That the prospect should be still more lamentable in the field

of the general annals of the city and even of the world, was implied

in the nature of the case. The increasing activity of antiquarian

research induced the expectation that the current narrative

would be rectified from documents and other trustworthy sources;

but this hope was not fulfilled. The more and the deeper men

investigated, the more clearly it became apparent what a task it was

to write a critical history of Rome. The difficulties even,

which opposed themselves to investigation and narration, were immense;

but the most dangerous obstacles were not those of a literary kind.

The conventional early history of Rome, as it had now been narrated

and believed for at least ten generations; was most intimately mixed up

with the civil life of the nation; and yet in any thorough

and honest inquiry not only had details to be modified here and there,

but the whole building had to be overturned as much as

the Franconian primitive history of king Pharamund or the British

of king Arthur. An inquirer of conservative views, such as was Varro

for instance, could have no wish to put his hand to such a work;

and if a daring freethinker had undertaken it, an outcry

would have been raised by all good citizens against this worst

of all revolutionaries, who was preparing to deprive the constitutional

party even of their past Thus philological and antiquarian research

deterred from the writing of history rather than conduced towards it.

Varro and the more sagacious men in general evidently gave up

the task of annals as hopeless; at the most they arranged,

as did Titus Pomponius Atticus, the official and gentile lists

in unpretending tabular shape--a work by which the synchronistic

Graeco-Roman chronology was finally brought into the shape in which

it was conventionally fixed for posterity. But the manufacture

of city-chronicles of course did not suspend its activity;

it continued to supply its contributions both in prose and verse

to the great library written by ennui for ennui, while the makers

of the books, in part already freedmen, did not trouble themselves

at all about research properly so called. Such of these writings

as are mentioned to us--not one of them is preserved--seem to have been

not only of a wholly secondary character, but in great part

even pervaded by interested falsification. It is true

that the chronicle of Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius (about 676?)

was written in an old-fashioned but good style, and studied at least

a commendable brevity in the representation of the fabulous period.

Gaius Licinius Macer (d. as late praetor in 688), father of the poet

Calvus,(30) and a zealous democrat, laid claim more than

any other chronicler to documentary research and criticism,

but his -libri lintei- and other matters peculiar to him are

in the highest degree suspicious, and an interpolation

of the whole annals in the interest of democratic tendencies--

an interpolation of a very extensive kind, and which has passed over

in part to the later annalists--is probably traceable to him.

Valerius Antias

Lastly, Valerius Antias excelled all his predecessors in prolixity

as well as in puerile story-telling. The falsification of numbers

was here systematically carried out down even to contemporary history,

and the primitive history of Rome was elaborated once more

from one form of insipidity to another; for instance the narrative

of the way in which the wise Numa according to the instructions

of the nymph Egeria caught the gods Faunus and Picus; with wine,

and the beautiful conversation thereupon held by the same Numa

with the god Jupiter, cannot be too urgently recommended

to all worshippers of the so-called legendary history of Rome

in order that, if possible, they may believe these things--of course,

in substance. It would have been a marvel if the Greek novel-writers

of this period had allowed such materials, made as if for their use,

to escape them. In fact there were not wanting Greek literati,

who worked up the Roman history into romances; such a composition,

for instance, was the Five Books "Concerning Rome" of the Alexander

Polyhistor already mentioned among the Greek literati living in Rome,(31)

a preposterous mixture of vapid historical tradition and trivial,

principally erotic, fiction. He, it may be presumed,

took the first steps towards filling up the five hundred years,

which were wanting to bring the destruction of Troy and the origin

of Rome into the chronological connection required by the fables

on either side, with one of those lists of kings without achievements

which are unhappily familiar to the Egyptian and Greek chroniclers;

for, to all appearance, it was he that launched into the world

the kings Aventinus and Tiberinus and the Alban gens of the Silvii,

whom the following times accordingly did not neglect to furnish

in detail with name, period of reigning, and, for the sake of greater

definiteness, also a portrait.

Thus from various sides the historical romance of the Greeks

finds its way into Roman historiography; and it is more than probable

that not the least portion of what we are accustomed nowadays

to call tradition of the Roman primitive times proceeds from sources

of the stamp of Amadis of Gaul and the chivalrous romances

of Fouque--an edifying consideration, at least for those who have

a relish for the humour of history and who know how to appreciate

the comical aspect of the piety still cherished in certain circles

of the nineteenth century for king Numa.

Universal History

Nepos

A novelty in the Roman literature of this period is the appearance

of universal history or, to speak more correctly, of Roman

and Greek history conjoined, alongside of the native annals.

Cornelius Nepos from Ticinum (c. 650-c. 725) first supplied

an universal chronicle (published before 700) and a general collection

of biographies--arranged according to certain categories--of Romans

and Greeks distinguished in politics or literature or of men

at any rate who exercised influence on the Roman or Greek history.

These works are of a kindred nature with the universal histories

which the Greeks had for a considerable time been composing;

and these very Greek world-chronicles, such as that of Kastor son-in-law

of the Galatian king Deiotarus, concluded in 698, now began to include

in their range the Roman history which previously they had neglected.

These works certainly attempted, just like Polybius, to substitute

the history of the Mediterranean world for the more local one;

but that which in Polybius was the result of a grand and clear

conception and deep historical feeling was in these chronicles

rather the product of the practical exigencies of school

and self-instruction. These general chronicles, text-books

for scholastic instruction or manuals for reference, and the whole

literature therewith connected which subsequently became very copious

in the Latin language also, can hardly be reckoned as belonging

to artistic historical composition; and Nepos himself in particular

was a pure compiler distinguished neither by spirit nor even merely

by symmetrical plan.

The historiography of this period is certainly remarkable

and in a high degree characteristic, but it is as far from pleasing

as the age itself. The interpenetration of Greek and Latin literature

is in no field so clearly apparent as in that of history;

here the respective literatures become earliest equalized in matter

and form, and the conception of Helleno-Italic history as an unity,

in which Polybius was so far in advance of his age, was now learned

even by Greek and Roman boys at school. But while the Mediterranean

state had found a historian before it had become conscious

of its own existence, now, when that consciousness had been attained,

there did not arise either among the Greeks or among the Romans

any man who was able to give to it adequate expression.

"There is no such thing," says Cicero, "as Roman historical

composition"; and, so far as we can judge, this is no more than

the simple truth. The man of research turns away from writing history,

the writer of history turns away from research; historical literature

oscillates between the schoolbook and the romance. All the species

of pure art--epos, drama, lyric poetry, history--are worthless

in this worthless world; but in no species is the intellectual decay

of the Ciceronian age reflected with so terrible a clearness

as in its historiography.

Literature Subsidiary to History

Caesar's Report

The minor historical literature of this period displays

on the other hand, amidst many insignificant and forgotten productions,

one treatise of the first rank--the Memoirs of Caesar, or rather

the Military Report of the democratic general to the people

from whom he had received his commission. The finished section,

and that which alone was published by the author himself, describing

the Celtic campaigns down to 702, is evidently designed to justify

as well as possible before the public the formally unconstitutional

enterprise of Caesar in conquering a great country and constantly

increasing his army for that object without instructions

from the competent authority; it was written and given forth in 703,

when the storm broke out against Caesar in Rome and he was summoned

to dismiss his army and answer for his conduct.(32) The author

of this vindication writes, as he himself says, entirely as an officer

and carefully avoids extending his military report to the hazardous

departments of political organization and administration.

His incidental and partisan treatise cast in the form of a military

report is itself a piece of history like the bulletins of Napoleon,

but it is not, and was not intended to be, a historical work

in the true sense of the word; the objective form which the narrative

assumes is that of the magistrate, not that of the historian.

But in this modest character the work is masterly and finished,

more than any other in all Roman literature. The narrative

is always terse and never scanty, always simple and never careless,

always of transparent vividness and never strained or affected.

The language is completely pure from archaisms and from vulgarisms--

the type of the modern -urbanitas-. In the Books concerning

the Civil War we seem to feel that the author had desired to avoid war

and could not avoid it, and perhaps also that in Caesar's soul,

as in every other, the period of hope was a purer and fresher one

than that of fulfilment; but over the treatise on the Gallic war

there is diffused a bright serenity, a simple charm, which are

no less unique in literature than Caesar is in history.

Correspondence

Of a kindred nature were the letters interchanged between the statesmen

and literati of this period, which were carefully collected

and published in the following epoch; such as the correspondence

of Caesar himself, of Cicero, Calvus and others. They can still less

be numbered among strictly literary performances; but this literature

of correspondence was a rich store-house for historical

as for all other research, and the most faithful mirror of an epoch

in which so much of the worth of past times and so much spirit,

cleverness, and talent were evaporated and dissipated in trifling.

