← catalogue

History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. II

by John Colin Dunlop · English · Gutenberg #35751 · 1,049,540 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. II
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. II

Author: John Colin Dunlop


        
Release date: April 1, 2011 [eBook #35751]
                Most recently updated: June 16, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35751


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF ROMAN LITERATURE FROM ITS EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE AUGUSTAN AGE. VOL. II ***





                                *HISTORY*

                                   OF

                          *ROMAN LITERATURE,*

                                  FROM

                          *ITS EARLIEST PERIOD*
                                   TO

                            THE AUGUSTAN AGE.


                            IN TWO VOLUMES.

                                   BY
                              JOHN DUNLOP,
                    AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF FICTION.

FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION.

VOL. II.

PUBLISHED BY
E. LITTELL, CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA.
G. & C. CARVILL, BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
1827





                       _James Kay, Jun. Printer,_
                 _S. E. Corner of Race & Sixth Streets,_
                             _Philadelphia._





                                CONTENTS.


   [Agriculture]
   Marcus Porcius Cato
   Marcus Terentius Varro
   Nigidius Figulus
   History
   Quintus Fabius Pictor
   Sallust
   Julius Cæsar
   Cicero
Appendix
   Livius Andronicus, Nævius
   Ennius
   Plautus
   Terence
   Lucilius
   Lucretius
   Catullus
   Laberius—Publilius Syrus
   Cato—Varro
   Sallust
   Cæsar
   Cicero
Chronological Table
Index
Transcriber’s note






                                *HISTORY*


                                    OF


                         *ROMAN LITERATURE, &C.*





                                *HISTORY*


                                    OF


                         *ROMAN LITERATURE, &c.*


In almost all States, poetical composition has been employed and
considerably improved before prose. First, because the imagination expands
sooner than reason or judgment; and, secondly, because the early language
of nations is best adapted to the purposes of poetry, and to the
expression of those feelings and sentiments with which it is conversant.

Thus, in the first ages of Greece, verse was the ordinary written
language, and prose was subsequently introduced as an art and invention.
In like manner, at Rome, during the early advances of poetry, the progress
of which has been detailed in the preceding volume, prose composition
continued in a state of neglect and barbarism.

The most ancient prose writer, at least of those whose works have
descended to us, was a man of little feeling or imagination, but of sound
judgment and inflexible character, who exercised his pen on the subject of
_Agriculture_, which, of all the peaceful arts, was most highly esteemed
by his countrymen.

The long winding coast of Greece, abounding in havens, and the innumerable
isles with which its seas were studded, rendered the Greeks, from the
earliest days, a trafficking, seafaring, piratic people: And many of the
productions of their oldest poets, are, in a great measure, addressed to
what may be called the maritime taste or feeling which prevailed among
their countrymen. This sentiment continued to be cherished as long as the
chief literary state in Greece preserved the sovereignty of the
seas—compelled its allies to furnish vessels of war, and trusted to its
naval armaments for the supremacy it maintained during the brightest ages
of Greece. In none either of the Doric or Ionian states, was agriculture
of such importance as to exercise much influence on manners or literature.
Their territories were so limited, that the inhabitants were never removed
to such a distance from the capital as to imbibe the ideas of husbandmen.
In Thessaly and Lacedæmon, agriculture was accounted degrading, and its
cares were committed to slaves. The vales of Bœotia were fruitful, but
were desolated by floods. Farms of any considerable extent could scarcely
be laid down on the limited, though lovely isles of the Ægean and Ionian
seas. The barren soil and mountains of the centre of Peloponnesus confined
the Arcadians to pasturage—an employment bearing some analogy to
agriculture, but totally different in its mental effects, leading to a
life of indolence, contemplation, and wandering, instead of the
industrious, practical, and settled habits of husbandmen. Though the
Athenians breathed the purest air beneath the clearest skies, and their
long summer was gilded by the brightest beams of Apollo, the soil of
Attica was sterile and metallic; while, from the excessive inequalities in
its surface, all the operations of agriculture were of the most difficult
and hazardous description. The streams were overflowing torrents, which
stripped the soil, leaving nothing but a light sand, on which grain would
scarcely grow. But it was with the commencement of the Peloponnesian war
that the exercise of agriculture terminated in Attica. The country being
left unprotected, owing to the injudicious policy of Pericles, was
annually ravaged by the Spartans, and the husbandmen were forced to seek
refuge within the walls of Athens. In the early part of the age of
Pericles, the Athenians possessed ornamented villas in the country; but
they always returned to the city in the evening(1). We do not hear that
the great men in the early periods of the republic, as Themistocles and
Aristides, were farmers; and the heroes of its latter ages, as Iphicrates
and Timotheus, chose their retreats in Thrace, the islands of the
Archipelago, or coast of Ionia.

A picture, in every point of view the reverse of this, is presented to us
by the _Agreste Latium_. The ancient Italian mode of life was almost
entirely agricultural and rural; and with exception, perhaps, of the
Etruscans, none of the Italian states were in any degree maritime or
commercial. Italy was well adapted for every species of agriculture, and
was most justly termed by her greatest poet, _magna parens frugum_.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus(2), Strabo(3), and Pliny(4), talk with
enthusiasm of its fertile soil and benignant climate. Where the ground was
most depressed and marshy, the meadows were stretched out for the
pasturage of cattle. In the level country, the rich arable lands, such as
the Campanian and Capuan plains, extended in vast tracts, and produced a
profusion of fruits of every species, while on the acclivities, where the
skirts of the mountains began to break into little hills and sloping
fields, the olive and vine basked on soils famed for Messapian oil, and
for wines of which the very names cheer and revive us. The mountains
themselves produced marble and timber, and poured from their sides many a
delightful stream, which watered the fields, gladdened the pastures, and
moistened the meads to the very brink of the shore. Well then might Virgil
exclaim, in a burst of patriotism and poetry which has never been
surpassed,—

  “Sed neque Medorum sylvæ, ditissima terra,
  Nec pulcher Ganges, atque auro turbidus Hermus,
  Laudibus Italiæ certent; non Bactra, neque Indi,
  Totaque thuriferis Panchaia pinguis arenis.
  Hic ver assiduum, atque alienis mensibus æstas;
  Bis gravidæ pecudes, bis pomis utilis arbor.
    *  *  *  *
  Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus(5)!”

