Chapter III: Part 3

Varro derived much notoriety from his _satirical_ compositions. His _Tricarenus_, or _Tricipitina_, was a satiric history of the triumvirate of Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus. Much pleasantry and sarcasm were also interspersed in his books entitled _Logistorici_; but his most celebrated production in that line was the satire which he himself entitled _Menippean_. It was so called from the cynic Menippus of Gadara, a city in Syria, who, like his countryman Meleager, was in the habit of expressing himself jocularly on the most grave and important subjects. He was the author of a _Symposium_, in the manner of Xenophon. His writings were interspersed with verses, parodied from Homer and the tragic poets, or ludicrously applied, for the purpose of burlesque. It is not known, however, that he wrote any professed satire. The appellation, then, of _Menippean_, was given to his satire by Varro, not from any production of the same kind by Menippus, but because he imitated his general style of humour. In its external form it appears to have been a sort of literary anomaly. Greek words and phrases were interspersed with Latin; prose was mingled with verses of various measures; and pleasantry with serious remark. As to its object and design, Cicero introduces Varro himself explaining this in the _Academica_. After giving his reasons for not writing professedly on philosophical subjects, he continues,—“In those ancient writings of ours, we, imitating Menippus, without translating him, have infused a degree of mirth and gaiety along with a portion of our most secret philosophy and logic, so that even our unlearned readers might more easily understand them, being, as it were, invited to read them with some pleasure. Besides, in the discourses we have composed in praise of the dead, and in the introductions to our antiquities, it was our wish to write in a manner worthy of philosophers, provided we have attained the desired object.” From what Cicero afterwards says in this dialogue, while addressing himself to Varro, it would appear, that he had indeed touched on philosophical subjects in his _Menippean_ satire, but that, learned as he was, his object was more to amuse his readers than instruct them: “You have entered on topics of philosophy in a manner sufficient to allure readers to its study, but inadequate to convey full instruction, or to advance its progress.”

Many fragments of this _Menippean_ satire still remain, but they are much broken and corrupted. The heads of the different subjects, or chapters, contained in it, amounting to near one hundred and fifty, have been given by Fabricius in alphabetical order. Some of them are in Latin, others in Greek. A few chapters have double titles; and, though little remains of them but the titles, these show what an infinite variety of subjects was treated by the author. As a specimen, I subjoin those ranged under the letter A. Aborigines,—Περι Ανθρωπων φυσεως,—De Admirandis, vel Gallus Fundanius,—Agatho,—Age modo,—Αιει διβυη, vel περι Αἱρεσεων,—Ajax Stramentitius,—Αλλος ὁυτος Ἡρακλης,—Andabatæ,—Anthropopolis,—περι Αρχης, seu Marcopolis,—περι Αρχαιρεσιων, seu Serranus,—περι Αρετης κτησεως,—περι Αφροδισιων, seu vinalia,—Armorum judicium,—περι Αρρενοτητος, seu Triphallus,—Autumedus,—Mæonius,—Baiæ, &c.(79)

There is a chapter concerning the duty of a husband, (De officio Mariti,) in which the author observes, that the errors of a wife are either to be cured or endured: He who extirpates them makes his wife better, but he who bears with them improves himself. Another is inscribed, “You know not what a late evening, or supper, may bring with it,” (Nescis quid vesper serus vehat.) In this chapter he remarks, that the number of guests should not be less than that of the Graces, or more than that of the Muses. To render an entertainment perfect, four things must concur—agreeable company, suitable place, convenient time, and careful preparation. The guests should not be loquacious or taciturn. Silence is for the bed-chamber, and eloquence for the Forum, but neither for a feast. The conversation ought not to turn on anxious or difficult subjects, but should be cheerful and inviting, so that utility may be combined with a certain degree of pleasure and allurement. This will be best managed, by discoursing of those things which relate to the ordinary occurrences or affairs of life, concerning which one has not leisure to talk in the Forum, or while transacting business. The master of the feast should rather be neat and clean than splendidly attired; and if he introduce reading into the entertainment, it should be so selected as to amuse, and to be neither troublesome nor tedious(80). A third chapter is entitled, περι ἐδεσματων; and treats of the rarer delicacies of an entertainment, especially foreign luxuries. Au. Gellius has given us the import of some verses, in which Varro mentioned the different countries which supplied the most exquisite articles of food. Peacocks came from Samos; cranes from Melos; kids from Ambracia; and the best oysters from Tarentum(81). Part of the chapter γνωθι σεαυτον was directed against the Latin tragic poets.

What remains of the verses interspersed in the _Menippean_ satire, is too trifling to enable us to form any accurate judgment of the poetical talents of Varro.

The style of satire introduced by Varro was imitated by Lucius Annæus Seneca, in his satire on the deification of Claudius Cæsar, who was called on earth Divus Claudius. The _Satyricon_ of Petronius Arbiter, in which that writer lashed the luxury, and avarice, and other vices of his age, is a satire of the Varronian species, prose being mingled with verse, and jest with serious remark. Such, too, are the Emperor Julian’s _Symposium of the Cæsars_, in which he characterizes his predecessors; and his Μισοπωγων, directed against the luxurious manners of the citizens of Antioch.

