Volume 79 — LIDDELL’S HISTORY OF ROME.[1]

LIDDELL’S HISTORY OF ROME.^[1]

Engraved on certain Syrian or Assyrian rocks lie innumerable inscriptions in an unknown character; the solid rock and an Asiatic climate have preserved them for us: they lie there facing the world, in the broad light of day, but none can read them. A whole mountain-side seems covered with the records of departed greatness. What truths, what historic facts might not these mysterious characters disclose! The scholar cannot sleep for desire to interpret them. At length, by extreme ingenuity and indomitable patience, and those happy sudden incidental revelations which ever reward the persevering man, some clue is put into his hand. He begins to read, he begins to translate. We gather round and listen breathless. “I, Shalmanasser,” so runs the inscription, “I assembled a great army—I engaged—I defeated—I slew their sovereigns,—I cast in chains their captains and men of war—I, Shalmanasser, I——” Oh, hold! hold! we exclaim, with thy Shalmanasser! There was no need to decipher the mysterious characters for this. If the rock, with all its inscriptions, can tell us nothing wiser or newer, it is a pity that there were no rains in that climate to wash the surface smooth, and obliterate these boastful records of barbarian cruelty and destruction. Better that the simple weather-stained rock should face the eye of day, oblivious of all but nature’s painless and progressive activities.

Some such feeling as this has passed across the minds of most of us, when invited to peruse new histories of the ancient world. They were terrible men, those warriors of olden time. They besieged towns—and so, indeed, do we; but they did more; they put the children to the sword, and carried away the mother into captivity, and those of the men whom they did not chain and enslave, they slew as grateful sacrifices to their gods! Strange and execrable insanity! and yet the religious rite was the legitimate result, and the clear exponent of their own savage nature. There was no spectacle to them so pleasant as blood that flowed from an enemy. How deny the god who had helped them to win the victory his share in the triumphant slaughter! There have been loathsome and terrible things done upon the earth; let us forget them, as we forget some horrible nightmare. At all events, having known that such men and such times have been, and having gathered what lesson we can from them, let us be spared from the infliction of new Shalmanassers, or from new details of their atrocities. Such feeling of satiety in the old narrative of war and conquest we must confess to participate in, when the narrative relates to some Asiatic monarchy that has appeared and disappeared, leaving no trace of any good result behind it, or which merely lingers on the scene undergoing fruitless and bewildering changes. It is otherwise, however, when we are invited again to peruse the history of Rome, and her conquest of the world, as it has been proudly called. We are reading here the history of European civilisation. The slow, persistent, continuous progress of her consular armies is one of those great indispensable facts, without which the history of humanity could not be written, without which a civilised Christendom could not have existed. It is the conquest of a people, not of a monarch—a people who for many years have to struggle for self-preservation (the secret this of their lasting union and exalted patriotism)—of a people whose pride and ambition undergo the noble discipline of adversity, who, being firmly knit together, proceed steadily to the taming and subjection and settlement of the surrounding nations. It is a conquest the very reverse of those great invasions of Hun or Scythian, where population rolls like an enormous sea from one part of the world to another; it was truly the settlement, first of Italy, then of surrounding countries. Nomadic habits were checked. Siculi and Oscans, Sabines, Samnites, and a host of shifting populations too numerous to name, were brought under one government, and moulded into one nation. What the Alps could not do for Italy, was done by the republic of the seven hills. The peninsula was secured from the invasion of the more northern barbarian. The Gaul was first arrested, then subjugated, settled in his own home, civilised and protected. Carthage, who would have conquered or colonised in the interest only of her own commerce, was driven back. Greece, and her arts and her philosophy, were embraced and absorbed in the new empire, which extended over the finest races of men and the most propitious climates of the earth.

It has been well said that the Romans were not the only people who entertained the glorious anticipation of the conquest of the world. There was one other nation that had a still more magnificent conception of its own future destiny, of its own exalted prominence and supremacy. It was impossible for the monotheism of the Jews to attain the elevated character it did, and yet sanction the belief, in any narrow sense, of a national god. The only God of all the world must surely reign over all the world. The universal Monarch must imply a universal monarchy. From this centre of the world,—this holy temple at Jerusalem, and through His chosen and peculiar people, would God govern all the nations of the earth. Such extension of the faith of the Jew to the Gentile was inevitable. All nations would come in, as suppliants and subjects, to the throne of God’s elect. And the prophetic inspiration, though not precisely in the sense in which the ancient Hebrew understood it, was destined to be fulfilled. But it was not the sword of Israel, nor of the angels, that Divine Providence employed to establish the supremacy of the great Truth developed in Judea. It was the sword of the legions of Rome. The armies of a Scipio and a Cæsar were gathering the nations together under the one true worship. The spiritual dominion did issue from Judea, but it governed the world from the throne of the Cæsars.

Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Judea,—these are the four great names which occur to one who looks back on the history of European civilisation. To these four powers or nations we owe that status or condition which has enabled us to make such advances as we claim to be peculiarly our own. Indirect contributions are doubtless due to India and to Persia. Babylon is no more; but a people who once sojourned in Babylon may have learnt something there from the Persian, and transmitted it to us in their imperishable records; and Greek philosophy bears impress, in one phase of it, of the teaching of Indian theosophists. But still the four whom we have mentioned would furnish forth all the essential elements which the past has given to our present European culture.

If we look at the map of the world, or turn under our hand a terrestrial globe, we shall be struck with the peculiar adaptation of the banks of the Nile to be an early seat of civilisation. It is not only that the river, by periodically overflowing its banks, produces a spontaneous or unlaboured fertility, but this fertile tract of land is made precious, and the people are bound to it, by the enormous deserts that extend around it. The desert and the sea imprison the people in their “happy valley,” thus rendering it in all probability one of the earliest abodes of a stationary population. However that may be, it is certain that, whether we appeal to written history or to monumental inscriptions, there is no spot on the earth where the records of the human race extend so far back into antiquity. We must open our history of civilisation with the growth of arts and knowledge in Egypt. From Egypt we proceed to Greece—to Athens, the marvellous, who did so much in so short time, and who accomplished even more for the world at large than for her individual self. She learnt her arts from Egypt; her scientific spirit was her own. What we owe to Judea (which at an early period was not unconnected with Egypt, nor at a later with the mind of Greece) needs not to be here particularised. It was the part of Rome to reduce into order and combine under one sway large tracts of territory and great varieties of people; so that whatever had been given to the Greek, or revealed to the Hebrew, might blend and be diffused over vast portions of the human race. Nor was this office less effectually performed because the empire is seen to break up amidst much temporary confusion, produced by internal corruption and rude invaders. Europe finally assumes a form the most conducive imaginable to progress. It is divided into separate kingdoms, speaking different languages, but possessing a common religion, and many of the same sources of culture. Their similarities, their contrasts, their emulations, form together a condition the most favourable for the excitement and progress of the human intellect.

We can therefore look with complacent admiration, and undecaying interest, upon the wars and victories of ancient Rome. But indeed, such has been the revolution lately brought about in our historical studies, that the mention of a new History of Rome is more likely to call to mind perplexed controversies upon myths and fables, than visions of battles or triumphal processions winding up to the Capitol. Not many years ago, the early periods of Roman history suggested to the imagination the most vivid pictures of war and patriotism; we heard the march of the legions—we followed Cincinnatus from the plough to the camp—we were busied with the most stirring realities and the strongest passions of life. Now these realities have grown dim and disputable, and we are reminded of learned controversies upon poetic legends, or on early forms of the constitution,—we think more of Niebuhr than of Camillus, more of German critics than of the Conscript Fathers. It is not a pleasant exchange, but it is one which must be submitted to. The first question that every one will ask, who hears that Dr Liddell has told again the history of Rome, is, How has he dealt with the mythical or legendary portions? What degree of credibility has he attached to them? Has he followed the example of Arnold, and reserved for them a peculiar style savouring of antique simplicity; or has he followed the older, and, we think, the wiser course, of Livy, and told them with genuine unaffected eloquence, without either disguising their legendary character, or making the very vain attempt to distinguish the germ or nucleus of real fact from the accretions and embellishments of oral tradition?