One would not suppose that agricultural care was very consistent, at least
in a small state, with frequent warfare. But in no period of their
republic did the Romans neglect the advantages which the land they
inhabited presented for husbandry. Romulus, who had received a rustic
education, and had spent his youth in hunting, had no attachment to any
peaceful arts, except to rural labours; and this feeling pervaded his
legislation. His Sabine successor, Numa Pompilius, who well understood and
discharged the duties of sovereignty, divided the whole territory of Rome
into different cantons. An exact account was rendered to him of the manner
in which these were cultivated; and he occasionally went in person to
survey them, in order to encourage those farmers whose lands were well
tilled, and to reproach others with their want of industry(6). By the
institution, too, of various religious festivals, connected with
agriculture, it came to be regarded with a sort of sacred reverence. Ancus
Martius, who trod in the steps of Numa, recommended to his people the
assiduous cultivation of their lands. After the expulsion of the kings, an
Agrarian law, by which only seven acres were allotted to each citizen, was
promulgated, and for some time rigidly enforced. Exactness and economy in
the various occupations of agriculture were the natural consequences of
such regulations. Each Roman having only a small portion of land assigned
to him, and the support of his family depending entirely on the produce
which it yielded, its culture necessarily engaged his whole attention.

In these early ages of the Roman commonwealth, when the greatest men
possessed but a few acres, the lands were laboured by the proprietors
themselves. The introduction of commerce, and the consequent acquisition
of wealth, had not yet enabled individuals to purchase the estates of
their fellow-citizens, and to obtain a revenue from the rent of land
rather than from its cultivation.

The patricians, who, in the city, were so distinct from the plebeian
orders, were thus confounded with them in the country, in the common
avocations of husbandry. After having presided over the civil affairs of
the republic, or commanded its armies, the most distinguished citizens
returned, without repining, to till the lands of their forefathers.
Cincinnatus, who was found at labour in his fields by those who came to
announce his election to the dictatorship, was not a singular example of
the same hand which held the plough guiding also the helm of the state,
and erecting the standard of its legions. So late as the time of the first
Carthaginian war, Regulus, in the midst of his victorious career in
Africa, asked leave from the senate to return to Italy, in order to
cultivate his farm of seven acres, which had been neglected during his
absence(7). Many illustrious names among the Romans originated in
agricultural employments, or some circumstances of rustic skill and
labour, by which the founders of families were distinguished. The Fabii
and Lentuli were supposed to have been celebrated for the culture of
pulses, and the Asinii and Vitellii for the art of rearing animals. In the
time of the elder Cato, though the manual operations were performed for
the most part by servants, the great men resided chiefly on their
farms(8); and they continued to apply to the study and practice of
agriculture long after they had carried the victorious arms of their
country beyond the confines of Italy. They did not, indeed, follow
agriculture as their sole avocation; but they prosecuted it during the
intervals of peace, and in the vacations of the Forum. The art being thus
exercised by men of high capacity, received the benefit of all the
discoveries, inventions, or experiments suggested by talents and force of
intellect. The Roman warriors tilled their fields with the same
intelligence as they pitched their camps, and sowed corn with the same
care with which they drew up their armies for battle. Hence, as a modern
Latin poet observes, dilating on the expression of Pliny, the earth
yielded such an exuberant return, that she seemed as it were to delight in
being ploughed with a share adorned with laurels, and by a ploughman who
had earned a triumph:—

  “Hanc etiam, ut perhibent, sese formabat ad artem,
  Cùm domito Fabius Dictator ab hoste redibat:
  Non veritus, medio dederat qui jura Senatu,
  Ferre idem arboribusque suis, terræque colendæ,
  Victricesque manus ruri præstare serendo.
  Ipsa triumphales tellus experta colonos,
  Atque ducum manibus quondam versata suorum,
  Majores fructus, majora arbusta ferebat(9).”

Nor were the Romans contented with merely labouring the ground: They also
delivered precepts for its proper cultivation, which, being committed to
writing, formed, as it were, a new science, and, being derived from actual
experience, had an air of originality rarely exhibited in their literary
productions. Such maxims were held by the Romans in high respect, since
they were considered as founded on the observation of men who had
displayed the most eminent capacity and knowledge in governing the state,
in framing its laws, and leading its armies.

These precepts which formed the works of the agricultural writers—the
_Rusticæ rei scriptores_—are extremely interesting and comprehensive. The
Romans had a much greater variety than we, of grain, pulse, and roots;
and, besides, had vines, olives, and other plantations, which were
regarded as profitable crops. The situation, too, and construction of a
villa, with the necessary accommodation for slaves and workmen, the wine
and oil cellars, the granaries, the repositories for preserving fruit, the
poultry yard, and aviaries, form topics of much attention and detail.
These were the appertenancies of the _villa rustica_, or complete
farm-house, which was built for the residence only of an industrious
husbandman, and with a view towards profit from the employments of
agriculture. As luxury, indeed, increased, the villa was adapted to the
accommodation of an opulent Roman citizen, and the country was resorted to
rather for recreation than for the purpose of lucrative toil. What would
Cato the Censor, distinguished for his industry and unceasing attention to
the labours of the field, have thought of the following lines of Horace?

  “O rus, quando ego te aspiciam? quandoque licebit
  Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis,
  Ducere sollicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ?”

