THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. JULY, 1822. ART. I.-The Civil and Constitutional History of Rome, from its Foundation to the Age of Augustus. By Henry Bankes, Esq. London. 1818. NO history at first sight appears so inviting to the researches of the political student as that of Rome. Of unparalleled extent and grandeur, fruitful in great events and illustrious personages, it seems to open its page of instruction for the guidance of subsequent generations. It has accordingly been investigated frequently and laboriously for that purpose. Philosophers and statesmen of different periods and countries have drawn from it facts to support and enforce their respective speculations, and in the infinite variety of illustration presented to their view during its origin, its progress and decline have furnished at least a seeming authority for every possible combination in the change of human affairs. It is the misfortune, however, of theorists, (and all the writers on the philosophy of Roman history have been more or less theorists,) to receive facts for the confirmation of their opinions on the slightest grounds of probability, and to use as the foundation-stones of an immense pile of conjecture, assertions which, if offered as evidence in the common affairs of life, would be instantly rejected as futile or incredible. Coming to their task with imaginations heated by the contemplation of the magnificence and grandeur of the Roman empire, they have forgotten that such vastness and grandeur could be accounted for on any common principles of our political and moral nature; they have been unwilling to concede that chance (or that inexplicable relation between dissimilar events which we call chance) could have been at all instrumental in producing such extraordinary results, and they have endeavoured to show that the whole was the natural consequence of consummate wisdom and foresight in the first founders of the political fabric. Vain and unsatisfactory as such an attempt must have proved, even if we were in possession of a continued series of contemporary and authentic records, from the earliest infancy of the state to the maturity of its power, the difficulty is immeasurably increased when we consider the age and character of the authorities on which these bold theorists have been obliged to depend. The earliest writer on Roman affairs, who has in part been preserved to our times, flourished nearly 600 years after the foundation of Rome; and of the three three other authors from whom almost exclusively is derived our present information respecting the foundation and progress of the Roman power, two composed their histories at the distance of seven, and the other of more than eight, centuries from the earliest transactions which they describe. None of these writers quote any authorities for the wonderful events which they relate. Occasionally, indeed, they mention an old historian, to whose works they have referred, but in a manner which considerably weakens, or rather totally destroys the force of their appeal. Thus Dionysius,* in his account of the Roman constitution, makes a pompous enumeration of the writers he has consulted, and specifies Portius Cato, Fabius Maximus, Valerius Antias, Licinius Macer. He subsequently (vii. c. 71.) particularizes Fabius, as the one upon whom he lays the greatest dependence; and why?—because his credibility is founded not only on what he had seen and investigated, but on what he had heard from various persons. In other words, his claims to be believed are founded precisely on that which rather should destroy all title to belief, an indiscriminate reception of hearsay evidence. It was no doubt this propensity which called forth the severe animadversion of Polybius; this was the cause of the axoyia which that eminent historian denounced as apparent to the most superficial observer, and which must for ever destroy the weight of his testimony. But to effect this, the criticism of another was by no means necessary; Dionysius has, by his own confession, completely disposed of this difficulty. He avows the inadequacy of his guides, and announces his determination to represent transactions in a very different light from that which they have adopted. He notices the vain reports which they have propagated, and is highly indignant that they should have presumed to describe the original Romans as nothing better than vagabonds and barbarians, and the empire itself as founded, not on piety and justice, but swelled to its grandeur and importance by chance and the caprice of fortune.' There was no Greek writer on Roman affairs before his time, as he himself assures us, worthy of credit; even Polybius he shuffles in between two unknown authors, and mentions him cursorily as one of the pugios aλo, who wrote without discrimination, and built their narrative on casual and contemptible evidence. This remark, indeed, may be said to recoil upon the person who made it, and to be more injurious to Dionysius than to the historian of Megalopolis; but it tends to demonstrate what we are here insisting upon, that the former, in the composition of his work, not only laboured under the insurmountable disadvantage of a want of early authentic documents, but that he rejected those which at a later + Hist. iii. s. 9. Antiq. Rom. i. c. 7. Antiq. Rom. i. c. 4. period were offered to his observation. He was determined, in short, to write a tale of wonders, and for that purpose he was compelled to dispose of those authorities which stood in his way, by one sweeping clause of contempt or censure. But deceit and forgery are seldom consistent; the expressions of his praise and disapprobation fall indiscriminately, and therefore harmlessly, on the same writer, and the Fabius whom he so lavishly extols in one passage as entirely trustworthy, is in another represented as superficial, and undeserving of any credit.