EXCEPTIONS TO WHICH THE TESTIMONY OF HISTORIANS, ON PARTICULAR POINTS,
MAY BE LIABLE.
From the very nature of the case the authenticity of an historical work
can be affirmed only in a restricted sense, and must be understood to
be open to exceptions in particular instances. Such exceptions may be
taken without impeaching the character of the writer for veracity,
or even for general accuracy. It is easy to suppose that he may have
been imposed upon in certain cases, by his informants; or he may have
reported things that were currently believed in his time, without
thinking himself personally pledged for their truth: he may not have
thought himself called upon, as an historian, to discuss questions
which might more properly be taken up by philosophers; or he may merely
have been negligent--here and there, in the course of a voluminous
work. Yet allowances of this sort must, as it is evident, be confined
to cases of an accidental kind, and should only then be brought forward
in the way of apology for a writer’s mistakes, when he is giving an
account of facts that were not immediately known to himself. For in a
narrative of events, of which the writer professes himself to have had
a personal knowledge, we must either admit his veracity, and with it
the truth of the facts; or we must deny both.
The first point to be considered, when the affirmation of an historian
in a particular instance is doubted, is--_The nature of the fact in
question_.
1. If, for example, it be a question of numbers, measures, or dates,
it is always to be remembered--as already remarked--that a peculiar
uncertainty attaches to these matters, in ancient authors, owing to the
method of notation _by letters_, which were easily mistaken, one for
another. The numbers of which armies were composed--the numbers of the
slain in battle--the population of cities--the revenues of states--the
distances of places--the weight or measure of bodies, and computations
of time, must, therefore, always be held open to question, as to what
was actually intended and written by the author: this doubt may be
entertained without in the least derogating from the credit of the work
in which they occur. Besides the probable corruption of copies in such
instances, it is to be remembered as to many of the particulars above
named, that they are far more liable to uncertainty, or mistake, than
other facts, so that scarcely any degree of diligence and care on the
part of an historian, will entirely secure him from errors on such
points.
2. Geographical details, descriptions of the objects of natural
history, or accounts of natural phenomena, must also, generally, be
considered as open to a degree of uncertainty, on account of the
imperfect information upon such subjects, which was possessed by the
ancients. And yet the names and relative distances of places in all
the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean sea, as reported by
ancient geographers and historians, have been to so great an extent
authenticated by the researches of modern scholars, that any apparent
inconsistencies should not hastily be assumed as proofs of ignorance.
But as to whatever relates to countries remote from Greece and Italy,
or lying beyond the bounds of the Persian, Macedonian, Carthaginian,
and Roman empires, it must of course be received with hesitation.
Many of these descriptions of remote countries, when they come to be
compared with the accounts of modern travellers, afford, at once,
amusing instances of exaggeration, and striking attestations of the
substantial authenticity of the works in which they occur. For the
coincidence of these accounts, in many respects, with the facts, as
they are now fully known, puts it beyond doubt that the historian had
actually conversed with natives of those countries, or with travellers;
while at the same time the distortion of the picture is precisely such
as might be expected from the channels through which the information
was derived.
3. The descriptions so frequently met with in ancient writers, of
monstrous men or animals--griffins--dragons--hydras--pygmies--giants;
or of trees bearing golden fruit, of fountains flowing with perfumed
liquids, or even with the precious metals, may, in most cases, be now
traced to their origin in actual facts, which, passing to the writer
through the medium of ignorant, fanciful, or interested reporters,
assumed the characteristic extravagance of fables. On occasions
of this kind it is much more becoming to an intelligent student of
history to make search, among the stores of modern science, for the
probable source of such accounts, than to pass them by with the sneer
of indolent scepticism. Some writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries took so much offence at certain passages of this sort in the
history of Herodotus, as to treat the entire work of that industrious
and generally accurate writer with contempt, as if it were little
better than a repository of fables. But these rash censures now fall
back upon themselves; for modern travellers, in visiting the countries
described by the father of history, find frequent occasion for noticing
the correctness of his statements, or their substantial truth, even
in those descriptions or relations which may seem the most open to
suspicion.
4. In narrating or describing natural phenomena, such as meteors,
tempests, eruptions of volcanoes, earthquakes, eclipses, all that
is needed is to remove from the narrative of the historian those
explanations, or those decorative phrases, by which he endeavoured to
accommodate such occurrences to the political events of the moment, at
the suggestion of popular superstitions.
And here we may take occasion to point out a remarkable difference,
which forms a characteristic distinction in comparing the Jewish
writers with those of other nations, as to the nature of those
marvellous or supernatural facts which they describe. The marvellous
events reported by the Greek and Roman authors may, with few
exceptions, be classed under two heads; namely--allegorical and
poetical combinations, which were so obviously fabulous as to ask
for no credence, and to demand no scrutiny; or they were mere
exaggerations, distortions, or misapplications of natural objects
or phenomena. But the Jewish historians and poets do not describe,
_as actually existing_, any such allegorical prodigies; and their
descriptions of real animals, are either simply exact, or they are
evidently _poetical_ (like those in the book of Job), but they are not
_fabulous_. They do not throw a supernatural colouring over ordinary
phenomena, or convert plain facts into prodigies. The supernatural
events they record--as matters of history, are such deviations from the
standing order of natural causes, as leave us no alternative between a
peremptory denial of the veracity of the writers, or a submission to
their affirmation of divine agency.