Besides the works of Varro above mentioned, there is a miscellaneous collection of sentences or maxims which have been attributed to him, though it is not known in what part of his numerous writings they were originally introduced. Barthius found seventeen of these sentences in a MS. of the middle age, and printed them in his _Adversaria_. Schneider afterwards discovered, in the _Speculum Historiale_ of Vincent de Beauvais, a monk of the thirteenth century, a much more ample collection of them, which he has inserted in his edition of the _Scriptores rei Rusticæ_(82). They consist of moral maxims, in the style of those preserved from the Mimes of Publius Syrus, and had doubtless been culled as flowers from the works of Varro, at a time when the immense garden of taste and learning which he planted, had not yet been laid waste by the hand of time, or the spoiler(83).

Though the above list of the works of Varro is far from complete, a sufficient number has been mentioned to justify the exclamation of Quintilian,—“Quam multa, immo pene omnia tradidit Varro!” and the more full panegyric of Cicero,—“His works brought us home, as it were, while we were foreigners in our own city, and wandering like strangers, so that we might know who and where we were; for in them are laid open the chronology of his country,—a description of the seasons,—the laws of religion,—the ordinances of the priests,—domestic and military occurrences,—the situations of countries and places,—the names of all things divine and human,—the breed of animals,—moral duties,—and the origin of things(84).”

Nor did Varro merely delight and instruct his fellow-citizens by his writings. By his careful attention, in procuring the most valuable books, and establishing libraries, he provided, perhaps, still more effectually than by his own learned compositions, for the progressive improvement and civilization of his countrymen. The formation of either private or public libraries was late of taking place at Rome, for the Romans were late in attending to literary studies. Tiraboschi quotes a number of writers who have discovered a library in the public records preserved at Rome(85), and in the books of the Sibyls(86). But these, he observes, may be classed with the library which Madero found to have existed before the flood, and that belonging to Adam, of which Hilscherus has made out an exact catalogue(87). From Syracuse and Corinth the Romans brought away the statues and pictures, and other monuments of the fine arts; but we do not learn that they carried to the capital any works of literature or science. Some agricultural books found their way to Rome from Africa, on the destruction of Carthage; but the other treasures of its libraries, though they fell under the power of a conqueror not without pretensions to taste and erudition, were bestowed on the African princes in alliance with the Romans(88).

Paulus Emilius is said by Plutarch to have allowed his sons to choose some volumes from the library of Perseus, King of Macedon(89), whom he led captive to Rome in 585. But the honour of first possessing a library in Rome is justly due to Sylla; who, on the occupation of Athens, in 667, acquired the library of Apellicon, which he discovered in the temple of Apollo. This collection, which contained, among various other books, the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, was reserved to himself by Sylla from the plunder; and, having been brought to Rome, was arranged by the grammarian Tyrannio, who also supplied and corrected the mutilated text of Aristotle(90). Engaged, as he constantly was, in domestic strife or foreign warfare, Sylla could have made little use of this library, and he did not communicate the benefit of it to scholars, by opening it to the public; but the example of the Dictator prompted other commanders not to overlook the libraries, in the plunder of captured cities, and books thus became a fashionable acquisition. Sometimes, indeed, these collections were rather proofs of the power and opulence of the Roman generals, than of their literary taste or talents. A certain value was now affixed to manuscripts; and these were, in consequence, amassed by them, from a spirit of rapacity, and the principle of leaving nothing behind which could be carried off by force or stratagem. In one remarkable instance, however, the learning of the proprietor fully corresponded to the literary treasures which he had collected. Lucullus, a man of severe study, and wonderfully skilled in all the fine arts, after having employed many years in the cultivation of literature, and the civil administration of the republic, was unexpectedly called, in consequence of a political intrigue, to lead on the Roman army in the perilous contest with Mithridates; and, though previously unacquainted with military affairs, he became the first captain of the age, with little farther experience, than his study of the art of war, during the voyage from Rome to Asia. His attempts to introduce a reform in the corrupt administration of the Asiatic provinces, procured him enemies, through whose means he was superseded in the command of the army, by one who was not superior to him in talents, and was far inferior in virtue. After his recall from Pontus, and retreat to a private station, he offered a new spectacle to his countrymen. He did not retire, like Fabricius and Cincinnatus, to plough his farm, and eat turnips in a cottage—he did not, like Africanus, quit his country in disgust, because it had unworthily treated him; nor did he spend his wealth and leisure, like Sylla, in midnight debauchery with buffoons and parasites. He employed the riches he had acquired during his campaigns in the construction of delightful villas, situated on the shore of the sea, or hanging on the declivities of hills. Gardens and spacious porticos, which he adorned with all the elegance of painting and sculpture, made the Romans ashamed of their ancient rustic simplicity. These would doubtless be the objects of admiration to his contemporaries; but it was his library, in which so many copies of valuable works were multiplied or preserved, and his distinguished patronage of learning, that claim the gratitude of posterity. “His library,” says Plutarch, “had walks, galleries, and cabinets belonging to it, which were open to all visitors; and the ingenious Greeks resorted to this abode of the muses to hold literary converse, in which Lucullus delighted to join them(91).” Other Roman patricians had patronized literature, by extending their protection to a favoured few, as the elder Scipio Africanus to Ennius, and the younger to Terence; but Lucullus was the first who encouraged all the arts and sciences, and promoted learning with princely munificence.