It was this more refined relish for the country, so keenly enjoyed by the
Romans in the luxurious ages of the state, that furnished the subject for
the finest passages and allusions in the works of the Latin poets, who
seem to vie with each other in their praises of a country life, and the
sweetness of the numbers in which they celebrate its simple and tranquil
enjoyments. The Epode of Horace, commencing,

  “Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis,”

which paints the charms of rural existence, in the various seasons of the
year—the well-known passages in Virgil’s _Georgics_, and those in the
second book of Lucretius, are the most exquisite and lovely productions of
these triumvirs of Roman poetry. But the ancient prose writers, with whom
we are now to be engaged, regarded agriculture rather as an art than an
amusement, and a country life as subservient to profitable employment, and
not to elegant recreation. In themselves, however, these compositions are
highly curious; they are curious, too, as forming a commentary and
illustration of the subjects,

  “Quas et facundi tractavit Musa Maronis.”

It is likewise interesting to compare them with the works of the modern
Italians on husbandry, as the _Liber Ruralium Commodorum_ of Crescenzio,
written about the end of the thirteenth century,—the _Coltivazione
Toscana_ of Davanzati,—Vittorio’s treatise, _Degli Ulivi_,—and even
Alamanni’s poem _Coltivazione_, which closely follows, particularly as to
the situation and construction of a villa, the precepts of Cato, Varro,
and Columella. The plough used at this day by the peasantry in the
Campagna di Roma, is of the same form as that of the ancient Latian
husbandmen(10); and many other points of resemblance may be discovered, on
a perusal of the most recent writers on the subject of Italian
cultivation(11). Dickson, too, who, in his _Husbandry of the Ancients_,
gives an account of Roman agriculture so far as connected with the labours
of the British farmer, has shown, that, in spite of the great difference
of soil and climate, many maxims of the old Roman husbandmen, as delivered
by Cato and Varro, corresponded with the agricultural system followed in
his day in England.

Of the distinguished Roman citizens who practised agriculture, none were
more eminent than Cato and Varro; and by them the precepts of the art were
also committed to writing. Their works are original compositions, founded
on experience, and not on Grecian models, like so many other Latin
productions. Varro, indeed, enumerates about fifty Greek authors, who,
previous to his time, had written on the subject of agriculture; and Mago,
the Carthaginian, composed, in the Punic language, a much-approved
treatise on the same topic, in thirty-two books, which was afterwards
translated into Latin by desire of the senate. But the early Greek works,
with the exception of Xenophon’s _Œconomics_ and the poem of Hesiod called
_Works and Days_, have been entirely lost; the tracts published in the
collection entitled _Geoponica_, being subsequent to the age of Varro.





                           MARCUS PORCIUS CATO,


better known by the name of Cato the Censor, wrote the earliest book on
husbandry which we possess in the Latin language. This distinguished
citizen was born in the 519th year of Rome. Like other Romans of his day,
he was brought up to the profession of arms. In the short intervals of
peace he resided, during his youth, at a small country-house in the Sabine
territory, which he had inherited from his father. Near it there stood a
cottage belonging to Manius Curius Dentatus, who had repeatedly triumphed
over the Sabines and Samnites, and had at length driven Pyrrhus from
Italy. Cato was accustomed frequently to walk over to the humble abode of
this renowned commander, where he was struck with admiration at the
frugality of its owner, and the skilful management of the farm which was
attached to it. Hence it became his great object to emulate his
illustrious neighbour, and adopt him as his model(12). Having made an
estimate of his house, lands, slaves, and expenses, he applied himself to
husbandry with new ardour, and retrenched all superfluity. In the morning
he went to the small towns in the vicinity, to plead and defend the causes
of those who applied to him for assistance. Thence he returned to his
fields; where, with a plain cloak over his shoulders in winter, and almost
naked in summer, he laboured with his servants till they had concluded
their tasks, after which he sat down along with them at table, eating the
same bread, and drinking the same wine(13). At a more advanced period of
life, the wars, in which he commanded, kept him frequently at a distance
from Italy, and his forensic avocations detained him much in the city; but
what time he could spare was still spent at the Sabine farm, where he
continued to employ himself in the profitable cultivation of the land. He
thus became by the universal consent of his contemporaries, the best
farmer of his age, and was held unrivalled for the skill and success of
his agricultural operations(14). Though everywhere a rigid economist, he
lived, it is said, more hospitably at his farm than in the city. His
entertainments at his villa were at first but sparing, and seldom given;
but as his wealth increased, he became more nice and delicate. “At first,”
says Plutarch, “when he was but a poor soldier, he was not difficult in
anything which related to his diet; but afterwards, when he grew richer,
and made feasts for his friends, presently, when supper was done, he
seized a leathern thong, and scourged those who had not given due
attendance, or dressed anything carelessly(15).” Towards the close of his
life, he almost daily invited some of his friends in the neighbourhood to
sup with him; and the conversation at these meals turned not chiefly, as
might have been expected, on rural affairs, but on the praises of great
and excellent men among the Romans(16).

It may be supposed, that in the evenings after the agricultural labours of
the morning, and after his friends had left him, he noted down the
precepts suggested by the observations and experience of the day. That he
wrote such maxims for his own use, or the instruction of others, is
unquestionable; but the treatise _De Re Rustica_, which now bears his
name, appears to have been much mutilated, since Pliny and other writers
allude to subjects as treated of by Cato, and to opinions as delivered by
him in this book, which are nowhere to be found in any part of the work
now extant.

In its present state, it is merely the loose unconnected journal of a
plain farmer, expressed with rude, sometimes with almost oracular brevity;
and it wants all those elegant topics of embellishment and illustration
which the subject might have so naturally suggested. It solely consists of
the dryest rules of agriculture, and some receipts for making various
kinds of cakes and wines. Servius says, it is addressed to the author’s
son; but there is no such address now extant. It begins rather abruptly,
and in a manner extremely characteristic of the simple manners of the
author: “It would be advantageous to seek profit from commerce, if that
were not hazardous; or by usury, if that were honest: but our ancestors
ordained, that the thief should forfeit double the sum he had stolen, and
the usurer quadruple what he had taken, whence it may be concluded, that
they thought the usurer the worst of the two. When they wished highly to
praise a good man, they called him a good farmer. A merchant is zealous in
pushing his fortune, but his trade is perilous and liable to reverses. But
farmers make the bravest men, and the stoutest soldiers. Their gain is the
most honest, the most stable, and least exposed to envy. Those who
exercise the art of agriculture, are of all others least addicted to evil
thoughts.”

