times to the beginning of the first Punic war. It does not go further,
either because Polybius,--for whom he has, however, no particular
liking,--begins with that period, or because the much-read history of
Fabius rises here into greater importance. The first ten books are
complete; the eleventh is in a very corrupt state. Extracts from the
others are found in the collections of Constantinus Porphyrogenitus
_De Virtutibus et Vitiis_, and _De Legationibus_; and also in a
collection ἐκλογαὶ Διονυσίου τοῦ Ἁλικαρνασσέως, which is met with in
several libraries, but is dreadfully mutilated. Mai has published them
from a Milanese manuscript; Montfaucon had already directed attention
to them. I respect and acknowledge the merits of Mai; but he has an
unfortunate vanity, and thus I believe, that he has intentionally
foreborn to mention, that here he has been led into the right path by
Montfaucon, conduct for which he has been taken to task by Ciampi.
Yet this is merely a secondary question. The collection itself mostly
consists of unconnected sentences, remnants perhaps of books of Const.
Porphyrogenitus, which have not come down to us. The advantage gained
from this discovery is at all events very considerable. Dionysius
himself had made an abridgment of his work in five books, to which Mai
quite wrongly wants to have those extracts referred. As to the first
ten books, there are more very old manuscripts of them extant than of
any other ancient author. The Chigi manuscript is of the tenth, that of
the Vatican of the eleventh century; the former is kept by Fea locked
up from all visitors,--it has been imperfectly collated by Amati, but
the result has never been published, nor would he sell it to me; the
Vatican codex has been made use of by Hudson. The eleventh book is only
to be found in copies which are quite modern. Ever since the old books
were no more written on rolls, those which were voluminous had stated
divisions. Thus the Pandects, the Theodosian Code, Livy also, were
originally divided into decades; and in all likelihood Dionysius too.
Of these, the first volume has been preserved entire. Of the second,
a copy very probably long existed;--Photius was acquainted with it
still;--yet only a few leaves of it have come into the hands of the
first Greek copyists. The text is much more corrupt than that of the
first half.
Dionysius was first printed by Robert Stephens, and indeed from a very
bad manuscript. He had already before that been generally read in a
Latin translation. A Florentine, Lapus[21] Biragus, translated him
from a very good manuscript, probably a Roman one, in the time of Pope
Sextus IV., who has done very great services to ancient literature.
But Lapus was a bungling translator, with a very scanty knowledge of
Greek; as also were Petrus Candidus, Raphael Volaterranus, Leonardus
Aretinus. But the works of these men were much read; and to us they are
of importance, because they represent the manuscripts which they made
use of.[22] Sylburg has very judiciously used the translation of Lapus.
It agrees almost throughout with the Vatican manuscript. H. Glareanus
revised again the version of Lapus, and, as he states, corrected it in
six thousand places. He likewise availed himself of a manuscript. S.
Gelenius of Cologne made a new translation, and one far better than
those of his predecessors. He too may serve as a manuscript. Now was
the text itself first published. The second edition is that of Sylburg,
1586, one of the most excellent elucidations of an ancient author any
where to be found. He had, as it seems, an incomplete collation of
the Venetian manuscript; but beside that the translations only. It
is a pity that Sylburg should not have restored the text, with the
means which he possessed in his apparatus, and in his eminent talent
for conjecturing. The annotations are done in a masterly style; and
added to this moreover was the double work of a matchless philological
index, and of an historical one almost as perfect. No editor has done
as much for his author as Sylburg did for Dionysius. Sylburg is not
yet sufficiently appreciated. This work, his Etymologicum Magnum, his
Pausanias, his Clement of Alexandria, bear evidence that in the faculty
of conjecturing, and in profound knowledge of the language, he was
not inferior to any one philologian of the first renown, not even to
J. Fr. Gronovius himself. He has contributed much to the Thesaurus of
Henry Stephens. Particularly important, besides, is his edition and
translation of the Syntaxis of Apollonius. His edition of Dionysius,
which was published by Wechel at Frankfort, is rare. A reprint of it
was made at Leipsic 1691. After Sylburg follows Hudson’s edition, 1704.
Hudson was a friend of Dodwell, and passed in England for an eminent
philologian. Bentley was at that time run down, as being a Whig; and
therefore the whole University of Oxford had conspired against him, and
opposed to him Hudson, whom they lauded as a great classical scholar.
But Hudson was a sad bungler. He has not done the least thing for his
_Geographi Græci Minores_, just as Reiz did nothing for Lucian. Hudson
had a collation of the excellent Vatican Codex of Dionysius, which
is in the notes, but of which he made no use at all. The edition is
beautifully printed. Sylburg’s annotations are for the most part not
given, or else mutilated. But the book enjoyed some fame in Germany,
and a bookseller of Leipsic had it reprinted. When the first volume
was nearly finished, the publisher applied for the correction of the
proof sheets to Reiske. The latter was a friend of my father, and I
have a high regard for him; but I am not blind to his defects for all
that. His mind was extremely versatile, he had an admirable talent for
conjecture; but he was too hasty. He had previously only read Dionysius
once; whilst correcting, he inserted into the text readings from the
Vatican manuscript, sometimes also his own emendations, of which he
gives an account at the conclusion. Yet they are often very unhappy,
although now and then very spirited. In Grimme’s Synopsis nothing
has been done for criticism. If I could get a collation of the Chigi
manuscript, I might perhaps undertake some day to make a critical
edition of Dionysius.
It prepossesses us in favour of Dionysius, who shows himself in his
rhetorical writings to have been a man of fine judgment, that, as
he tells us, he had devoted twenty-two years to that work; that he
had learned the Latin language, and made researches into the annals.
His history, which now reaches down only a little beyond the time of
the decemvirs, extended, as already observed, to the beginning of the
first Punic war; at which period Timæus also left off, and Polybius
began. He was befriended by many distinguished Romans, and wrote with
a true veneration for the greatness of the Roman people. The name of
Archæology appears new in him. When we see that his history does not
give in eleven books more than Livy’s does in three; that he takes up
a whole book with what happened before the building of the city, and
treats of the earliest times so much at length; this prolixity excites
our mistrust not only of the credibility, but also of the judgment
of the author. As far as regards this point, it is not to be denied
that Dionysius has chosen a plan of which we cannot approve. Not to
mention that he looks upon the time of the kings as historical, he made
a mistake when he undertook to treat history pragmatically from the
very earliest times. Yet the more carefully we examine the work, the
more worthy of respect Dionysius appears to us, and the more we find
his book to be a treasury of the most sterling information. As such it
has been first acknowledged by genuine criticism only; before that, it
was cried down as a tissue of absurdities. Setting his imperfections
aside, we cannot indeed assign too high a rank to Dionysius, as a
treasure of ancient history providentially preserved to us. He has
borrowed, if not directly, at least indirectly, from the old law books
and annalists; and without him we should not know any thing of the
most important changes, to which, however, too often he only lends
personifications. The careful use which he made of his sources renders
him invaluable. Even the matter of his speeches he took from the old
annalists; many circumstances at least, which were contained in them,
and which he could not receive into the context of his history, he has
introduced in his harangues, so that the latter, in which elsewhere
the arbitrary fancy of the historian seems to prevail, often retain
the traces of tradition. Thus, when there is a rising of the people,
these words occur in the speech of a patrician, “If there is no more
help for it, why should we not, rather than humble ourselves before
these plebeians, grant Isopolity to the Latins?” Now this Isopolity,
as we must take it for granted, is in the subsequent peace imparted
to the Latins, which is, however, not mentioned in Dionysius. This
is one of the passages in which he introduced a notice found in the
annalists, on the occasion of the conclusion of the peace, as subject
matter into a speech. Only we must discriminate between his mistakes,
and the substance of the valuable information which he gives. If he
had succeeded in comprehending the language of Fabius, all would have
been correct; but he understood the Greek language as it was current
in his own time, and thence all his mistakes arose. He has lost the
clue in the history of the development of the Roman constitution: he
is not aware of the difference between δῆμος and ὅμιλος, but he gives
all, though it appears to him a riddle, and tries to find a solution.
