Ferrero, Guglielmo. Greatness and decline of Rome; tr. by Alfred E. Zimmern. 2v. *$5.25. Putnam.
7–25134.
Two volumes which contain “a history of the age of Caesar, from the death of Sulla to the Ides of March.” “To the author of these volumes history is drama, with its characters, its passions, its plot and its setting—above all with its exquisite irony, the analytical foreknowledge of a Greek tragedy-chorus of which he is the leader. Roman history is no longer a weary catalogue of wars and laws, of risings and assassinations, sprinkled with names which by their very schoolday familiarity have become meaningless. Still less is it the blind hero-worship of a single personality to whom is ascribed a purpose and ambition beyond all human likelihood.” (Acad.)
“Signor Ferrero is a looker-on at this game of cross-purposes, who can use the eyes of his mind. He overlooks all the hands at once, and his book is the result of his observation, not of the platitudes of result, but of the human elements of process. In reading this book of his, we must feel that it is not the game that matters, but the players. If he completes his scheme as worthily as he has begun it, he will have written a more living, a more actual, history of Rome than any we have encountered up to now, and we can only hope for him and for ourselves that the task of translation may remain in Mr. Zimmern’s hands.”
| + + | Acad. 72: 479. My. 18, ’07. 1350w. |
“A fresh and vigorous treatment of a great subject, with a new handling of the evidence, which is not indeed increased, but estimated afresh. The whole book, though on a trite subject, is very stimulating even in its vagaries.”
| + + − | Ath. 1907, 1: 720. Je. 15. 1240w. |
“Signor Ferrero is no safe guide in matters where sober historical criticism is needed. It must be added that in its English dress his work has many blemishes for which we must hold the translator responsible.” H. Stuart Jones.
| − + | Eng. Hist. R. 22: 763. O. ’07. 1220w. |