* The reasons which he gives for minutely investigating and detailing the early history of Rome, are admirably calculated for inspiring confidence in his readers! Because the writers who have flourished before him have run over, in a compendious manner, (xepaλαιades eжedpapov,) ancient events, he thought it right not to pass in silence parts of history neglected by his predecessors. He commences his narrative from those old fables which the early compilers have left unnoticed: that is, he who lived nearly three centuries later than they did, was qualified to describe events, and solve difficulties which they rejected as absolutely impenetrable. The interval of 500 years entirely incapacitated them from giving a clear and consistent recital of the foundation, rise and progress of the Roman power; but the accumulation of time cleared the mist from his vision, and at the distance of 750 years he could relate not only the actions but the very words of the first movers in this eventful scene. All this is either positively asserted or distinctly implied by Dionysius in the opening of his work; and after such an avowal it is surely unnecessary to insist much longer on his claims to credibility. The fact is, that in the construction of his history, Dionysius had particular theories to support, and various speculations to illustrate, and to these he has not unfrequently made his facts subservient. He is an ingenious political inquirer, full of curiosity and love of system, discursive and eloquent, with more imagination than judgment. He lived at Rome during the period of its greatest splendour, and overpowered by the magnificence of the spectacle which she presented to him, and willing perhaps to console his countrymen for their state of subjection by giving them an exaggerated idea of the sovereign nation, he believed or wished to believe that by inquiring into her early history, he should be able satisfactorily to account for her rise and supremacy. Hence, in mentioning the particular objects which he had in view whilst composing his history, he particularly notices the gratification of philosophical theory, and he gives us more than once a specific exposition of the Compare lib. i. c. 6. and lib. vii. c. 71. $ 2 theories theories which he intended to illustrate. A state is likely (he informs us) to enjoy tranquillity, or to be convulsed by dissensions, according as the lives of individuals are well or ill regulated, and therefore it behoves legislators and monarchs to control the conduct of individuals by law. He thought it necessary to write the early history of Rome, that excellent men might fulfil their destiny, obtain eternal glory, and be praised by those who come after; that thus the mortal might approximate to the divine nature.* These propositions, it will be seen, are not very profound, but they show the bias which his mind had taken, and they may serve to explain some of the contradictions and inconsistencies of his history. With these and other theories always present to his imagination, it will not appear surprizing that he attempted to support them, and at the same time to gratify the literary and philosophical characters of Rome with whom he was in daily habits of intercourse, by wresting facts to the elucidation of his opinions, and by even supplying the chasm with imaginary events, when he could not find real ones recorded for his use. His work, as a trustworthy record of past transactions, is of little value. It is,' as Müller has justly observed, 'too beautiful and too animated to be true; fragments of poetry and traditions do not afford such pictures, and it is evident that the author must have filled up many chasms.' His history may, however, be considered as curious, inasmuch as it gives us a picture of the state of political philosophy, and of that talent for speculative inquiry which prevailed amongst the literary characters of the Augustan age. Livy, the second authority on whom we chiefly rely for information respecting the early history of Rome, had infinitely more taste and judgment than Dionysius, and excels him beyond comparison in the art of narration. Let us take, for instance, the story of the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii, and of the death of Lucretia, and we shall be struck with the energy, the pathos, the delicacy which Livy has thrown into his narrative, when contrasted with the diffuseness and imbecility of the rival historian on the same subjects. The Roman, also, possessed a more philosophical mind than the Greek author, as is apparent not only from the force and truth of his occasional remarks, whose condensation sometimes reminds the reader of the deep sense of Tacitus, but also from the suspicion with which he regards the current fables of the early period of Rome, the doubts he expresses as to the validity of his authorities, and the art with which he glides over the most glaring and obtrusive parts of the historic fiction. Where Dionysius is positive and circumstantial, Livy is rapid and general; where the * Lib. i. c. 6. † Univ. Hist. b. v. s. 6. 2. former former dwells with tedious minuteness on details which, if certain, are unimportant, and whose worthlessness is increased by their uncertainty, the latter pauses only to reconcile a difficulty, or to express a doubt. He defines with accuracy and truth the privileges of antiquity, emancipates himself from the grasp of her authority, and expresses with reasonable and philosophic diffidence his distrust of the acceptance of her tales by an enlightened posterity. Yet even Livy was obliged sometimes to yield to the wishes and temper of the times; he was compelled to gratify the vanity of his contemporaries, and to endeavour, out of a mass of incredible and inconsistent traditions, to form a continued and plausible narrative. He has, however, shown his art by what he has omitted, as well as by what he has inserted, and his silence is frequently more expressive than the eloquence of Dionysius. As to Plutarch, we might almost as well think of searching Tur pin's life of Charlemagne for grave historic facts, as his biography; a compilation which, though amusing to youthful readers, and valuable, for the tone of morality and virtuous sentiment which pervades it, bears such evident marks of credulity and deficiency of judgment, as to warn at once the philosophic inquirer from endeavouring to support any political theory by facts drawn from such a source. He indeed himself annihilates all the credibility which some might perhaps be inclined to attach to his history of the early Roman times, by informing us, on the authority of Clodius, that the old histories were lost in the Gallic invasion, and that the subsequent accounts were compiled by interested people for the purpose of insinuating themselves into the favour of illustrious families.' The mention of this fact, which is told even in stronger language by Cicero,† will lead us to say a few words on the nature and authenticity of the early records of Rome, from which our information is said to be originally derived. * In the first ages of Rome, the use of letters was very sparingly diffused. So rude was the method of recording the lapse of time, that nearly 400 years after the foundation of the city, nails driven into the temple of Jupiter served to number the years which had passed. The annals, therefore, could hardly be supposed to exist before this period. None of those subsequent authors who refer to the annals as the sources of their information, have consequently ventured to fix the year of their commencement. They are referred to in a vague general manner, without any specification of *Life of Numa. † Ipsæ enim familiæ sua monumenta servabant ad memoriam laudum domesticarum ; quanquam his laudationibus historia rerum nostrarum facta est mendosior; multa enim scripta sunt in eis quæ facta non sunt; falsi triumphi, plures consulatus, genera etiam falsa.-Brutus. |