Veientine War The League with the Hernicans The Wars with the Volscians and Equians, down to the end of the The Office of Warden of the City 44 47 57 The Internal Feuds of the Patricians. 63 Of the Public Land and its Occupation 65 The Assignments of Land before the time of Sp. Cassius 76 Internal History from the Destruction of the Fabii to the first Pestilence 98 The Legend of Coriolanus. 110 The Wars with the Volscians and Equians, down to the Peace of 295 115 The Equian War down to the Decemvirate 123 Civil Affairs from the Year 311 down to the last Veientine War The other Wars down to that with the Gauls On the Gauls, and their Emigration into Italy The War with the Gauls, and the Taking of Rome THE HISTORY OF ROME. It was one of the most important ob- the city before its destruction by the Gauls jects of the first volume to prove that the had been left almost exclusively to oral story of Rome under the kings was alto- tradition, and if the scanty records then gether without historical foundation. I existing of an age little given to writing have sifted the legends which have taken had perished. Were such the case, we the place of history: such fragments of could only replace it, like that of the kings, the same sort as lay scattered about, I by an illusion. Livy, however, assuredly have collected, with the view of restoring did not go so far as to assume this. Nor the manifold forms they once bore; though will any body who has a feeling for truth with no thought that this could bring us think it possible, with regard to much the nearer to historical knowledge. For, greater part of the occurrences related while the grandeur of the monarchy, the out of the century before the coming of seat of which was on the seven hills, is the Gauls, that they should be fabricaattested by the monuments it left behind, tions: stories are often invented, not so the recollections of its history have been a multitude of insulated facts. What led purposely destroyed: and to fill up the Livy to speak thus positively, was probavoid, the events of a narrow sphere, such bly that the Annals of the pontiffs began as the pontiffs after the Gallic irruption from that event: as Claudius Quadrigawere familiar with, have been substituted rius, perhaps influenced by this very cirfor the forgotten transactions of an in- cumstance, commenced his at the same comparably wider empire. Even Fabius, point. This writer was one of the annabeyond doubt, knew nothing more than lists whom Livy had before him: and the story that has come down to us: and perhaps Livy's words merely repeat what it would hardly have been possible for he alleged to justify his deviating from the him to find any authentic records, unless common practice of like chroniclers. It in the writings of foreign nations; which is pretty clear, too, that he must be the he could never have reconciled with his Clodius, whom Plutarch quotes as assertown story, or made any use of. On the other hand his age was in possession of a 1 Livy, vi. 1. Parvae et rarae-literae fuere real history, though in many parts tingedet, etiamsi quae in commentariis pontificum with fable, since the insurrection of the aliisque publicis privatisque erant monumentis, pleraeque interiere. commonalty: and though this has only reached us in a very defective state, dis-regarded as a witness of this, if we suppose 2 See Vol. 1, p. 134. Livy himself may be figured by arbitrary transformations, yet that in the passage just quoted he names the from this time forward it becomes my commentaries of the pontiffs, which were precheering task to undertake the restora-served, instead of the Annals. tion of a genuine, connected, substantially remain, which speak of events between the 3 A good many fragments of his first book perfect history. Gallic and the second Samnite war; but there This would be absurd, if the story of is no trace of any thing earlier. VOL. II.-2 ing, what he probably said on the same of Regillus in 255, or 258; discrepancies occasion, that the pedigrees, so far as only to be accounted for from there having they went back beyond that date, were been sundry annals of different origin. fabrications. Where an error has gained It is impossible to pronounce whether general sway, the first expressions of a any contemporary ones were preserved or mind that feels called to assert its free- not, which began any number of years dom are almost always exaggerated: and before the insurrection of the commonalty. such was the case with Claudius in his That none of them can have gone back disgust at finding such a mass of impos- so far as the origin of the consulate, is ture. He overlooked that there was no clear from the confusion in the Fasti for external reason to warrant his rejecting the first years of the republic, and from the genealogies of those patricians whose the disappearance of every trace of a geancestors had their Lares on the Capito- nuine history during this period. To preline hill, like the Manlii and Quinctii, as serve the recollection of events, and to spurious during the earlier ages; and how give the memory a hold, they were noted could he examine them in detail? Had in the Fasti under a year of the Capitohe, or had Livy attended to constitutional line era, and of the consuls; in the same law, they must have perceived that its way as the calendars recorded, under a excellent historians had drawn informa- certain day, that on that same day the tion from the books of the pontiffs, the dictator Tubertus had gained a victory, authenticity of which was quite as indis- as well as what days had become inauputable as that of the twelve tables, of the spicious by the defeats on the Allia, at compacts between the estates, and of Trasimene, and at Cannæ. Neither these other laws and treaties belonging to that accounts, nor the former gave any detail period. Equally well established is that of occurrences, but merely mentioned of the returns of the censuses, were it them. Of the notices so recorded some only because their statements must in few have come down to us, manifestly later times have sounded utterly incredi- handed from very ancient times, with ble and inconceivable. It is true, the scarcely an alteration even in the wordcopies of most of the censorian families ing. I will not, however, by any means must have flowed originally from tran- deny that some sort of narrative may have scripts of a few, preserved in the Capitol, or in neighbouring towns: but it was