But the slave Tyrannio vied with the most splendid of the Romans in the literary treasures he had amassed. A native of Pontus, he was taken prisoner by Lucullus, in the course of the war with Mithridates; and, having been brought to Rome, he was given to Muræna, from whom he received freedom(92). He spent the remainder of his life in teaching rhetoric and grammar. He also arranged the library of Cicero at Antium(93), and taught his nephew, Quintus, in the house of the orator(94). These various employments proved so profitable, that they enabled him to acquire a library of 30,000 volumes(95). Libraries of considerable extent were also formed by Atticus and Cicero; and _Varro_ was not inferior to any of his learned contemporaries, in the industry of collecting and transcribing manuscripts, both in the Greek and Latin language.

The library of Varro, however, and all the others which we have mentioned, were private—open, indeed, to literary men, from the general courtesy of the possessors, but the access to them still dependent on their good will and indulgence. Julius Cæsar was the first who formed the design of establishing a great public library; and to Varro he assigned the task of arranging the books which he had procured. This plan, which was rendered abortive by the untimely fate of Cæsar, was carried into effect by Asinius Pollio, who devoted part of the wealth he had acquired from the spoils of war, to the construction of a magnificent gallery, adjacent to the Temple of Liberty, which he filled with books, and the busts of the learned. Varro was the only living author who, in this public library, had the honour of an image(96), which was erected to him as a testimony of respect for his universal erudition. He also aided Augustus with his advice, in the formation of the two libraries which that emperor established, and which was part of his general system for the encouragement of science and learning. When tyrants understand their trade, and when their judgment is equal to their courage or craft, they become the most zealous and liberal promoters of the interests of learning; for they know that it is for their advantage to withdraw the minds of their subjects from political discussion and to give them, in exchange, the consoling pleasures of imagination, and the inexhaustible occupations of scientific curiosity.

Were I writing the history of Roman arts, it would be necessary to mention that Varro excelled in his knowledge of all those that are useful, and in his taste for all those that are elegant. He was the contriver of what may be considered as the first hour clock that was made in Rome, and which measured time by a hand entirely moved by mechanism. That he also possessed a Museum, adorned with exquisite works of sculpture, we learn from Pliny, who mentions, that it contained an admirable group, by the statuary Archelaus, formed out of one block of marble, and representing a lioness, with Cupids sporting around her—some giving her drink from a horn; some in the attitude of putting socks on her paws, and others in the act of binding her. The same writer acquaints us, that, in the year 692, Varro, who was then Curule Ædile, caused a piece of painting, in fresco, to be brought from Sparta to Rome, in order to adorn the Comitium—the whole having been cut out entire, and enclosed in cases of wood. The painting was excellent, and much admired; but what chiefly excited astonishment, was that it should have been taken from the wall without injury, and transported safe to Italy(97).

I fear I have too long detained the reader with this account of the life and writings of Varro; yet it is not unpleasing to dwell on such a character. He was the contemporary of Marius and Sylla, of Cæsar and Pompey, of Antony and Octavius, these men of contention and massacre; and amid the convulsions into which they threw their country, it is not ungrateful to trace the _Secretum Iter_, which he silently pursued through a period unparalleled in anarchy and crimes. Uninterrupted, save for a moment, by strife and ambition, he prosecuted his literary labours till the extreme term of his prolonged existence. “In eodem enim lectulo,” says Valerius Maximus, with a spirit and eloquence beyond his usual strain of composition—“In eodem enim lectulo, et spiritus ejus, et egregiorum operum cursus extinctus est.”

NIGIDIUS FIGULUS

was a man much resembling Varro, and next to him was accounted the most learned of the Romans(98). He was the contemporary of Cicero, and one of his chief advisers and associates in suppressing the conspiracy of Catiline(99). Shortly afterwards he arrived at the dignity of Prætor, but having espoused the part of Pompey in the civil wars, he was driven into banishment on the accession of Cæsar to the supreme power, and died in 709, before Cicero could obtain his recall from exile(100). He was much addicted to judicial astrology; and ancient writers relate a vast number of his predictions, particularly that of the empire of the world to Augustus, which he presaged immediately after the birth of that prince(101).

