flail that will shell off the husks? There is no
more insistent problem in Roman history than the correct use of Livy,
for he is, over large areas, our only source, and over periods where he
parallels Appian and Cassius Dio he is generally so much sounder than
they that he must be threshed through.
In estimating the quality of the thirty-five books
extant[9]—unfortunately his early work and not the maturest product of
his mind—we must distinguish between the results that are due to his
own aims and capacities and those that are due to the nature of his
varying sources. Everyone now admits with Tacitus[10] that Livy was
scrupulously honest, that he was fair, that he did not permit himself to
fabricate—as Caelius and Valerius seem to have done—and that he chose
good sources when they were available; but a historian needs more than
these virtues. What we miss most in this respect is his failure to go
insistently to primary sources. To be sure, it was impossible for a man
who set out to write a vast popular history—about three times the size of
Gibbon’s great life-work—to delve in the archives. Those documents were
not then catalogued and classified as they now are. Cato the younger,
for instance, when he needed an abstract of the treasury office for a
relatively brief period had to pay his assistants some 30,000 denarii to
have it made.[11] Ten times the amount would not have sufficed for Livy’s
extensive needs. He accordingly made use of what had been published,
such things as the _Annales Maximi_, collected down to the Gracchan
period, the magisterial lists as they had been revised by various hands,
and collections of laws and senatorial decrees that had been made for
the use of lawyers and law-makers. And some of these skeleton bones of
history he took from conscientious annalists like Fabius and Piso, who
specialized on such matters because they wrote not for the public but
for members of the senate and the ruling nobility. Livy’s purpose seems
to have been to write a readable and full history of Rome which would
displace the unreliable fictionalized history of Valerius Antias by
being equally well written but far more reliable. But if he had insisted
upon primary sources only he would not have completed one-tenth of his
very extensive task. Given his aim and purpose, his duty was to find and
exploit the best published documents and histories for each period, and
with very few exceptions this is what he did.
It was also his purpose—which a modern historian might well deny
himself—to set down the early legends of Rome. Here there were no
historical sources, and the question was whether to omit the legends—as
Mommsen has done—because they could not be considered worthy of credence,
whether to rationalize them and attempt to rescue a kernel of fact
as Piso did, and as Pais and Beloch have recently attempted to do,
or finally to set them down as found, with a warning that they were
legends. Mommsen’s method was facile but we are glad that Livy did not
use it. The legends are good literature; they also have a great value
in revealing the temper of those who accepted them and passed them to
future generations as worth having. Finally they prove upon comparison
with archaeological facts to have a sounder basis in fact than Mommsen
thought. Even if all their details be legendary, they represent a Rome
that could not have been far from the actual state. In fact they prove
to be nearer the actuality than the strange and lifeless civilization
that Mommsen reconstructed for the early period out of unscientific
etymologies and stereotyped conceptions of late legal institutions.
We are also glad that he did not follow Piso’s lead in trying to use
them “critically.” Had he done so he would have transmitted them in
garbled form and spoiled them, and won nothing in the process. We have
learned from recent attempts that this method is a failure. A Charlemagne
reconstructed from medieval French epics or a Theodoric shelled out of
the Diedrek legend would at best not be accurate history. Thirty years
ago our hyper-critical historians tried it, and moved all the early dates
of Roman history down a century or two. Archaeology has at least proved
this a mistake, and we now are moving the dates back and most of the
critics have got into the moving van. After all is said Livy’s method
was the soundest. His procedure was the more nearly scientific. It is
with exceeding good sense that he says in his preface: “The early stories
regarding Rome’s foundation that are handed down to us in poetic romances
rather than in sound historical records it is not my intention to support
or to refute.” And again in the preface of the sixth book he warns us
that very nearly all that he had written in the preceding five books—up
to the burning of Rome in 387—rested not on acceptable records but on
legend. And even thereafter, throughout his work, whenever for any
incident he is limited to the authors who employed legend he is quick to
warn the reader of the nature of the source. These passages show that
Livy was a sounder critic of Rome’s legends than Polybius was in respect
to Homeric stories. Historians who scold Livy for his preservation of
legends have not only missed their value but have misunderstood Livy’s
cues.