That he is a rhetorician and not a statesman, we indeed see only too
clearly. In his criticism he is faulty, but, for all that, not bad: he
was a very clear-headed man. With very little exception his language is
correct and well suited to its purpose. What we may object to in him,
are the harangues, in which the distinctness of individual character
is entirely lost; an ill-timed imitation of those of Thucydides. I
have worked through this author from my early youth, as no one perhaps
has done since he has written, and I may say that I entertain infinite
respect and veneration for him; and I am convinced that except in the
speeches and pragmatical reflections, he has not by any means invented
or intentionally omitted anything. He worked out his sources, it is
true, without selection, and cared only for the abundance of the
materials which were offered to him. Nothing is more unjust than the
opinion formerly entertained, that all that Dionysius had more than
Livy was merely the invention of his brain.
About the same time, 743 according to Cato, and 745 according to Varro,
Livy began to write. That he commenced so late seems authenticated.
He was born 693 according to Cato, in the consulship of the great
Cæsar, at Patavium, and lived during the reign of Tiberius, until 772
according to Cato (774 according to Varro), A.D. 20. Livy commenced
his career as a rhetorician. Of his early life nothing is known. He
has written on rhetoric also. There are several grounds for fixing the
period in which he began to compose his history at so late a date. His
first decade has been called the work of his youth, but the following
proofs are against it. Mentioning Numa, he speaks of Augustus as the
restorer of all the temples, consequently after 730; moreover he talks
of the closing of the temple of Janus, of the building of the temple
of Jupiter Feretrius, and he names Cæsar Augustus in relating the war
of Cossus. Dodwell very seldom hits upon the right conclusion, but
in this point we must agree with him. In his _Annales Velleiani_ he
remarks, that from the manner in which Livy wrote about Spain, it is
evident that that country had already then been conquered by Augustus.
The ninth book is of later date than the campaign of Drusus; for he
says in it concerning the _Silva Ciminia_, that it had been just as
impassable _quam nuper fuere Germanici saltus_, and the latter were
first entered by Domitius Ahenobarbus and Drusus after 740 only. It
might be attempted to make this out to be a later revision; but it
is easy to tell what books are written in one flow of the pen, and
which are revised, and those of Livy undoubtedly belong to the former
sort.--It is in accordance with our supposition, that Dionysius did
not know him; for if a book written in such a masterly style as that
of Livy had existed, Dionysius could not have been ignorant of it;
and it would then have been impossible also for him to complain of the
utter want of any thing like the working out of the materials of Roman
history. In the last books of the first decade, on the other hand, we
find several traces that Livy had known Dionysius. From the _Excerpta
de Legationibus_ we learn, in what manner Dionysius treated the second
Samnite war; the relation of it by Livy cannot possibly have been taken
from Roman Annals, but from Greek sources, especially the account how
Naples fell into the power of the Romans, which Dionysius seems to
have got from a Neapolitan Chronicle. Livy could not know the latter
himself, and yet he gives a circumstantial description of the event. He
must therefore have had a Greek source, and this is certainly no other
than Dionysius. The comparison also of the might of Alexander with that
of Rome leads to the same conclusion. And certainly the histories of
Pyrrhus king of Epirus, and of the plundering expedition of Cleonymus,
are likewise from the Greek; so much the rather, as Livy here calls
the Sallentines Messapians,[23] probably because he did not know that
this was the Greek name for the Sallentines. Already from the eighth
book, Livy must have made use of Dionysius.--Let no one say that his
history has too much freshness for it to be deemed the work of an old
man: this depends entirely upon the character of the individual. He
had yet, even with his mode of working, nearly thirty years’ time for
the accomplishment of his immense undertaking. That he did not cut
it off where it finishes, but that he died before he had reached his
goal, is evident from several circumstances. His history consisted of a
hundred and forty-two books, and ended with the death of Drusus without
any marked close. The feeling against disproportion in a division
by numbers was among the ancients quite decided and developed, and
therefore the number itself bears witness to the books not having been
completed. There can be no question, but that the division into decades
is an original one, and we might see it yet more clearly if we had the
second decade left. Even the Greek word _decas_ would not have been
invented in later times. The twentieth book must have been double the
size of the rest, in order that the war with Hannibal might not begin
with the twenty-second book. At the end of the war with Hannibal, the
books are extremely short, in order that it might finish with the
thirtieth book. He cannot therefore have intended to close the work in
the middle of a decade. At least the epitome reaches only as far as
book 142, so that at all events we should be obliged to assume, that
as two books in the middle, thus also at the conclusion some are still
wanting.
When we attentively consider the work of Livy, we find it written in
an astonishingly uneven style. The several decades essentially differ
from each other, and in the first decade, the first book from the rest.
This one is the very perfection of his manner, and shows how matchless
he would have been, had his history been more condensed. Throughout the
first decade, a high strain of eloquence prevails. In the third, the
monotony of the events constantly checks its display; yet beautifully
written are the battles on the Trasimene Lake, and at Cannæ. Here,
however, is the turning point. In the fourth, the prolixity gains
ground more and more, in which traces of extreme old age are to be
recognised. The more freely Livy relates, the more beautiful is his
composition. The fourth decade is far below the third; in the fourth
and fifth he has to a great extent paraphrased Polybius. He could not
have chosen better with regard to credibility; but here he is hurried,
and it happens also that he contradicts himself, and that, telling the
same things twice over, he becomes prolix, which he never is in the
first and third decades. But particularly remarkable is the fragment
from the ninety-first book; which is written in such a manner, that if
it were not inscribed _T. Livî liber XCI_, and that some circumstances
bore evidence for it, one would not take it for a work of Livy. Here
we understand how the old grammarians could have reproached him with
tautology and palilology;[24] here we see how a great writer may
become old and garrulous. If the second decade had not been lost also,
it would be easy to explain how the later ones have perished, viz.
by their being excluded from the grammatical schools. His preface is
characteristic, belonging to the worst parts of the whole work, whilst
on the contrary the introductions in those great practical historians,
Thucydides, Sallust, Tacitus, are masterpieces. This is to be explained
from the fact, that Livy began without being conscious of any definite
object, and those other writers with a bold stroke of the pencil drew
the results of long lucubration.
It is evident that when Livy commenced his work, he was far from being
well versed in Roman history; he had read some of the old books, and
he may have been, compared with others, well acquainted with ancient
history: but he was entirely deficient in general and comprehensive
historical knowledge. He wrote it, as he himself states in the preface,
from the pleasure which he took in history, and for consolation in a
cheerless and most gloomy period; the rising generation were to be
refreshed with the remembrance of the glorious times of old; after
having once resolved upon this work, he had set about it in the first
exultation of enthusiasm. In writing the history of the kings, he
apparently followed Ennius. We perceive that clearly it is consistent,
and of a piece. As he went on, he gradually got hold of more authors,
but always a very limited number. As in Dionysius every thing is
connected, so in Livy all is isolated. He had not at all made it his
task to write a learned and scrupulously sifted history. With foreign
histories he is altogether unacquainted. He could not have written
that the Carthaginians first came to Sicily in 324, if he had known
that fifty years before they had already undertaken their first great
expedition thither. That of Alexander of Epirus would, according to
him, have lasted eighteen years. He also mistakes Heraclitus, Philip’s
ambassador to Hannibal, for the philosopher of the same name.