Nigidius vied with Varro in multifarious erudition, and the number of his works—grammar, criticism, natural history, and the origin of man, having successively employed his pen. His writings are praised by Cicero, Pliny, Aulus Gellius, and Macrobius; but they were rendered almost entirely unfit for popular use by their subtlety, mysteriousness, and obscurity(102)—defects to which his cultivation of judicial astrology, and adoption of the Pythagorean philosophy, may have materially contributed. Aulus Gellius gives many examples of the obscurity, or rather unintelligibility, of his grammatical writings(103). His chief work was his Grammatical Commentaries, in thirty books, in which he attempted to show, that names and words were fixed not by accidental application, but by a certain power and order of nature. One of his examples, of terms being rather natural than arbitrary, was taken from the word _Vos_, in pronouncing which, he observed, that we use a certain motion of the mouth, agreeing with what the word itself expresses: We protrude, by degrees, the tips of our lips, and thrust forward our breath and mind towards those with whom we are engaged in conversation. On the other hand, when we say _nos_, we do not pronounce it with a broad and expanded blast of the voice, nor with projecting lips, but we restrain our breath and lips, as it were, within ourselves. The like natural signs accompany the utterance of the words _tu_ and _ego_—_tibi_ and _mihi_(104). Nigidius also wrote works, entitled _De Animalibus_, _De Ventis_, _De Extis_, and a great many treatises on the nature of the gods. All these have long since perished, except a very few fragments, which have been collected and explained by Janus Rutgersius, in the third book of his _Variæ Lectiones_, published at Leyden in 1618; 4to. In this collection he has also inserted a Greek translation of another lost work of Nigidius, on the presages to be drawn from thunder. The original Latin is said to have been taken from books which bore the name of the Etruscan Tages, the supposed founder of the science of divination. The Greek version was executed by Laurentius, a philosopher of the age of Justinian, and his translation was discovered by Meursius, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, in the Palatine library. It is a sort of Almanack, containing presages of thunder for each particular day of the year, and beginning with June. If it thunder on the 13th of June, the life or fortunes of some great person are menaced—if on the 19th of July, war is announced—if on the 5th of August, it is indicated that those women, with whom we have any concern, will become somewhat more reasonable than they have hitherto proved(105).

With Varro and Nigidius Figulus, may be classed Tiro, the celebrated freedman of Cicero, and constant assistant in all his literary pursuits. He wrote many books on the use and formation of the Latin language, and others on miscellaneous subjects, which he denominated _Pandectas_(106), as comprehending every sort of literary topic.

Quintus Cornificius, the elder, was also a very general scholar. He composed a curious treatise on the etymology of the names of things in heaven and earth, in which he discovered great knowledge, both of Roman antiquities, and the most recondite Grecian literature. It was here he introduced an explication of Homer’s dark fable, where Jupiter and all the gods proceed to feast for twelve days in Ethiopia. The work was written in 709, during the time of Cæsar’s last expedition to Spain, and was probably intended as a supplement to Varro’s treatise on a similar topic.

HISTORY.

From our supposing that those things which affected our ancestors may affect us, and that those which affect us must affect posterity, we become fond of collecting memorials of prior events, and also of preserving the remembrance of incidents which have occurred in our own age. The historic passion, if it may be so termed, thus naturally divides itself into two desires—that of indulging our own curiosity, and of relating what has occurred to ourselves or our contemporaries.

Monuments accordingly have been raised, and rude hymns composed, for this purpose, by people who had scarcely acquired the use of letters. Among civilized nations, the passion grows in proportion to the means of gratifying it, and the force of example comes to be so strongly felt, that its power and influence are soon historically employed.

The Romans were, in all ages, particularly fond of giving instruction, by every sort of example. They placed the images of their ancestors in the Forum and the vestibules of their houses, so that these venerable forms everywhere met their eyes; and by recalling the glorious actions of the dead, excited the living to emulate their forefathers. The virtue of one generation was thus transfused, by the magic of example, into those by which it was succeeded, and the spirit of heroism was maintained through many ages of the republic—

“Has olim virtus crevit Romana per artes:
Namque foro in medio stabant spirantia signa
Magnanimûm heroum; hîc Decios, magnosque Camillos
Cernere erat: vivax heroum in imagine virtus,
Invidiamque ipsis factura nepotibus, acri
Urgebat stimulo Romanum in prælia robur(107).”

History, therefore, among the Romans, was not composed merely to gratify curiosity, or satiate the historic passion, but also to inflame, by the force of example, and urge on to emulation, in warlike prowess. An insatiable thirst of military fame—an unlimited ambition of extending their empire—an unbounded confidence in their own force and courage—an impetuous overbearing spirit, with which all their enterprises were pursued, composed, in the early days of the Republic, the characteristics of Romans. To foment, and give fresh vigour to these, was a chief object of history.—“I have recorded these things,” says an old Latin annalist, after giving an account of Regulus, “that they who read my commentaries may be rendered, by his example, greater and better.”

Accordingly, the Romans had journalists or annalists, from the earliest periods of the state. The Annals of the Pontiffs were of the same date, if we may believe Cicero, as the foundation of the city(108); but others have placed their commencement in the reign of Numa(109), and Niebuhr not till after the battle of Regillus, which terminated the hopes of Tarquin(110). In order to preserve the memory of public transactions, the Pontifex Maximus, who was the official historian of the Republic, annually committed to writing, on wooden tablets, the leading events of each year, and then set them up at his own house for the instruction of the people(111). These Annals were continued down to the Pontificate of Mucius, in the year 629, and were called _Annales Maximi_, as being periodically compiled and kept by the Pontifex Maximus, or _Publici_, as recording public transactions. Having been inscribed on wooden tablets, they would necessarily be short, and destitute of all circumstantial detail; and being annually formed by successive Pontiffs, could have no appearance of a continued history. They would contain, as Lord Bolingbroke remarks, little more than short minutes or memoranda, hung up in the Pontiff’s house, like the rules of the game in a billiard room: their contents would resemble the epitome prefixed to the books of Livy, or the Register of Remarkable Occurrences in modern Almanacks.

