As time went on these fetters became more and more galling. Just as the Athenians ceased to produce genuine history when their day of national greatness passed with the failing Empire and the inefficient democracy, leaving their learning and their civilization to be overgrown by the weeds of rhetoric and sophistic, so now the Gauls of the transition choked whatever history there was with an abundant growth of words. When the panegyric becomes fashionable in Gaul, we see how history develops into an instrument of imperial policy. Not merely beauty of form and the following of traditional rules, but the narrower purpose of praising the emperor becomes the goal. The facts of history are loosely and wildly used.[1212] Alexander the Great (with the old argument that he conquered merely ‘imbelles Asiaticos’), Hannibal, Augustus, are great names for these Epigoni to juggle with and to mingle promiscuously with the incense of adulation. Of Caesar it is said: ‘ille Graeculos homines adortus est, tu (Constantine) Subalpinos’.[1213] So far did the travesty of history go.
‘There’, said Eumenius of the Maeniana, ‘let the flower of our youth learn ... to praise the deeds of the mighty emperors—quis enim melior usus eloquentiae?’[1214] The school must teach them the proofs, varying with the different places, that establish the exploits of the prince; and as the news of victory comes hotly in from time to time, the teacher must point out the land concerned on the map—the double river of Persia, the parching fields of Libya, the curving ‘horns’ of the Rhine, the many-flowing mouths of the Nile. All these several exploits must mould the mind of youth to a sense of imperial greatness, while he envisages the Pax Romana throughout the erstwhile troubled world, ‘for now, now at length we may look at the map of the world with joy, seeing in it naught that is foreign’.[1215]
This imperialistic use of history made men afraid to tamper with it, lest indiscretion should mar their fortunes. In the fifth century there was no longer a Domitian to put historians to death, but there was a tradition to bind and intimidate. When Leo, the minister of Euric, advised Sidonius to occupy himself with history during his banishment, the reply was: ‘turpiter falsa, periculose vera dicuntur’.[1216] In this sort of work, says Sidonius, the mention of the good wins scant credit, the mention of the great, unbounded enmity. ‘The writing of history’, he maintains, ‘seems to be the last thing a man of my class ought to undertake, for to begin it means envy, to continue it, trouble, and the end of it is hatred.’ The attitude of mind which made men write to order was spreading: Ausonius is an outstanding example. At the same time the rhetorical tradition in history was persisting. Sidonius wants Leo to undertake a history and the argument for his fitness refers merely to style: ‘nemo te celsius scripserit’.[1217]
The all-pervading imperial atmosphere, therefore, was not encouraging for the historian. We hear of histories begun but never finished. Symmachus tells of one Protadius, a nobleman, who set about writing a domestic history.[1218] Sidonius had been asked by Bishop Prosper to write a history of the war with Attila, and actually set to work on it but gave it up.[1219] It was not only on the tax-payer that the Empire weighed heavily.
It may be, too, that the emperors interfered with the selection of the material for the historical course, such as it was. In the list given by Ausonius (Jung remarks) much stress was laid on the history of insurrections, and this was done by way of an object-lesson to the Gauls ‘quo magis rebellionem audientes detestarentur’.[1220] Whether this was actually the case, or whether the remark is a mere scholastic refinement, we cannot with certainty say. The imperial authorities were quite capable of such an act, but, on the other hand, the evidence is not conclusive. We are inclined to give the emperors the benefit of the doubt.
With the reaction against the superfluities of rhetoric in the Christian schools, there followed important results for history. Christian writers, as we have seen, reinforced and developed, especially in Gaul, the tendency towards chronography. This was part of the reaction against the domination of Form in historical writing, and it proved to be a valuable antidote from the historian’s point of view. But another and a greater service resulted. The Christian reaction, as we saw, affected thought as well as style, and the Christian historians, with their renewed interest in theology and philosophy, began to look for first principles in the series of events. The universality of the Christian religion made them look not only to single nationalities (though the Church fostered nationalism),[1221] but to the whole world. They tried to see all things in relation to their conception of the divine. Thus they tended to produce a philosophy of history, which, though often distorted and biased, set history on a much more markedly philosophic basis than before. As instances we may remember Augustine’s City of God, which was written to justify the fall of Rome, and the universal history of Orosius (who wrote with far less balance than his master Augustine), which attempted to prove that ‘there’s a Divinity that shapes our ends’. Filled with the same note, and poignantly real, are the de Providentia Dei and the ad Uxorem, written in Gaul after the great invasion at the beginning of the fifth century had forced men to reconsider their philosophy of life.
We can hardly claim, however, that the Christian elementary schools were much affected by these contributions of Christianity. History was still very much of a subsidiary subject and its standard was low. Yet its extent was widened by the addition of Bible-history, which often, no doubt, ousted pagan history altogether; but the interest of men like Augustine in secular history, and the use they made of it to reinforce Christianity, would have prevented its disappearance from the more advanced Christian schools. Bible-history had the advantage, moreover, of not having an imperial policy behind it, and the greater simplicity and sincerity of the Christian ideal must have produced something nearer to historic truth (the absence of which Augustine deplores in the pagan schools) than the frills and draperies of rhetoric would generally allow. Bias and misrepresentation, born of the fervour of conversion, were responsible for a great many distortions, and the growing formlessness did much damage to the artistic side of history; but it cannot be denied that there was a greater desire for truth in the eager questions of the early Christian than in the smug complacence of the glib rhetorician.
History, in the hands of a skilful master, may become one of the very finest instruments of education. It has a legitimate use in inspiring patriotism. The deeds of a man’s ancestors become part of his individuality, and may be a source of high and noble action. Similarly, in proportion as a man realizes his national unity with his people, their history may become a motive and a driving force in his life. Now the Roman Empire set before the schoolboys of Africa and Italy and Gaul the events of the Roman republic and the deeds of the emperors. But the area was too wide. The Gallic schoolboy could not feel the value and the force of things so far distant, different from his own conditions, and so slightly connected with them. He could not feel that he was a responsible member of an Empire which could not defend him. Moreover at this time nationality was coming to be more and more clearly realized under the influence of the Church:[1222] each province sought to uphold the specific doctrines of its leaders, and bishops waged fierce controversial warfare for the traditions of their country,[1223] especially in Africa. There is a dim individuality to be seen in Spain,[1224] and Salvian’s attacks on the Empire had an aspect which pointed to the beginning of Gallic nationality. The Roman Empire was beginning to feel the strain of national individuality. In these circumstances, history, being hedged in as we have seen by imperial persons and questions, must have become more and more artificial. The lack of citizenship which was so prevalent at this time increased for lack of an inspiring national or international ideal. And such an ideal might have come partly through a method by which history would have become more vivid and real to the children in the schools.
Another possibility that was missed was that of using history to see the logical and psychological connexion between events. With the narrow conception of the subject that was entertained at the time this was impossible. The only sort of causal chain that the student was induced to see was that, if you did not please the emperor, so much the worse for you. Not only the reason, but also the critical faculty, was thus left undeveloped in this age of adulation and prescription.
In the same way the moral significance of history was overlooked, and here again the cause was restriction. For in order to realize the influence of character on the march of events, a wide, and, if possible, a comparative study of the subject must be undertaken, and the values attached must not depend on a gilded imperial figure, but on ethical truth. Again, it was impossible to judge of the various aims and theories of men in the past age, to form some sort of opinion of the development of political theory, to be interested in truth and progress, as long as rhetoric, the handmaid of a rigid Imperialism, reigned supreme.