As it is, I feel that there are two Greeces: one of statues and temples, which is academic and somewhat cold; the other of philosophers and tragedians, who convey to my mind more of an impression of life and humanity.
Apart from the Greek, which I know but fragmentarily, I have no great admiration for ancient literatures. The Old Testament never aroused any devotion in me. Except for Ecclesiastes and one or two of the shorter books, it impresses me as repulsively cruel and antipathetic.
Among the Greeks, I have enjoyed Homer's Odyssey and the comedies of Aristophanes. I have read also Herodotus, Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius. I am not an admirer of academic, well written books, so I prefer Diogenes Laertius to Plutarch. Plutarch impresses me as having composed and arranged his narratives; not so Diogenes Laertius. Plutarch forces the morality of his personages to the fore; Diogenes gives details of both the good and the bad in his. Plutarch is solid and systematic; Diogenes is lighter and lacks system. I prefer Diogenes Laertius to Plutarch, and if I were especially interested in any of the illustrious ancients of whom they write, I should vastly prefer the letters of the men themselves, if any existed, or otherwise the gossip of their tentmakers or washerwomen, to any lives written of them by either Diogenes Laertius or Plutarch.
THE ROMAN HISTORIANS
When I turned to the composition of historical novels, I desired to ascertain if the historical method had been reduced to a system. I read Lucian's Instructions for Writing History, an essay with the same title, or with a very similar one, by the Abbé Mably, some essays by Simmel, besides a book by a German professor, Ernst Bernheim, Lehrbuch der historischen Methode.
I next read and re-read the Roman historians Julius Caesar, Tacitus,
Sallust and Suetonius.
Sallust
All these Roman historians no doubt were worthy gentlemen, but they create an atmosphere of suspicion. When reading them, you suspect that they are not always telling the whole truth. I read Sallust and feel that he is lying; he has composed his narrative like a novel.
In the Mémorial de Sainte Hélène, it is recorded that on March 26, 1816, Napoleon read the conspiracy of Catiline in the Roman History. The Emperor observed that he was unable to understand what Catiline was driving at. No matter how much of a bandit he may have been, he must have had some object, some social purpose in view.
The observation of this political genius is one which must occur to all who read Sallust's book. How could Catiline have secured the support of the most brilliant men of Rome, among them of Julius Caesar, if his only plan and object had been to loot and burn Rome? It is not logical. Evidently Sallust lies, as governmental writers in Spain lie today when they speak of Lerroux or Ferrer, or as the republican supporters of Thiers lied in 1871, characterizing the Paris Commune.