Our author then proceeds to his rules, many of which are sufficiently
obvious. Thus, he advises, that when one is about to purchase a farm, he
should examine if the climate, soil, and exposure be good: he should see
that it can be easily supplied with plenty of water,—that it lies in the
neighbourhood of a town,—and near a navigable river, or the sea. The
directions for ascertaining the quality of the land are not quite so clear
or self-evident. He recommends the choice of a farm where there are few
implements of labour, as this shews the soil to be easily cultivated; and
where there are, on the other hand, a number of casks and vessels, which
testify an abundant produce. With regard to the best way of laying out a
farm when it is purchased, supposing it to be one of a hundred acres, the
most profitable thing is a vineyard; next, a garden, that can be watered;
then a willow grove; 4th, an olive plantation; 5th, meadow-ground; 6th,
corn fields; and, lastly, forest trees and brushwood. Varro cites this
passage, but he gives the preference to meadows: These required little
expense; and, by his time, the culture of vines had so much increased in
Italy, and such a quantity of foreign wine was imported, that vineyards
had become less valuable than in the days of the Censor. Columella,
however, agrees with Cato: He successively compares the profits accruing
from meadows, pasture, trees, and corn, with those of vineyards; and, on
an estimate, prefers the last.

When a farm has been purchased, the new proprietor should perambulate the
fields the day he arrives, or, if he cannot do so, on the day after, for
the purpose of seeing what has been done, and what remains to be
accomplished. Rules are given for the most assiduous employment without
doors, and the most rigid economy within. When a servant is sick he will
require less food. All the old oxen and the cattle of delicate frame, the
old wagons, and old implements of husbandry, are to be sold off. The
sordid parsimony of the Censor leads him to direct, that a provident
_paterfamilias_ should sell such of his slaves as are aged and infirm; a
recommendation which has drawn down on him the well-merited indignation of
Plutarch(17). These are some of the duties of the master; and there
follows a curious detail of the qualifications and duties of the
_villicus_, or overseer, who, in particular, is prohibited from the
exercise of religious rites, and consultation of augurs.

It is probable that, in the time of Cato, the Romans had begun to extend
their villas considerably, which makes him warn proprietors of land not to
be rash in building. When a landlord is thirty-six years of age he may
build, provided his fields have been brought into a proper state of
cultivation. His direction with regard to the extent of the villa is
concise, but seems a very proper one;—he advises, to build in such a
manner that the villa may not need a farm, nor the farm a villa. Lucullus
and Scævola both violated this golden rule, as we learn from Pliny; who
adds, that it will be readily conjectured, from their respective
characters, that it was the farm of Scævola which stood in need of the
villa, and the villa of Lucullus which required the farm.

A vast variety of crops was cultivated by the Romans, and the different
kinds were adapted by them, with great care, to the different soils. Cato
is very particular in his injunctions on this subject. A field that is of
a rich and genial soil should be sown with corn; but, if wet or moist,
with turnips and raddish. Figs are to be planted in chalky land; and
willows in watery situations, in order to serve as twigs for tying the
vines. This being the proper mode of laying out a farm, our author gives a
detail of the establishment necessary to keep it up;—the number of
workmen, the implements of husbandry, and the farm-offices, with the
materials necessary for their construction.

He next treats of the management of vineyards and olives; the proper mode
of planting, grafting, propping, and fencing: And he is here naturally led
to furnish directions for making and preserving the different sorts of
wine and oil; as also to specify how much of each is to be allowed to the
servants of the family.

In discoursing of the cultivation of fields for corn, Cato enjoins the
farmer to collect all sorts of weeds for manure. Pigeons’ dung he prefers
to that of every animal. He gives orders for burning lime, and for making
charcoal and ashes from the branches or twigs of trees. The Romans seem to
have been at great pains in draining their fields; and Cato directs the
formation both of open and covered drains. Oxen being employed in
ploughing the fields, instructions are added for feeding and taking due
care of them. The Roman plough has been a subject of much discussion: Two
sorts are mentioned by Cato, which he calls _Romanicum_, and
_Campanicum_—the first being proper for a stiff, and the other for a light
soil. Dickson conjectures, that the _Romanicum_ had an iron Share, and the
_Campanicum_ a piece of timber, like the Scotch plough, and a sock driven
upon it. The plough, with other agricultural implements, as the _crates_,
_rastrum_, _ligo_, and _sarculum_, most of which are mentioned by Cato,
form a curious point of Roman antiquities.

The preservation of corn, after it has been reaped, is a subject of much
importance, to which Cato has paid particular attention. This was a matter
of considerable difficulty in Italy, in the time of the Romans; and all
their agricultural writers are extremely minute in their directions for
preserving it from rot, and from the depredations of insects, by which it
was frequently consumed.

A great part of the work of Cato is more appropriate to the housewife than
the farmer. We have receipts for making all sorts of cakes and puddings,
fattening hens and geese, preserving figs during winter; as also medical
prescriptions for the cure of various diseases, both of man and beast.
_Mala punica_, or pomegranates, are the chief ingredient, in his remedies,
for Diarrhœa, Dyspepsia, and Stranguary. Sometimes, however, his cures for
diseases are not medical recipes, but sacrifices, atonements, or charms.
The prime of all is his remedy for a luxation or fracture.—“Take,” says
he, “a green reed, and slit it along the middle—throw the knife upwards,
and join the two parts of the reed again, and tie it so to the place
broken or disjointed, and say this charm—‘Daries, Dardaries, Astataries,
Dissunapiter.’ Or this—‘Huat, Hanat, Huat, Ista, Pista, Fista, Domiabo,
Damnaustra.’ This will make the part sound again(18).”