The freedom of the Jewish historians, poets, and prophets, from those
admixtures of the marvellous and the natural, with which other ancient
writers abound, is one of the most remarkable of their characteristics.
Their descriptions of human nature are neither heroical, nor fantastic;
their narratives of human affairs are of the simplest complexion, and
they are strictly consistent with the known modes of the time and
country. Nor is our assent taxed, on any occasion, except when an event
is recorded which, unless it had actually taken place, could not have
been affirmed by any but reckless impostors.
Besides those prodigies which are met with in profane historians, and
that only require to be freed from exaggerations appended to natural
events by ignorance, poetry, or superstition, there are other accounts
which are not to be satisfactorily explained so readily, and which
call for the exercise of some discrimination. They are of a kind that
must be accounted either altogether false, or else must imply, in some
sense, a supernatural agency. Of the former kind may well be reckoned
all, or nearly all, those alleged supernatural occurrences which no
doubt were contrived to give credit to an established superstition, or
to subserve the designs of statesmen or commanders, and which, in most
cases, rested exclusively upon the testimony of priests. On the other
hand, there are recorded, in the pages of profane historians, some few
facts, apparently beyond the range of natural causes, which cannot be
rejected as untrue, unless we do violence to the soundest principles of
evidence, and which will not be treated with uninquisitive contempt,
except by a purblind scepticism, that is more nearly allied to
credulity than to true philosophy. These peculiar cases demand a far
more full and particular consideration than it is compatible with the
design of this volume to bestow upon them.
5. The political habits and tastes of the Greeks and Romans, induced
their historians to supply the personages of their story with
formal speeches, on all remarkable occasions; for oratory was the
spring and life of every political movement; and as the machine of
government could not in fact be made to go without the impelling
force of harangues, history must not seem to omit them. Yet there is
little reason to believe that authentic reports of public speeches
were often, if ever, in the possession of historians. Indeed, these
brilliant portions of the history are often so much in the manner of
the author, as to leave the reader in no doubt to whom to attribute
them. Nevertheless it may be imagined that, on some memorable
occasions, the very words of a short speech, or the general purport of
an oration, was remembered and recorded, and so was worked into the
speech, as framed by the historian.
A compliance with the taste of the times seems also to have led some
writers to use means for diverting the attention of their readers,
and for relieving the burden of the narrative, by introducing
digressions, often of a trivial kind, which, though not announced as
mere embellishments, and which perhaps were not purely fictitious, are
evidently not entitled to an equal degree of confidence with the main
circumstances of the story.
6. The secret motives of public men, or the hidden causes of great
events, are not the proper subjects of history, which is concerned only
with such facts as may be truly and fairly known. The disquisitions
of an historian on such topics are therefore to be excepted against;
for when he so forsakes his function, he must expect to be forsaken by
his reader; his errors, on such points, do not impeach his veracity;
although they lower our opinion of his judgment.
7. Very few facts of importance, such as form the proper subjects of
history, rest entirely upon the testimony of a single historian, or are
incapable of being directly, or remotely confirmed, by some kind of
coincident evidence. Whenever therefore a question arises relative to
the truth of a particular statement, recourse must be had, either to
the testimony of contemporary writers, or to the evidence of existing
monuments. But even if all such means of corroboration should fail,
and if we meet with a perplexing silence where we might expect to find
confirmation, we are by no means justified in rejecting the unsupported
testimony, merely on the ground of this want of correlative support.
Many instances may be adduced of the most extraordinary silence of
historians relative to facts with which they must have been acquainted,
and which seemed to lie directly in the course of their narrative.
Important facts are mentioned by no ancient writer, though they are
unquestionably established by the evidence of existing inscriptions,
coins, statues, or buildings. There are also facts mentioned only
by some one historian, which happen to be attested by an incidental
coincidence with some relic of antiquity lately brought to light; if
this relic had remained in its long obscurity, such facts might (we see
with how little reason) have been disputed.
Nothing can be more fallacious than an inference drawn from the
silence of historians relative to particular facts. For a full,
comprehensive, and, if the phrase may be used, a _business-like_
method of writing history, in which nothing important--nothing which a
well-informed reader will look for, must be omitted, is the produce of
modern improvements in thinking and writing. The general diffusion of
knowledge, and the activity of criticism, occasion a much higher demand
in matters of information to be made upon writers than was thought
of in ancient times. A full and exact communication of facts has come
to be valued more highly than any mere beauties of style; at least,
no beauties of style are allowed to atone for palpable deficiencies
in matters of fact. The moderns must be taught--and pleased; but
the ancients would be pleased, and taught. Ancient writers, and
historians not less than others, seem to have formed their notions
of prose composition very much upon the model of poetry, which, in
most languages, was the earliest kind of literature. As their epics
were histories, so, in some sense, their histories were epics. Such
particulars, therefore, were taken up in the course of the narrative,
as seemed best to accord with the abstract idea of the work--not always
those which a rigid adherence to a comprehensive plan would have made
it necessary to bring forward.