News-Sheet

A journalist literature in the modern sense was never formed in Rome;

literary warfare continued to be confined to the writing

of pamphlets and, along with this, to the custom generally diffused

at that time of annotating the notices destined for the public

in places of resort with the pencil or the pen. On the other hand

subordinate persons were employed to note down the events

of the day and news of the city for the absent men of quality;

and Caesar as early as his first consulship took fitting measures

for the immediate publication of an extract from the transactions

of the senate. From the private journals of those Roman penny-a-liners

and these official current reports there arose a sort of news-sheet

for the capital (-acta diurna-), in which the resume of the business

discussed before the people and in the senate, and births, deaths,

and such like were recorded. This became a not unimportant

source for history, but remained without proper political

as without literary significance.

Speeches

Decline of Political Oratory

To subsidiary historical literature belongs of right also

the composition of orations. The speech, whether written down or not,

is in its nature ephemeral and does not belong to literature;

but it may, like the report and the letter, and indeed still

more readily than these, come to be included, through the significance

of the moment and the power of the mind from which it springs,

among the permanent treasures of the national literature.

Thus in Rome the records of orations of a political tenor delivered

before the burgesses or the jurymen had for long played a great part

in public life; and not only so, but the speeches of Gaius Gracchus

in particular were justly reckoned among the classical Roman writings.

But in this epoch a singular change occurred on all hands.

The composition of political speeches was on the decline like political

speaking itself. The political speech in Rome, as generally

in the ancient polities, reached its culminating point in the discussions

before the burgesses; here the orator was not fettered, as in the senate,

by collegiate considerations and burdensome forms, nor,

as in the judicial addresses, by the interests--in themselves foreign

to politics--of the accusation and defence; here alone his heart

swelled proudly before the whole great and mighty Roman people

hanging on his lips. But all this was now gone. Not as though

there was any lack of orators or of the publishing of speeches

delivered before the burgesses; on the contrary political

authorship only now waxed copious, and it began to become

a standing complaint at table that the host incommoded his guests

by reading before them his latest orations. Publius Clodius

had his speeches to the people issued as pamphlets,

just like Gaius Gracchus; but two men may do the same thing

without producing the same effect. The more important leaders

even of the opposition, especially Caesar himself, did not often address

the burgesses, and no longer published the speeches which they delivered;

indeed they partly sought for their political fugitive writings

another form than the traditional one of -contiones-, in which respect

more especially the writings praising and censuring Cato(33)

are remarkable. This is easily explained. Gaius Gracchus

had addressed the burgesses; now men addressed the populace;

and as the audience, so was the speech. No wonder that the reputable

political author shunned a dress which implied that he had directed

his words to the crowd assembled in the market-place of the capital.

Rise of A Literature of Pleadings

Cicero

While the composition of orations thus declined from its former

literary and political value in the same way as all branches

of literature which were the natural growth of the national life,

there began at the same time a singular, non-political, literature

of pleadings. Hitherto the Romans had known nothing of the idea

that the address of an advocate as such was destined not only

for the judges and the parties, but also for the literary edification

of contemporaries and posterity; no advocate had written down

and published his pleadings, unless they were possibly at the same time

political orations and in so far were fitted to be circulated

as party writings, and this had not occurred very frequently.

Even Quintus Hortensius (640-704), the most celebrated Roman advocate

in the first years of this period, published but few speeches

and these apparently only such as were wholly or half political.

It was his successor in the leadership of the Roman bar,

Marcus Tullius Cicero (648-711) who was from the outset quite as much

author as forensic orator; he published his pleadings regularly,

even when they were not at all or but remotely connected

with politics. This was a token, not of progress, but of an unnatural

and degenerate state of things. Even in Athens the appearance

of non-political pleadings among the forms of literature was a sign

of debility; and it was doubly so in Rome, which did not,

like Athens, by a sort of necessity produce this malformation

from the exaggerated pursuit of rhetoric, but borrowed it

from abroad arbitrarily and in antagonism to the better traditions

of the nation. Yet this new species of literature came rapidly

into vogue, partly because it had various points of contact

and coincidence with the earlier authorship of political orations,

partly because the unpoetic, dogmatical, rhetorizing temperament

of the Romans offered a favourable soil for the new seed, as indeed

at the present day the speeches of advocates and even a sort

of literature of law-proceedings are of some importance in Italy.

His Character

Thus oratorical authorship emancipated from politics

was naturalized in the Roman literary world by Cicero.

We have already had occasion several times to mention

this many-sided man. As a statesman without insight, idea,

or purpose, he figured successively as democrat, as aristocrat,

and as a tool of the monarchs, and was never more than

a short-sighted egotist. Where he exhibited the semblance of action,

the questions to which his action applied had, as a rule,

just reached their solution; thus he came forward in the trial

of Verres against the senatorial courts when they were already

set aside; thus he was silent at the discussion on the Gabinian,

and acted as a champion of the Manilian, law; thus he thundered

against Catilina when his departure was already settled,

and so forth. He was valiant in opposition to sham attacks,

and he knocked down many walls of pasteboard with a loud din;

no serious matter was ever, either in good or evil, decided by him,

and the execution of the Catilinarians in particular was far more

due to his acquiescence than to his instigation. In a literary

point of view we have already noticed that he was the creator

of the modern Latin prose;(34) his importance rests on his mastery

of style, and it is only as a stylist that he shows confidence

in himself. In the character of an author, on the other hand,

he stands quite as low as in that of a statesman. He essayed

the most varied tasks, sang the great deeds of Marius

and his own petty achievements in endless hexameters,

beat Demosthenes off the field with his speeches, and Plato

with his philosophic dialogues; and time alone was wanting for him

to vanquish also Thucydides. He was in fact so thoroughly a dabbler,

that it was pretty much a matter of indifference to what work

he applied his hand. By nature a journalist in the worst

sense of that term--abounding, as he himself says, in words,

poor beyond all conception in ideas--there was no department

in which he could not with the help of a few books have rapidly got up

by translation or compilation a readable essay. His correspondence

mirrors most faithfully his character. People are in the habit

of calling it interesting and clever; and it is so, as long as

it reflects the urban or villa life of the world of quality;

but where the writer is thrown on his own resources, as in exile,

in Cilicia, and after the battle of Pharsalus, it is stale

and emptyas was ever the soul of a feuilletonist banished from his

familiar circles. It is scarcely needful to add that such a statesman

and such a -litterateur- could not, as a man, exhibit aught else

than a thinly varnished superficiality and heart-lessness.

Must we still describe the orator? The great author is also a great man;

and in the great orator more especially conviction or passion

flows forth with a clearer and more impetuous stream from the depths

of the breast than in the scantily-gifted many who merely count

and are nothing. Cicero had no conviction and no passion;

he was nothing but an advocate, and not a good one. He understood

how to set forth his narrative of the case with piquancy of anecdote,

to excite, if not the feeling, at any rate the sentimentality

of his hearers, and to enliven the dry business of legal pleading

by cleverness or witticisms mostly of a personal sort;

his better orations, though they are far from coming up to the free

gracefulness and the sure point of the most excellent compositions

of this sort, for instance the Memoirs of Beaumarchais, yet form

easy and agreeable reading. But while the very advantages

just indicated will appear to the serious judge as advantages

of very dubious value, the absolute want of political discernment

in the orations on constitutional questions and of juristic deduction

in the forensic addresses, the egotism forgetful of its duty

and constantly losing sight of the cause while thinking

of the advocate, the dreadful barrenness of thought in the Ciceronian

orations must revolt every reader of feeling and judgment.

Ciceronianism

If there is anything wonderful in the case, it is in truth

not the orations, but the admiration which they excited. As to Cicero

every unbiassed person will soon make up his mind: Ciceronianism

is a problem, which in fact cannot be properly solved, but can only

be resolved into that greater mystery of human nature--language

and the effect of language on the mind. Inasmuch as the noble Latin

language, just before it perished as a national idiom, was once more

as it were comprehensively grasped by that dexterous stylist

and deposited in his copious writings, something of the power

which language exercises, and of the piety which it awakens,

was transferred to the unworthy vessel. The Romans possessed

no great Latin prose-writer; for Caesar was, like Napoleon,

only incidentally an author. Was it to be wondered at that,

in the absence of such an one, they should at least honour the genius

of the language in the great stylist? And that, like Cicero himself,

Cicero's readers also should accustom themselves to ask not what,

but how he had written? Custom and the schoolmaster then completed

what the power of language had begun.

Opposition to Ciceronianism

Calvus and His Associates

Cicero's contemporaries however were, as may readily be conceived,

far less involved in this strange idolatry than many of their successors.