The ancients were generally in the habit of dictating their works;
this is to be seen in none more clearly than in Livy. He worked out
each of the years separately; and very often the later ones are in
contradiction to those which go before, so that we find that he did
not even once submit the whole to a connected revision. Fabius,
Valerius Antias, Tubero, and Quadrigarius,--whether this last from
the beginning cannot be ascertained,--are the authors whom he made
use of; and perhaps, though I doubt it, Cato’s _Origines_ also. He
read himself, or had some one to read to him, the events of a year,
and then dictated his narrative from it, taking one annalist in
preference as his groundwork; and therefore in most cases there are
no contradictions in the history of the same year. As he went on, he
got hold of authors whom he had not known originally; for instance,
the _Annales Pontificum_ for the first time just before the end of
the first decade, Polybius not earlier than the middle of the war
of Hannibal. The account of the siege of Saguntum, which is so poor
in incident, and that of the passage of Hannibal over the Alps,
would surely have been differently told by him, if instead of Cœlius
Antipater, he had availed himself of Polybius. It was only when he
reached the history of Philip of Macedon, that he looked into Polybius;
in the fourth decade, he translates from him every thing that he has
not taken from the next annalists concerning the internal affairs of
Rome. Thus he certainly had before him Posidonius after Polybius, and
then the Memoirs of Rutilius and of Sylla; in later times, perhaps
Asinius Pollio, Theophanes, and others. The farther he advanced, the
nearer he came to the work for which he was really fitted, only he
had unfortunately become old in the meanwhile. The delineation of the
character of Cicero from Livy in M. Seneca’s _Suasoria_, is done in
a masterly style. One is more and more convinced how richly Livy was
endowed with a talent for description and narration of the kind which
we prize in the novelists of our time. What he is utterly deficient
in, is comprehensiveness of view. He often takes from an annalist an
account, which presupposes quite different circumstances from those
which he himself has set forth. Wherever he wants to give a summary,
one sees that what a little while since he had written, nay, even what
he had quite close before him, was not at all present to his mind.
Thus the enumeration of the nations which fell off immediately after
the battle of Cannæ is entirely wrong, there being several among them
who only revolted some years afterwards. He shows himself to be no
critic in the war of Hannibal, where he repeats the tales which Cœlius
Antipater only could have devised; and moreover we find in him an
entire absence of judgment with regard to an event and the actors in
it, whether they were right or wrong. In early life, he was on Pompey’s
side; that is to say, a partisan of that chaos which had grown up out
of the Roman constitution. He was then very young, being only ten years
old when Cæsar came to Italy. This bygone time before the dictatorship
of Cæsar, appeared to his imagination as a golden age. Thus a friend
of my youth, a Frenchman and a staunch royalist, remarked to me, that
the French nobles who at the outbreak of the Revolution were still
young, were the most fiercely zealous against its ideas, and looked
upon the period immediately preceding it as a time of the highest
felicity. Livy seems to have been one of those men who never put to
themselves the question, What ought then to have happened, if matters
had not come to a crisis? Yet it is natural that after Cæsar’s victory
noble minds should have inclined to Pompey, who seemed to uphold the
ancient usages and constitution; and it is only now that we are able to
recognise Cæsar to have been the most beneficial of the two leaders.
Livy, moreover, applies his party names to persons and to circumstances
which were quite different, and he looks upon every thing that belongs
to the tribunes as seditious. When he tells us of Tarquin the Proud,
how he usurped the dominion over the Latins, and how Turnus Herdonius,
evidently with the greatest justice, withstood him, he calls the latter
_homo seditiosus, iisque artibus potentiam nactus_. Thus Livy must have
proverbially become what is called in France an Ultra. In this sense
Augustus called him a Pompeian; though he did not fear him, because no
real effects were to be expected from such daydreams.
Whether the Patavinity with which Asinius Pollio has taxed him, had
reference to his history, or to the speeches which he was heard to
deliver as a rhetorician, we are no longer able to ascertain. The
latter supposition is very likely. Pollio may have said, “one still
perceives from the pronunciation of Livy, that he was not bred in
Rome,”--just as in Paris also one can tell provincials. I myself think
that I can make out whether the author of a work lived in Paris or at
Geneva, and a Frenchman of course discovers it yet more quickly. There
may, therefore, have existed some nice shades of distinction, even in
style itself, which now-a-days escape our observation. The Latin of
Livy in a grammatical point of view is perfectly classical and correct;
yet for all that, it is by no means impossible that either in speaking
or in writing, he may have ventured upon many an expression which was
not usual at Rome. There remains yet another question. Have we any
reason to believe with regard to Livy’s history, which was commenced
thirty-one years after Pollio’s consulship, that Asinius Pollio could
have known it? It is possible. We have an account of his being still
living after Caius Cæsar’s death.[25] Yet this can hardly be true,
as Pliny would in that case have certainly mentioned him among the
_longævi_.
Particularly worthy of notice is the amiable disposition of Livy.
The whole of his work breathes a kindliness and serenity which does
one’s heart good in reading it. Perhaps we should observe this yet
more clearly, if we had the later books. Few writers have had such an
influence as Livy. He forms an epoch in Roman literature: with him
every attempt ceases to write Roman annals. When Quintilian compares
him with Herodotus, this is only correct with regard to the amenity of
style which is common to both. Otherwise Livy is particularly deficient
in those qualities which Herodotus possesses, than whom none was ever
richer in remembrances and ancient lore; than whom there never was a
more gifted investigator; and who was indeed a master both in observing
and in research. Livy’s great talent, on the contrary, is that of
arranging details, and of narration. Of the old Roman constitution he
had no notion whatever. Even of the constitution which still existed
during his youth, he seems to have had no very accurate knowledge; but
whatever in the old institutions bore the same name as in his time,
he always confounds with what was more recent. On the other hand, he
gives accounts which are inappropriate as applying to his own era, but
quite correct with reference to the olden time. He had a wonderful
reputation in his day: it is a known fact that a man came from Cadiz
to Rome merely to see him, and then immediately went back again. This
fame lasted. He was the historian Κατ’ ἐξοχήν, and Roman history was
learned from him alone. Whatever in after times was written by Latins,
was scarcely more than extracts from him. Wherever in the later Roman
authors any thing is quoted from history, it is taken from Livy:
Silius Italicus, the most wretched of all poets, has done nothing
but paraphrase him. And therefore he was read in the rhetorical and
grammatical schools, particularly, as it seems, his first and third
decades. These grammatical schools existed in Rome until beyond the
seventh century, in Ravenna even down to the eleventh. It is, however,
remarkable that all the manuscripts of the first decade may be traced
back to a single one, which was written in the fourth century by a
certain Nicomachus for Symmachus and his family, but is most wretchedly
done.
We have no manuscript in which all the books which have been
preserved are contained. Where the first, third, and fourth decade
are together, the fourth is never entire; and all the manuscripts are
very recent, dating from the fourteenth century. One sees that he was
little read during the middle ages, as they made shift with the most
trivial extracts. Of the first books we have manuscripts of the tenth
century. At the restoration of learning, the first and third decades
existed in pretty many manuscripts; the fourth in few only, and those
mutilated. Yet the fourth decade was indeed known and read before
that time, as may be seen from a novel of Francesco Sacchetti. But
the thirty-third book was entirely wanting; and the fortieth, from
the third paragraph of chapter 37. The latter gap was filled up from
a Mentz manuscript in the edition printed in that town, A.D. 1518;
but the one in the thirty-third book, from the sixth paragraph of the
seventeenth chapter only. The last five books were published from a
manuscript of the monastery of Lorsch, of the seventh or eighth century
(_codex Laurishamensis_), now at Vienna, in the Basle edition of the
year 1531. The first sixteen chapters of the thirty-third book have
been published at Rome in 1616, from a Bamberg manuscript, and again
collated by Gœller (as the Laurishamensis for the last five books was
by Kopitar), who has found some important various readings. Yet these
have always remained defective.