The most remarkable feature in the work of Cato, is its total want of
arrangement. It is divided, indeed, into chapters, but the author,
apparently, had never taken the trouble of reducing his precepts to any
sort of method, or of following any general plan. The hundred and
sixty-two chapters, of which his work consists, seem so many rules
committed to writing, as the daily labours of the field suggested. He
gives directions about the vineyard, then goes to his corn-fields, and
returns again to the vineyard. His treatise was, therefore, evidently not
intended as a regular or well-composed book, but merely as a journal of
incidental observations. That this was its utmost pretensions, is farther
evinced by the brevity of the precepts, and deficiency of all illustration
or embellishment. Of the style, he of course would be little careful, as
his _Memoranda_ were intended for the use only of his family and slaves.
It is therefore always simple,—sometimes even rude; but it is not ill
adapted to the subject, and suits our notion of the severe manners of its
author, and character of the ancient Romans.

Besides this book on agriculture, Cato left behind him various works,
which have almost entirely perished. He left a hundred and fifty
orations(19), which were existing in the time of Cicero, though almost
entirely neglected, and a book on military discipline(20), both of which,
if now extant, would be highly interesting, as proceeding from one who was
equally distinguished in the camp and forum. A good many of his orations
were in dissuasion or favour of particular laws and measures of state, as
those entitled—“Ne quis iterum Consul fiat—De bello Carthaginiensi,” of
which war he was a vehement promoter—“Suasio in Legem Voconiam,—Pro Lege
Oppia,” &c. Nearly a third part of these orations were pronounced in his
own defence. He had been about fifty times accused(21), and as often
acquitted. When charged with a capital crime, in the 85th year of his age,
he pleaded his own cause, and betrayed no failure in memory, no decline of
vigour, and no faltering of voice(22). By his readiness, and pertinacity,
and bitterness, he completely wore out his adversaries(23), and earned the
reputation of being, if not the most eloquent, at least the most stubborn
speaker among the Romans.

Cato’s oration in favour of the Oppian law, which was a sumptuary
restriction on the expensive dresses of the Roman matrons, is given by
Livy(24). It was delivered in opposition to the tribune Valerius, who
proposed its abrogation, and affords us some notion of his style and
manner, since, if not copied by the historian from his book of orations,
it was doubtless adapted by him to the character of Cato, and his mode of
speaking. Aulus Gellius cites, as equally distinguished for its eloquence
and energy, a passage in his speech on the division of spoil among the
soldiery, in which he complains of their unpunished peculation and
licentiousness. One of his most celebrated harangues was that in favour of
the Rhodians, the ancient allies of the Roman people, who had fallen under
the suspicion of affording aid to Perseus, during the second Macedonian
war. The oration was delivered after the overthrow of that monarch, when
the Rhodian envoys were introduced into the Senate, in order to explain
the conduct of their countrymen, and to deprecate the vengeance of the
Romans, by throwing the odium of their apparent hostility on the
turbulence of a few factious individuals. It was pronounced in answer to
those Senators, who, after hearing the supplications of the Rhodians, were
for declaring war against them; and it turned chiefly on the ancient,
long-tried fidelity of that people,—taking particular advantage of the
circumstance, that the assistance rendered to Perseus had not been a
national act, proceeding from a public decree of the people. Tiro, the
freedman of Cicero, wrote a long and elaborate criticism on this oration.
To the numerous censures it contains, Aulus Gellius has replied at
considerable length, and has blamed Tiro for singling out from a speech so
rich, and so happily connected, small and insulated portions, as objects
of his reprehensive satire. All the various topics, he adds, which are
enlarged on in this oration, if they could have been introduced with more
perspicuity, method, and harmony, could not have been delivered with more
energy and strength(25).

Both Cicero and Livy have expressed themselves very fully on the subject
of Cato’s orations. The former admits, that his “language is antiquated,
and some of his phrases harsh and inelegant: but only change that,” he
continues, “which it was not in his power to change—add number and
cadence—give an easier turn to his sentences—and regulate the structure
and connection of his words, (an art which was as little practised by the
older Greeks as by him,) and you will find no one who can claim the
preference to Cato. The Greeks themselves acknowledge, that the chief
beauty of composition results from the frequent use of those forms of
expression, which they call tropes, and of those varieties of language and
sentiment, which they call figures; but it is almost incredible with what
copiousness, and with what variety, they are all employed by Cato(26).”
Livy principally speaks of the facility, asperity, and freedom of his
tongue(27). Aulus Gellius has instituted a comparison of Caius Gracchus,
Cato, and Cicero, in passages where these three orators declaimed against
the same species of atrocity—the illegal scourging of Roman citizens; and
Gellius, though he admits that Cato had not reached the splendour,
harmony, and pathos of Cicero, considers him as far superior in force and
copiousness to Gracchus(28).

Of the book on Military Discipline, a good deal has been incorporated into
the work of Vegetius; and Cicero’s orations may console us for the want of
those of Cato. But the loss of the seven books, _De Originibus_, which he
commenced in his vigorous old age, and finished just before his death,
must ever be deeply deplored by the historian and antiquary. Cato is said
to have begun to inquire into the history, antiquities, and language of
the Roman people, with a view to counteract the influence of the Greek
taste, introduced by the Scipios; and in order to take from the Greeks the
honour of having colonized Italy, he attempted to discover on the Latin
soil the traces of ancient national manners, and an indigenous
civilization. The first book of the valuable work _De Originibus_, as we
are informed by Cornelius Nepos, in his short life of Cato, contained the
exploits of the kings of Rome. Cato was the first author who attempted to
fix the era of the foundation of Rome, which he calculated in his
_Origines_, and determined it to have been in the first year of the 7th
Olympiad. In order to discover this epoch, he had recourse to the memoirs
of the Censors, in which it was noted, that the taking of Rome by the
Gauls, was 119 years after the expulsion of the kings. By adding this
period to the aggregate duration of the reigns of the kings, he found that
the amount answered to the first of the 7th Olympiad. This is the
computation followed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in his great work on
Roman antiquities. It is probably as near the truth as we can hope to
arrive; but even in the time of Cato, the calculated duration of the
reigns of the kings was not founded on any ancient monuments then extant,
or on the testimony of any credible historian. The second and third books
treated of the origin of the different states of Italy, whence the whole
work has received the name of _Origines_. The fourth and fifth books
comprehended the history of the first and second Punic wars; and in the
two remaining books, the author discussed the other campaigns of the
Romans till the time of Ser. Galba, who overthrew the Lusitanians.