The Ciceronian manner ruled no doubt throughout a generation

the Roman advocate-world, just as the far worse manner of Hortensius

had done; but the most considerable men, such as Caesar,

kept themselves always aloof from it, and among the younger

generation there arose in all men of fresh and living talent

the most decided opposition to that hybrid and feeble rhetoric.

They found Cicero's language deficient in precision and chasteness,

his jests deficient in liveliness, his arrangement deficient

in clearness and articulate division, and above all his whole eloquence

wanting in the fire which makes the orator. Instead of the Rhodian

eclectics men began to recur to the genuine Attic orators

especially to Lysias and Demosthenes, and sought to naturalize

a more vigorous and masculine eloquence in Rome. Representatives

of this tendency were, the solemn but stiff Marcus Junius Brutus

(669-712); the two political partisans Marcus Caelius Rufus

(672-706;(35)) and Gaius Scribonius Curio (d. 705(36);)--

both as orators full of spirit and life; Calvus well known

also as a poet (672-706), the literary coryphaeus of this younger

group of orators; and the earnest and conscientious Gaius Asinius Pollio

(678-757). Undeniably there was more taste and more spirit

in this younger oratorical literature than in the Hortensian

and Ciceronian put together; but we are not able to judge how far,

amidst the storms of the revolution which rapidly swept away the whole

of this richly-gifted group with the single exception of Pollio,

those better germs attained development. The time allotted to them

was but too brief. The new monarchy began by making war on freedom

of speech, and soon wholly suppressed the political oration.

Thenceforth the subordinate species of the pure advocate-pleading

was doubtless still retained in literature; but the higher art

and literature of oratory, which thoroughly depend on political

excitement, perished with the latter of necessity and for ever.

The Artificial Dialogue Applied to the Professional Sciences

Cicero's Dialogues

Lastly there sprang up in the aesthetic literature of this period

the artistic treatment of subjects of professional science

in the form of the stylistic dialogue, which had been very extensively

in use among the Greeks and had been already employed also

in isolated cases among the Romans.(37) Cicero especially made

various attempts at presenting rhetorical and philosophical subjects

in this form and making the professional manual a suitable book

for reading. His chief writings are the -De Oratore- (written in 699),

to which the history of Roman eloquence (the dialogue -Brutus-,

written in 708) and other minor rhetorical essays were added

by way of supplement; and the treatise -De Republica- (written in 700),

with which the treatise -De Legibus- (written in 702?) after the model

of Plato is brought into connection. They are no great works

of art, but undoubtedly they are the works in which the excellences

of the author are most, and his defects least, conspicuous.

The rhetorical writings are far from coming up to the didactic

chasteness of form and precision of thought of the Rhetoric

dedicated to Herennius, but they contain instead a store

of practical forensic experience and forensic anecdotes of all sorts

easily and tastefully set forth, and in fact solve the problem

of combining didactic instruction with amusement. The treatise

-De Republica- carries out, in a singular mongrel compound of history

and philosophy, the leading idea that the existing constitution

of Rome is substantially the ideal state-organization sought for

by the philosophers; an idea indeed just as unphilosophical

as unhistorical, and besides not even peculiar to the author,

but which, as may readily be conceived, became and remained popular.

The scientific groundwork of these rhetorical and political

writings of Cicero belongs of course entirely to the Greeks,

and many of the details also, such as the grand concluding effect

in the treatise -De Republica- the Dream of Scipio, are directly

borrowed from them; yet they possess comparative originality,

inasmuch as the elaboration shows throughout Roman local colouring,

and the proud consciousness of political life, which the Roman

was certainly entitled to feel as compared with the Greeks,

makes the author even confront his Greek instructors with a certain

independence. The form of Cicero's dialogue is doubtless neither

the genuine interrogative dialectics of the best Greek artificial

dialogue nor the genuine conversational tone of Diderot or Lessing;

but the great groups of advocates gathering around Crassus

and Antonius and of the older and younger statesmen of the Scipionic

circle furnish a lively and effective framework, fitting channels

for the introduction of historical references and anecdotes,

and convenient resting-points for the scientific discussion.

The style is quite as elaborate and polished as in the best-written

orations, and so far more pleasing than these, since the author

does not often in this field make a vain attempt at pathos.

While these rhetorical and political writings of Cicero

with a philosophic colouring are not devoid of merit, the compiler

on the other hand completely failed, when in the involuntary leisure

of the last years of his life (709-710) he applied himself

to philosophy proper, and with equal peevishness and precipitation

composed in a couple of months a philosophical library. The receipt

was very simple. In rude imitation of the popular writings

of Aristotle, in which the form of dialogue was employed

chiefly for the setting forth and criticising of the different

older systems, Cicero stitched together the Epicurean, Stoic,

and Syncretist writings handling the same problem, as they came

or were given to his hand, into a so-called dialogue. And all

that he did on his own part was, to supply an introduction prefixed

to the new book from the ample collection of prefaces for future works

which he had beside him; to impart a certain popular character,

inasmuch as he interwove Roman examples and references, and sometimes

digressed to subjects irrelevant but more familiar to the writer

and the reader, such as the treatment of the deportment

of the orator in the -De Officiis-; and to exhibit that sort

of bungling, which a man of letters, who has not attained to philosophic

thinking or even to philosophic knowledge and who works rapidly

and boldly, shows in the reproduction of dialectic trains of thought.

In this way no doubt a multitude of thick tomes might very quickly

come into existence--"They are copies," wrote the author himself

to a friend who wondered at his fertility; "they give me little trouble,

for I supply only the words and these I have in abundance."

Against this nothing further could be said; but any one who seeks

classical productions in works so written can only be advised to study

in literary matters a becoming silence.

Professional Sciences.

Latin Philology

Varro

Of the sciences only a single one manifested vigorous life,

that of Latin philology. The scheme of linguistic and antiquarian

research within the domain of the Latin race, planned by Silo,

was carried out especially by his disciple Varro on the grandest scale.

There appeared comprehensive elaborations of the whole stores

of the language, more especially the extensive grammatical commentaries

of Figulus and the great work of Varro -De Lingua Latina-;

monographs on grammar and the history of the language, such as

Varro's writings on the usage of the Latin language, on synonyms,

on the age of the letters, on the origin of the Latin tongue;

scholia on the older literature, especially on Plautus;

works of literary history, biographies of poets, investigations

into the earlier drama, into the scenic division of the comedies

of Plautus, and into their genuineness. Latin archaeology,

which embraced the whole older history and the ritual law apart

from practical jurisprudence, was comprehended in Varro's "Antiquities

of Things Human and Divine," which was and for all times remained

the fundamental treatise on the subject (published between 687

and 709). The first portion, "Of Things Human," described the primeval

age of Rome, the divisions of city and country, the sciences

of the years, months, and days, lastly, the public transactions

at home and in war; in the second half, "Of Things Divine," the state-

theology, the nature and significance of the colleges of experts,

of the holy places, of the religious festivals, of sacrificial

and votive gifts, and lastly of the gods themselves were summarily

unfolded. Moreover, besides a number of monographs--

e. g. on the descent of the Roman people, on the Roman gentes

descended from Troy, on the tribes--there was added, as a larger

and more independent supplement, the treatise "Of the Life

of the Roman People"--a remarkable attempt at a history of Roman manners,

which sketched a picture of the state of domestic life, finance,

and culture in the regal, the early republican, the Hannibalic,

and the most recent period. These labours of Varro were based

on an empiric knowledge of the Roman world and its adjacent Hellenic

domain more various and greater in its kind than any other Roman

either before or after him possessed--a knowledge to which living

observation and the study of literature alike contributed.

The eulogy of his contemporaries was well deserved, that Varro

had enabled his countrymen--strangers in their own world--to know

their position in their native land, and had taught the Romans

who and where they were. But criticism and system will be sought for

in vain. His Greek information seems to have come from somewhat

confused sources, and there are traces that even in the Roman field

the writer was not free from the influence of the historical

romance of his time. The matter is doubtless inserted

in a convenient and symmetrical framework, but not classified

or treated methodically; and with all his efforts to bring tradition

and personal observation into harmony, the scientific labours of Varro

are not to be acquitted of a certain implicit faith in tradition

or of an unpractical scholasticism.(38) The connection with Greek

philology consists in the imitation of its defects more than

of its excellences; for instance, the basing of etymologies

on mere similarity of sound both in Varro himself and in the other

philologues of this epoch runs into pure guesswork and often

into downright absurdity.(39) In its empiric confidence

and copiousness as well as in its empiric inadequacy and want of method

the Varronian vividly reminds us of the English national philology,

and just like the latter, finds its centre in the study

of the older drama. We have already observed that the monarchical

literature developed the rules of language in contradistinction

to this linguistic empiricism.(40) It is in a high degree significant

that there stands at the head of the modern grammarians no less a man

than Caesar himself, who in his treatise on Analogy (given forth

between 696 and 704) first undertook to bring free language

under the power of law.