We have perhaps a fairer quarrel with him for following the Greek
custom of inserting fictive speeches in the body of his work. To the
modern reader many of them are tedious and create a suspicion of being
unreliable. It is never quite safe to quote a line from these speeches
as indisputable evidence on any event, though most of them contain the
gist of an actual speech delivered on the occasion stated. All we can
usually be sure of is that they give Livy’s conception of what was likely
to have been said by the speaker in the situation. That is often worth
having, for Livy usually knew more of the pertinent conditions than we
do and he possessed a sympathetic penetration into pristine characters
and events that enabled him to make valuable reconstructions. One has
only to read the several speeches attributed to Scipio Africanus to see
that they make a consistent and vivid portrait. If we have the patience
to read these speeches with Livy’s purpose in mind we shall know how to
profit by them. The convention was of course understood, and was no more
misleading than the equally artificial convention of modern historians
who employ a kind of fictional mind-reading, a “stream of consciousness”
device, which may be found on almost any page of Mommsen or De Sanctis.
Mommsen could hardly have made a silent character like Caesar real
without constantly conjecturing as to his intentions and motives, as when
he writes: “Evidently here too it was Caesar’s intention,” or again “When
Caesar projected the plan for a new code, it is not difficult to divine
his intentions” (and he puts down a page of divining), or again, “So far
Caesar might say that his object was attained.” These musings of a great
historian of our time are cast in a different form from the invented
harangues of Livy and the Greeks, but we read them with the same caution,
knowing that they are surmises. The historian, who like Livy and Mommsen
must deal with tantalizingly fragmentary sources, must have the liberty
to bridge the lacuna by some such method. But we will be on our guard
when reading such matter.
Thus far I have spoken of Livy’s work as affected by his aims and
methods. What is even more important for the reader who uses Livy is to
comprehend the varying quality of the available sources. For the long
period before 200 B.C. there was of course no writing of history at Rome.
Very meager records existed for most of the obscure period, 500-280, and
these had been exploited by Fabius, but they made no story that could
be told in a consecutive form. Hence their data were welded together
with the help of legend during the second century before Christ. Of the
story of the Samnite wars the mere skeleton is all we can accept as firm
history. And that was as true before Livy wrote as after. Neither he nor
anyone else could mend matters. For the Pyrrhic and First Punic War
the sources were good but the corresponding part of Livy is lost. For
books 21-30 the sources were full. Here two responsible participants,
Fabius and Cincius, told the story from the Roman viewpoint, while
three companions of Hannibal told the same story as they saw it from
the Punic camp.[12] Any tendency to exaggerate on either side could
at once be checked from the reports that came from the other, and the
excellent Greek historian Polybius came soon after and did a great deal
of checking. Here Livy had only to be diligent, fair, and honest to
be able to write reliably. The third decade of Livy is accordingly as
dependable history as we have of any ancient war. It is only in the brief
Spanish portion, for which there was no Punic account, and where Polybius
himself had written too enthusiastically of Scipio’s work, that we touch
quicksands.
Books 31-45 are not quite so firm. The chief difficulty here is that
there was no contemporaneous historian at Rome for this period except
Cato, who wrote a very brief account of a part of it. Polybius was the
first to compose the whole story, but excellent as he was, he came some
years after the events, had observed, so far as he did, only from his
home in Greece, depended largely upon biased Rhodian writers, and knew so
little about Rome’s activities outside of Greece that he omitted much,
in fact all of Rome’s internal and western history. Campaigns in Gaul
and Spain, for instance, did not get recorded at all until they were
well permeated with legend, and there was no account available from the
opponent’s side. Hence it is that here Livy is of necessity exceedingly
uneven, treading on a fairly firm corduroy for most of the important
events in Greece, but on a marshy ground of semi-legend when he has to
deal with western campaigns. Fortunately the somewhat scanty documents
of the state archives had been well culled before him by reliable men
like Piso, and these usually kept the legends from dangerous extremes. It
is a complete misunderstanding of Livy to suppose that he did not know
the weaknesses of Valerius Antias when he used him. Livy knew them all
along, but in some portions of this period he had no good source, had
nothing available but Valerius and his kind, who had set things down as
they heard them, fables and all. Livy’s frequent citation of Valerius
Antias does not betoken a gullible love of this writer, but is intended
as a danger signal. Here there are several boggy spots. But fortunately
the period deals largely with eastern affairs and for that portion the
sources were fairly good. It is fair to say that Livy did as well as was
to be done in his late day with the material and time available, and that
nine-tenths of this portion is acceptable history.