The desire to obtain the missing parts of Livy’s history was universal;
and in the days of Louis XIV. especially, people allowed themselves
to be taken in by the most extravagant stories. At one moment, they
were said to be in existence at Constantinople;[26] at another, at
Chios; and then, in an Arabic[27] translation, at Fez. Only a short
time ago, one heard of a translation, which was said to have been
found at Saragossa. At Lausanne there formerly existed a complete
manuscript of the fifth decade; but it has been lost. A real treasure
was found by Bruns of Holstein, who lived at Rome in 1772 and 1773. He
discovered a little volume in which some books of the Old Testament, in
the Vulgate version but with very differing readings, were contained;
and which almost entirely consisted of re-written leaves, originally
from the Heidelberg Library to judge from the handwriting, perhaps a
Bobbian manuscript. In this he found _M. Tullî Ciceronis Oratio pro
Roscio incipit feliciter_; and seeing that it began differently from
the speeches as they usually were, he considered it to be the lost
commencement of the oration _pro Roscio Comœdo_. He called in the
learned and ingenious Italian Giovenazzi, and asked him to examine it;
the latter decided that it was the _Oratio pro Roscio Amerino_, yet
did not observe the excellent various readings, nor discover in what
preceded the lost oration _pro Rabirio perduellionis_. They turned
over some more leaves, and found some very elegant hand writing with
the superscription _T. Livî liber nonagesimus primus_. The aid of
chemical means being as yet unknown in those days, they read it with
incredible exertions. It was reserved for me, to do what they could not
accomplish. I have read it all through, and completed it.
The text is very different in different decades. As far as regards
the first of these, all the manuscripts which hitherto have been
deemed authentic only follow the recension of Nicomachus Dexter
Flavianus, whose subscription is found beneath the Florentine copy,
the first of Leyden, and some others. These manuscripts, the text of
which that of Florence gives very accurately, are all of them bad.
Some various readings are exhibited by several English, Harleyan and
Lovel manuscripts; but these are extremely recent, from philologists
of the time of the restoration of learning, who made very free with
the text, and therefore they are not of a good description. One
single manuscript, of which we have only extracts, shows some quite
extraordinary readings, the _Codex Clockianus_, concerning which we
know not where it now is. These variations are so peculiar, that I
often doubted whether they were always authentic, and whether Clockius
really had a manuscript. The Veronese palimpsests exhibit no deviation
of consequence from the Florentine manuscript. We cannot therefore
hope to get beyond the recension of Nicomachus, at least as far as
our present knowledge of the manuscripts enables us to judge. Of the
Paris manuscripts, not one as yet has been collated. It is otherwise
with the third decade, for which the _Codex Puteanus_, which Gronovius
has made use of, is excellent. The text here is sounder than in the
first; for the fourth, the Bamberg and the Mentz manuscripts, and the
_Editio Ascensiana_ have a strong claim on our regard. For the fifth
decade, the _Codex Laurishamensis_, now preserved at Vienna, is the
only source. From Italian libraries, we can no longer expect much; as
the first editions generally represent the manuscripts, and the best
manuscripts of Latin authors are, on the whole, not in Italy, but in
France and in Germany.
As far as regards commentaries, it is really astonishing how little has
been done in the way of criticism for Livy; and yet he is one of the
first who has been subjected to any elaborate criticism. Already was
this done by the ingenious Laurentius Valla, whose learning was of the
true philological cast, and who even before the invention of printing,
wrote short scholia, and likewise an historical disquisition concerning
Tarquin the Proud, whether he was a son, or a grandson of Tarquinius
Priscus? Then follows M. Antonius Sabellicus, a Venetian, of whom some
annotations still exist, which, considering his great ability, are very
trifling. Glareanus was a very ingenious and acute man. His attention
was especially directed to the historical part, and in his remarks
he frankly pronounces much of it to be untenable. The emendation of
the text was then taken in hand by many persons whose names are not
known. Gelenius has certainly aided in the Basil edition, without his
name being mentioned. When Glareanus had finished, Sigonius of Modena
wrote his scholia on Livy. His work is very good and praiseworthy,--his
criticisms chiefly historical. He most unaccountably bore a strong
grudge against Glareanus, and the latter replied in an edition in which
he had Sigonius’ notes reprinted. Sigonius has contributed much towards
the criticism of the text; but he has also interpolated a great deal
that is untenable, part of which still stands in the text. Then follow
almost a hundred years, during which nothing was done for Livy, until
John Frederick Gronovius, sprung from an Holstein family at Hamburgh,
appeared; who, when philology was in a dying state, might have given
it a new impulse, had the age been susceptible of it. His Livy is a
masterpiece. He is one of the earliest who conscientiously searched
into manuscripts. His careful grammatical and historical commentary
gains for him the palm among all who have occupied themselves with
Livy; only, when he speaks of the constitution and laws of the State,
he has sometimes made mistakes, and unjustly censured Brissonius.
After him came Clockius, whose conjectures are most unlucky; and then
Tanaquil Faber of Saussure, who, though he was very intelligent, has
done very little for Livy; nor is his criticism much to be relied
on. Duker’s and Drakenborch’s edition holds the first rank among all
the editions which we have of ancient authors. Duker’s notes are
excellent,--a striking contrast to his Thucydides,--he shows likewise
a very correct judgment concerning the subject-matter. Drakenborch is
far from possessing the same penetration and ability, but for all that
he has very good common sense; his application, which is scrupulously
conscientious, is admirable, and he scrutinizes every thing most
accurately. The treasure of philological remarks which he has hoarded
up is really astonishing, and his indices are very much to the point.
Drakenborch is a model in this also, that he had already completed the
whole of his work before he began to publish it. The subject-matter is
quite evenly disposed all through the work.
After this, little was done for the criticism of Livy. The emendations
of Professor Walch of Berlin are beautiful, and it is a pity that he
has not realized his intention of editing the whole of Livy. Yet a
very great deal remains to be done, especially in the first decade.
The nations of Roman language have gained for themselves little or no
distinction with regard to Livy.
Livy is one of those authors whose fate it was, like all who form an
epoch in literature, that his influence was not wholly beneficial,
but also pernicious. He became from henceforth an authority, although
he was no critic; people read the Roman history in Livy only, and the
old historians were almost entirely forgotten. The only exception
which we know of Roman history being written independently of Livy, is
that of Velleius Paterculus, who began from the mythic legends, and
wrote as far as the year 783. He divided his work into two books, the
first of which ended with the destruction of Carthage; and besides
the Roman, treated also of the earliest Greek history. Unfortunately
the second book only is any thing like complete, as in the first the
whole of the earlier history is wanting, a loss which is very much to
be regretted. Velleius belongs to the writers of evil repute, and it
is not to be denied but that a dismal time has crushed him and his
independent spirit. He crouches before the tyrant Sejanus; but one
must not overlook the fact, that he was much more ingenious than his
contemporaries. He is exceedingly witty, and there is something choice
in his remarks; besides which he is perfectly master of his subject,
and shows himself to be a deeply read and deeply learned scholar. He
reminds one of the authors in the time of Louis XV.
It is not quite decided that Fabius Rusticus has not written the
earliest history. He was perhaps the only man in his time who could
have done it.
The manner in which from henceforth Roman history was written was to
epitomize it, of which we have several examples.
There is extant an old table of contents of all the books of Livy,
of which two only, the hundred and thirty-sixth and the hundred and
thirty-seventh, are wanting,--a sort of index for those who wished to
search for any thing in the great work, and perhaps nothing more than a
collection of the heads which were written in the margin. This epitome
bears quite inappropriately the name of Florus. The author is unknown,
and it is certainly only the work of some copyist. But to us it is
invaluable, as many things have been preserved in it alone.