Before we answer this question, let us say generally of Dr Liddell’s History, that we think the public is indebted to him for a pre-eminently useful book. To the youthful student, to the man who cannot read many volumes, we should commend it as the one History which will convey the latest views and most extensive information. The style is simple, clear, explanatory. There are, indeed, certain high qualities of the writer and the thinker which are requisite to complete our ideal of the perfect historian. We are accustomed to require in him something of the imagination of the poet, combined with and subdued by the wide generalising spirit of the philosopher. We do not wish to have it understood that there is a signal deficiency in these qualities, but, whilst acknowledging the utility of Dr Liddell’s laborious and learned work, we cannot say that he has given to the literature of England a History of Rome.

Indeed, the author in his preface claims for his work no such high distinction. He describes the origin it had in the desire to supply the more advanced students at public schools with a fit work of instruction, conveying to them “some knowledge of the altered aspect which Roman history has assumed.” The work grew upon his hands, “and the character of the book,” he continues, “is considerably changed from that which it was originally intended to bear. A History of Rome suited to the wants of general readers of the present day does not in fact exist, and certainly is much wanted. Whether this work will in any way supply the want is for others to say.”

We have already intimated our opinion that there is no other work at present existing which so ably supplies this want; and our immediate object in placing it at the head of this paper was to assist in giving notice to all whom it might concern where such a work of instruction was to be found. The preface then proceeds to touch upon the thorny and perplexing controversies in the early history:—

“The difficulty inseparable from a work of this kind lies in the treatment of the Early History. Since what may be called ‘The Revolution of Niebuhr,’ it has been customary to give an abstract of his conclusions, with little attention to the evidence upon which they rest. But the acute and laborious criticisms of many scholars, chiefly German, have greatly modified the faith which the present generation is disposed to place in Niebuhr’s authoritative dicta; and in some cases there may be observed a disposition to speak lightly of his services. If I may say anything of myself, I still feel that reverence for the great master which I gained in youth, when we, at Oxford, first applied his lamp to illuminate the pages of Livy. No doubt, many of the results which he assumes as positive are little better than arbitrary assertions. But I conceive that his main positions are still unshaken, or rather have been confirmed by examination and attack. If, however, they were all abandoned, it will remain true for ever, that to him is due the new spirit in which Roman history has been studied; that to him must be referred the origin of that new light which has been thrown upon the whole subject by the labours of his successors. In a work like this, dissertation is impossible; and I have endeavoured to state only such results of the new criticism as seem to be established. If the young reader has less of positive set before him to learn, he will at all events find less that he will have to unlearn.

“Far the greater part of this work was printed off before the appearance of Sir George Cornewall Lewis’s Inquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman History. Much labour might be saved by adopting his conclusions, that Roman history deserves little or no attention till the age at which we can securely refer to contemporaneous writers, and that this age cannot be carried back further than the times of Pyrrhus. It is impossible to speak too highly of the fulness, the clearness, the patience, the judicial calmness of his elaborate argument. But while his conclusions may be conceded in full for almost all the wars and foreign transactions of early times, we must yet claim attention for the civil history of Rome in the first ages of the republic. There is about it a consistency of progress, and a clearness of intelligence, that would make its fabrication more wonderful than its transmission in a half-traditionary form. When tradition rests solely on memory, it is fleeting and uncertain; but when it is connected with customs, laws, and institutions such as those of which Rome was justly proud, and to which the ruling party clung with desperate tenacity, its evidence must doubtless be carefully sifted and duly estimated, but ought not altogether to be set aside.”

The large concession which the work of Sir G. C. Lewis seems to have extorted from Dr Liddell after the writing of his own History, was not present to his mind during its composition. He sometimes gives as historical fact such-and-such a war, and then relates some legend as connected with this war. “With the Volscian wars is inseparably connected the noble legend of Coriolanus.” The story of Coriolanus is marked as legend, the Volscian wars as fact. If we are justified in making the concession marked in italics, the Volscian wars are no more history than the story of Coriolanus.

As to the remark here made on the civil or constitutional history of this period, it would have great weight if there were really presented to us in that history a clear, intelligible, indisputable account of the earlier constitutions or governments of Rome. It happens that it is precisely on this subject there has been so much conjecture, and so much debate. So far as Dr Liddell can really trace in the narrative preceding the time of Pyrrhus, a manifest, indisputable, constitutional history, so far as he can confidently point to that “consistency of progress and clearness of intelligence” of which he speaks, so far he is entitled to claim for the whole narrative our most respectful attention. But the difficulty is notorious of forming a distinct conception of many points in this constitutional history, and this difficulty has given rise to much of our guess-work. We must take care, therefore, and not fall into the logical error, of first eliminating some consistent view of the constitutional history by the aid of much ingenious conjecture, and then appealing to this consistency in the constitutional history as ground of presumption in favour of the whole narrative.

For our own part, we suspect that there is a greater measure of truth in the legend as it stands than is now generally conceded; and at the same time we have an utter distrust of all the attempts which have been made—laudable and ingenious as they may be—to separate the truth from the fable. We can believe in Tarquin the Proud, in Lucretia, in Coriolanus, much more readily than in any new historical views obtained by a sifting of the narrative which contains these heroic stories. One thing is plain, that no historian of Rome can omit these narratives; and we should much prefer that he would relate them in a natural style—in the style due at least to the noble sentiments they illustrate—than reserve for them (a manner to which Dr Liddell on some occasions leans) a certain bald and ballad simplicity, as if the writer were almost ashamed of having to relate them at all.

It is now generally understood, by all who have paid any attention to the subject, that although the name of Niebuhr is popularly associated with a sceptical and destructive criticism, he is really distinguished by the bold manner in which he has undertaken to construct and restore certain portions of the history. Preceding writers, both ancient and modern, had uttered the word “fable” or “legend;” it was the gathering from the fable some truth indirectly revealed; it was the bold inventive genius, which could recast the old materials into a new form, which characterised his labours. Amongst other things, he fearlessly asserted that a modern critic might obtain a more precise knowledge of the civil history and early constitutions of Rome than Livy or Cicero possessed. Now, these reconstructions of Niebuhr, though received at first with great enthusiasm in many quarters, have not stood their ground against a calm and severe examination; and in this country all such conjectural methods of writing the early history of Rome have lately received a decisive check from the work of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, On the Credibility of Early Roman History. This is a work which combines the ample and laborious scholarship of the German, with that sound sense which the Englishman lays especial claim to. We can only here incidentally mention it; but it is impossible, and it will be a long time impossible, for any one to touch upon Roman history without alluding to this work. It will be for many years the text-book for the subject of which it treats.