The Other Professional Sciences

Alongside of this extraordinary stir in the field of philology

The small amount of activity in the other sciences is surprising.

What appeared of importance in philosophy--such as Lucretius'

representation of the Epicurean system in the poetical child-dress

of the pre-Socratic philosophy, and the better writings of Cicero--

produced its effect and found its audience not through its

philosophic contents, but in spite of such contents solely

through its aesthetic form; the numerous translations of Epicurean

writings and the Pythagorean works, such as Varro's great treatise

on the Elements of Numbers and the still more copious one of Figulus

concerning the Gods, had beyond doubt neither scientific

nor formal value.

Even the professional sciences were but feebly cultivated. Varro's

Books on Husbandry written in the form of dialogue are no doubt

more methodical than those of his predecessors Cato and Saserna--

on which accordingly he drops many a side glance of censure--

but have on the whole proceeded more from the study than, like those

earlier works, from living experience. Of the juristic labours of Varro

and of Servius Sulpicius Rufus (consul in 703) hardly aught more

can be said, than that they contributed to the dialectic

and philosophical embellishment of Roman jurisprudence. And there is

nothing farther here to be mentioned, except perhaps the three

books of Gaius Matius on cooking, pickling, and making preserves--

so far as we know, the earliest Roman cookery-book, and, as the work

of a man of rank, certainly a phenomenon deserving of notice.

That mathematics and physics were stimulated by the increased

Hellenistic and utilitarian tendencies of the monarchy, is apparent

from their growing importance in the instruction of youth (41)

and from various practical applications; under which, besides

the reform of the calendar,(42) may perhaps be included the appearance

of wall-maps at this period, the technical improvements

in shipbuilding and in musical instruments, designs and buildings

like the aviary specified by Varro, the bridge of piles over the Rhine

executed by the engineers of Caesar, and even two semicircular

stages of boards arranged for being pushed together, and employed

first separately as two theatres and then jointly as an amphitheatre.

The public exhibition of foreign natural curiosities at the popular

festivals was not unusual; and the descriptions of remarkable animals,

which Caesar has embodied in the reports of his campaigns,

show that, had an Aristotle appeared, he would have again

found his patron-prince. But such literary performances

as are mentioned in this department are essentially associated

with Neopythagoreanism, such as the comparison of Greek and Barbarian,

i. e. Egyptian, celestial observations by Figulus, and his writings

concerning animals, winds, and generative organs. After Greek

physical research generally had swerved from the Aristotelian effort

to find amidst individual facts the law, and had more and more

passed into an empiric and mostly uncritical observation of the external

and surprising in nature, natural science when coming forward

as a mystical philosophy of nature, instead of enlightening

and stimulating, could only still more stupefy and paralyze;

and in presence of such a method it was better to rest satisfied

with the platitude which Cicero delivers as Socratic wisdom,

that the investigation of nature either seeks after things

which nobody can know, or after such things as nobody needs to know.

Art

Architecture

If, in fine, we cast a glance at art, we discover here

the same unpleasing phenomena which pervade the whole mental life

of this period. Building on the part of the state was virtually

brought to a total stand amidst the scarcity of money that marked

the last age of the republic. We have already spoken of the luxury

in building of the Roman grandees; the architects learned in consequence

of this to be lavish of marble--the coloured sorts such as

the yellow Numidian (Giallo antico) and others came into vogue

at this time, and the marble-quarries of Luna (Carrara)

were now employed for the first time--and began to inlay the floors

of the rooms with mosaic work, to panel the walls with slabs of marble,

or to paint the compartments in imitation of marble--the first steps

towards the subsequent fresco-painting. But art was not a gainer

by this lavish magnificence.

Arts of Design

In the arts of design connoisseurship and collecting were always

on the increase. It was a mere affectation of Catonian simplicity,

when an advocate spoke before the jurymen of the works of art

"of a certain Praxiteles"; every one travelled and inspected,

and the trade of the art-ciceroni, or, as they were then called,

the -exegetae-, was none of the worst. Ancient works of art

were formally hunted after--statues and pictures less, it is true,

than, in accordance with the rude character of Roman luxury,

artistically wrought furniture and ornaments of all sorts for the room

and the table. As early as that age the old Greek tombs of Capua

and Corinth were ransacked for the sake of the bronze and earthenware

vessels which had been placed in the tomb along with the dead.

for a small statuette of bronze 40,000 sesterces (400 pounds)

were paid, and 200,000 (2000 pounds) for a pair of costly carpets;

a well-wrought bronze cooking machine came to cost more than

an estate. In this barbaric hunting after art the rich amateur was,

as might be expected, frequently cheated by those who supplied him;

but the economic ruin of Asia Minor in particular so exceedingly rich

in artistic products brought many really ancient and rare ornaments

and works of art into the market, and from Athens, Syracuse,

Cyzicus, Pergamus, Chios, Samos, and other ancient seats of art,

everything that was for sale and very much that was not migrated

to the palaces and villas of the Roman grandees. We have

already mentioned what treasures of art were to be found within

the house of Lucullus, who indeed was accused, perhaps not unjustly,

of having gratified his interest in the fine arts at the expense

of his duties as a general. The amateurs of art crowded thither

as they crowd at present to the Villa Borghese, and complained

even then of such treasures being confined to the palaces

and country-houses of the men of quality, where they could be seen

only with difficulty and after special permission from the possessor.

The public buildings on the other hand were far from filled

in like proportion with famous works of Greek masters,

and in many cases there still stood in the temples of the capital

nothing but the old images of the gods carved in wood.

As to the exercise of art there is virtually nothing to report;

there is hardly mentioned by name from this period any Roman sculptor

or painter except a certain Arellius, whose pictures rapidly went off

not on account of their artistic value, but because the cunning reprobate

furnished, in his pictures of the goddesses faithful portraits

of his mistresses for the time being.

Dancing and Music

The importance of music and dancing increased in public

as in domestic life. We have already set forth how theatrical music

and the dancing-piece attained to an independent standing

in the development of the stage at this period;(43) we may add

that now in Rome itself representations were very frequently given

by Greek musicians, dancers, and declaimers on the public stage--

such as were usual in Asia Minor and generally in the whole Hellenic

and Hellenizing world.(44) To these fell to be added the musicians

and dancing-girls who exhibited their arts to order at table

and elsewhere, and the special choirs of stringed and wind instruments

and singers which were no longer rare in noble houses. But that even

the world of quality itself played and sang with diligence, is shown

by the very adoption of music into the cycle of the generally

recognized subjects of instruction;(45) as to dancing, it was,

to say nothing of women, made matter of reproach even against

consulars that they exhibited themselves in dancing performances

amidst a small circle.

Incipient Influence of the Monarchy

Towards the end of this period, however, there appears

with the commencement of the monarchy the beginning of a better time

also in art. We have already mentioned the mighty stimulus

which building in the capital received, and building throughout

the empire was destined to receive, through Caesar. Even in the cutting

of the dies of the coins there appears about 700 a remarkable change;

the stamping, hitherto for the most part rude and negligent,

is thenceforward managed with more delicacy and care.

Conclusion

We have reached the end of the Roman republic. We have seen

it rule for five hundred years in Italy and in the countries

on the Mediterranean; we have seen it brought to ruin in politics

and morals, religion and literature, not through outward violence

but through inward decay, and thereby making room for the new monarchy

of Caesar. There was in the world, as Caesar found it, much

of the noble heritage of past centuries and an infinite abundance of pomp

and glory, but little spirit, still less taste, and least of all

true delight in life. It was indeed an old world; and even

the richly-gifted patriotism of Caesar could not make it young again.

The dawn does not return till after the night has fully set in

and run its course. But yet with him there came to the sorely harassed

peoples on the Mediterranean a tolerable evening after the sultry noon;

and when at length after a long historical night the new day dawned

once more for the peoples, and fresh nations in free self-movement

commenced their race towards new and higher goals, there were found

among them not a few, in which the seed sown by Caesar had sprung up,

and which owed, as they still owe, to him their national individuality.

Notes for Chapter I

1. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts, 527

2. It is a significant trait, that a distinguished teacher of

literature, the freedman Staberius Eros, allowed the children of

the proscribed to attend his course gratuitously.