But though short, jejune, and unadorned, still, as records of facts, these annals, if spared, would have formed an inestimable treasure of early history. The Roman territory, in the first ages of the state, was so confined, that every event may be considered as having passed under the immediate observation of the sacred annalist. Besides, the method which, as Cicero informs us, was observed in preparing these Annals, and the care that was taken to insert no fact, of which the truth had not been attested by as many witnesses as there were citizens at Rome, who were all entitled to judge and make their remarks on what ought either to be added or retrenched, must have formed the most authentic body of history that could be desired. The memory of transactions which were yet recent, and whose concomitant circumstances every one could remember, was therein transmitted to posterity. By these means, the Annals were proof against falsification, and their veracity was incontestibly fixed.

These valuable records, however, were, for the most part, consumed in the conflagration of the city, consequent on its capture by the Gauls—an event which was to the early history of Rome what the English invasion by Edward I. proved to the history of Scotland. The practice of the Pontifex Maximus preserving such records was discontinued after that eventful period. A feeble attempt was made to revive it towards the end of the second Punic war; and, from that time, the custom was not entirely dropped till the Pontificate of Mucius, in the year 629. It is to this second series of Annals, or to some other late and ineffectual attempt to revive the ancient Roman history, that Cicero must allude, when he talks of the Great Annals, in his work _De Legibus_(112), since it is undoubted that the pontifical records of events previous to the capture of Rome by the Gauls, almost entirely perished in the conflagration of the city(113). Accordingly, Livy never cites these records, and there is no appearance that he had any opportunity of consulting them; nor are they mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in the long catalogue of records and memorials which he had employed in the composition of his _Historical Antiquities_. The _books_ of the Pontiffs, some of which were recovered in the search made to find what the flames had spared, are, indeed, occasionally mentioned. But these were works explaining the mysteries of religion, with instructions as to the ceremonies to be observed in its practical exercise, and could have been of no more service to Roman, than a collection of breviaries or missals to modern history.

Statues, inscriptions, and other public monuments, which aid in perpetuating the memory of illustrious persons, and transmitting to posterity the services they have rendered their country, were accounted, among the Romans, as the most honourable rewards that could be bestowed on great actions; and virtue, in those ancient times, thought no recompense more worthy of her than the immortality which such monuments seemed to promise. Rome having produced so many examples of a disinterested patriotism and valour must have been filled with monuments of this description when taken by the Gauls. But these honorary memorials were thrown down along with the buildings, and buried in the ruins. If any escaped, it was but a small number; and the greatest part of those that were to be seen at Rome in the eighth century of the city, were founded on fabulous traditions which proved that the loss of the true monuments had occasioned the substitution of false ones. Had the genuine monuments been preserved at Rome, even till the period when the first regular annals began to be composed, though they would not have sufficed to restore the history entirely, they would have served at least to have perpetuated incontestably the memory of various important facts, to have fixed their dates, and transmitted the glory of great men to posterity.

On what then, it will be asked, was the Roman history founded, and what authentic records were preserved as materials for its composition? There were first the _Leges Regiæ_. These were diligently searched for, and were discovered along with the Twelve Tables, after the sack of the city: And all those royal laws which did not concern sacred matters, were publicly exposed to be seen and identified by the people(114), that no suspicion of forgery or falsification might descend to posterity. These precautions leave us little room to doubt that the _Leges Regiæ_, and Laws of the Tables, were preserved, and that they remained as they had been originally promulgated by the kings and decemvirs. Such laws, however, would be of no greater service to Roman history, than what the _Regiam Majestatem_ has been to that of Scotland. They might be useful in tracing the early constitution of the state, the origin of several customs, ceremonies, public offices, and other points of antiquarian research, but they could be of little avail in fixing dates, ascertaining facts, and setting events in their true light, which form the peculiar objects of civil history.

Treaties of peace, which were the pledges of the public tranquillity from without, being next to the laws of the greatest importance to the state, much care was bestowed, after the expulsion of the Gauls, in recovering as many of them as the flames had spared. Some of them were the more easily restored, from having been kept in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which the fury of the enemy could not reach(115). Those which had been saved, continued to be very carefully preserved, and there is no reason to suspect them of having been falsified. Among the treaties which were rescued from destruction, Horace mentions those of the Kings, with the Gabii and the Sabines (_Fœdera Regum_(116).) The former was that concluded by Tarquinius Superbus, and which, Dionysius of Halicarnassus informs us, was still preserved at Rome in his time, in the temple of Jupiter Fidius, on a buckler made of wood, and covered with an ox’s hide, on which the articles of the treaty were written in ancient characters(117). Dionysius mentions two treaties with the Sabines—the first was between Romulus and their king Tatius(118); and the other, the terms of which were inscribed on a column erected in a temple, was concluded with them by Tullus Hostilius, at the close of a Sabine war(119). Livy likewise cites a treaty made with the Ardeates(120); and Polybius has preserved entire another entered into with the Carthaginians, in the year of the expulsion of the kings(121). Pliny has also alluded to one of the conditions of a treaty which Porsenna, the ally of Tarquin, granted to the Roman people(122). Now these leagues with the Gabii, Sabines, Ardeates, and one or two with the Latins, are almost the only treaties we find anywhere referred to by the ancient Latin historians; who thus seem to have employed but little diligence in consulting those original documents, or drawing from them, in compiling their histories, such assistance as they could have afforded. The treaties quoted by Polybius and Pliny, completely contradict the relations of the Latin annalists; those cited by Polybius proving, in opposition to their assertions, that the Carthaginians had been in possession of a great part of Sicily about a century previous to the date which Livy has fixed to their first expedition to that island; and those quoted by Pliny, that Porsenna, instead of treating with the Romans on equal terms, as represented by their historians, had actually prohibited them from employing arms,—permitting them the use of iron only in tilling the ground(123).

