Roman History, Books I-III

by Livy

Of the lost treasures of classical literature, it is doubtful whether any are more to be regretted than the missing books of Livy. That they existed in approximate entirety down to the fifth century, and possibly even so late as the fifteenth, adds to this regret. At the same time it leaves in a few sanguine minds a lingering hope that some unvisited convent or forgotten library may yet give to the world a work that must always be regarded as one of the greatest of Roman masterpieces. The story that the destruction of Livy was effected by order of Pope Gregory I, on the score of the superstitions contained in the historian's pages, never has been fairly substantiated, and therefore I prefer to acquit that pontiff of the less pardonable superstition involved in such an act of fanatical vandalism. That the books preserved to us would be by far the most objectionable from Gregory's alleged point of view may be noted for what it is worth in favour of the theory of destruction by chance rather than by design.

Here is the inventory of what we have and of what we might have had. The entire work of Livy—a work that occupied more than forty years of his life—was contained in one hundred and forty-two books, which narrated the history of Rome, from the supposed landing of Æneas, through the early years of the empire of Augustus, and down to the death of Drusus, B.C. 9. Books I-X, containing the story of early Rome to the year 294 B.C., the date of the final subjugation of the Samnites and the consequent establishment of the Roman commonwealth as the controlling power in Italy, remain to us. These, by the accepted chronology, represent a period of four hundred and sixty years. Books XI-XX, being the second "decade," according to a division attributed to the fifth century of our era are missing. They covered seventy-five years, and brought the narrative down to the beginning of the second Punic war. Books XXI-XLV have been saved, though those of the fifth "decade" are imperfect. They close with the triumph of Æmilius, in 167 B.C., and the reduction of Macedonia to a Roman province. Of the other books, only a few fragments remain, the most interesting of which (from Book CXX) recounts the death of Cicero, and gives what appears to be a very just estimate of his character. We have epitomes of all the lost books, with the exception of ten; but these are so scanty as to amount to little more than tables of contents. Their probable date is not later than the time of Trajan. To summarize the result, then, thirty-five books have been saved and one hundred and seven lost—a most deplorable record, especially when we consider that in the later books the historian treated of times and events whereof his means of knowledge were adequate to his task.

TITUS LIVIUS was born at Patavium, the modern Padua, some time between 61 and 57 B.C. Of his parentage and early life nothing is known. It is easy to surmise that he was well born, from his political bias in favour of the aristocratic party, and from the evident fact of his having received a liberal education; yet the former of these arguments is not at all inconsistent with the opposite supposition, and the latter should lead to no very definite conclusion when we remember that in his days few industries were more profitable than the higher education of slaves for the pampered Roman market. Niebuhr infers, from a sentence quoted by Quintilian, that Livy began life as a teacher of rhetoric. However that may be, it seems certain that he came to Rome about 30 B.C., was introduced to Augustus and won his patronage and favour, and after the death of his great patron and friend retired to the city of his birth, where he died, 17 A.D. It is probable that he had fixed the date of the Emperor's death as the limit of his history, and that his own decease cut short his task.

No historian ever told a story more delightfully. The available translations leave much to be desired, but to the student of Latin Livy's style is pure and simple, and possesses that charm which purity and simplicity always give. If there is anything to justify the charge of "Patavinity," or provincialism, made by Asinius Pollio, we, at least, are not learned enough in Latin to detect it; and Pollio, too, appears to have been no gentle critic if we may judge by his equally severe strictures upon Cicero, Cæsar, and Sallust. This much we know: the Patavian's heroes live; his events happen, and we are carried along upon their tide. Our sympathies, our indignation, our enthusiasm, are summoned into being, and history and fiction appear to walk hand in hand for our instruction and amusement. In this latter word—fiction—lies the charge most often and most strongly made against him—the charge that he has written a story and no more; that with him past time existed but to furnish materials "to point a moral or adorn a tale." Let us consider to what extent this is true, and, if true, in what measure the author has sinned by it or we have lost.

No one would claim that the rules by which scientific historians of to-day are judged should be applied to those that wrote when history was young, when the boundaries between the possible and the impossible were less clearly defined, or when, in fact, such boundaries hardly existed in men's minds. In this connection, even while we vaunt, we smile. After all, how much of our modern and so-called scientific history must strike the reasoning reader as mere theorizing or as special pleading based upon the slenderest evidence! Among the ancients the work of the historians whom we consider trustworthy—such writers, for instance, as Cæsar, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, and Tacitus—may be said to fall generally within Rawlinson's canons 1 and 2 of historical criticism—that is, (1) cases where the historian has personal knowledge concerning the facts whereof he writes, or (2) where the facts are such that he may reasonably be supposed to have obtained them from contemporary witnesses. Canon 2 might be elaborated and refined very considerably and perhaps to advantage. It naturally includes as sources of knowledge—first, personal interviews with contemporary witnesses; and, second, accesses to the writings of historians whose opportunities brought them within canon 1. In this latter case the evidence would be less convincing, owing to the lack of opportunity to cross-question, though even here apparent lack of bias or the existence of biased testimony on both sides, from which a judicious man might have a fair chance to extract the truth, would go far to cure the defect.