3. IV. X. Proscription-Lists

4. IV. IX. Pompeius

5. IV. IV. Administration under the Restoration

6. IV. IV. Livius Drusus

7. IV. IX. Government of Cinna

8. IV. IX. Pompeius

9. IV. IX. Sertorius Embarks

10. IV. VII. Strabo, IV. IX. Dubious Attitude of Strabo

11. IV. IX. Carbo Assailed on Three Sides of Etruria

12. IV. VII. Rejection of the Proposals for an Accomodation

13. IV. X. Reorganization of the Senate

14. It is usual to set down the year 654 as that of Caesar's

birth, because according to Suetonius (Caes. 88), Plutarch (Caes.

69), and Appian (B. C. ii. 149) he was at his death (15 March 710)

in his 56th year; with which also the statement that he was 18

years old at the time of the Sullan proscription (672; Veil. ii.

41) nearly accords. But this view is utterly inconsistent with

the facts that Caesar filled the aedileship in 689, the praetorship in

692, and the consulship in 695, and that these offices could,

according to the -leges annales-, be held at the very earliest in

the 37th-38th, 40th-41st, and 43rd-44th years of a man's life

respectively. We cannot conceive why Caesar should have filled all

the curule offices two years before the legal time, and still less

why there should be no mention anywhere of his having done so.

These facts rather suggest the conjecture that, as his birthday

fell undoubtedly on July 12, he was born not in 654, but in 652; so

that in 672 he was in his 20th-21st year, and he died not in his

56th year, but at the age of 57 years 8 months. In favour of this

latter view we may moreover adduce the circumstance, which has been

strangely brought forward in opposition to it, that Caesar "-paene

puer-" was appointed by Marius and Cinna as Flamen of Jupiter

(Veil. ii. 43); for Marius died in January 668, when Caesar was,

according to the usual view, 13 years 6 months old, and therefore

not "almost," as Velleius says, but actually still a boy, and most

probably for this very reason not at all capable of holding such

a priesthood. If, again, he was born in July 652, he was at

the death of Marius in his sixteenth year; and with this the expression

in Velleius agrees, as well as the general rule that civil

positions were not assumed before the expiry of the age of boyhood.

Further, with this latter view alone accords the fact that

the -denarii- struck by Caesar about the outbreak of the civil war are

marked with the number LII, probably the year of his life; for

when it began, Caesar's age was according to this view somewhat

over 52 years. Nor is it so rash as it appears to us who are

accustomed to regular and official lists of births, to charge our

authorities with an error in this respect. Those four statements

may very well be all traceable to a common source; nor can they at

all lay claim to any very high credibility, seeing that for

the earlier period before the commencement of the -acta diurna-

the statements as to the natal years of even the best known and most

prominent Romans, e. g. as to that of Pompeius, vary in the most

surprising manner. (Comp. Staatsrecht, I. 8 p. 570.)

In the Life of Caesar by Napoleon III (B. 2, ch. 1) it is objected

to this view, first, that the -lex annalis- would point for

Caesar's birth-year not to 652, but to 651; secondly and

especially, that other cases are known where it was not attended

to. But the first assertion rests on a mistake; for, as

the example of Cicero shows, the -lex annalis- required only that at

the entering on office the 43rd year should be begun, not that it

should be completed. None of the alleged exceptions to the rule,

moreover, are pertinent. When Tacitus (Ann. xi. 22) says that

formerly in conferring magistracies no regard was had to age, and

that the consulate and dictatorship were entrusted to quite young

men, he has in view, of course, as all commentators acknowledge,

the earlier period before the issuing of the -leges annales---the

consulship of M. Valerius Corvus at twenty-three, and similar

cases. The assertion that Lucullus received the supreme magistracy

before the legal age is erroneous; it is only stated (Cicero, Acad.

pr. i. 1) that on the ground of an exceptional clause not more

particularly known to us, in reward for some sort of act performed

by him, he had a dispensation from the legal two years' interval

between the aedileship and praetorship--in reality he was aedile in

675, probably praetor in 677, consul in 680. That the case of

Pompeius was a totally different one is obvious; but even as to

Pompeius, it is on several occasions expressly stated (Cicero, de

Imp. Pomp, ax, 62; Appian, iii. 88) that the senate released him

from the laws as to age. That this should have been done with

Pompeius, who had solicited the consulship as a commander-in-chief

crowned with victory and a triumphator, at the head of an army and

after his coalition with Crassus also of a powerful party, we can

readily conceive. But it would be in the highest degree

surprising, if the same thing should have been done with Caesar on

his candidature for the minor magistracies, when he was of little

more importance than other political beginners; and it would be, if

possible, more surprising still, that, while there is mention of

that--in itself readily understood--exception, there should be no

notice of this more than strange deviation, however naturally such

notices would have suggested themselves, especially with reference

to Octavianus consul at 21 (comp., e. g., Appian, iii. 88). When

from these irrelevant examples the inference is drawn, "that

the law was little observed in Rome, where distinguished men were

concerned," anything more erroneous than this sentence was never

uttered regarding Rome and the Romans. The greatness of the Roman

commonwealth, and not less that of its great generals and

statesmen, depends above all things on the fact that the law held

good in their case also.

15. IV. IX. Spain

16. At least the outline of these organizations must be assigned

to the years 674, 675, 676, although the execution of them

doubtless belonged, in great part, only to the subsequent years.

17 IV. IX. The Provinces

18. The following narrative rests substantially on the account of

Licinianus, which, fragmentary as it is at this very point, still

gives important information as to the insurrection of Lepidus.

19. Under the year 676 Licinianus states (p. 23, Pertz; p. 42,

Bonn); [Lepidus?] -[le]gem frumentari[am] nullo resistente

l[argi]tus est, ut annon[ae] quinque modi popu[lo da]rentur-.

According to this account, therefore, the law of the consuls of 681

Marcus Terentius Lucullus and Gaius Cassius Varus, which Cicero

mentions (in Verr. iii. 70, 136; v. 21, 52), and to which also

Sallust refers (Hist. iii. 61, 19 Dietsch), did not first reestablish

the five -modii-, but only secured the largesses of grain by

regulating the purchases of Sicilian corn, and perhaps made

various alterations of detail. That the Sempronian law

(IV. III. Alterations on the Constitution By Gaius Gracchus)

allowed every burgess domiciled in Rome to share in the largesses

of grain, is certain. But the later distribution of grain was not

so extensive as this, for, seeing that the monthly corn of

the Roman burgesses amounted to little more than 33,000 -medimni- =

198,000 -modii- (Cic. Verr. iii. 30, 72), only some 40,000

burgesses at that time received grain, whereas the number of

burgesses domiciled in the capital was certainly far more

considerable. This arrangement probably proceeded from

the Octavian law, which introduced instead of the extravagant

Sempronian amount "a moderate largess, tolerable for the state and

necessary for the common people" (Cic. de Off. ii. 21, 72, Brut.

62, 222); and to all appearance it is this very law that is

the -lex frumentaria- mentioned by Licinianus. That Lepidus should have

entered into such a proposal of compromise, accords with his attitude

as regards the restoration of the tribunate. It is likewise in

keeping with the circumstances that the democracy should find itself

not at all satisfied by the regulation, brought about in this way,

of the distribution of grain (Sallust, l. c.). The amount of loss

is calculated on the basis of the grain being worth at least double

(IV. III. Alterations on the Constitution By Gaius Gracchus);

when piracy or other causes drove up the price of grain,

a far more considerable loss must have resulted.

20. From the fragments of the account of Licinianus (p. 44, Bonn)

it is plain that the decree of the senate, -uti Lepidus et Catulus

decretis exercitibus maturrime proficiscerentur- (Sallust, Hist. i.

44 Dietsch), is to be understood not of a despatch of the consuls

before the expiry of their consulship to their proconsular

provinces, for which there would have been no reason, but of their

being sent to Etruria against the revolted Faesulans, just as in

the Catilinarian war the consul Gaius Antonius was despatched to

the same quarter. The statement of Philippus in Sallust (Hist. i.

48, 4) that Lepidus -ob seditionem provinciam cum exercitu adeptus

est-, is entirely in harmony with this view; for the extraordinary

consular command in Etruria was just as much a -provincia- as

the ordinary proconsular command in Narbonese Gaul.

21. III. IV. Hannibal's Passage of the Alps

22. In the recently found fragments of Sallust, which appear to

belong to the campaign of 679, the following words relate to this

incident: -Romanus [exer]citus (of Pompeius) frumenti gra[tia

r]emotus in Vascones i... [it]emque Sertorius mon... e, cuius

multum in[terer]it, ne ei perinde Asiae [iter et Italiae

intercluderetur].