The manner in which a legend, which is itself admitted to be false, may yet convey to us indirectly some important historical truth, admits of easy illustration. Suppose that some chronicler, living in the time of our Henry V., chose to relate a quite fictitious history of Prince Arthur. All his battles, all his victories, his whole kingdom, might be a mere dream; but as the imagination of the writer would have no other types to follow than those which his own times presented to him, he would necessarily convey to us much historical truth touching the reign of Henry V., whilst describing his imaginary Prince Arthur. His inevitable anachronisms would betray him into a species of historical truth. Prince Arthur would assuredly be a valorous knight, and whence would come the ceremony of investiture, and all the moral code of knighthood? Prince Arthur would undoubtedly be a good son of the Church, and from what type would be drawn the picture of the orthodox and pious Christian? If the Prince were to be crowned, whence would come the sceptre and the ball, and the oaths he would take upon his coronation? Prince Arthur would be a knight, a Christian, and a king, after the order of the Plantagenets. It is plain that, in such a fabulous narrative, there would be mingled up much historical matter; it is plain that we, reading such a narrative by the light of knowledge gained from other sources, can detect and discriminate the historic truth: whether, if such a fabulous narrative stood alone before us, we could then make the same discrimination, whether we could then take advantage of its involuntary anachronisms, is another question. Imagination must always have its type or starting-place in some reality, but it may deal as freely with one reality as another; it may take as much liberty with religious ceremonies and coronation oaths as with anything else.

Is there not a slight oversight in the following criticism, which Sir G. C. Lewis makes on the method of Niebuhr? At all events, our quotation of the passage from his work, with a solitary remark of our own upon it, will constitute as brief an exposition as any we can give of this branch of the subject. The question is, what can be gathered of the constitution of Rome under her kings? There is clearly no contemporary history; but if a tradition, though of a quite mythical character, could be fairly pronounced to have originated in the regal period, that tradition might indirectly convey to us some knowledge of the regal constitution. Fragments have come down to us through the works of later classical writers, which may convey this sort of traditional knowledge. Let them by all means be rigidly examined, whatever their ultimate value may be found to be.

“One of the passages,” says Sir G. C. Lewis, “which Niebuhr cites from Cicero, relates to the constitutional proceedings upon the election of Numa. Yet Niebuhr holds, not merely that the entire regal period is unhistorical, but that Numa is an unreal and imaginary personage—a name and not a man. Now, what reliance, according to Niebuhr’s own view, is to be placed upon Cicero’s information respecting a man who never lived, and an event which never happened, even if it was derived from some pontifical book, which professed to record old customs?”

Continuing the discussion in a note, Sir G. C. Lewis adds:—

“For Niebuhr’s account of the legend of Numa, see Hist., vol. i. pp. 237–240. Afterwards he says—‘Hence it seems quite evident that the pontiffs themselves distinguished the first two kings from the rest, as belonging to another order of things, and that they separated the accounts of them from those which were to pass for history.... Romulus was the god, the son of a god; Numa a man, but connected with superior beings. If the tradition about them, however, is in all its parts a poetical fiction, the fixing the pretended term of their reigns can only be explained by ascribing it rather to mere caprice or to numerical speculations.’—‘With Tullius Hostilius we reach the beginning of a new secle, and of a narrative resting on historical ground of a kind totally different from the story of the preceding period.’ Niebuhr considers the mythico-historical age of Roman History to begin with the reign of Tullius Hostilius, and the age of Romulus and Numa to be purely fabulous. Moreover, he commences the second volume of his History with the following sentence—‘It was one of the most important objects of the first volume to prove that the story of Rome under the kings was altogether without historical foundation.’ He lays it down likewise that the names of the kings, their number, and the duration and dates of their reigns, are fictitious; yet he cites the proceedings at the election of Numa, and of the subsequent kings, as historical proof of the constitutional practice of that period.”—Vol. i. p. 123.

Niebuhr does not hold that there was no regal period, however fictitious the history of the kings may be. It was to throw light on that regal period in which the myth of Numa is supposed to have originated that the passage must have been cited, not certainly on the times of Numa. Whatever, therefore, may be the infinitesimal value of the passage cited which relates to the constitutional proceedings upon the election of Numa, there was no logical inconsistency on the part of Niebuhr in making a reference to it. If the myth of Numa really originated in a regal period, what the pontiff declared about it might indirectly convey some information as to the constitution of that regal period.

Dr Liddell may well speak of the “altered aspect which Roman history has assumed.” We begin our annals with an account of the “religious myth,” of which, however, the specimens are very few. Romulus is Strength and Numa is Law; they are godlike persons, or in communication with gods; they together found the city of Rome. Strength and Law assuredly founded the city: it is good philosophy, whatever history it makes; and the pontiffs were fully justified in placing these kings where they did—the first, and presiding, and eternal kings of every commonwealth. From the religious myth we proceed to the “heroic legend.” In this species of fable the veritable man and his real action is extolled—is exaggerated—is multiplied. The hero himself is multiplied, or he is transplanted from one region to another. The story is expanded and enriched by each successive narrative, until a literary age makes its appearance. It then assumes a fixed form, from which any wide deviation is no longer permissible.

In all such heroic legends, when they have been fairly born on the soil on which we find them, and have not been transplanted from a foreign country, there is always some element of historic truth. For what we call invention must start from, or be supplied with, given facts. There is a vague but very prevalent error on the nature and power of poetical invention. It is spoken of as something that will account at once for the marvellous narrative. This is supposed to spring forth complete from some poet’s brain. Poetical invention can only take place where there is already some amount and variety of known incidents or traditional stories; these the poet strings together in new combinations. The first writers in metre (as we may see in the earliest ballads of Spain and of other countries) content themselves with a bald narrative of some fact or tradition. Their successors add to this narrative—add a sentiment or a detail; and when the number of such narratives has increased, poetical invention, in its highest form, becomes possible. It has been lately a favourite hypothesis that the earliest literature of Rome consisted of a number of poems or ballads, which supplied the first historians with their materials. It appears to us highly probable that separate legends were shaped into something like completeness of form before any continuous history of the city of Rome was written; but whether such legends were written first in prose or verse is matter of very little moment, and of very great uncertainty.

After expressing the belief that there is a substratum of truth in these heroic legends, it is not very satisfactory to be compelled to add that we cannot distinguish it from the superstructure of fiction. Unfortunately, it is not the marvellous and supernatural—which, indeed, are but sparingly introduced—which have alone contributed to deprive these legends of their credibility: they have been convicted, in some cases, of historic falsehood. A species of pious fraud has been committed to conceal the defeats of the Romans. Family pride has, in other instances, led to the undue exaltation of individual heroes. We must chiefly honour these legends, after all, as manifestations of the mind and spirit of the Romans, rather than as positive materials of history.

We always revert to this consolation—every literature must be the history of the thoughts, if not of the deeds of a people; and all our various records are chiefly valuable as they enable us to write the history of the human mind. How pre-eminently this is the case wherever the subject of religion is introduced! Omens, auguries, oracles—what matters whether in this or that case they were really seen or uttered? the great fact is, that they were currently believed in, and acted on. The belief here is all that we can possibly be concerned with. Whether Æneas really did see that white sow, with her litter of thirty pigs, which he took for so good an omen of prosperity (it was no bad sign of fertility), may be questioned; but even the invention of such an incident proves that men, and wise men, were supposed to be under the influence of such omens. That an eagle pounced down, and took from the head of Tarquin his cap, and, after wheeling in the air, put it on again, is what we do not believe; eagles, neither at Rome or elsewhere, have this habit of restitution. But the frequency of legends of this kind points to a time when men were in the constant expectation of finding their own future destiny prefigured to them in the actions of birds and beasts, or the operations of inanimate nature. What was the precise degree of influence which superstitions of this nature exercised on the course of human conduct, must still be problematical. Did any pious general, at the head of the legions at Rome, really determine whether he should give battle or not by the appetite with which the sacred chickens took their food? Did men ever colonise, or build a city, according to the flight of vultures or the perching of an eagle?