Well known and much read was the Roman history of Florus in four books,
which, written in the reign of Trajan, is a very wretched piece of
work. Yet at the side of many glaring mistakes, there is something
which may be turned to use. Florus may have written from what he read
in Livy; yet there is in one single passage a deviation from him, so
that he must have read others also.
Eutropius has evidently every where followed the track of Livy; but he
is so bad a writer, that one cannot believe that he has read Livy. I
therefore conjecture that there must have existed an abstract besides,
forming a sort of medium between the work itself and our epitome; which
Orosius no doubt also read, who likewise implicitly follows Livy, but
assigns dates which clash with him, a practice quite in keeping with
his ignorance in changing the dates by consuls into those by years.
Such an abstract was like that of Trogus from Justin. Orosius’ object
was simply this, to console his contemporaries in the state in which
they were by means of perversions and sophisms in describing the
wretchedness of the olden time. Yet there are many points in which his
statements have great value, only one must not allow oneself to be
misled by him.
The influence which Livy had exercised upon the Romans, in putting
an end to every thing like originality in writing history, did not
extend to the Greeks. They directed their attention more and more to
Roman history, and found in it a theme for rhetorical and elegant
composition. One of those who at that time more or less engaged in
this task, was Plutarch, who composed his historical works in the
reign of Trajan. He had a definite moral purpose, his was a fine soul:
yet neither was he a practical man, nor had he a turn for speculative
thought, but he was made for quiet and cheerful contemplation, like
Montaigne. He had an unaffected aversion to all that was vulgar; and
he wrote in this spirit for himself and his friends, the parallels of
distinguished Romans and Greeks. He is just to every body. He loves
the Greeks and respects the Romans, and this makes his Lives most
delightful reading. But his qualities as an historian are of a very
secondary order. He is no critic, and does not discriminate between
conflicting opinions; but he follows at one time one authority, and
at another time another. In Pyrrhus and Camillus, one sees that he
has used Dionysius; in Marius and Sylla, Posidonius; and wherever we
are able to make this out, his history gains a much more important
character for authenticity. The task of ascertaining this point is
as yet far from being accomplished. Plutarch, as he himself tells
us, understood little of Latin, and was particularly ignorant of the
grammar, owing to which mistakes are found in him here and there,
though indeed but seldom.
About a generation after Plutarch, Appian wrote. He was a jurist from
Alexandria, who in the reigns of Adrian and Antoninus Pius, lived
in Rome as an agent for his native town, and had the management of
lawsuits. He was greatly befriended by Fronto, and by his interest got
the office of a _Procurator Cæsaris_. Although he had lived a long
time at Rome, and had a great opinion of his Latin, yet it is not to
be supposed that he was very conversant with that language; as, owing
to Adrian’s predilection for Greek, he surely was allowed to plead in
it, especially for the _transmarini_. Having made a fortune at Rome,
he returned to Alexandria, and was in his old age treated with much
distinction by the Romans. According to one account, he has written
twenty-four books on Roman history; among them four on Egypt, in
which he treated with particular prolixity of the Lagides. It was not
a continuous history, but arranged after the plan of the _Origines_
of Cato. The first book was called Βασιλική, the second Ἰταλική, the
third Σαυνιτική. The first twenty-one books of his work went as far
as the battle of Actium; then the subsequent times down to Trajan he
disposed of in one book Ἑκατονταετία; besides which he wrote a book on
the Dacian, and another on the Arabian war of Trajan. He is a compiler,
and knew well how to choose his sources. In the earlier history he
chiefly follows Dionysius; in the second Punic war, perhaps also in the
first, he follows Fabius; then Polybius, and afterwards Posidonius.
In using these sources, he displays great ignorance, particularly of
geography. Thus, for example, he believes that Britain was quite close
to the northern coast of Spain, and he places Saguntum on the northern
bank of the Iberus. We must discriminate with regard to him. Wherever
he copies without thinking, we find in his work the best sources for
history. The greater half of the books of Appian are lost. We possess
eleven of them, and besides these, there are extracts in the _Eclogæ
de Legationibus_, and _de Virtutibus et Vitiis_, collected by Ursinus
and Valesius. Spurious is the Παρθική, as Schweighäuser has correctly
demonstrated.
There are of Appian, properly speaking, only three editions, those of
Stephens, Tollius, and Schweighäuser, the last of them being by far the
best. Much remains to be done for the _Bellum Illyricum_, as Spaletti
has kept his collation for it from Schweighäuser. A good source also
made use of by the latter, is the Latin version of Petrus Candidus,
which though barbarous is faithful.
About eighty years after Appian, wrote Dio Cassius, surnamed
Cocceianus, who was born in the reign of Antoninus Pius at Nice in
Nicomedia, of a family which was of very high standing in the Roman
State. Very likely Dio Chrysostom was his grandfather on the mother’s
side. He came as a young man to Rome, at a time when the provincials
of the east were already admitted to the highest offices, which was
much earlier the case with those of the west. Whilst the latter soon
assimilated themselves in language and address to the Romans, the
former amalgamated much later, and from sheer necessity. In the eastern
provinces they still let the beard grow, as we see from the likeness
of the statuary Apollodorus in the Trajan column, the most ancient
likeness of an artist. From the time of Adrian the Greeks met in Rome
with a different reception from that which they had before; this
emperor favoured them, as did also the Antonines. Marcus Antoninus
even married one of his daughters to Pompeian a Greek.
Dio came early to Rome, where he lived forty years engaged in business,
and then retired to Capua. He wrote, when about forty years old, the
history of Commodus, which he dedicated to Severus, who received it
with favour, and encouraged him to write the whole Roman history.
He became consul under Septimius Severus, and a second time under
Alexander Severus. He reached an age of nearly eighty years, and had,
according to Fabricius’ computation, already reached that of seventy
when he was for the second time invested with the consulship. He spent
twelve years in collecting materials, and during ten he worked. If this
account be correct, the last books must be a continuation of his work.
Being a statesman, he paid attention to many things in history which
his predecessors had not cared for. He had a true vocation for writing
history, and declared that in his dreams the gods had commanded him
to do so. He was a perfect master of the Latin language, thoroughly
acquainted with all the Roman affairs, and he felt an interest in
political concerns. He is every where at home, in the laws, in the
constitution, and in matters connected with warfare. Livy had no idea
of either the economy of a state, or of a battle; the commonest rules
for the array of an army escape him. Surely he can never have looked
on, when the soldiers were drilling at Rome.