In his account of these later contests, Cato merely related the facts,
without mentioning the names of the generals or leaders; but though he has
omitted this, Pliny informs us that he did not forget to take notice, that
the elephant which fought most stoutly in the Carthaginian army was called
Surus, and wanted one of his teeth(29). In this same work he incidentally
treated of all the wonderful and admirable things which existed in Spain
and Italy. Some of his orations, too, as we learn from Livy, were
incorporated into it, as that for giving freedom to the Lusitanian
hostages; and Plutarch farther mentions, that he omitted no opportunity of
praising himself, and extolling his services to the state. The work,
however, exhibited great industry and learning, and, had it descended to
us, would unquestionably have thrown much light on the early periods of
Roman history and the antiquities of the different states of Italy.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, himself a sedulous inquirer into antiquities,
bears ample testimony to the research and accuracy of that part which
treats of the origin of the ancient Italian cities. The author lived at a
time which was favourable to this investigation. Though the Samnites,
Etruscans, and Sabines, had been deprived of their independence, they had
not lost their monuments or records of their history, their individuality
and national manners. Cicero praises the simple and concise style of the
_Origines_, and laments that the work was neglected in his day, in
consequence of the inflated manner of writing which had been recently
adopted; in the same manner as the tumid and ornamented periods of
Theopompus had lessened the esteem for the concise and unadorned narrative
of Thucydides, or as the lofty eloquence of Demosthenes impaired the
relish for the extreme attic simplicity of Lysias(30).

In the same part of the dialogue, entitled _Brutus_, Cicero asks what
flower or light of eloquence is wanting to the _Origines_—“Quem florem,
aut quod lumen eloquentiæ non habent?” But on Atticus considering the
praise thus bestowed as excessive, he limits it, by adding, that nothing
was required to complete the strokes of the author’s pencil but a certain
lively glow of colours, which had not been discovered in his
age.—“Intelliges, nihil illius lineamentis, nisi eorum pigmentorum, quæ
inventa nondum erant, florem et calorem defuisse(31).”

The pretended fragments of the _Origines_, published by the Dominican,
Nanni, better known by the name of Annius Viterbiensis, and inserted in
his _Antiquitates Variæ_, printed at Rome in 1498, are spurious, and the
imposition was detected soon after their appearance. The few remains first
collected by Riccobonus, and published at the end of his Treatise on
History, (Basil, 1579,) are believed to be genuine. They have been
enlarged by Ausonius Popma, and added by him, with notes, to the other
writings of Cato, published at Leyden in 1590.

Any rudeness of style and language which appears either in the orations of
Cato, or in his agricultural and historical works, cannot be attributed to
total carelessness or neglect of the graces of composition, as he was the
first person in Rome who treated of oratory as an art(32), in a tract
entitled _De Oratore ad Filium_.

Cato was also the first of his countrymen who wrote on the subject of
medicine(33). Rome had existed for 500 years without professional
physicians(34). A people who as yet were strangers to luxury, and
consisted of farmers and soldiers, (though surgical operations might be
frequently necessary,) would be exempt from the inroads of the “grisly
troop,” so much encouraged by indolence and debauchery. Like all
semi-barbarous people, they believed that maladies were to be cured by the
special interposition of superior beings, and that religious ceremonies
were more efficacious for the recovery of health than remedies of medical
skill. Deriving, as they did, much of their worship from the Etruscans,
they probably derived from them also the practice of attempting to
overcome disease by magic and incantation. The Augurs and Aruspices were
thus the most ancient physicians of Rome. In epidemic distempers the
Sibylline books were consulted, and the cures they prescribed were
superstitious ceremonies. We have seen that it was to free the city from
an attack of this sort that scenic representations were first introduced
at Rome. During the progress of another epidemic infliction a temple was
built to Apollo(35); and as each periodic pestilence naturally abated in
course of time, faith was confirmed in the efficacy of the rites which
were resorted to. Every one has heard of the pomp wherewith Esculapius was
transported under the form of a serpent, from Epidaurus to an islet in the
Tiber, which was thereafter consecrated to that divine physician. The
apprehension of diseases raised temples to Febris and Tussis, and other
imaginary beings belonging to the painful family of death in order to
avert the disorders which they were supposed to inflict. It was perceived,
however, that religious professions and lustrations and _lectisterniums_
were ineffectual for the cure of those complaints, which, in the 6th
century, luxury began to exasperate and render more frequent at Rome. At
length, in 534, Archagatus, a free-born Greek, arrived in Italy, where he
practised medicine professionally as an art, and received in return for
his cures the endearing appellation of _Carnifex_(36). But though
Archagatus was the first who practised medicine, Cato was the first who
wrote of diseases and their treatment as a science, in his work entitled
_Commentarius quo Medetur Filio, Servis, Familiaribus_. In this book of
domestic medicine—duck, pigeons, and hare, were the foods he chiefly
recommended to the sick(37). His remedies were principally extracted from
herbs; and colewort, or cabbage, was his favourite cure(38). The recipes,
indeed, contained in his work on agriculture, show that his medical
knowledge did not exceed that which usually exists among a semi-barbarous
race, and only extended to the most ordinary simples which nature affords.
Cato hated the compound drugs introduced by the Greek
physicians—considering these foreign professors of medicine as the
opponents of his own system. Such, indeed, was his antipathy, that he
believed, or pretended to believe, that they had entered into a league to
poison all the barbarians, among whom they classed the Romans.—“Jurarunt
inter se,” says he, in a passage preserved by Pliny, “barbaros necare
omnes medicina: Et hoc ipsum mercede faciunt, ut fides iis sit, et facile
disperdant(39).” Cato, finding that the patients lived notwithstanding
this detestable conspiracy, began to regard the Greek practitioners as
impious sorcerers, who counteracted the course of nature, and restored
dying men to life, by means of unholy charms; and he therefore advised his
countrymen to remain stedfast, not only by their ancient Roman principles
and manners, but also by the venerable unguents and salubrious balsams
which had come down to them from the wisdom of their grandmothers. Such as
they were, Cato’s old medical saws continued long in repute at Rome. It is
evident that they were still esteemed in the time of Pliny, who expresses
the same fears as the Censor, lest hot baths and potions should render his
countrymen effeminate, and corrupt their manners(40).