But superstition itself, and that in some of its most terrible forms, is animated and dignified by the spirit of Roman patriotism. Read this old story of the self-devotion of Decius, as Dr Liddell tells it to us. It will be an excellent example in which to take our stand, if we would estimate at their full value these old heroic legends. One of those decisive battles is to be fought which is to determine the supremacy of Rome in Italy.

“The Latin army marched hastily southward to protect their Oscan allies, and it was in the plains of Campania that the fate of Rome and Latium was to be decided. (The two consuls, Manlius and Decius, commanded in the Roman camp.)

“When the two armies met under Mount Vesuvius, they lay opposed to one another, neither party choosing to begin the fray. It was almost like a civil war: Romans and Latins spoke the same language; their armies had long fought side by side under common generals; their arms, discipline, and tactics were the same.

“While the armies were thus lying over against each other, the Latin horsemen, conscious of superiority, used every endeavour to provoke the Romans to single combats. The latter, however, were checked by the orders of their generals, till young Manlius, son of the consul, stung to the quick by the taunts of Geminus Metius, a Latin champion, accepted his challenge. The young Roman conquered, and returned to the camp to lay the spoils of the enemy at his father’s feet. But the spirit of Brutus was not dead; and the stern consul, unmindful of his own feelings and the pleading voices of the whole army, condemned his son to death for disobedience to orders. Discipline was thus maintained, but at a sore expense, and the men’s hearts were heavy at this unnatural act.

“In the night before the day on which the consuls resolved to fight, each of them was visited by an ominous dream, by which it was revealed that whichever army first lost its general should prevail; and they agreed that he whose division first gave ground should devote himself to the gods of the lower world.

“In the morning, when the auspices were taken, the liver of the victim offered on the part of Decius was defective, while that of Manlius was perfect. And the event confirmed the omen; for Manlius, who commanded on the right, held his ground, while the legions of Decius on the left gave way.

“Then Decius, mindful of his vow, sent for Valerius, the chief pontiff, to direct him how duly to devote himself. He put on his toga, the robe of peace, after the Gabine fashion, bringing the end or lappet under the right arm, and throwing it over his head; and then, standing on a javelin, he pronounced the solemn form of words prescribed, by which he devoted the army of the enemy along with himself to the gods of death and to the grave. Then, still shrouded in his toga, he leaped upon his horse, and dashing into the enemy’s ranks, was slain.

“Both armies were well aware of the meaning of the act. It depressed the spirits of the Latins as much as it raised those of the Romans. The skill of Manlius finished the work of superstitious awe.... The enemy fled in irretrievable confusion.”

One consul sacrifices his son to the cause of military discipline; the other consul sacrifices himself to the gods, to obtain the destruction of the enemy. We believe in a Decius, in some Decius, at some time, in some battle. Many of the details brought here together were probably added by different narrators. But it may be laid down, we think, as a sound canon of criticism, that no act of moral greatness was ever invented till the like of it had been really performed. Imagination of what the human heart is capable of cannot precede the genuine feelings, the genuine heroism of man. The several acts of Manlius and of Decius are Roman deeds, whether they occurred precisely here or not. Then note the traces we have in this legend of the rite of human sacrifice, and the terrible boon extorted by it. Indeed, the whole passage is fertile of suggestions which we will not weaken by attempting to enumerate.

Rome had scarcely obtained the ascendancy over her neighbours when her own destruction was threatened by the Gauls. Yet ultimately this invasion of the Celt, by weakening her enemies more than herself, was not unpropitious to the final predominance of Rome. “The Gauls,” writes Dr Liddell, “burst upon Latium and the adjoining lands with the suddenness of a thunderstorm; and as the storm, with all its fury and destructiveness, yet clears the loaded air, and restores a balance between the disturbed powers of nature, so it was with this Gallic hurricane. It swept over the face of Italy, crushing and destroying. The Etruscans were weakened by it; and if Rome herself was laid prostrate for a season, the Latins also suffered greatly, the Volscians were humbled, and the Æquians so shattered that they never recovered from the blow.”

It was a disastrous day for Rome. A large portion of her army, under her great general Camillus, was absent from the city. What forces she could muster were routed and dispersed. There were not enough men to defend the city; it was given up to the Gauls. The Capitol alone held out. Finally, the Romans were fain to ransom themselves, and to obtain peace, by the payment of one thousand pounds in weight of gold. The popular and legendary history tells us, that whilst this gold was being weighed out—and just as the insolent Gaul had thrown his sword into the scale, bidding them weigh that too, with his “Woe to the conquered!”—the great Camillus returned with his army, marched into the forum, ordered the gold to be returned, declared that it was with iron he meant to redeem the city, and forthwith drove out the Gauls, so completely destroying their host that not a man was left to carry home the news of their calamity.

“So ran the legend,” continues Dr Liddell, “embellished by the touch of Livy’s graceful pen. But, unfortunately for Roman pride, here also, as in the tale of Porsenna, traces of true history are preserved, which show how little the Roman annalists regarded truth. Strabo and Diodorus mention stories to the effect that the Gauls carried off the gold without let or hindrance from Camillus, but that they were attacked in Etruria, some said by the Romans themselves, others said by the friendly people of Cæré, and obliged to relinquish their precious booty. But Polybius has left clearer and more positive statements. That grave historian tells us, as if he knew no other story, that the departure of the Gauls was caused by the intelligence that the Venetians, an Illyrian tribe, had invaded their settlements in northern Italy; that, on receiving this intelligence, they proposed to make a treaty; that the treaty was made; that they actually received the gold, and marched off unmolested to their homes.”

Where did Polybius get his story? The legend may be false, but where were the materials from which Polybius could have obtained a more historical account? But before again alluding to this subject, we cannot but pause to take notice that here also is a striking example of the value of the legend as a history of the mind and thoughts of a people, even where it fails us as a history of events. Consider what must have been the religious faith, what the ardent patriotism, that gave birth to this magnificent fable (if fable it is) of the conduct of the Senate, when the army of Rome had been utterly vanquished, and the Gaul, in insolent confidence of victory, was rejoicing and revelling at the gates. Here it is, in the version of Dr Liddell:—

“Meantime the Senate at Rome did what was possible to retrieve their fallen fortunes. With all the men of military age they withdrew into the Capitol, for they had not numbers enough to man the walls of the city. These were mainly Patricians. Many of the Plebeians had fallen in the battle; many had escaped to Veii. The old men of this order, with the women, fled for safety to the same city. The priests and vestal virgins, carrying with them the sacred images and utensils, found refuge at the friendly Etruscan city of Cæré. But the old Senators, who had been Consuls or Censors, and had won triumphs, and grown grey in their country’s service, feeling themselves to be now no longer a succour but a burthen, determined to sacrifice themselves for her; and M. Fabius, the Pontifex, recited the form of words by which they solemnly devoted themselves to the gods below, praying that on their heads only might fall the vengeance and the destruction. Then as the Gauls approached, they ordered their ivory chairs to be set in the Comitium, before the temples of the gods, and there they took their seats, each man clad in his robes of state, to await the coming of the avenger.