enough for their coming down in a genuine form to posterity, if a single one remained and was multiplied. been mixed up with them very early: in which case they must have resembled the chronicle of Marcellinus and the like. But the appropriate place for narrative was in the funeral orations peculiar to It cannot be doubted that, as these rolls Rome, the use of which was derived from were preserved for memorials in the cen- time immemorial: for women were adsorian families, so those who had the mitted to a share in this honour even beimage of a consul among their ancestors, fore the Gallic war, or immediately after. kept consular Fasti, wherein memorable These writings, in which assuredly it was events, at least of the year they were no less vain to look for an accurate reinterested in, were noted down: and presentation of facts, than for eloquence, many others must have been in posses- Livy, if they crossed his thoughts, would sion of similar documents. These were hardly have deemed a historical source; original annals, which arose independently since in another passage he concurs with of those of the pontiffs, and were drawn Cicero in reprehending their want of up by various persons; not always con- truth. Yet they cannot have been liable temporaneously, but in their earliest parts to this charge from the first. Only in from the recollections, sometimes no doubt course of time, when it became customary erroneous ones, of the writer himself, or to enumerate the ancestors of a house up of his neighbours, touching past events. Hence, the dates are often contradictory: bus Fidenae obsessae, Crustumeria capta, Prae5 For instance in Livy, J. 19: His consulithe Auruncian war, for instance, is placed neste ab Latinis ad Romanos descivit. What in the years 251, 252, or 258; the battle a contrast between this and the prolix delineation of resultless battles in other passages! 4 Nums, 1. Κλαδέος τις εν αγαγραφή χρόνων. 6 VIII. 40. Cicero, Brutus, 16 (62.) to its origin, along with their honours and to my feelings, admit of a doubt. If the their exploits, could vanity indulge in bards are nameless, so are those of the inventions concerning them. One may Nibelungen and the Cid. But the rhytheasily satisfy oneself that, in the history mical form is a secondary matter. The prior to the taking by the Gauls, many main point is, that we should recognise stories, for instance about the Valerii, the how the very stories which speak to the Claudii, the Fabii, the Quinctii, and the feelings, are those which tradition treats Servilii, have flowed from this source. freely and creatively; how it does not Several among them, such as those con- give back the chain of incidents one by cerning the Servilii, are worthy of full one, as it receives them; and how, in faith: those, too, more in detail about the proportion as a story is listened to with Fabii contain matter of undeniable authen- general interest, it is the more liable to ticity. With others the case is very dif- be transformed without any limit, until it ferent. I am sorry to say that those of becomes fixed in some book: while, on the Valerii are less deserving of credit the other hand, such facts as excite no than any others; just as their pedigree emotion come down just as they were betrays singular carelessness.s These recorded, to the historian who likes to documents, as well as the former, were employ himself in putting some life into deposited in the hall of the house; and them. This is not disputed by scholars, they were probably lost and then restored whose concurrence I should be loth to together. Those living traditions, how- forego, yet who think it hazardous to ever, by means of which the times of build on the assumption that the Romans their ancestors became the common pro- had a body of popular poems now lost: perty of the Romans, were preserved by and so I will not disturb the consciousthose who escaped the sword of the ness of our being substantially agreed, by Gauls: and if Livy was speaking of these, labouring to make them adopt the whole he was unquestionably right in saying of my own conviction. Besides I am that the record of events was trusted to far from asserting that all those traditions memory. were originally circulated in song: nor The same thing has happened among do I doubt that some, which began in every people whose annals were a mere verse, were turned into prose-tales, when dry catalogue of events: and not only does writing became more and more an emthe imagination in such cases mould a ployment; just as the popular story-book subject taken from history with the same of Siegfried arose out of the Nibelungen. freedom and plastic power as one created Among the legends of the class I have by poetry; but the characters have inci- been describing, those of Coriolanus, of dents, which elsewhere are told of others, Cincinnatus, of the fall of the Decemvirs, transferred, and often purely arbitrary of Camillus, are not to be mistaken. Of fictions ascribed to them; which gain cre- the same kind, with some excursions dit, like Charlemagne's pretended expe- into the region of the marvellous, are dition to the Holy Land. Such legends, those of Curtius and Cipus.* whether concerning the personages of Long before there is any such thing history, or those of poetry, were equally as a national literature, many a man will termed fabulae. That at Rome as else- write down an account of what has bewhere they shaped themselves in verse,fallen him, for the use of his family. In that the virtue of Coriolanus, and the vic- the progress of things almost every one tories of Camillus, were sung in the same will aim at surpassing his predecessors, manner as the first Punic war,-does not, will go more into detail, take in more objects, and make approaches to a comat the beginning of his Tiberius, was drawn plete narrative of contemporary events: from the orations of that house, and exemplifies and as every chronicle must begin from the beginning, a new one subjoining it 7 The account of the Claudii in Suetonius, the nature of such enumerations. 8 C. Valerius Potitus is described as L. F. self as a continuation to a repetition of Vol. N; although his first military tribunate some older annals already extant, attempts was in the year 340, that is, 71 years after the consulship of his pretended father, and 96 after are made to render these, too, less meathe first consulship of Publicola, who would be his uncle. * Valerius Maximus, v. 6. 3. |