For the very earliest times, Dio Cassius draws from the very
fountain-heads. He wrote quite independently of Livy from Fabius, and
he perfectly understood the old Roman constitution. On the other hand,
he is reproached with κακοήθεια, and ἐπιχαιρεκακία, with its being a
pleasure to him to bring to light the hollowness of men’s pretensions
to political virtue, and such like things. Indeed he is in a bitter
mood against the false pretences to virtue in a thoroughly corrupted
age; but this is quite different from showing an infamous delight in
it. The former only is the real character of Dio Cassius. When a
man scoffs at religion, it is the sign of a bad heart; but when he
snatches the mask from the face of a hypocrite, he is quite in the
right. When one hears the language of so-called patriots of the time
of George the First and Second, and then learns how they intrigued for
places, how in spite of their boasted integrity they kept up a secret
correspondence with the Pretender, and when they came into power did
the very self-same things as their predecessors, it is very natural to
speak with disgust of such sham patriots. In the time also of Louis
XV. such a state of feeling as we find in Dio Cassius was universal.
Dio, owing to his experience in a most abandoned age, may have judged
many a man too harshly; but at bottom his view of things is sound and
enlightened. That he was no friend to tyranny, is shown every where in
his history, when one reads it without prejudice. His style, however,
is not flowing; his peculiarities are sometimes faults (examples of
it are given in the index of Reimarus). He is one of the few who at
that time wrote as men really spoke; on which account the study of his
language is very instructive. There is no affectation in him, as in
Pausanias; his language is the Greek, as it was then used in familiar
conversation. His history was much read. It was for a long time a
common source of Roman history, and was continued by an anonymous
writer to the time of Constantine, as we know from the _Excerpta de
Legationibus_. He himself divided his eighty books into decades. The
twentieth book he concluded with the destruction of Carthage; the
fortieth went as far as the outbreak of the civil war between Cæsar
and Pompey; the sixtieth, to the death of Claudius. Of these there
were left in the twelfth century, when Johannes Zonaras wrote, only
the first twenty, and from the thirty-sixth to the end. In the tenth
century when Constantinus Porphyrogenitus caused the _excerpta_ to be
made, the whole was still extant. Afterwards, in the eleventh century,
the monk Xiphilinus made extracts beginning from the thirty-sixth
book, with the exception of the history of Antoninus Pius, and a part
of M. Aurelius’ reign. Whether he had the rest or not, is no more
to be ascertained. It is, however, probable, as Zonaras fifty years
later had still the first twenty books. It has therefore been unjustly
said that the loss of the books of Dio was the fault of Xiphilinus.
His manuscript was still complete as regards the reigns of Augustus,
Tiberius, and Claudius, where the Venetian is full of gaps. The very
late author of the _Lexicon Syntacticum_, which Bekker has edited,
already in all probability had no more the first five and thirty; as
from these, in comparison with the other books, he gives scarcely any
extracts at all. We have a fragment which is generally thought to
be of the thirty-fifth book, but which, according to Reimarus, most
likely belongs to the thirty-sixth; then from the thirty-seventh to the
fifty-fourth complete, and the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth mutilated.
Of the first twenty books we have the abstract of Zonaras, with slight
admixtures from Plutarch; of the last forty-five, that of Xiphilinus
likewise with admixtures. Of books 78, 79 and 80, we have an important
fragment from the Vatican library. In books 55 to 60, the manuscripts
are full of gaps: Xiphilinus, however, had yet a complete copy of them.
Morelli, an excellent philologist, found these books in the year 1797,
when, to console himself for the downfall of his republic, he took to
ancient history as a refuge, in a very old manuscript in the library
of St. Mark, and discovered that it had formerly been complete, but
had suffered much from the destruction of part of the fascicles and
leaves; that this was the mother-manuscript for these six books; but
that when the copyist in his transcript had come to a stop in some
story, and the beginning of the next was mutilated, he had entirely
dropped such incomplete narrations, and disguised the gaps. Morelli has
collected these defective passages, so that we see how at one place
some leaves, at another, whole quaternions are missing. From what he
communicated, the remarkable expedition of Ahenobarbus to Germany was
first brought to light, which had till then been unknown. Thus also in
Diodorus, the halves of two books are entirely wanting, a circumstance
which is nowhere noticed. In a third passage, Perizonius and others
have discovered it. Such a thing was by no means of rare occurrence
among the volatile Greeks of the fifteenth century, who gained their
livelihood by copying.--What remains of the three last books of Dio
Cassius, has been edited by Fulvius Ursinus. The manuscript is of
the seventh or eighth century; yet the centre column only has been
preserved entire: the two others along the margins are illegible.
Nevertheless something may be gleaned from it. In the excerpta _de
Legationibus_, _de Virtutibus et Vitiis_, and _de Sententiis_, many
pieces from Dio are to be found. We have also many fragments elsewhere,
as Dio was very much read. There are besides the abridgments of
Xiphilinus and Zonaras. It is surprising that the latter is not also
reprinted in the edition of Reimarus. This Zonaras,[28] under Alexius
and Kalojohannes Comnenus, was a man of business, and wrote a history
from the beginning of the world to the death of Alexius Comnenus. The
first volume of it is an abstract from Josephus, the second from Dio,
and the third from several, particularly from Cedrenus, Skylitzes, and
others; as to the later books of Dio, he could not procure them in
spite of all his inquiries. He was imperial secretary, and commander of
the body-guard. Nor was he a fool, though his judgment is exceedingly
narrow; but his extracts from Dio, whom he does not mention as his
authority, are of the highest importance. He was formerly overlooked,
and I was the first to direct attention to him. Freinsheim made use
of him where Livy is wanting, but no further. The excerpta _de
Sententiis_ especially, show with what accuracy he selected from Dio.
Dio has been edited by Stephens at Basle, and by H. S. Reimarus. A
collation of the Venetian manuscript would be infinitely important. The
annotations of Fabricius and Reimarus are of extraordinary value in an
historical point of view. What is defective in Fabricius, as well as in
his son-in-law Reimarus, is grammatical knowledge. Yet this deficiency
has not prevented Reimarus from directing the whole of his attention
to the index, which is excellent. If he had made the index before the
edition was completed, he would have arranged quite differently the
strictly philological part of his work. Philological indices are a most
useful aid in study, and infinitely heighten the value of an edition.
The task of compiling them leads to a great number of questions and
inquiries, which otherwise would never have been thought of.[29]
After Dio, nothing original was any more written by Greeks on Roman
history. In the middle ages, works were lost. Of Livy, the first and
third decades were read in the schools for the _provectiores_, and for
history men contented themselves with Florus, Eutropius, Rufus, Victor,
and Orosius. Eutropius was read also, but spuriated, in a continuation
of Paul Warnefrid and Sagax; besides which, as a chrestomathy of fine
actions, Valerius Maximus, one of the most wretched of writers, was
very much in vogue. People in those days generally cared only for what
was ready at hand, and that they diligently worked at; but about any
thing that was unknown they did not at all trouble themselves. If the
glossators had not been tainted with the defects of their age, they
might have got access to quite different sources, from which the law
books were to be explained. Some men in the middle ages read indeed
and collected manuscripts; but they had no comprehensive views--no
sort of symmetry--no striving after any thing that was not at once
within reach. Since Priscian, there is no direct quotation from Livy,
except in Johannes Saresberiensis; and in him moreover, only from
the books now extant. When in the fourteenth century the light was
dawning, people began again to read Livy; as we see from a strange
novel of Francesco Sacchetti, in which he speaks of a Florentine who
was so absorbed in the study of Livy, that, when one Saturday, the
workmen came to him for their wages, he spoke to them as though they
were living in the time of Cato. Petrarch read the war of Hannibal in
Livy, and also Cæsar’s Commentaries, with an ardour and a passionate
fondness, with which they certainly had not been read since the times
of the great Boëthius,--consequently for eight centuries. He in vain
wished to have more of Livy; he had as yet only the epitome, of
which, perhaps, he was the discoverer. Now awoke in the hearts of the
Italians the desire of considering themselves as the successors and
heirs of the ancient Romans, and they began to collect books wherever
they found them. The letters of congratulation which were written by
Leonardus Aretinus, Bartholomæus, and others, to Poggius, when he had
discovered new books, are most affecting. The Roman history was read
with an interest which beggars belief; and yet they kept to the works
which they already had. But now they began to convince themselves
that with the means which they had hitherto possessed, they were
not capable of understanding the Roman history: and thus the study
of Archæology grew up, to which Pomponius Lætus in particular gave
an impulse; who, however, did much mischief by the negligent way in
which he set about it. In the beginning of the sixteenth century,
the study of Roman antiquities made rapid progress; and collections
of inscriptions and of antiquities were now first made in Italy and
France by Mazocchi and others, who lived at that period. In Italy an
equal degree of attention was not bestowed upon the ancient science of
jurisprudence, which, strange to say, did not flourish in that country,
though the interpretation of the civil law had originally sprung from
thence. At that time scientific jurisprudence was the province of the
French, while the Italians applied themselves to history, and to the
investigation of authorities for that purpose. People also began to
make remarks on particular parts of the history. Glareanus, a strange
character, but of an acute and penetrating mind, began freely to
examine and to scrutinize Livy. Panvinius, an Augustinian at Verona,
and Sigonius of Modena, have first done something by arranging the
Fasti, and elucidating the Roman antiquities; owing to them, the
knowledge of Roman affairs advanced with colossal strides. They
dwelt especially on the times of Cicero and Cæsar, for which there
existed contemporary accounts; but they did not work their way into
the earliest times. They fostered the tree, but there was no root to
it. Both of them, and Panvinius in particular, were weak in Greek
literature, and had a very deficient knowledge of Greek affairs. Both
have done much; yet they were wanting in practical experience. The
State, as it existed, was to them a mystery, although in some respects
they had greater facilities than a foreigner, since many things
presented themselves to their observation which were still continuing
under the old names. They did not take a sufficiently clear view of
things, and therefore they generally blundered in the exposition of
details. Panvinius’ Fasti are a fine work; his supplements to them
admirable, considering what his means were. It was his good fortune
that in his time fragments of the Capitoline Fasti were found, when
a church was building, which led to many results. Under my own eyes
also some pieces were found, from which important hints may be gathered
concerning the times in which Livy fails us.