8. The influence of personal or party prejudices is indefinite; and as
it may distort the representations of an historian almost unconsciously
to himself, and without impugning his general integrity, so will it, in
most instances, be difficult, especially after the lapse of ages, to
discover the extent to which the operation of such prejudices should be
allowed for. But if it cannot be ascertained how much of the colouring
of the picture is to be attributed to the medium through which an
historian exhibits his characters, yet the general hues of that medium
will hardly escape the observation of an intelligent reader; and when
once observed, the illusion is destroyed.
But in relation to the influence of prejudices of this sort, ancient
historians unquestionably appear to advantage when compared with those
of modern times. Instances of equanimity might be cited from the Greek
historians to which few parallels could be adduced, drawn from the
pages of modern writers. Like the sculptures of the same people, the
works of the Greek historians, though not wanting in the distinctive
characters, or the moving energy of life, present an aspect from which
the sublimity of repose is never lost. These writers seem to have been
conscious that they were holding up the picture of their times to the
eyes of mankind in all ages: they forgot, therefore, the passions and
interests of the moment.
With ourselves, the instantaneous diffusion of books through all ranks
of the community, places a modern author too nearly in the presence
of his contemporaries to allow him to think much of posterity. The
clamour of public opinion rings around his seclusion: his situation, in
its essential circumstances, is almost the same as that of the public
speaker--the din of the crowd fills his thoughts, and he almost forgets
the distant fame which his genius might command. This nearness of his
audience offers therefore to a modern writer every excitement and every
inducement to the indulgence of party misrepresentations. If it were
not for the correcting influences of a free press, nothing worthy of
the name of history would be produced in modern times.
9. That the Greeks were not in fact much inferior to the
representations given of them by their historians, the existing
monuments of their philosophy, of their poetry, and of their arts,
sufficiently attest. Indeed if we pass from an examination of these
monuments and remains to the perusal of Herodotus, Thucydides, and
Xenophon, we shall be far from thinking that a tone of exaggerated
encomium is to be charged upon those writers. From the pages of the
historians alone, we should fail to form an adequate idea of the
perfection that was attained in all departments of literature and art
by the people whose political affairs they narrate. Scarcely half of
the history of Greece, in a full and philosophical sense of the term,
is to be gathered from its historians:--we must seek for it rather in
the remains of its literature at large,--in museums, and cabinets, and
among the ruins that still bespread its soil.
It is not therefore this sort of general misrepresentation that is to
be suspected in the Greek historians; for more is made certain by other
means than is explicitly affirmed by them. Yet it has been supposed
that, in their accounts of military affairs, the Greek historians,
in order to enhance the glory of their countrymen in repelling the
Persian invasions, have exaggerated the power and extent of the Asiatic
monarchy, and the numbers of the armies with which those of Greece had
to contend. Some amount of misrepresentation, of this kind, may have
been admitted. But yet the pictures given by the Greek writers of the
wealth and resources of the Persian power--of the puerile ambition of
its monarchs--of the countless hosts which they drove before them, by
the lash, into Scythia, Egypt, and Europe--conquering nations rather
by devastation than by military conduct--by the mouths, more than by
the swords of their armies, are so strikingly similar to unquestionable
facts in the later history of the Asiatic empires, that, as the one
cannot be doubted, the other need not be deemed incredible.
10. The arrogance with which, under the term _barbarians_, the Greek
writers speak of all nations that were not of Greek extraction,
naturally suggests the belief that we must not expect to derive from
them a just idea of the civilization of the surrounding nations. In
truth, not a few indications may be gathered from other sources, which
authorize the belief that, in communities not very distant from Greece
itself, or its colonies, a degree of intelligence and of refinement
existed of which it was their shame to be ignorant, or their greater
shame to have taken so little notice.
11. With the Romans it was perhaps less from mere national vanity, than
from a dictate of that deep-plotted policy by which they supported
their unbounded pretensions, that they were induced to misrepresent
the resources and the conduct of the nations on whose necks they
trampled. This policy would often produce misrepresentations of a
contrary kind to those suggested by national vanity. That universal
empire was the right of the Roman arms was the principle of the state:
a reverse of fortune therefore was not simply a calamity--it was a
seeming impeachment of the high claims of the republic. The nations
must not think that their masters could anywhere find equals or rivals
in courage or military skill. A defeat hurt the political faith of the
Roman citizen more than it alarmed his fears; and he would rather waive
the glory of having broken an arm of equal strength with his own, than
confess that there was anywhere an arm of equal strength, to resist his
will. He would choose to sustain the aggravated shame of having been
beaten by an inferior, rather than redeem a part of his dishonour by
acknowledging that he had encountered a superior. A writer therefore
could not do full justice to the courage, conduct and successes of
the enemies of Rome, without offering such an outrage to the common
feeling as would have amounted almost to treason against the state.
Modern historical criticism--exercised by such a writer as Niebuhr, has
sufficed to remove from early Roman history a very large amount of the
misstatements and the exaggerations which Livy and his predecessors had
accumulated around it.