Every one knows what was the consequence of Cato’s dislike to the Greek
philosophers, who were expelled from the city by a decree of the senate.
But it does not seem certain what became of Archagatus and his followers.
The author of the _Diogene Moderne_, as cited by Tiraboschi, says that
Archagatus was stoned to death(41), but the literary historian who quotes
him doubts of his having any sufficient authority for the assertion.
Whether the physicians were comprehended in the general sentence of
banishment pronounced on the learned Greeks, or were excepted from it, has
been the subject of a great literary controversy in modern Italy and in
France(42).

Aulus Gellius(43) mentions Cato’s _Libri quæstionum Epistolicarum_, and
Cicero his _Apophthegmata_(44), which was probably the first example of
that class of works which, under the appellation of _Ana_, became so
fashionable and prevalent in France.

The only other work of Cato which I shall mention, is the _Carmen de
Moribus_. This, however, was not written in verse, as might be supposed
from the title. Precepts, imprecations, and prayers, or any set _formulæ_
whatever, were called _Carmina_. I do not know what maxims were inculcated
in this _carmen_, but they probably were not of very rigid morality, at
least if we may judge from the “Sententia Dia Catonis,” mentioned by
Horace:

  “Quidam notus homo cùm exiret fornice, Macte
  Virtute esto, inquit sententia dia Catonis(45).”

Misled by the title, some critics have erroneously assigned to the Censor
the _Disticha de Moribus_, now generally attributed to Dionysius Cato, who
lived, according to Scaliger in the age of Commodus and Septimius
Severus(46).

The work of





                         MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO,


On agriculture, has descended to us more entire than that of Cato on the
same subject; yet it does not appear to be complete. In the early times of
the republic, the Romans, like the ancient Greeks, being constantly
menaced with the incursions of enemies, indulged little in the luxury of
expensive and ornamental villas. Even that of Scipio Africanus, the rival
and contemporary of Cato the Censor, and who in many other respects
anticipated the refinements of a later age, was of the simplest structure.
It was situated at Liternum, (now Patria,) a few miles north from Cumæ,
and was standing in the time of Seneca. This philosopher paid a visit to a
friend who resided in it during the age of Nero, and he afterwards
described it in one of his epistles with many expressions of wonder and
admiration at the frugality of the great Africanus(47). When, however, the
scourge of war was removed from their immediate vicinity, agriculture and
gardening were no longer exercised by the Romans as in the days of the
Censor, when great crops of grain were raised for profit, and fields of
onions sown for the subsistence of the labouring servants. The patricians
now became fond of ornamental gardens, fountains, terraces, artificial
wildernesses, and grottos, groves of laurel for shelter in winter, and
oriental planes for shade in summer. Matters, in short, were fast
approaching to the state described in one of the odes of Horace—

  “Jam pauca aratro jugera regiæ,
  Moles relinquent: undique latius
    Extenta visentur Lucrino
      Stagna lacu: platanusque cœlebs
  Evincet ulmos: tum violaria, et
  Myrtus, et omnis copia narium,
    Spargent olivetis odorem
      Fertilibus domino priori.
  Tum spissa ramis laurea fervidos
  Excludet ictus. Non ita Romuli
    Præscriptum, et intonsi Catonis
      Auspiciis, veterumque norma(48).”

Agriculture, however, still continued to be so respectable an employment,
that its practice was not considered unworthy the friend of Cicero and
Pompey, nor its precepts undeserving to be delivered by one who was
indisputably the first scholar of his age—who was renowned for his
profound erudition and thorough insight into the laws, the literature, and
antiquities of his country,—and who has been hailed by Petrarch as the
third great luminary of Rome, being only inferior in lustre to Cicero and
Virgil:—

  “Qui’ vid’ io nostra gente aver per duce
  Varrone, il terzo gran lume Romano,
  Che quanto ’l miro più, tanto più luce(49).”