The difficulties that an author of Livy’s day had in dealing with the
source-materials may be illustrated by a few examples. Hannibal’s famous
route over the Alps is still being discussed, though Hannibal had with
him on the journey three Greek reporters who described it. Since they
had no maps and no compasses, and names of rivers, tribes, and mountains
had little interest for them, their accounts were so confused that
Polybius and Caelius, who used them, fell into hopeless confusion. Their
routes are quite impossible despite the fact that Polybius claims to
have searched for the pass. Livy’s route (from the mouth of the Iserè,
to the headwaters of the Durance, thence across the passes and down
to Turin) betrays lack of autopsy, but it is apparently based upon an
identification of place-names mentioned in the sources by the use of
some map of the Allobrogic country made, presumably, during Caesar’s
campaigns. Thus by using geographical knowledge recently attained he was
able to hit upon a very probable solution that was hidden to earlier
writers.
In my second illustration, the account of the Scipionic trials, Livy
was less successful.[13] His record of the court procedure in the cases
in the 38th book is confused in the extreme; but it is doubtful whether
the facts were any longer available. No historian was writing at Rome
at the time of the impeachments, and even if there had been one he
probably would then have omitted mention of them as being outside the
true province of political history. Even Polybius, who was devoted to
the fame of the great Scipio, did not give any account of the trials,
merely referring to them casually when giving a brief character sketch
of Scipio. Nor would there have been any records in the archives, since
the trials were not completed and the archives kept only the results
of completed decisions. Finally, the affair fell at a time when it was
not yet generally customary to publish speeches. The two or three that
Livy found seemed to be of dubious authenticity and were harangues that
gave but few cues to the real facts. In fact no historian wrote up the
affair until long afterwards, when partisan legends, some favorable to
the Catonian position, and others to the Scipionic view, had obscured all
the facts. It seems today that Livy yielded too much to the pro-Scipionic
accounts, thereby undervaluing the opposite views, and many attempts
have been made to amend him with the aid of an excursus which he
inserted—perhaps in a second edition—and with the help of various casual
references. In this affair the facts are now beyond reach and probably
were so in Livy’s day. Here, then, Livy did not follow hazy sources
from choice. There were apparently no accurate records of the affair
available. They were all late, and packed with hearsay partisanship.
Finally, we may well take an instance in which political custom and
psychology were misunderstood by his predecessors so as to mislead
Livy as well. The Second Macedonian War was brought on by a number of
motives: fear of Philip, a desire for revenge, an enthusiasm for the
Greek republics which were being oppressed, and other similar factors.
The declaration, as such declarations usually are, emphasized not the
important psychological imponderables but “the obligations of Rome
to her allies.” Now in point of fact there was no legal obligation
that had to be heeded, and the states to be aided were _amici_ but
not permanent _socii_. But before any Roman historian—it was fifty
years later—undertook to record this war and enumerate its causes the
distinction between _amici_ and _socii_ had been virtually obliterated
and the writers listed the several states as _socii_, though in a strict
sense they were not. Had Livy tested these historians by reference to
the original treaties in the record office he might have found reason
to distrust them. But this of course was not his task. Now it cannot be
done, but it seems probable that in this case the historians who first
recorded the events were so far removed from them that they failed to
comprehend the precise factors that caused that war, explained it in
terms comprehensible in their day, and thus misled Livy.
