[6] Cicero, like many a modern statesman, desired a favorable presentation of his deeds in history and biography. However, when it was not a question of his own deeds, his historical ideals were very high. In his Brutus (292-4) he insists that history requires the same accuracy as testimony given in court under oath. In the De Oratore (ii. 62-3) he says that the first requirement of the historian is to have courage to tell the whole truth and never to deceive. He consulted the archives even to get an accurate setting for his fictitious dialogues (Ad. Att. xiii. 33, 3; xiii. 3, 3; xii. 5, 3). Some modern critics have found heart to suspect Cicero’s historical ideals because he insisted that history should be well written!
[7] Op. cit., 201.
[8] Polybius VI, 56; XIII, 3; XVIII, 35; XXXII, 8-9.
[9] Cf. Klotz, art. “Livius,” in Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, XIII, 816 for a critical bibliography.
[10] Tacitus, Ann. 7, 34: fidei praeclarus.
[11] Plut. Cato minor, 18. On Roman archives see art. “Archive,” in Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, II, 560.
[12] Silenus, Sosylus, and Chaireas; Eumachus of Naples may also have been a contemporary. The explicit details of the battles in Campania may well owe something to him.
[13] Livy, 38, 50.
[14] De Sanctis, Storia dei Romani, III, 2, 338 pp.
[15] See Jour. Roman Studies, 1919, 202.