The _Libri Lintei_ (so called because written on linen) are cited by Livy after the old annalist Licinius Macer, by whom they appear to have been carefully studied. These books were kept in the temple of Juno Moneta, but were probably of less importance than the other public records, which were inscribed on rolls of lead. They were obviously a work of no great extent, since Livy, who appeals to them on four different occasions in the space of ten years, just after the degradation of the decemvirs, had not quoted them before, and never refers to them again. There also appear to have been different copies of them which did not exactly agree, and Livy seems far from considering their authority as decisive even on the points on which reference is made to them(124).

The _Memoirs of the Censors_ were journals preserved by those persons who held the office of Censor. They were transmitted by them to their descendants as so many sacred pledges, and were preserved in the families which had been rendered illustrious by that dignity. They formed a series of eulogies on those who had thus exalted the glory of their house, and contained a relation of the memorable actions performed by them in discharge of the high censorial office with which they had been invested(125). Hence they must be considered as part of the _Family Memoirs_, which were unfortunately the great and corrupt sources of early Roman history.

It was the custom of the ancient families of Rome to preserve with religious care everything that could contribute to perpetuate the glory of their ancestry, and confer honour on their lineage. Thus, besides the titles which were placed under the smoky images of their forefathers, there were likewise tables in their apartments on which lay books and memoirs recording, in a style of general panegyric, the services they had performed for the state during their exercise of the employments with which they had been dignified(126).

Had these Family Memoirs been faithfully composed, they would have been of infinite service to history; and although all other monuments had perished, they alone would have supplied the defect. They were a record, by those who had the best access to knowledge, of the high offices which their ancestors had filled, and of whatever memorable was transacted during the time they had held the exalted situations of Prætor or Consul: Even the dates of events, as may be seen by a fragment which Dionysius of Halicarnassus cites from them, were recorded with all the appearance of accuracy. Each set of family memoirs thus formed a series of biographies, which, by preserving the memory of the great actions of individuals, and omitting nothing that could tend to their illustration, comprehended also the principal affairs of state, in which they had borne a share. From the fragments of the genealogical book of the Porcian family, quoted by Aulus Gellius, and the abstract of the Memoirs of the Claudian and Livian families, preserved by Suetonius, in the first chapters of his Life of Tiberius, we may perceive how important such memoirs would have been, and what light they would have thrown on history, had they possessed the stamp of fidelity. But unfortunately, in their composition more regard was paid to family reputation than to historical truth. Whatever tended to exalt its name was embellished and exaggerated. Whatever could dim its lustre was studiously withdrawn. Circumstances, meanwhile, became peculiarly favourable for these high family pretensions. The destruction of the public monuments and annals of the Pontiffs, gave ample scope for the vanity or fertile imagination of those who chose to fabricate titles and invent claims to distinction, the falsity of which could no longer be demonstrated. “All the monuments,” says Plutarch, “being destroyed at the taking of Rome, others were substituted, which were forged out of complaisance to private persons, who pretended to be of illustrious families, though in fact they had no relation to them(127).” So unmercifully had the great families availed themselves of this favourable opportunity, that Livy complains that these private memoirs were the chief cause of the uncertainty in which he was forced to fluctuate during the early periods of his history. “What has chiefly confounded the history,” says he, “is each family ascribing to itself the glory of great actions and honourable employments. Hence, doubtless, the exploits of individuals and public monuments have been falsified; nor have we so much as one writer of these times whose authority can be depended on(128).” Those funeral orations on the dead, which it was the custom to deliver at Rome, and which were preserved in families as carefully as the memoirs, also contributed to augment this evil. Cicero declares, that history had been completely falsified by these funeral panegyrics, many things being inserted in them which never were performed, or existed—False triumphs, supernumerary consulships, and forged pedigrees(129).

Connected with these prose legends, there were also the old heroic ballads formerly mentioned, on which the annals of Ennius were in a great measure built, and to which may be traced some of those wonderful incidents of Roman history, chiefly contrived for the purpose of exalting the military achievements of the country. Many things which of right belong to such ancient poems, still exist under the disguise of an historical clothing in the narratives of the Roman annalists. Niebuhr, the German historian of Rome, has recently analysed these legends, and taken much from the Roman history, by detecting what incidents rest on no other foundation than their chimerical or embellished pictures, and by shewing how incidents, in themselves unconnected, have by their aid been artificially combined. Such, according to him, were the stories of the birth of Romulus, of the treason of Tatia, the death of the Fabii, and the incidents of an almost complete Epopée, from the succession of Tarquinius Priscus to the battle of Regillus. These old ballads, being more attractive and of easier access than authentic records and monuments, were preferred to them as authorities; and even when converted into prose, retained much of their original and poetic spirit. For example, it was feigned in them that Tullus Hostilius was the son of Hostus Hostilius, who perished in the war with the Sabines, which, according to chronology, would make Tullus at least eighty years old when he mounted the throne; but it was thought a fine thing to represent him as the son of a genuine Roman hero, who had fallen in the service of his country. Niebuhr, probably, as I have already shown, has attributed too much to these old heroic ballads, and has assigned to them an extent and importance of which there are no adequate proofs. But I strongly suspect that the heroic or historical poems of Ennius had formed a principal document to the Roman annalists for the transactions during the Monarchy and earlier times of the Republic, and had been appealed to, like Ferdousi’s Shad-Nameh, for occurrences which were probably rather fictions of fancy than events of history.