“At length the Gallic host approached the city, and came to the Colline gate. It stood wide open before their astonished gaze, and they advanced slowly, not without suspicion, through deserted streets, unresisted and unchecked. When they reached the Forum, there, within its sacred precincts, they beheld those venerable men sitting like so many gods descended from heaven to protect their own. They gazed with silent awe; till at length a Gaul, hardier than his brethren, ventured to stroke the long beard of M. Papirius. The old hero raised his ivory staff and smote the offender, whereupon the barbarian in wrath slew him; and this first sword-stroke gave the signal for a general slaughter. Then the Romans in the Capitol believed that the gods had accepted the offering which those old men had made, and that the rest would be saved.”

Grander fable never was invented—never grew up out of grander feelings or wilder convictions. How little do we seem to know of the ancient religion of Rome! We listen too exclusively to the poets of the Augustan age. Elegant fictions and placid deities, from whom little was to be hoped or feared, did not constitute the religion of early times. There were terrible gods in those days—without whom, indeed, no religion has existed which has really influenced the conduct of mankind.

The next great event in the history of Rome which arrests our attention is the war with Pyrrhus. Here the Romans come in contact with a literary people. The attention of the Greeks is drawn towards them. Greek historians collect what accounts they can of these new barbarians, who are pronounced to be “not barbarians at least in war.” The first Roman historians wrote in the Greek language. We enter, it is said, into the historic period.

This is a fit place to quote some judicious remarks which Dr Liddell makes on the sources of early Roman history:—

“When the Gaul departed and left Rome in ashes, it was not only the buildings of the city that perished. We are expressly told that all the public records shared in the general destruction—the Fasti, or list of yearly magistrates with their triumphs, the Annales Pontificum, and the Linen Rolls (libri lintei), which were annual registers or chronicles of events kept by the pontiffs and augurs.

“This took place, we know, about the year 390 B.C.

“Now the first Roman annalists, Fabius Pictor, Cincius Alimentus, Cato the Censor, with the poets Nævius and Ennius, flourished about a century and a half after this date. Whence, then, it is natural to ask, did these writers and their successors find materials for the history of Rome before the burning of the city? What is the authority for the events and actions which are stated to have taken place before the year 390 B.C.?

“The answer to these questions may partly be found in our fifth chapter. The early history of Rome was preserved in old heroic lays or legends, which lived in the memories of men, and were transmitted by word of mouth from one generation to another. The early history of all nations is, as we have said, the same; and even if we had the Fasti and the Annals complete, we should still have to refer to those legendary tales for the substance and colour of the early history. The Fasti, indeed, if they were so utterly destroyed as Livy states, must have been preserved in memory with tolerable accuracy, for we have several lists of the early magistrates which only differ by a few omissions and transpositions. The Annals and Linen Rolls, if we had copies of them, would present little else than dry bones without flesh—mere names with a few naked incidents attached, much of the same character as the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. For narrative we should still have been dependent upon the legends. We might know the exact time at which Coriolanus appeared at the head of the Volscian host, but the story would remain untouched....

“The false statements of the Patrician period are quite different in kind from the greater part of the legendary fictions of Greece or Regal Rome. There we discern no dishonesty of purpose, no intentional fraud; here, much of the baser coin is current. In the legends of Porsenna and Camillus the dishonour of Rome and the triumphs of the invaders are studiously kept out of sight, and glorious deeds are attributed to heroes who are proved to have no claim to such honour.”

If the legends of the Regal period are mythical, and if those of the Patrician period were falsified by bards and minstrels, who made it their vocation to flatter the family pride of the nobles, it is plain there is little of historic narrative relating to these early times which can be depended on. There is no essential difference in the account which Dr Liddell and Sir G. C. Lewis give of the materials of the early history of Rome; but the first of these writers has a far greater faith in that species of constructive or conjectural history, in which Niebuhr was so great an artist, than the second can at all admit. Sir G. C. Lewis contends with great force and clearness that historical evidence does not differ in kind from judicial evidence. They are both founded “on the testimony of credible witnesses.” Unless you can trace your narrative to some contemporary writer who had a fair opportunity of knowing the facts to which he testifies, you have nothing worthy of the name of history. Nor can any ingenuity of reasoning avail if the materials on which you reason are constantly open to suspicion. In the time of the second Punic war there commences a series of Roman historians or annalists who recorded the events of their own age; their works are lost to us, but they furnished subsequent writers, whose histories remain, with their materials. If now, for the years preceding this epoch, you have nothing but a series of meagre official annals, kept by the chief pontiff, some ancient treaties, and a few laws which you can bring into court as historical evidence—if you have nothing but these “dry bones,” there is no help for it; you must be contented with the skeleton. By no means can you, in any legitimate manner, cover these bones. You have no narrative, both lifelike and trustworthy, that extends beyond the age of Pyrrhus. Here the Greek historian steps in. Moreover, the war with Pyrrhus was “not so long prior to the time of Fabius and Cincius (the earliest Roman annalists) as to render it improbable that they and other subsequent writers may have collected some trustworthy notices of it from native tradition and documents.” The speech, too, of Appius the Blind, delivered in the Senate on the occasion of the embassy of Cineas, the minister of Pyrrhus, was extant in the time of Cicero. But beyond this period of the war of Pyrrhus, historic narrative based on acceptable evidence there is none.

Sir G. C. Lewis states the matter, at the opening of his third chapter, in the following lucid manner:—

“In the previous chapter we have followed the stream of Roman contemporary history up to the war of Pyrrhus, but found that at that point the contemporary writers deserted us. There is no trace of any historical account of Roman affairs by a contemporary writer, native or foreign, before that time; nor can it be shown that any Roman literary work, either in verse or prose, was then in existence. But although there was no contemporary history, and no native literature at Rome before the war with Pyrrhus, yet we have a history of Rome for 472 years before that period, handed down to us by ancient classical writers as a credible narrative of events.”

But we must not be seduced further into following the discussions of Sir G. C. Lewis “on the credibility of the early Roman history.” We must not forget that it is Dr Liddell’s History we have at present before us. The wars of Pyrrhus are related by him in a very distinct and spirited manner, and the chivalrous character of the Greek prince—the Cœur-de-Lion of his age—stands out before us in very clear relief. The wars, too, of a greater than Pyrrhus—of the Carthaginian general, Hannibal—are told with more perspicuity than will be found, we think, in the pages of any of his predecessors. But for very manifest reasons we must pass over voluminous details of this description.

No portion of the work will be read with more interest and profit than those chapters which give an account of the civil constitution of Rome, such as it existed in the palmy days of the republic. We confess ourselves to be utterly incredulous of the ability of any writer to describe to us what the constitution of Rome was under her kings, or during the earlier periods of the commonwealth. So much the more pleasure do we derive from a view of that constitution when the clouds seem to break away, and it stands revealed to us in the light of history. When he has driven Hannibal out of Italy, conquered Sicily, and imposed those terms on Carthage which ended the second Punic war, Dr Liddell takes the occasion to review the constitution of Rome such as it displayed itself when the republic was in its full vigour. It was during the time of the Punic wars, he tells us, that this most remarkable and most complex system of government under which men ever lived, attained to some completeness of form. Our own British constitution is often cited as a marvel of complexity; incongruous powers and institutions come into collision at this and that point, till a harmonious action is at length produced; and the prerogative of the Crown is seen to be opposed by the privilege of Parliament, in such a manner as rather to represent a contest between rival institutions, than an understood co-operation of great functionaries of state. But the British constitution is a simple and consistent scheme when compared with the constitution of the Roman republic; with its wild right of the Tribune, which at once seems subversive of all law; with its annual elections, and that even of the general at the head of its armies, which seems at once subversive of all military discipline, and an insuperable obstacle to all military success; with its coequal legislative assemblies, which seems to strike at once at the unity of the laws, and to be a provision for the dissolution of the society.