Notes for Chapter II

1. IV. VIII. New Difficulties

2. IV. VIII. Preliminaries of Delium, IV. VIII. Peace at Dardanus

3. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates

4. IV. I. Cilicia

5. IV. I. Piracy

6. IV. I. Crete

7. The foundation of the kingdom of Edessa is placed by native

chronicles in 620 (IV. I. The Parthian Empire), but it was not till

some time after its rise that it passed into the hands of the Arabic

dynasty bearing the names of Abgarus and Mannus, which we afterwards

find there. This dynasty is obviously connected with the settlement

of many Arabs by Tigranes the Great in the region of Edessa,

Callirrhoe, Carrhae (Plin. H. N. v. 20, 85; ax, 86; vi. 28, 142);

respecting which Plutarch also (Luc. 21) states that Tigranes,

changing the habits of the tent-Arabs, settled them nearer to his

kingdom in order by their means to possess himself of the trade.

We may presumably take this to mean that the Bedouins, who were

accustomed to open routes for traffic through their territory and

to levy on these routes fixed transit-dues (Strabo, xvi. 748), were

to serve the great-king as a sort of toll-supervisors, and to levy

tolls for him and themselves at the passage of the Euphrates.

These "Osrhoenian Arabs" (-Orei Arabes-), as Pliny calls them,

must also be the Arabs on Mount Amanus, whom Afranius subdued

(Plut. Pomp. 39).

8. The disputed question, whether this alleged or real testament

proceeded from Alexander I (d. 666) or Alexander II (d. 673), is

usually decided in favour of the former alternative. But

the reasons are inadequate; for Cicero (de L. Agr. i. 4, 12; 15, 38;

16, 41) does not say that Egypt fell to Rome in 666, but that it

did so in or after this year; and while the circumstance that

Alexander I died abroad, and Alexander II in Alexandria, has led

some to infer that the treasures mentioned in the testament in

question as lying in Tyre must have belonged to the former, they

have overlooked that Alexander II was killed nineteen days after

his arrival in Egypt (Letronne, Inscr, de I'Egypte, ii. 20), when

his treasure might still very well be in Tyre. On the other hand

the circumstance that the second Alexander was the last genuine

Lagid is decisive, for in the similar acquisitions of Pergamus,

Cyrene, and Bithynia it was always by the last scion of

the legitimate ruling family that Rome was appointed heir. The ancient

constitutional law, as it applied at least to the Roman client-

states, seems to have given to the reigning prince the right of

ultimate disposal of his kingdom not absolutely, but only in

the absence of -agnati- entitled to succeed. Comp. Gutschmid's remark

in the German translation of S. Sharpe's History of Egypt, ii. 17.

Whether the testament was genuine or spurious, cannot be ascertained,

and is of no great moment; there are no special reasons for

assuming a forgery.

9. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates

10. IV. VIII. Cyrene Roman

11. V. I. Collapse of the Power of Sertorius

12. IV. IV. The Provinces

13. IV. VIII. Lucullus and the Fleet on the Asiatic Coast

14. IV. VIII. Flaccus Arrives in Asia

15. III. V. Attitude of the Romans, III. VI. The African Expedition

of Scipio

16. That Tigranocerta was situated in the region of Mardln some

two days' march to the west of Nisibis, has been proved by

the investigation instituted on the spot by Sachau ("-Ueber die Lage

von Tigranokerta-," Abh. der Berliner Akademie, 1880), although

the more exact fixing of the locality proposed by Sachau is not beyond

doubt. On the other hand, his attempt to clear up the campaign of

Lucullus encounters the difficulty that, on the route assumed in

it, a crossing of the Tigris is in reality out of the question.

17. Cicero (De Imp. Pomp. 9, 23) hardly means any other than one

of the rich temples of the province Elymais, whither the predatory

expeditions of the Syrian and Parthian kings were regularly

directed (Strabo, xvi. 744; Polyb, xxxi. 11. 1 Maccab. 6, etc.),

and probably this as the best known; on no account can

the allusion be to the temple of Comana or any shrine at all in

the kingdom of Pontus.

18. V. II. Preparations of Mithradates, 328, 334

19. V. II. Invasion of Pontus by Lucullus

20. V. II. Roman Preparations

21. V. I. Want of Leaders

22. V. II. Maritime War

23. IV. I. Crete

24. IV. II. The First Sicilian Slave War, IV. IV. Revolts of the Slaves

25. These enactments gave rise to the conception of robbery

as a separate crime, while the older law comprehended robbery

under theft.

26. V. II. The Pirates in the Mediterranean

27. As the line was thirty-five miles long (Sallust, Hist, iv, 19,

Dietsch; Plutarch, Crass. 10), it probably passed not from

Squillace to Pizzo, but more to the north, somewhere near

Castrovillari and Cassano, over the peninsula which is here in

a straight line about twenty-seven miles broad.

28. That Crassus was invested with the supreme command in 682,

follows from the setting aside of the consuls (Plutarch, Crass.

10); that the winter of 682-683 was spent by the two armies at

the Bruttian wall, follows from the "snowy night" (Plut. l. c).

Notes for Chapter III

1. IV. X. Assignations to the Soldiers

2. V. I. Pompeius

3. IV. X. Abolition of the Gracchan Institutions

4. V. II. The Insurrection Takes Shape

5. V. III. Attacks on the Senatorial Tribunals

6. V. I. Insurrection of Lepidus

7. IV. X. Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges

8. V. II. Mutiny of the Soldiers

9. IV. IV. Marius Commander-in-Chief

10. The extraordinary magisterial power (-pro consule-, -pro

praetore-, -pro quaestore-) might according to Roman state-law

originate in three ways. Either it arose out of the principle

which held good for the non-urban magistracy, that the office

continued up to the appointed legal term, but the official

authority up to the arrival of the successor, which was the oldest,

simplest, and most frequent case. Or it arose in the way of

the appropriate organs--especially the comitia, and in later times also

perhaps the senate--nominating a chief magistrate not contemplated

in the constitution, who was otherwise on a parity with

the ordinary magistrate, but in token of the extraordinary nature of

his office designated himself merely "instead of a praetor" or "of

a consul." To this class belong also the magistrates nominated in

the ordinary way as quaestors, and then extraordinarily furnished

with praetorian or even consular official authority (-quaestores

pro praetore- or -pro consule-); in which quality, for example,

Publius Lentulus Marcellinus went in 679 to Cyrene (Sallust, Hist.

ii. 39 Dietsch), Gnaeus Piso in 689 to Hither Spain (Sallust, Cat.

19), and Cato in 696 to Cyprus (Vell. ii. 45). Or, lastly,

the extraordinary magisterial authority was based on the right of

delegation vested in the supreme magistrate. If he left the bounds

of his province or otherwise was hindered from administering his

office, he was entitled to nominate one of those about him as his

substitute, who was then called -legatus pro praetore-(Sallust,

lug. 36, 37, 38), or, if the choice fell on the quaestor, -quaestor

pro praetore- (Sallust, Iug. 103). In like manner he was entitled,

if he had no quaestor, to cause the quaestorial duties to be

discharged by one of his train, who was then called -legatus pro

quaestore-, a name which is to be met with, perhaps for the first

time, on the Macedonian tetradrachms of Sura, lieutenant of

the governor of Macedonia, 665-667. But it was contrary to the nature

of delegation and therefore according to the older state-law

inadmissible, that the supreme magistrate should, without having

met with any hindrance in the discharge of his functions,

immediately upon his entering on office invest one or more of

his subordinates with supreme official authority; and so far

the -legati pro praetore-of the proconsul Pompeius were an innovation,

and already similar in kind to those who played so great a part in

the times of the Empire.

11. V. III. Attempts to Restore the Tribunician Power

12. According to the legend king Romulus was torn in pieces

by the senators.

13. IV. II. Further Plans of Gracchus

Notes for Chapter IV

1. V. III. Senate, Equites, and Populares

2. V. II. Metellus Subdues Crete

3. [Literally "twenty German miles"; but the breadth of the island

does not seem in reality half so much.--Tr.]

4. V. II. Renewal of the War

5. Pompeius distributed among his soldiers and officers as

presents 384,000,000 sesterces (=16,000 talents, App. Mithr.

116); as the officers received 100,000,000 (Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 2,

16) and each of the common soldiers 6000 sesterces (Plin., App.),

the army still numbered at its triumph about 40,000 men.