The Greek writers, from whom several fables and traditions were derived concerning the infancy of Rome, lived not much higher than the age of Fabius Pictor, and only mention its affairs cursorily, while treating of Alexander or his successors. Polybius, indeed, considers their narratives as mere vulgar traditions(130), and Dionysius says they have written some few things concerning the Romans, which they have compiled from common reports, without accuracy or diligence. To them have been plausibly attributed those fables, concerning the exploits of Romans, which bear so remarkable an analogy to incidents in Grecian history(131). Like to these in all respects are the histories which some Romans published in Greek concerning the ancient transactions of their own nation.

We thus see that the authentic materials for the early history of Rome were meagre and imperfect—that the annals of the Pontiffs and public monuments had perished—that the _Leges Regiæ_, Twelve Tables, and remains of the religious or ritual books of the Pontiffs, could throw no great light on history, and that the want of better materials was supplied by false, and sometimes incredible relations, drawn from the family traditions—“_ad ostentationem scenæ gaudentis miraculis aptiora quàm ad fidem_(132).” The mutilated inscriptions, too, the scanty treaties, and the family memoirs, became, from the variations in the language, in a great measure unintelligible to the generation which succeeded that in which they were composed. Polybius informs us, that the most learned Romans of his day could not read a treaty with the Carthaginians, concluded after the expulsion of the kings. Hence, the documents for history, such as they were, became useless to the historian, or, at least, were of such difficulty, that he would sometimes mistake their import, and be, at others, deterred from investigation.

When all this is considered, and also that Rome, in its commencement, was the dwelling of a rude and ignorant people, subsisting by rapine—that the art of writing, the only sure guardian of the remembrance of events, was little practised—that critical examination was utterly unknown; and that the writers of no other nation would think of accurately transmitting to posterity events, which have only become interesting from the subsequent conquests and extension of the Roman empire, it must be evident, that the materials provided for the work of the historian would necessarily be obscure and uncertain.

The great general results recorded in Roman history, during the first five centuries, cannot, indeed, be denied. It cannot be doubted that Rome ultimately triumphed over the neighbouring nations, and obtained possession of their territories; for Rome would not have been what we know it was in the sixth century, without these successes. But there exists, in the particular events recorded in the Roman history, sufficient internal evidence of its uncertainty, or rather falsehood; and here I do not refer to the lying fables, and absurd prodigies, which the annalists may have inserted in deference to the prejudices of the people, nor to the almost incredible daring and endurance of Scævola, Cocles, or Curtius, which may be accounted for from the wild spirit of a half-civilized nation, and are not unlike the acts we hear of among Indian tribes; but I allude to the total improbability of the historic details concerning transactions with surrounding tribes, and the origin of domestic institutions. How, for example, after so long a series of defeats, with few intervals of prosperity interposed, could the Italian states have possessed resources sufficient incessantly to renew hostilities, in which they were always the aggressors? And how, on the other hand, should the Romans, with their constant preponderance of force and fortune, (if the repetition and magnitude of their victories can be depended on,) have been so long employed in completely subjugating them? The numbers slain, according to Livy’s account, are so prodigious, that it is difficult to conceive how the population of such moderate territories, as belonged to the independent Italian communities, could have supplied such losses. We, therefore, cannot avoid concluding, that the frequency and importance of these campaigns were magnified by the consular families indulging in the vanity of exaggerating the achievements of their ancestors(133). Sometimes these campaigns are represented as carried on against the whole nation of Volsci, Samnites, or Etruscans, when, in fact, only a part was engaged; and, at other times, battles, which never were fought, have been extracted from the family memoirs, where they were drawn up to illustrate each consulate; for what would a consul have been without a triumph or a victory? It would exceed my limits were I to point out the various improbabilities and evident inconsistencies of this sort recorded in the early periods of Roman history. With regard, again, to the domestic institutions of Rome, everything (doubtless for the sake of effect and dignity) is represented as having at once originated in the refined policy and foresight of the early kings. The division of the people into tribes and curiæ—the relations of patron and client—the election of senators—in short, the whole fabric of the constitution, is exhibited as a preconcerted plan of political wisdom, and not (as a constitution has been in every other state, and must have been in Rome) the gradual result of contingencies and progressive improvements, of assertions of rights, and struggles for power.