That which explains the mystery, that which accounts for the long duration and signal success of so complicated a system, is to be found in the predominating power of the Senate. And if again we are asked how it happened that the Senate endured so long, and was not sooner dissolved or reduced to subjection by some military chief, we can only refer to the jealousy which the great men of Rome, patrician or plebeian, entertained of each other. Many a patrician would have been king, none would have endured to have a king over him. This determination to bow to no superior, except the law, except the State, is the feeling of every aristocracy which grows up within a city. It is otherwise with a territorial aristocracy. Here some form of our feudal system invariably presents itself; the common safety requires it. But in a municipal aristocracy, like that of Rome or Venice, the prevailing spirit, the conservative feeling, is precisely this determination, that no one member of the body shall obtain predominance over the rest. Looking at the history of Rome and the magnitude of her conquests, we feel that it was inevitable that the Senate should succumb at length to some victorious Cæsar, and we feel that it was equally inevitable that it should deliver its last protest in the daggers of a Brutus and a Cassius.

An extract from this portion of Dr Liddell’s work cannot fail to be acceptable to our readers. What precisely was the august Senate of Rome many of us may not distinctly remember, if indeed we have ever been so distinctly told as we are in the pages of this writer. We have no space to enter on the description of the two legislative assemblies, the “Tribe Assembly,” and the “Centuriate Assembly,” as they are here called, nor of the extraordinary power of the Tribune; we must limit our quotation to that part which rather bears on the ordinary and executive government of Rome.

“To obtain each of these high offices (as those of Quæstor, Ædile, Prætor, Consul, Censor), the Roman was obliged to seek the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. They were all open to the ambition of every one whose name had been entered by the Censors in the Register of Citizens, provided he had reached the required age. No office, except the Censorship, was held for a longer period than twelve months. No officer received any pay or salary for his services. To defray expenses, certain allowances were made from the treasury by order of the Senate. To discharge routine duties and to conduct their correspondence, each magistrate had a certain number of clerks (Scribæ), who formed what we should call the civil service, and who had before this assumed an important position in the State.

“But though the highest offices seemed thus absolutely open to every candidate, they were not so in practice. About the time of the first Punic war an alteration was made, which in effect confined the Curule officers to the wealthy families. The Ædiles were charged with the management of the public games, and for celebrating them with due splendour a liberal allowance had been made from the treasury. At the time just mentioned, this allowance was withdrawn. Yet the Curule Ædiles were still expected to maintain the honour of Rome by costly spectacles at the Great Roman Games, the Megalesian Festival, and others of less consequence. A great change was wrought by this law, which, under a popular aspect, limited the choice of the people to those who could buy their favour. None could become Ædile who had not the command of money, or at least of credit.

“That which strikes the mind as most remarkable in the executive government of Rome, is the short period for which each magistrate held his office, and the seeming danger of leaving appointments so important to the suffrages of the people at large; and this is still more striking when we remember that the same system was extended to the army itself, as well as to its generals. The Romans had no standing army. Every Roman citizen between the complete ages of seventeen and forty-five, and possessing property worth at least 4000 lb. of copper, was placed on the military roll. From this roll four legions, two for each Consul, were enlisted every year; and in cases of necessity additional legions were raised. But at the close of the year’s campaign these legionary soldiers had a right to return home and be relieved by others. Nor were there any fixed officers. Each legion had six tribunes and sixty centurions; but these were appointed, like the consuls and soldiers, fresh every year. The majority of the tribunes were now elected by the people at the Comitia of the tribes, and the remainder were nominated by the consuls of the year; the only limitation to such choice being, that those elected or nominated should have served in the legions at least five campaigns. The Centurions were then nominated by the Tribunes, subject to the approval of the Consuls. No doubt the Tribunes or Consuls, for their own sake, would nominate effective men; and therefore we should conclude, what we find to be the fact, that the Roman armies depended much on their Centurions, and on those Tribunes who were nominated by the Consuls.”

Everything hitherto seems to be in a state of perpetual change and disorganisation. If a consul were pursuing his operations ever so successfully, he was liable to be superseded at the close of the year by his successor in the consulship; and this successor brought with him new soldiers and new officers. This inconvenience was so great that the constitutional usages were necessarily broken through: the same men were re-elected to the consulship notwithstanding the law that no one should hold the office a second time except after the lapse of a certain interval. Impolitic laws, and these frequently suspended, present us with a poor guarantee for the permanence of the republic.

“But though the chief officers, both in state and army, were continually changing at the popular will, there was a mighty power behind them, on which they were all dependent, which did not change. This was the Senate.

“The importance of this body can hardly be overstated. All the acts of the Roman Republic ran in the name of the Senate and People, as if the Senate were half the State, though its number seems still to have been limited to three hundred members.

“The Senate of Rome was perhaps the most remarkable assembly that the world has ever seen. Its members held their seats for life. Once senators, always senators, unless they were degraded for some dishonourable cause. But the Senatorical peerage was not hereditary; no father could transmit the honour to his son. Each man must win it for himself.

“The manner in which seats in the Senate were obtained is tolerably well ascertained. Many persons will be surprised to learn that the members of this august body, all, or nearly all, owed their places to the votes of the people. In theory, indeed, the Censors still possessed the power really exercised by the kings and early Consuls, of choosing the Senators at their own will and pleasure. But official powers, however arbitrary, are always limited in practice—and the Censors followed rules established by ancient precedent. A notable example of the rule by which the list of the Senate was made occurs at a period when, if ever, there was wide room for the exercise of discretion. After the fatal days of Trasimene and Cannæ, it was found that, to complete the just number of Senators, no less than one hundred and seventy were wanting. Two years were yet to pass before new Censors would be in office; and to provide an extraordinary remedy for an extraordinary case, M. Fabius Buteo, an old Senator of high character, was named Dictator, for the sole purpose of recruiting the vacant ranks of his order. He thus discharged his duty: after reciting the names of all surviving Senators, he chose as new members, first, those who had held Curule offices since the last censorship, according to the order of their election; then those who had served as Ædiles, Tribunes, or Quæstors; then of those who had not held office, such as had decorated their houses with spoils taken from the enemy, or with crowns bestowed for saving the lives of fellow-citizens!

“The first qualification for a seat in the Senate then was that of office. It is probable that to the qualification of office there was added a second, property; a third limitation, that of age, followed from the rule that the Senate was recruited from the lists of official persons. No one could be a Senator till he was about thirty years of age.

“The power of the Senate was equal to its dignity. It absorbed into its ranks a large proportion of the practical ability of the community. It was a standing council, where all official functions were annual. And thus, it is but natural that it should engross the chief business of the State.”

This body of ex-consuls, ex-prætors, and the like (we need hardly say that the distinction between Patrician and Plebeian had been early erased) might well justify the figure of speech which the minister of Pyrrhus used when he called the Roman Senate an assembly of kings. “Many of its members had exercised sovereign power; many were preparing to exercise it.”

The Senate had the absolute control of foreign affairs, except that, in declaring war and concluding treaties of peace, the people were consulted. The conduct of the war, and all diplomatic negotiations, were in their hands. The Consul was the servant of the Senate; the sacred pontiffs took their orders from the Senate. And, what was of no less importance, “all the financial arrangements of the State were left to their discretion.” In times of difficulty, as is well known, they had the power of suspending all rules of law by the appointment of a dictator.