The point, however, to which I tend is, that the portions of Livy's history from which we must judge of his trustworthiness treat, for the most part, of periods concerning which even his evidence was of the scantiest and poorest description. He doubtless had family records, funeral panegyrics, and inscription—all of which were possibly almost as reliable as those of our own day. Songs sung at festivals and handed down by tradition may or may not be held more truthful. These he had as well; but the government records, the ancient fasti, had been destroyed at the time of the burning of the city by the Gauls, and there is no hint of any Roman historian that lived prior to the date of the second Punic war. Thus we may safely infer that Livy wrote of the first five hundred years without the aid of any contemporary evidence, either approximately complete or ostensibly reliable. With the beginning of the second Punic war began also the writing of history. Quintus Fabius Pictor had left a work, which Polybius condemned on the score of its evident partiality. Lucius Cincius Alimentus, whose claim to knowledge if not to impartiality rests largely on the fact that he was captured and held prisoner by Hannibal, also left memoirs; but Hannibal was not famous for treating prisoners mildly, and the Romans, most cruel themselves in this respect, were always deeply scandalized by a much less degree of harshness on the part of their enemies. Above all, there was Polybius himself, who perhaps approaches nearer to the critical historian than any writer of antiquity, and it is Polybius upon whom Livy mainly relies through his third, fourth, and fifth decades. The works of Fabius and Cincius are lost. So also are those of the Lacedaemonian Sosilus and the Sicilian Silanus, who campaigned with Hannibal and wrote the Carthaginian side of the story; nor is there any evidence that either Polybius or Livy had access to their writings. Polybius, then, may be said to be the only reliable source from which Livy could draw for any of his extant books, and before condemning unqualifiedly in the cases where he deserts him and harks back to Roman authorities we must remember that Livy was a strong nationalist, one of a people who, despite their conquests, were essentially narrow, prejudiced, egotistical; and, thus remembering, we must marvel that he so fully recognises the merit of his unprejudiced guide and wanders as little as he does. All told, it is quite certain that he has dealt more fairly by Hannibal than have Alison and other English historians by Napoleon. His unreliability consists rather in his conclusions than in his facts, and it is unquestioned that through all the pages of the third decade he has so told the story of the man most hated by Rome—the deadliest enemy she had ever encountered—that the reader can not fail to feel the greatness of Hannibal dominating every chapter.

Referring again to the criticisms made so lavishly upon Livy's story of the earlier centuries, it is well to recall the contention of the hard-headed Scotchman Ferguson, that with all our critical acumen we have found no sure ground to rest upon until we reach the second Punic war. Niebuhr, on the other hand, whose German temperament is alike prone to delve or to theorize, is disposed to think—with considerable generosity to our abilities, it appears to me—that we may yet evolve a fairly true history of Rome from the foundation of the commonwealth. As to the times of the kings, it is admitted that we know nothing, while from the founding of the commonwealth to the second Punic war the field may be described as, at the best, but a battle-ground for rival theories.

The ancient historian had, as a rule, little to do with such considerations or controversies. In the lack of solid evidence he had only to write down the accepted story of the origin of things, as drawn from the lips of poetry, legend, or tradition, and it was for Livy to write thus or not at all. Even here the honesty of his intention is apparent. For much of his early history he does not claim more than is claimed for it by many of his modern critics, while time and again he pauses to express a doubt as to the credibility of some incident. A notable instance of this is found in his criticism of those stories most dear to the Roman heart—the stories of the birth and apotheosis of Romulus. On the other hand, if he has given free life to many beautiful legends that were undoubtedly current and believed for centuries, is it heresy to avow that these as such seem to me of more true value to the antiquary than if they had been subjected at their historical inception to the critical and theoretical methods of to-day? I can not hold Livy quite unpardonable even when following, as he often does, such authorities as the Furian family version of the redemption of the city by the arms of their progenitor Camillus, instead of by the payment of the agreed ransom, as modern writers consider proven, while his putting of set speeches into the mouths of his characters may be described as a conventional usage of ancient historians, which certainly added to the liveliness of the narrative and probably was neither intended to be taken literally nor resulted in deceiving any one.

Reverting for a moment to Livy's honesty and frankness, so far as his intent might govern such qualities, I think no stronger evidence in his favour can be found than his avowed republican leanings at the court of Augustus and his just estimate of Cicero's character in the face of the favour of a prince by whose consent the great orator had been assassinated. Above all, it must have been a fearless and honest man who could swing the scourge with which he lashed his degenerate countrymen in those stinging words, "The present times, when we can endure neither our vices nor their remedies."

Nevertheless, and despite the facts that Livy means to be honest and that he questions much on grounds that would not shame the repute of many of his modern critics, the charge is doubtless true that his writings are not free from prejudice in favour of his country. That he definitely regarded history rather as a moral agency and a lesson for the future than as an irrefutable narrative of the past, I consider highly hypothetical; but it is probable that his mind was not of the type that is most diligent in the close, exhaustive, and logical study so necessary to the historian of today. "Superficial," if we could eliminate the reproach in the word, would perhaps go far toward describing him. He is what we would call a popular rather than a scientific writer, and, since we think somewhat lightly of such when they write on what we consider scientific subjects, we are too apt to transfer their light repute to an author who wrote popularly at a time when this treatment was best adapted to his audience, his aims, and the material at his command. That he has survived through all these centuries, and has enjoyed, despite all criticism, the position in the literature of the world which his very critics have united in conceding to him, is perhaps a stronger commendation than any technical approval.