It is my belief that modern emenders and critics who have not
sufficiently studied the various sources of Livy have gone too far in
assuming that Livy is untrustworthy in any and every portion of his
work. When the necessary distinctions have been made we shall learn
to use him to better advantage. De Sanctis[14] has shown that Livy’s
much criticized account of Hannibal’s march on Rome in 211 B.C. is
more reasonable than that of Caelius. Livy’s account of the battle of
the Trebia, which was formerly pronounced impossible, becomes lucid
if we correct our conceptions of the early geography of the region of
Placentia.[15] In 1926 while Beloch was pronouncing the Livian tradition
of the third-century Fasti impossible, an Italian scholar was publishing
a newly discovered fragment which proved the tradition correct. Beloch
had to retract in an appendix of his volume.[16] Editions of the fourth
decade of Livy have regularly tampered with a reference to the building
of the Apollo temple in 179 B.C. because they supposed the temple was
earlier. A recent examination of the materials of the temple proves
Livy’s text correct. We now accept Livy’s statement of Hannibal’s march
over the Alps as preferable to that of Polybius, as we know that his
topography of New Carthage is better though Polybius had visited the
place. By a simple emendation of one word Conway has revealed that Livy
was correct about Hannibal’s route into Etruria, though the account has
been severely criticized for a century. With Kromayer we also accept his
topography of the battle of Cannae and of Metaurus. And so the work of
recovery continues. The day is approaching when we shall be able to give
Livy his due for a good method, for honesty, and for fairness, as well as
for a lucid style.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Inez Scott, _Early Roman Tradition in the Light of Archaeology_,
Memoirs Am. Acad. in Rome, VII (1929). The archaeological evidence
referred to in this chapter may be found in my _Roman Buildings of the
Republic_ (Rome 1924), and in an essay on the “Early Temple of Castor,”
Mem. Am. Acad. in Rome, V; a part of this chapter has already appeared in
the _Am. Hist. Rev._ (1927).
[2] E.g. Rosenberg, _Einleitung und Quellenkunde_, and J. T. Shotwell,
_Introduction to the History of History_.
[3] See art. “Licinius Macer,” by Münzer, _in_ _Realencycl._, XIII.
[4] Cato’s first three books of _Origines_ similarly recorded the legends
of other Italian cities without pretending to judge their historical
value, but in his history of his own day he proved himself a very
accurate observer. However, he seems to have treated only episodes that
interested him. Piso, the last of the early annalists, introduced the
unwise method of rationalizing the early myths in order to make them more
plausible.
[5] Some of the evidence may be found in my _Roman Buildings_, 53, 78, 83.
[6] Cicero, like many a modern statesman, desired a favorable
presentation of his deeds in history and biography. However, when it was
not a question of his own deeds, his historical ideals were very high. In
his _Brutus_ (292-4) he insists that history requires the same accuracy
as testimony given in court under oath. In the _De Oratore_ (ii. 62-3)
he says that the first requirement of the historian is to have courage
to tell the whole truth and never to deceive. He consulted the archives
even to get an accurate setting for his fictitious dialogues (_Ad. Att._
xiii. 33, 3; xiii. 3, 3; xii. 5, 3). Some modern critics have found heart
to suspect Cicero’s historical ideals because he insisted that history
should be well written!
[7] _Op. cit._, 201.
[8] Polybius VI, 56; XIII, 3; XVIII, 35; XXXII, 8-9.
[9] Cf. Klotz, art. “Livius,” _in_ Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, XIII, 816 for a
critical bibliography.
[10] Tacitus, _Ann._ 7, 34: _fidei praeclarus_.
[11] Plut. _Cato minor_, 18. On Roman archives see art. “Archive,” _in_
Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, II, 560.
[12] Silenus, Sosylus, and Chaireas; Eumachus of Naples may also have
been a contemporary. The explicit details of the battles in Campania may
well owe something to him.
[13] Livy, 38, 50.
[14] De Sanctis, _Storia dei Romani_, III, 2, 338 pp.
[15] See _Jour. Roman Studies_, 1919, 202.
[16] Beloch, _Röm. Geschichte_, 89, 629.