“They prolonged the command of a general or suspended him at pleasure. They estimated the sums necessary for the military chest; nor could a sesterce be paid to the general without their order. If a Consul proved refractory, they could transfer his power for a time to a dictator. All disputes in Italy or beyond seas were referred to their sovereign arbitrement.... They might also resolve themselves into a High Court of Justice for the trial of extraordinary offences.”

Nor was this great Executive Council without participation in, or control over, the function of the legislative assemblies; for, as a general rule, no law could be proposed which had not already received the sanction of the Senate. This body may be well described as having been for many years “the main-spring of the Roman constitution.”

Next to the wars with Hannibal follow those with Philip, and Antiochus, and Perseus, all of which Dr Liddell relates with singular perspicuity. It is sad to notice how soon after the report of victories and extended empire is heard the complaint of corrupted manners, of a Senate greedy of gold, of a people following the war for plunder, making of arms a trade and profession. It was at the end of the second Punic war that we were called upon to take a survey of republican institutions, and republican simplicity of manners—of a people rude and warlike indeed, but agricultural, domestic, where divorce was unknown, faithful and pious,—and the third and last Punic war does not break out before we hear of the city being startled and alarmed at the report of wives poisoning their husbands, and at the discovery of secret associations of men and women where some new and licentious worship of Bacchus was introduced. The disease first manifests itself in the rude efforts to check it, and one of the earliest symptoms of corruption is the appearance on the stage of Cato the Censor.

Of Cato the Censor Dr Liddell gives us the outlines of a very vigorous portrait. “More familiar to us,” he says, “than almost any of the great men of Rome, we see him, with his keen grey eyes and red hair, his harsh features and spare athletic frame, strong by natural constitution and hardened by exercise, clad even at Rome in the coarsest rustic garb, attacking with plain but nervous eloquence the luxury and corruption of the nobles.” This type of a whole class of men, more honest than enlightened, stands out to us in still more distinct relief from his opposition to his great contemporary Scipio, the proud and the reflective, whom he chose to fasten upon as his antagonist. Cato had rushed to the conclusion that the wickedness of Rome was traceable to the arts and philosophy of Greece. He ought to have directed his scrutiny to the cupidity and ambition of Rome. It was wealth and power, not art and philosophy, that were corrupting his fellow-citizens. He should have done his utmost to check their spirit of pillage and of conquest. Instead of which, he joins in the war-cry of the people, and directs his hostility against Scipio, the introducer of Greek literature. Another motive also is assigned for this hostility, which is of a still more commonplace character: there were political parties in Rome as elsewhere, and Cato had attached himself to the party of Fabius, which was opposed to the Scipios.

Born at the provincial town of Tusculum, and inheriting some patrimony, lands and slaves, in the Sabine territory, near the spot once occupied by the great Curius Dentatus, the future Censor of Rome had early adopted a quite rustic mode of life. The young Cato, we are told, looked with reverence on the hearth at which Curius had been roasting his radishes when he rejected the Samnite gold, and resolved to make a model of that rude and simple patriot. He used to work with his slaves, wearing the same coarse dress, and partaking of the same fare. But conscious, nevertheless, of superior powers, and fond, we may be sure, of seeing justice done amongst his neighbours, he would resort occasionally to the nearer courts of law, to plead the cause of some client. His shrewd sayings and caustic eloquence attracted the attention especially of one Valerius Flaccus, “a young nobleman of the neighbourhood, himself a determined friend of the ancient Roman manners.” Flaccus persuaded him to leave his farm, and enter public life at Rome. There he rose, step by step, through the several offices of state, till he reached the highest honour, that of the Censorship.

“Cato was now in full possession of the immense arbitrary powers wielded by the Censor, and determined not to act, as most Censors had acted, merely as the minister of the Senate, but to put down luxury with a strong hand. He had thundered against the repeal of the Oppian law,^[2] during his consulship, but in vain,—the ladies were too strong for him. But now it was his turn. Hitherto no property had been included in the Censor’s register, except land and houses. Cato ordered all valuable slaves to be rated at three times the amount of other property, and laid a heavy tax on the dress and equipages of the women, if they exceeded a certain sum. He struck seven Senators off the list, some for paltry causes. Manilius was degraded for kissing his wife in public; another for an unseasonable jest; but all honest men must have applauded when L. Flaminius was at length punished for his atrocious barbarity.^[3] It savoured of personal bitterness when, at the grand review of the knights, he deprived L. Scipio Asiaticus of his horse.

“In the management of public works Cato showed judgment equal to his vigour. He provided for the repair of the aqueducts and reservoirs, and took great pains to amend the drainage of the city. He encouraged a fair and open competition for the contracts of tax-collection, and so much offended the powerful companies of Publicani, that, after he had laid down his office, he was prosecuted, and compelled to pay a fine of 12,000 ases.”

That fine of 12,000 ases we are disposed to reckon amongst his highest titles to honour. Restricted in his notions, the Censor still claims our esteem for the genuine sturdy independence which accompanies him throughout his life, and in the presence alike of the Senate and the people. He is no craven demagogue. “You are like a parcel of sheep,” he tells the people on one occasion, “which follow their leader, they care not whither.” He interferes to prevent a gratuitous distribution of corn, which he foresaw would encourage the growth of a lazy mob in the metropolis; and on this occasion he begins his oration thus, “It is a hard thing, Romans, to speak to the belly, for it has no ears.” He was a hard-headed, self-sufficient man, not too humane, since he could recommend, in his book on agriculture, the selling off of old slaves as a useless lumber, and by no means disposed to act with clemency or justice towards foreign nations. In his old age, when he numbered eighty-four years, he led the party which clamoured for the destruction of Carthage. The old Sabine farmer appeared in the Senate, and unfolding his gown, produced some giant figs, which he held up and said, “These figs grow but three days’ sail from Rome.” He then repeated the oft-reiterated and fatal sentence, “Carthage must be destroyed!—delenda est Carthago!”

The morality between nation and nation always has been, and still is, execrable. Indeed, there can be no international morality until men have learned that the interest of one people is bound up with the interest of others; till, just as individuals learn that their welfare is inseparable from the welfare of some community of individuals, so nations shall learn that their own wellbeing and prosperity is inseparable from the wellbeing of some community of nations. The early policy of Rome in the treatment of the Italian cities which were compelled to acknowledge her supremacy, has often been praised; it could not have been very censurable, since at the period of Hannibal’s greatest success there were so few defections. Probably the value of some large Italian confederacy had begun to be generally appreciated; and as there was little to pillage from each other, there was the less room for injustice. When the government extended beyond Italy, over rich and conquered provinces, the historian has no longer any commendation to bestow.

“It was a general rule that all Italian land was tax-free, and that all provincial land, except such as was specified in treaties or decrees of the Senate, was subject to tax. This rule was so absolute that the exemption of land from taxation was known by the technical name of Jus Italicum, or the Right of Italy.

“This last distinction implies that the imperial revenues were raised chiefly from the provinces. In the course of little more than thirty years from the close of the Hannibalic war, this was the case, not chiefly, but absolutely. The world was taxed for the benefit of Rome and her citizens....

“It was as if England were to defray the expenses of her own administration from the proceeds of a tax levied on her Indian empire. The evil was aggravated by the way in which the taxes were collected. This was done by contract. From time to time the taxes of each province were put up to public auction by the Prætor or Proconsul; and the company of contractors which outbade the rest received the contract and farmed the taxes of the province. The members of these companies were called Publicani. It is manifest that this system offered a premium on extortion.