The Fasti are preserved in many separate collections, and also for
those periods in which history forsakes us. At the end of the sixteenth
century, Stephen Pighius of Campen in Overyssel, secretary of Cardinal
Granvella, and afterwards priest at Xanten,[30] conceived the idea of
restoring the Roman history in the form of annals, including the times
for which Livy fails us; and with this view he subjected the latter
to a searching criticism. He was a man of very great learning,--his
_Hercules Prodicius_, his notes on Valerius Maximus, &c. are
excellent,--yet his annals are based on a mistaken idea. I tried once
in my youth to learn the Fasti by heart, and I believe that the young
Romans were used to do so; it is, however, of no great value. If the
Fasti were all preserved, such annals as Pighius intended would be very
important for us, but interesting in details only. Pighius, however,
entered upon quite a chimerical undertaking. He wished to restore
the lost periods of the Fasti; and in so doing, not only to mark
the few notices which we possess, but also to fill up the gaps from
possibilities, calculating what people might at that time according
to the _leges annales_ have held the offices. Yet he had no desire
to deceive his readers, but he indicated his supplements as such;
nevertheless G. J. Vossius has allowed himself to be misled by them,
and after him even some scholars of the present day, as for example,
Schubert of Königsberg in his book on the Ædiles. In spite of all this,
Pighius’ book cannot be dispensed with, inasmuch as he availed himself
of inscriptions, and made many acute combinations. Unfortunately
his work was not completed; he died before its publication. Andreas
Schottus finished and published it; but his continuation is far
inferior.
The account of the manner in which Roman history was handled affords
us an image of the progress of philology itself. In the fifteenth
century it had scarcely awakened, and it was still uncritical; in
the sixteenth, men penetrated quickly and deeply into the study of
antiquity, without, however, fully securing the results; but the golden
age of philology vanished in the beginning of the seventeenth, and
in Germany, where it had blossomed only late, it was blighted by the
thirty years’ war. It was now combined with other studies, and works
were produced, which were laboriously and diligently executed, but of
inferior philological merit, and devoid of genius. The Strasburg school
of philologists especially, still maintained a certain pre-eminence. At
the end of the thirty years’ war, John Freinsheim of that town wrote
his supplements to the books of Livy. Of particular facts, he has left
few unnoticed; yet he has but imperfectly succeeded in arranging the
events of the obscure ages, and in entering more deeply into the spirit
of the times. He had no idea of the Roman state either in relations
of peace or of war, though he prided himself not a little on his
_prudentia civilis_. For the second decade, especially books 11-15,
and perhaps also four books 46-60, he had more complete materials,
and made an energetic use of them; afterwards, he becomes more and
more careless, and from the period of the Social War decidedly bad.
Notwithstanding which, no one who works at Roman history can do without
his book. Unfortunately, the quotations are very inaccurate, even in
the original edition; and in that of Drakenborch, they are either made
worse, or at least not corrected. Freinsheim, like his fellow citizens
Boecler and Obrecht, is to be reckoned among the ornaments of Germany
of that time. That he did not continue his immense work with equal care
is very pardonable, and the preposterousness of the undertaking itself
is to be charged to the taste of the age in which he lived.
About twenty years after him, quite a different man began a work on
Roman history which is thoroughly classical. James Perizonius, in his
_Animadversiones Historicæ_, undertook a critical review of Roman
history, which, however, extended only to detached parts of it, though
what he did was ably and beautifully executed. He first conceived the
fruitful idea, that the Roman history, like that of the Jewish people,
had arisen out of lays: an idea which we cannot sufficiently admire,
when we consider the time in which he wrote, and that he was moreover
a Dutch philologist; for such national songs are entirely wanting in
the Netherlands. A Dane might much more easily have been its author,
as Saxo Grammaticus and the songs of the Edda would have led to it.
Perizonius had a perfectly unbiassed mind, incredible philological
learning, and a real genius for history. Yet his _Animadversiones_ have
not had the influence which they deserved, as they were reprinted only
once, and altogether forgotten.
After 1684, in a strictly philological point of view, little better
than nothing was done for Roman history. Bentley and J. M. Gesner are
almost the only exceptions to the wretched condition of philology
during the first half of the eighteenth century. In the meanwhile
there spread itself in Europe more and more a certain general mental
cultivation, which laid claim to classical history as a part of the
universal one; and in consequence, even men who had none of the deeper
philological knowledge, occupied themselves with ancient history. Thus
arose that little masterly work of president Montesquieu, _Sur les
causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence_, which in spite
of many mistakes is an excellent book.
At the end of the seventeenth century, scepticism had awakened in
Europe; it originated with Bayle, and attacked history also. It did
not, however, aim at establishing profound results; but was content
with disclosing the mistakes in what had previously been considered
as authentic history. In this spirit wrote a very ingenious man, a
refugee who had lived a long time in England, Monsieur de Beaufort.
His work on the Roman Antiquities, however much may be objectionable
in it, considered as a whole is the best which has been written on
the subject. It was clear to him, that the early Roman history was
a poem, and no history; and this conviction of his he made known in
his _Dissertation sur l’incertitude des quatre premiers siècles de
l’histoire Romaine_. The work bears the stamp of an ingenious and well
read man, who was no philologist by profession, and on the whole, not
inured to accurate research; there is manifested in it that spirit of
scepticism, which only destroys and does not attempt to rebuild; and
therefore it excited much opposition. But the book has been of use. All
that has been written since is based upon it.
What the worthy Rollin has compiled from Livy and from Freinsheim’s
supplements, is not to be reckoned a Roman history. With very little
talent, he shows such a respectable, virtuous, and upright disposition,
that men were perfectly justified in putting it into the hands of
youth; yet it is a dry book, which now-a-days scarcely any one would
read through. His learning is very defective; he is destitute of all
critical judgment, and without any insight into the state of affairs.
People at that time, as a very witty writer remarks, treated ancient
history as if it had never really happened.
Somewhat later,[31] Hooke wrote a work, with which indeed I am but
slightly acquainted, and which, generally speaking, is not known in
Germany. He took notice of Beaufort’s views, without, however, entering
into any deeper questions; and he treated the history of those times
only which he held to be historical.
This is no less the case in Ferguson’s history of the Roman Republic,
which is a complete failure. He was judicious and honest, but
unlearned; and he had not the remotest conception of the constitution.