The opinion entertained by Polybius of the uncertainty of the Roman history, is sufficiently manifest from a passage in the fourth book of his admirable work, which is written with all the philosophy and profound inquiry of Tacitus, without any of his apparent affectation.—“The things which I have undertaken to describe,” says he, “are those which I myself have seen, or such as I have received from men who were eye-witnesses of them. For, had I gone back to a more early period, and borrowed my accounts from the report of persons who themselves had only heard them before from others, as it would scarcely have been possible that I should myself be able to discern the true state of the matters that were then transacted, so neither could I have written anything concerning them with confidence.” What, indeed, can we expect to know with regard to the Kings of Rome, when we find so much uncertainty with regard to the most memorable events of the republic, as the period of the first creation of a dictator and tribunes of the people? The same doubt exists in the biography of illustrious characters. Cicero says, that Coriolanus, having gone over to the Volsci, repressed the struggles of his resentment by a voluntary death; “for, though you, my Atticus,” he continues, “have represented his death in a different manner, you must pardon me if I do not subscribe to the justness of your representations(134).” Atticus, I presume, gave the account as we now have it, that he was killed in a tumult of the Volsci, and Fabius Pictor had written that he lived till old age(135). Of the reliance to be placed on the events between the death of Coriolanus and the termination of the second Punic war, we may judge from the uncertainty which prevailed with regard to Scipio Africanus, a hero, of all others, the most distinguished, and who flourished, comparatively, at a recent period. Yet some of the most important events of his life are involved in contradiction and almost hopeless obscurity.—“Cicero,” says Berwick, in his Memoirs of Scipio, “speaks with great confidence of the year in which he died, yet Livy found so great a difference of opinion among historians on the subject, that he declares himself unable to ascertain it. From a fragment in Polybius, we learn, that, in his time, the authors who had written of Scipio were ignorant of some circumstances of his life, and mistaken in others; and, from Livy, it appears, that the accounts respecting his life, trial, death, funeral, and sepulchre, were so contradictory, that he was not able to determine what tradition, or whose writings, he ought to credit.”

But, although the early events of Roman history were of such a description, that Cicero and Atticus were not agreed concerning them—that Polybius could write nothing about them with confidence; and that Livy would neither undertake to affirm nor refute them, every vestige of Roman antiquity had not perished. Though the annals of the Pontiffs were destroyed,—those who wrote, who kept, and had read them, could not have lost all recollection of the facts they recorded. Even from the family memoirs, full of falsehoods as they were, much truth might have been extracted by a judicious and acute historian. The journals of different rival families must often have served as historical checks on each other, and much real information might have been gathered, by comparing and contrasting the vain-glorious lies of those family-legends(136).

Such was the state of the materials for Roman history, in the middle of the sixth century, from the building of the city, at which time regular annals first began to be composed; and notwithstanding all unfavourable circumstances, much might have been done, even at that period, towards fixing and ascertaining the dates and circumstances of previous events, had the earliest annalist of Rome been in any degree fitted for this difficult and important task; but, unfortunately,

QUINTUS FABIUS PICTOR,

who first undertook to relate the affairs of Rome from its foundation, in a formal and regular order, and is thence called by Livy _Scriptorum antiquissimus_, appears to have been wretchedly qualified for the labour he had undertaken, either in point of fidelity or research: and to his carelessness and inaccuracy, more even than to the loss of monuments, may be attributed the painful uncertainty, which to this day hangs over the early ages of Roman history.

Fabius Pictor lived in the time of the second Punic war. The family received its _cognomen_ from Caius Fabius, who, having resided in Etruria, and there acquired some knowledge of the fine arts, painted with figures the temple of _Salus_, in the year 450(137). Pliny mentions having seen this piece of workmanship, which remained entire till the building itself was consumed, in the reign of the Emperor Claudius. The son of the painter rose to the highest honours of the state, having been Consul along with Ogulnius Gallus, in the year 485. From him sprung the historian, who was consequently grandson of the first Fabius Pictor. He was a provincial quæstor in early youth, and in 528 served under the Consul Lucius Æmilius, when sent to repel a formidable incursion of the Gauls, who, in that year, had passed the Alps in vast hordes. He also served in the second Punic war, which commenced in 534, and was present at the battle of Thrasymene. After the defeat at Cannæ, he was despatched by the senate to inquire from the oracle of Delphos, what would be the issue of the war, and to learn by what supplications the wrath of the gods might be appeased(138).

The Annals of Fabius Pictor commenced with the foundation of the city, and brought down the series of Roman affairs to the author’s own time—that is, to the end of the second Punic war. We are informed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that for the great proportion of events which preceded his own age, Fabius Pictor had no better authority than vulgar tradition(139). He probably found, that if he had confined himself to what was certain in these early times, his history would have been dry, insipid, and incomplete. This may have induced him to adopt the fables, which the Greek historians had invented concerning the origin of Rome, and to insert whatever he found in the family traditions, however contradictory or uncertain. Dionysius has also given us many examples of his improbable narrations—his inconsistencies—his negligence in investigating the truth of what he relates as facts—and his inaccuracy in chronology. “I cannot refrain,” says he, when speaking of the age of Tarquinius Priscus, “from blaming Fabius Pictor for his little exactness in chronology(140);” and it appears from various other passages, that all the ancient history of Fabius which was not founded on hearsay, was taken from Greek authors, who had little opportunity of being informed of Roman affairs, and had supplied their deficiency in real knowledge, by the invention of fables. In particular, as we are told by Plutarch(141), he followed an obscure Greek author, Diocles the Peparethian, in his account of the foundation of Rome, and from this tainted source have flowed all the stories concerning Mars, the Vestal, the Wolf, Romulus, and Remus.