“The Proconsuls and Prætors exercised an authority virtually despotic. They were Senators, and responsible to the Senate alone. It may too surely be anticipated what degree of severity a corporation like the Senate would exercise towards its own members in times when communication with the provinces was uncertain and difficult, when no one cared for the fate of foreigners, when there was no press to give tongue to public opinion, and indeed no force of public opinion at all. Very soon the Senatorial Proconsuls found it their interest to support the tax-gatherers in their extortions, on condition of sharing in the plunder. The provincial government of the republic became in practice an organised system of oppression, calculated to enrich fortunate Senators, and to provide them with the means of buying the suffrages of the people, or of discharging the debts incurred in buying them. The name of Proconsul became identified with tyranny and greed.”

We would gladly accompany Dr Liddell farther down the stream of history, but the stream widens as we proceed. The events increase in magnitude, and the territory over which they extend expands before us; we have not “ample room or verge enough” for such themes as the names of Sylla, Pompey, Cæsar, suggest.

One subject we cannot help glancing at. The battles and conquests of Rome led to the making of innumerable slaves; and nowhere is more plainly illustrated the great truth, that injustice works evil—that wrong, or the recklessness of other men’s wellbeing, will bring with it a penalty of some kind, on some head,—for her slave-system was the curse of Rome, and the chief cause of her ruin and downfall.

Unfortunately for any distinctness of view on this subject, the same name slavery is applied to very different institutions, to very different relations between man and man, to very different rights and conduct of him who calls himself master or owner. All systems of slave-labour are no more alike than all systems of monarchy. In some cases the institution we call slavery is the only possible system that could have been adopted. But amongst the Romans slavery exhibited itself in its harshest features; here, it in part superseded and thrust aside the labour of the free peasant: in Italy it drove the native agriculturist from the soil, and converted cornfields which had been cultivated by hardy yeomen, into wild pastures, where the cattle were watched by slaves. In the city, it retarded or prevented the growth of a free industrious middle class; even what we call liberal professions suffered a certain social degradation from being thrown into the hands of slaves or freedmen. The Romans were always a harsh people, and a system which put unlimited power of life and limb into their hands, and supplied the circus with gladiatorial combats, was not likely to improve their humanity.

They were always a harsh and severe people; it is suspected that some unrecorded conquest and subjugation was the origin of the distinction between patrician and client, and that the history of the city ought really to commence with the invasion and domination of a conquering caste or race. Be that as it may, one of the first laws we hear of is of so severe and cruel a character—a law of debtor and creditor of so atrocious a description—that it is almost as incredible as any of the wildest legends of that early time. We can scarcely believe that a people who had advanced to the making any laws at all, could have made one in which it was provided that “the creditor might arrest the person of his debtor, load him with chains, and feed him on bread and water for thirty days, and then, if the money still remained unpaid, he might put him to death, or sell him as a slave to the highest bidder; or, if there were several creditors, they might hew his body in pieces and divide it”—with a saving clause that, “if a man cut more or less than his due, he should incur no penalty.”—Vol. i. p. 100. Possibly this last provision was a mere threat, and to be sold as a beast of burden was the heaviest penalty that a patrician creditor ever inflicted on his debtor. It is plain, however, that when a multitude of slaves fell into the hands of the Romans, they fell into the hands of men who were not disposed to use their power leniently. They were men of blunt sensibilities. One who visited a Roman senator in the time of the Scipios might have had his ears assailed by the sharp cry of pain from a beaten slave, and certainly the first object that would have greeted his vision would have been a slave chained like a dog to the door—the “hall-porter” of those days. In subsequent times the more refined Roman could not have endured such sounds and sights in his own presence or neighbourhood; but what went on in the “ergastula” upon his estate, he probably never cared to inquire.

Our readers will perhaps prefer here a brief extract from Dr Liddell to any general statements of our own. He says:—

“A few examples will show the prodigious number of slaves that must have been thrown into the market in the career of conquest on which the republic entered after the Hannibalic war. To punish the Bruttians for the fidelity with which they adhered to the cause of the great Carthaginian, the whole nation were made slaves; no less than 150,000 Epirotes were sold by Æmilius Paulus; 50,000 were sent home by Scipio from Carthage. These numbers are accidentally preserved; and if, according to this scale, we calculate the hosts of unhappy men sold in slavery during the Syrian, Macedonian, Illyrian, Grecian, and Spanish wars, we shall be prepared to hear that slaves fit only for unskilled labour were plentiful and cheap.

“It is evident that hosts of slaves lately free men, and many of them soldiers, must become dangerous to the owners. Nor was their treatment such as to conciliate. They were turned out upon the hills, made responsible for the safety of the cattle put under their charge, and compelled to provide themselves with the common necessaries of life. A body of these wretched men asked their master for clothing: ‘What!’ he asked, ‘are there no travellers with clothes on?’ The atrocious hint was soon taken: the shepherd-slaves of lower Italy became banditti, and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue was a perilous adventure. From assailing travellers the marauders began to plunder the smaller country-houses; and all but the rich were obliged to desert the country, and flock into the towns. When they were not employed upon the hills, they were shut up in large prison-like buildings (ergastula), where they talked over their wrongs, and formed schemes of vengeance.”

No wonder we hear of Sicilian slave-wars. Nor can we wonder, after this, at the statement sometimes made, that Roman civilisation never extended beyond the cities—that the country of such provinces of Gaul and Spain was still barbarian—that there was no civilisation or humanity here for Goth or German to destroy. We cannot wonder, at all events, that there was no patriotism to withstand their invasion. Their invasion was a restoration of the country, if it was a temporary destruction of the town. And even in the large towns, while the system of slavery endured, the industrial arts, and even studious and liberal professions, never received their due honour and due encouragement. Wealth and military and civil appointments were the only valid or generally recognised claims to social distinction.

We must take our leave of Dr Liddell’s book, again commending it to the student. In a passage we quoted from the preface, the author says that if less of positive history is laid before the reader than in some older books, “he will, at all events, find less that he will have to unlearn.” We venture to think that there is still a good deal set down here as history which the student will have to unlearn. But we make no objection to the work on this account; for every student must be solicitous to know what is the last hypothesis of eminently learned men. There has been an overflow, in our own times, of conjectural history. As it chiefly concerned the dry details of civil government, and the development of constitutional laws, the free employment of a conjectural method was disguised: this flood, we may venture confidently to say, is now receding.

Additions of this kind, made by one able man, will be destroyed by another; but it does not follow on this account that there has not been a real progress made in the study of Roman history. This progress chiefly consists in the discrimination made in the comparative value of the materials which have come down to us. “In the first two centuries after the invention of printing,” says Sir G. C. Lewis, “the entire history of Rome was in general treated as entitled to implicit belief; all ancient authors were put upon the same footing, and regarded as equally credible; all parts of an author’s work were, moreover, supposed to rest upon the same basis. Not only was Livy’s authority as high as that of Thucydides or Tacitus, but his account of the kings was considered as credible as that of the wars with Hannibal, Philip, Antiochus, or Perseus; and again, the lives of Romulus, Numa, or Coriolanus by Plutarch, were deemed as veracious as those of Fabius Maximus, Sylla, or Cicero. Machiavel, in his Discourses on the First Decade of Livy, takes this view of the early history. The seven kings of Rome are to him not less real than the twelve Cæsars; and the examples which he derives from the early period of the Republic are not less certain and authentic than if they had been selected from the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, or of Cæsar and Pompey.” An instance so striking as this of Machiavel ought to give us a double lesson, one of modesty and one of confidence;—of modesty, because we too may be involved in some general and prevailing error; of confidence, because where the reason of the case is clear, no name or authority, however great, ought to influence our convictions.

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