He gives full details only from the times of the Gracchi, and treats
history pragmatically and morally. For the knowledge of history the
book is of no value. Levesque’s history is downright trash: he deems
the account of the earliest times to be nonsensical stuff, but quite in
an arbitrary manner makes exceptions in favour of particular events.
There is a low tone about the book, and there is no erudition in it.
Micali’s _Italia avanti il dominio de’ Romani_ is likewise a wretched
work. He rouses himself into a strange passion against the Romans, and
invents histories of the Italian States which could not be arrived
at by any. Micali wrote at the time of the French ascendancy, and so
he was glad to be able on this occasion to say something against the
exclusive dominion of any one people; but he thus allowed himself to
be betrayed into an unreasonable heat, and into unfairness against the
Romans. Besides which, he is quite an unlearned man.
The general tendency of philology in Germany could not but lead to a
critical treatment of Roman history, based on research. For the last
forty years it has gained a settled character. The movement in it
began on several quite distinct points, it lay in the very essence
of the whole development of our literature. Men like Lessing, who,
without any accurate philological learning, was endowed with a most
philological spirit, and Winkelmann, are to be considered as the true
fathers of modern improved philology. Thus also the attempts of Heyne
and Ernesti, although very imperfect ones; the revival of historical
jurisprudence;[32] as well as that of grammatical philology, by Reiz,
Wolf, Hermann, the translations of Voss and others, have contributed
much to Roman history. The spirit was awakened, the language moulded
by Lessing and Goethe, and the age with its gigantic changes and
revolutions filled every thing with life; and exertion was felt to be a
necessity. All this must have reacted upon Roman history, and the more
so as political affairs assimilated to those of the ancient Romans. By
these circumstances especially, my attention was directed to the Roman
state as it really was, and first turned to inquire into the question,
why those violent struggles had taken place in Rome. Thus Roman
history was now no more treated merely sceptically, but critically;
results took the place of exploded inventions; it was shown what we
are to believe, and what to reject as invention or interpolation; and,
moreover, this advantage has been gained, that people know what they
may receive as truth, with regard to ancient Roman history in general,
without engaging in vain attempts to pursue it into all its details,
with the dates accurately specified. In this immense labyrinth,
these researches, as far as they regard the early times, could not
succeed at once. He who entered into them was still fettered by many
prejudices: he saw the goal, but got bewildered on his way. Thus it
was imperatively demanded by good faith and conscientiousness, not
to remain satisfied with what was already found, and to take courage
to find the solution of enigmas. What could be gained for the early
times, is now gained in all essential points; and it is time that
these researches should not grow too much into fashion. Not that I am
afraid, that the results obtained may be shaken; but since this work is
limited by the extent of the sources, until fresh ones be discovered,
nothing, on the one hand, can have been missed; and, on the other,
nothing essential yet remains to be done. It is to be wished that men’s
energies may now be directed to those points, from which important
results are to be expected, especially within the range of the later
periods. To know and to understand these, one should necessarily
be acquainted with the ancient ages and forms; but one ought not
to believe that the interest of the Roman history leaves off where
contemporary accounts begin; as if those things only were interesting
which are to be guessed. The Roman history is a whole. Emerging from
the darkest ages, where it can be only restored by combinations,
comparisons, and analogies, it reaches that stage in which it is borne
out by the evidence of persons who are well informed. The remainder
of Roman history, from the time when it becomes historical, must
likewise be investigated, in order to gain settled results; or where
they are already gained, calmly to examine them, and to make use of the
materials which have been brought to light.
The study of ancient history requires for its basis a sound, able,
philological, and grammatical spirit, which is proof against every
temptation to indulge in fanciful etymologies; a well cultivated and
practised taste, so as to distinguish possibilities or probabilities,
and realities; a matured judgment; a knowledge of human and civil
affairs, of those things which have happened in different ages,
according to the same laws; and above all, _conscientiousness and
uprightness, free from all feelings of display and vanity,--a blameless
walk before God_. The adage of former times ought well to be laid to
heart, that learning is the fruit of uprightness and piety.
When once we have a correct system of Roman antiquities, it will belong
to scientific Roman history as an introduction to it. Now they are
treated very differently from each other. The older works contain much
that is excellent concerning those times for which Roman literature
is coeval. In ancient geography also, a chorography of ancient Italy
is still wanting; as to Mannert’s work, it can only receive a very
qualified recommendation. Much better are Cluver’s _Italia Antiqua_ and
_Sicilia_, colossal works, which are, however, so rare, and so costly,
that one cannot refer the student to them. In the details little is to
be added, almost every thing in the classical writers which happens to
bear upon the settlement of chorographical points being incorporated in
them. What is decidedly deficient is the survey of the ancient nations;
all his general views are vague. Yet the description of the country is
admirable for his times.
As to maps, that of d’Anville is unquestionably to be recommended.
D’Anville was a genius: he possessed the acuteness to discriminate
among conflicting statements those which were worthy of belief; he was
like a great artist, who, with very simple instruments, does more than
another with the most perfect ones. His works on the interior of Africa
are extraordinary, considering the few notices which he had. Not to
be excelled are his maps of Gaul, Spain, and Britain; unsurpassed is
his map of Italy, although much might be improved in it. He is less
perfect with regard to Greece. For Epirus and Macedon, he was of course
unable to make use of the more correct information of modern times, the
interior of these countries not being then explored by travellers; the
Peloponnesus he worked out mostly from the Portulan maps. Barbié du
Bocage, his pupil, was likewise highly to be esteemed; but with such a
predecessor, he was in a disadvantageous position. He continued several
of d’Anville’s works with little success. He found, for instance, that
Patras in d’Anville’s map was placed 30 minutes too far north, and he
accordingly changed the position; yet, although he was in the right, he
twenty years afterwards restored it to d’Anville’s original position.
D’Anville has in Italy one single mathematical error with regard to
the south-eastern part of Naples, where the country of the Sallentines
lies about 20 minutes too little to the east. For d’Anville had as yet
no other maps at hand but the Venetian ones, in which the outlines are
generally excellent, but the longitudes for the most part incorrect.
The comparison of d’Anville’s maps with those of his predecessors, as
those of Delisle and others, makes him still more admirable. His map
of Egypt is an extraordinary performance, if we consider that he had
only the rude outlines of the Arabian and Turkish maps to work from.
An apparent defect in his map of Italy is this, that it represents a
distinct period, about that of Augustus, and in consequence there is
a discrepancy in the settlement of the confines which might make one
inclined to censure him; and yet one ought to be very careful not to
do so. Samnium, for instance, according to Livy, still included a very
large tract which d’Anville draws into Apulia, because he follows the
description of Italy by Pliny.
Thoroughly bad is Reichardt’s map of Italy. Reichardt has no idea
of ancient geography, and his map is a medley of ignorance and
impudence. Places which never existed are described by him as towns of
importance;--this he does in the case of Sublanuvium, Subaricia, stages
for changing horses laid down in ancient itineraries beneath Lanuvium
and Aricia, towns which were built on hills. A place of this kind
happens to be called _ad bivium_, from which Reichardt makes a town _ad
Birium_, of the size of Præneste and others in Latium. Aquila, founded
during the middle ages, is described by him as an old Sabine town,
merely because it bears a Roman name. Politorium, Medullia, and other
towns in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome, the accurate position of
which is no more by any means to be made out, are placed by him just
as fancy leads him, and on sites besides where they certainly could
not have stood. He brings the Volscians as far as the mouth of the
Tiber, whilst no one makes them extend farther than to Antium. Could I
have overcome my disgust, and looked over the map of this man yet more
accurately, I might have found many other similar blunders. Its only
recommendation is the beauty of the engraving. D’Anville as yet remains
unsurpassed. My father, who was certainly a competent judge in this
matter, never spoke of him but in the highest terms of acknowledgment.