6. V. II. Sieges of the Pontic Cities

7. V. II. All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans

8. V. II. Syria under Tigranes

9. V. II. Syria under Tigranes

10. IV. I. The Jews

11. V. II. Siege and Battle of Tigranocerta

12. Thus the Sadducees rejected the doctrine of angels and spirits

and the resurrection of the dead. Most of the traditional points

of difference between Pharisees and Sadducees relate to subordinate

questions of ritual, jurisprudence, and the calendar. It is

a characteristic fact, that the victorious Pharisees have introduced

those days, on which they definitively obtained the superiority in

particular controversies or ejected heretical members from

the supreme consistory, into the list of the memorial and festival

days of the nation.

13. V. II. All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans

14. V. II. Beginning of the Armenian War, V. II. All the Armenian

Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans

15. Pompeius spent the winter of 689-690 still in

the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea (Dio, xxxvii. 7). In 690 he first

reduced the last strongholds still offering resistance in

the kingdom of Pontus, and then moved slowly, regulating matters

everywhere, towards the south. That the organization of Syria

began in 690 is confirmed by the fact that the Syrian provincial

era begins with this year, and by Cicero's statement respecting

Commagene (Ad Q. fr. ii. 12, 2; comp. Dio, xxxvii. 7). During

the winter of 690-691 Pompeius seems to have had his headquarters in

Antioch (Joseph, xiv. 3, 1, 2, where the confusion has been

rectified by Niese in the Hermes, xi. p. 471).

16. III. V. New Warlike Preparations in Rome

17. III. IV. War Party and Peace Party in Carthage

18. Orosius indeed (vi. 6) and Dio (xxxvii. 15), both of them

doubtless following Livy, make Pompeius get to Petra and occupy

the city or even reach the Red Sea; but that he, on the contrary, soon

after receiving the news of the death of Mithradates, which came to

him on his march towards Jerusalem, returned from Syria to Pontus,

is stated by Plutarch (Pomp. 41, 42) and is confirmed by Floras (i.

39) and Josephus (xiv. 3, 3, 4). If king Aretas figures in

the bulletins among those conquered by Pompeius, this is

sufficiently accounted for by his withdrawal from Jerusalem

at the instigation of Pompeius.

19. V. II. Renewal of the War, V. IV. Variance between Mithradates

and Tigranes

20. This view rests on the narrative of Plutarch (Pomp. 36) which

is supported by Strabo's (xvi. 744) description of the position of

the satrap of Elymais. It is an embellishment of the matter, when

in the lists of the countries and kings conquered by Pompeius Media

and its king Darius are enumerated (Diodorus, Fr, Vat. p. 140;

Appian, Mithr. 117); and from this there has been further concocted

the war of Pompeius with the Medes (Veil. ii. 40; Appian, Mithr.

106, 114) and then even his expedition to Ecbatana (Oros. vi. 5).

A confusion with the fabulous town of the same name on Carmel has

hardly taken place here; it is simply that intolerable

exaggeration--apparently originating in the grandiloquent and

designedly ambiguous bulletins of Pompeius--which has converted his

razzia against the Gaetulians (p. 94) into a march to the west

coast of Africa (Plut. Pomp. 38), his abortive expedition against

the Nabataeans into a conquest of the city of Petra, and his award

as to the boundaries of Armenia into a fixing of the boundary of

the Roman empire beyond Nisibis.

21. The war which this Antiochus is alleged to have waged with

Pompeius (Appian, Mithr. 106, 117) is not very consistent with

the treaty which he concluded with Lucullus (Dio, xxxvi. 4), and his

undisturbed continuance in his sovereignty; presumably it has been

concocted simply from the circumstance, that Antiochus of Commagene

figured among the kings subdued by Pompeius.

22. To this Cicero's reproach presumably points (De Off. iii. 12,

49): -piratas immunes habemus, socios vectigales-; in so far,

namely, as those pirate-colonies probably had the privilege of

immunity conferred on them by Pompeius, while, as is well known,

the provincial communities dependent on Rome were, as a rule,

liable to taxation.

23. IV. VIII. Pontus

24. V. IV. Battle at Nicopolis

25. V. II. Defeat of the Romans in Pontus at Ziela

26. V. IV. Pompeius Take the Supreme Command against Mithradates

27. IV. VIII. Weak Counterpreparations of the Romans ff.

28. V. II. Egypt not Annexed

29. V. IV. Urban Communities

Notes for Chapter V

1. V. III. Renewal of the Censorship

2. IV. VI. Political Projects of Marius

3. IV. X. Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges

4. IV. VII. The Sulpician Laws

5. IV. X. Permanent and Special -Quaestiones-

6. IV. VI. And Overpowered

7. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts

8. Any one who surveys the whole state of the political relations

of this period will need no special proofs to help him to see that

the ultimate object of the democratic machinations in 688 et seq.

was not the overthrow of the senate, but that of Pompeius. Yet

such proofs are not wanting. Sallust states that the Gabinio-

Manilian laws inflicted a mortal blow on the democracy (Cat. 39);

that the conspiracy of 688-689 and the Servilian rogation were

specially directed against Pompeius, is likewise attested (Sallust

Cat. 19; Val. Max. vi. 2, 4; Cic. de Lege Agr. ii. 17, 46).

Besides the attitude of Crassus towards the conspiracy alone shows

sufficiently that it was directed against Pompeius.

9. V. V. Transpadanes

10. Plutarch, Crass. 13; Cicero, de Lege agr. ii. 17, 44. To this

year (689) belongs Cicero's oration -de rege Alexandrino-, which

has been incorrectly assigned to the year 698. In it Cicero

refutes, as the fragments clearly show, the assertion of Crassus,

that Egypt had been rendered Roman property by the testament of

king Alexander. This question of law might and must have been

discussed in 689; but in 698 it had been deprived of its

significance through the Julian law of 695. In 698 moreover

the discussion related not to the question to whom Egypt belonged, but

to the restoration of the king driven out by a revolt, and in this

transaction which is well known to us Crassus played no part.

Lastly, Cicero after the conference of Luca was not at all in

a position seriously to oppose one of the triumvirs.

11. V. IV. Pompeius Proceeds to Colchis

12. V. III. Attacks on the Senatorial Tribunals, V. III. Renewal

of the Censorship

13. The -Ambrani- (Suet. Caes. 9) are probably not the Ambrones

named along with the Cimbri (Plutarch, Mar. 19), but a slip of

the pen for -Arverni-.

14. This cannot well be expressed more naively than is done in

the memorial ascribed to his brother (de pet. cons. i, 5; 13, 51, 53;

in 690); the brother himself would hardly have expressed his mind

publicly with so much frankness. In proof of this unprejudiced

persons will read not without interest the second oration against

Rullus, where the "first democratic consul," gulling the friendly

public in a very delectable fashion, unfolds to it the "true democracy."

15. His epitaph still extant runs: -Cn. Calpurnius Cn. f. Piso

quaestor fro pr. ex s. c. proviniciam Hispaniam citeriorem optinuit-.

16. V. V. Failure of the First Plans of Conspiracy

17. V. III. Continued Subsistence of the Sullan Constitution

18. IV. XII. Priestly Colleges

19. IV. VII. Economic Crisis

20. V. V. Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius

21. Such an apology is the -Catilina- of Sallust, which was

published by the author, a notorious Caesarian, after the year 708,

either under the monarchy of Caesar or more probably under

the triumvirate of his heirs; evidently as a treatise with a political

drift, which endeavours to bring into credit the democratic party--

on which in fact the Roman monarchy was based--and to clear

Caesar's memory from the blackest stain that rested on it; and with

the collateral object of whitewashing as far as possible the uncle

of the triumvir Marcus Antonius (comp. e. g. c. 59 with Dio,

xxxvii. 39). The Jugurtha of the same author is in an exactly

similar way designed partly to expose the pitifulness of

the oligarchic government, partly to glorify the Coryphaeus of

the democracy, Gaius Marius. The circumstance that the adroit author

keeps the apologetic and inculpatory character of these writings of

his in the background, proves, not that they are not partisan

treatises, but that they are good ones.

22. V. XII. Greek Literati in Rome

Notes for Chapter VI

1. V. IV. Aggregate Results

2. The impression of the first address, which Pompeius made to

the burgesses after his return, is thus described by Cicero (ad Att. i.

14): -prima contio Pompei non iucunda miseris (the rabble), inanis

improbis (the democrats), beatis (the wealthy) non grata, bonis

(the aristocrats) non gravis; itaque frigebat-.

3. IV. X. Regulating of the Qualifications for Office

4. V. V. New Projects of the Conspirators

5. V. VI. Pompeius without Influence

6. IV. IX. Government of Cinna, IV. X. Punishments Inflicted

on Particular Communities

7. IV. XII. Oriental Religions in Italy

8. V. V. Transpadanes

9. IV. X. Cisalpine Gaul Erected into a Province

10. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed

11. IV. VI. Violent Proceedings in the Voting

12. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed

Notes for Chapter VII

1. IV. I. The Callaeci Conquered

2. IV. IX. Spain

3. V. I. Renewed Outbreak of the Spanish Insurrection

4. V. I. Pompeius in Gaul

5. V. I. Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War

6. V. V. Conviction and Arrest of the Conspirators in the Capital

7. V. I. Pompeius Puts and End to the Insurrection

8. IV. II. Scipio Aemilianus

9. There was found, for instance, at Vaison in the Vocontian

canton an inscription written in the Celtic language with

the ordinary Greek alphabet. It runs thus: --segouaros ouilloneos

tooutious namausatis eiorou beileisamisosin nemeiton--. The last

word means "holy."

10. An immigration of Belgic Celts to Britain continuing for

a considerable time seems indicated by the names of English tribes on

both banks of the Thames borrowed from Belgic cantons; such as

the Atrebates, the Belgae, and even the Britanni themselves, which word

appears to have been transferred from the Brittones settled on

the Somme below Amiens first to an English canton and then to the whole

island. The English gold coinage was also derived from the Belgic

and originally identical with it.

11. The first levy of the Belgic cantons exclusive of the Remi,

that is, of the country between the Seine and the Scheldt and

eastward as far as the vicinity of Rheims and Andernach, from 9000

to 10,000 square miles, is reckoned at about 300,000 men; in

accordance with which, if we regard the proportion of the first

levy to the whole men capable of bearing arms specified for

the Bellovaci as holding good generally, the number of the Belgae

capable of bearing arms would amount to 500,000 and the whole

population accordingly to at least 2,000,000. The Helvetii with

the adjoining peoples numbered before their migration 336,000; if

we assume that they were at that time already dislodged from

the right bank of the Rhine, their territory may be estimated at nearly

1350 square miles. Whether the serfs are included in this, we can

the less determine, as we do not know the form which slavery

assumed amongst the Celts; what Caesar relates (i. 4) as to

the slaves, clients, and debtors of Orgetorix tells rather in favour

of, than against, their being included.

That, moreover, every such attempt to make up by combinations for

the statistical basis, in which ancient history is especially

deficient, must be received with due caution, will be at once

apprehended by the intelligent reader, while he will not absolutely

reject it on that account.

12. "In the interior of Transalpine Gaul on the Rhine," says

Scrofa in Varro, De R. R. i. 7, 8, "when I commanded there, I

traversed some districts, where neither the vine nor the olive nor

the fruit-tree appears, where they manure the fields with white

Pit-chalk, where they have neither rock--nor sea-salt, but make use

of the saline ashes of certain burnt wood instead of salt." This

description refers probably to the period before Caesar and to

the eastern districts of the old province, such as the country of

the Allobroges; subsequently Pliny (H. N. xvii. 6, 42 seq.) describes

at length the Gallo-Britannic manuring with marl.

13. "The Gallic oxen especially are of good repute in Italy, for

field labour forsooth; whereas the Ligurian are good for nothing."

(Varro, De R. R. ii. 5, 9). Here, no doubt, Cisalpine Gaul is

referred to, but the cattle-husbandry there doubtless goes back to

the Celtic epoch. Plautus already mentions the "Gallic ponies"

(-Gallici canterii-, Aul. iii. 5. 21). "It is not every race that

is suited for the business of herdsmen; neither the Bastulians nor

the Turdulians" (both in Andalusia) "are fit for it; the Celts are

the best, especially as respects beasts for riding and burden

(-iumenta-)" (Varro, De R. R. ii. 10, 4).

14. We are led to this conclusion by the designation of

the trading or "round" as contrasted with the "long" or war vessel, and

the similar contrast of the "oared ships" (--epikopoi veies--) and

the "merchantmen" (--olkades--, Dionys. iii. 44); and moreover by

the smallness of the crew in the trading vessels, which in the very

largest amounted to not more than 200 men (Rhein. Mus. N. F. xi.

625), while in the ordinary galley of three decks there were

employed 170 rowers (III. II. The Romans Build A Fleet). Comp. Movers,

Phoen. ii. 3, 167 seq.

15. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome

16. IV. V. Defeat of Longinus

17. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome

18. This remarkable word must have been in use as early as

the sixth century of Rome among the Celts in the valley of the Po; for

Ennius is already acquainted with it, and it can only have reached

the Italians at so early a period from that quarter. It is not

merely Celtic, however, but also German, the root of our "Amt," as

indeed the retainer-system itself is common to the Celts and

the Germans. It would be of great historical importance to ascertain

whether the word--and so also the thing--came to the Celts from

the Germans, or to the Germans from the Celts. If, as is usually

supposed, the word is originally German and primarily signified

the servant standing in battle "against the back" (-and-= against,

-bak- = back) of his master, this is not wholly irreconcileable with

the singularly early occurrence of this word among the Celts.

According to all analogy the right to keep -ambacti-, that is,

--doouloi misthotoi--, cannot have belonged to the Celtic nobility

from the outset, but must only have developed itself gradually in

antagonism to the older monarchy and to the equality of the free

commons. If thus the system of -ambacti- among the Celts was not

an ancient and national, but a comparatively recent institution, it

is--looking to the relation which had subsisted for centuries

between the Celts and Germans, and which is to be explained farther

on--not merely possible but even probable that the Celts, in Italy

as in Gaul, employed Germans chiefly as those hired servants-at-

arms. The "Swiss guard" would therefore in that case be some

thousands of years older than people suppose. Should the term by

which the Romans, perhaps after the example of the Celts, designate

the Germans as a nation-the name -Germani---be really of Celtic

origin, this obviously accords very well with that hypothesis.--No

doubt these assumptions must necessarily give way, should the word

-ambactus- be explained in a satisfactory way from a Celtic root;

as in fact Zeuss (Gramm. p. 796), though doubtfully, traces it to

-ambi- = around and -aig- = -agere-, viz. one moving round or moved

round, and so attendants, servants. The circumstance that the word

occurs also as a Celtic proper name (Zeuss, p. 77), and is perhaps

preserved in the Cambrian -amaeth- = peasant, labourer (Zeuss, p.

156), cannot decide the point either way,

19. From the Celtic words -guerg- = worker and -breth- = judgment.

20. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome

21. The position which such a federal general occupied with

reference to his troops, is shown by the accusation of high treason

raised against Vercingetorix (Caesar, B. G. vii. 20).

22. IV. V. The Cimbri

23. II. IV. The Celts Assail the Etruscans in Northern Italy

24. V. VII. Art and Science

25. Caesar's Suebi thus were probably the Chatti; but that

designation certainly belonged in Caesar's time, and even much

later, also to every other German stock which could be described as

a regularly wandering one. Accordingly if, as is not to be

doubted, the "king of the Suebi" in Mela (iii. i) and Pliny (H. N.

ii. 67, 170) was Ariovistus, it by no means therefore follows that

Ariovistus was a Chattan. The Marcomani cannot be demonstrated as

a distinct people before Marbod; it is very possible that the word

up to that point indicates nothing but what it etymologically

signifies--the land, or frontier, guard. When Caesar (i, 51)

mentions Marcomani among the peoples fighting in the army of

Ariovistus, he may in this instance have misunderstood a merely

appellative designation, just as he has decidedly done in

the case of the Suebi.

26. IV. V. The Tribes at the Sources of the Rhine and Along

the Danube

27. IV. V. The Tribes at the Sources of the Rhine and Along

the Danube

28. IV. V. Teutones in the Province of Gaul

29. The arrival of Ariovistus in Gaul has been placed, according

to Caesar, i. 36, in 683, and the battle of Admagetobriga (for such

was the name of the place now usually, in accordance with a false

inscription, called Magetobriga), according to Caesar i. 35 and

Cicero Ad. Att. i. 19, in 693.

30. V. VII. Wars and Revolts There

31. That we may not deem this course of things incredible, or even

impute to it deeper motives than ignorance and laziness in

statesmen, we shall do well to realize the frivolous tone in which

a distinguished senator like Cicero expresses himself in his

correspondence respecting these important Transalpine affairs.

32. IV. V. Inroad of the Helvetii into Southern Gaul

33. According to the uncorrected calendar. According to

the current rectification, which however here by no means rests on

sufficiently trustworthy data, this day corresponds to the 16th of

April of the Julian calendar.

34. IV. V. The Cimbri, Teutones, and Helvetii Unite

35. -Julia Equestris-, where the last surname is to be taken as in

other colonies of Caesar the surnames of sextanorum, decimanorum,

etc. It was Celtic or German horsemen of Caesar, who, of course

with the bestowal of the Roman or, at any rate, Latin franchise,

received land-allotments there.