Varro was born in the 637th year of Rome, and was descended of an ancient
senatorial family. It is probable that his youth, and even the greater
part of his manhood, were spent in literary pursuits, and in the
acquisition of that stupendous knowledge, which has procured to him the
appellation of the most learned of the Romans, since his name does not
appear in the civil or military history of his country, till the year 680,
when he was Consul along with Cassius Varus. In 686, he served under
Pompey, in his war against the pirates, in which he commanded the Greek
ships(50). To the fortunes of that Chief he continued firmly attached, and
was appointed one of his lieutenants in Spain, along with Afranius and
Petreius, at the commencement of the war with Cæsar. Hispania Ulterior was
specially confided to his protection, and two legions were placed under
his command. After the surrender of his colleagues in Hither Spain, Cæsar
proceeded in person against him. Varro appears to have been little
qualified to cope with such an adversary. One of the legions deserted in
his own sight, and his retreat to Cadiz, where he had meant to retire,
having been cut off, he surrendered at discretion, with the other, in the
vicinity of Cordova(51). From that period he despaired of the salvation of
the republic, or found, at least, that he was not capable of saving it;
for although, after receiving his freedom from Cæsar, he proceeded to
Dyracchium, to give Pompey a detail of the disasters which had occurred,
he left it almost immediately for Rome. On his return to Italy he withdrew
from all political concerns, and indulged himself during the remainder of
his life in the enjoyment of literary leisure. The only service he
performed for Cæsar, was that of arranging the books which the Dictator
had himself procured, or which had been acquired by those who preceded him
in the management of public affairs(52). He lived during the reign of
Cæsar in habits of the closest intimacy with Cicero; and his feelings, as
well as conduct, at this period, resembled those of his illustrious
friend, who, in all his letters to Varro, bewails, with great freedom, the
utter ruin of the state, and proposes that they should live together,
engaged only in those studies which were formerly their amusement, but
were then their chief support. “And, should none require our services for
repairing the ruins of the republic, let us employ our time and thoughts
on moral and political inquiries. If we cannot benefit the commonwealth in
the forum or the senate, let us endeavour, at least, to do so by our
studies and writings; and, after the example of the most learned among the
ancients, contribute to the welfare of our country, by useful
disquisitions concerning laws and government.” Some farther notion of the
manner in which Varro spent his time during this period may be derived
from another letter of Cicero, written in June, 707. “Nothing,” says he,
“raises your character higher in my esteem, than that you have wisely
retreated into harbour—that you are enjoying the happy fruits of a learned
leisure, and employed in pursuits, which are attended with more public
advantage, as well as private satisfaction, than all the ambitious
exploits, or voluptuous indulgences, of these licentious victors. The
contemplative hours you spend at your Tusculan villa, are, in my
estimation, indeed, what alone deserves to be called life(53).”

Varro passed the greatest portion of his time in the various villas which
he possessed in Italy. One of these was at Tusculum, and another in the
neighbourhood of Cumæ. The latter place had been among the earliest Greek
establishments in Italy, and was long regarded as pre-eminent in power and
population. It spread prosperity over the adjacent coasts; and its oracle,
Sibyl, and temple, long attracted votaries and visitants. As the Roman
power increased, that of Cumæ decayed; and its opulence had greatly
declined before the time of Varro. Its immediate vicinity was not even
frequently selected as a situation for villas. The Romans had a
well-founded partiality for the coasts of Puteoli, and Naples, so superior
in beauty and salubrity to the flat, marshy neighbourhood of Cumæ. The
situation of Varro’s other villa, at Tusculum, must have been infinitely
more agreeable, from its pure air, and the commanding prospect it enjoyed.

Besides immense flocks of sheep in Apulia, and many horses in the Sabine
district of Reate(54), Varro had considerable farms both at his Cuman and
Tusculan villas, the cultivation of which, no doubt, formed an agreeable
relaxation from his severe and sedentary studies. He had also a farm at a
third villa, where he occasionally resided, near the town of Casinum, in
the territory of the ancient Volsci(55), and situated on the banks of the
Cassinus, a tributary stream to the Liris. This stream, which was
fifty-seven feet broad, and both deep and clear, with a pebbly channel,
flowed through the middle of his delightful domains. A bridge, which
crossed the river from the house, led directly to an island, which was a
little farther down, at the confluence of the Cassinus with a rivulet
called the Vinius(56). Along the banks of the larger water there were
spacious pleasure-walks which conducted to the farm; and near the place
where they joined the fields, there was an extensive aviary(57). The site
of Varro’s villa was visited by Sir R. C. Hoare, who says, that it stood
close to Casinum, now St Germano: Some trifling remains still indicate its
site; but its memory, he adds, will shortly survive only in the page of
the historian(58).

After the assassination of Cæsar, this residence, along with almost all
the wealth of Varro, which was immense, was forcibly seized by Marc
Antony(59). Its lawless occupation by that profligate and blood-thirsty
triumvir, on his return from his dissolute expedition to Capua, is
introduced by Cicero into one of his Philippics, and forms a topic of the
most eloquent and bitter invective. The contrast which the orator draws
between the character of Varro and that of Antony—between the noble and
peaceful studies prosecuted in that delightful residence by the rightful
proprietor, and the shameful debaucheries of the wretch by whom it had
been usurped, forms a picture, to which it would be difficult to find a
parallel in ancient or modern oratory.—“How many days did you shamefully
revel, Antony, in that villa? From the third hour, it was one continued
scene of drinking, gambling, and uproar. The very roofs were to be pitied.
O, what a change of masters! But how can he be called its master? And, if
master—gods! how unlike to him he had dispossessed! Marcus Varro made his
house the abode of the muses, and a retreat for study—not a haunt for
midnight debauchery. Whilst he was there, what were the subjects
discussed—what the topics debated in that delightful residence? I will
answer the question—The rights and liberties of the Roman people—the
memorials of our ancestors—the wisdom resulting from reason combined with
knowledge. But whilst you, Antony, was its occupant, (for you cannot be
called its master,) every room rung with the cry of drunkenness—the
pavements were swimming with wine, and the walls wet with riot.”

Antony was not a person to be satisfied with robbing Varro of his
property. At the formation of the memorable triumvirate, the name of Varro
appeared in the list of the proscribed, among those other friends of
Pompey whom the clemency of Cæsar had spared. This illustrious and
blameless individual had now passed the age of seventy; and nothing can
afford a more frightful proof of the sanguinary spirit which guided the
councils of the triumvirs, than their devoting to the dagger of the hired
assassin a man equally venerable by his years and character, and who ought
to have been protected, if not by his learned labours, at least by his
retirement, from such inhuman persecution. But, though doomed to death as
a friend of law and liberty, his friends contended with each other for the
dangerous honour of saving him. Calenus having obtained the preference,
carried him to his country-house, where Antony frequently came, without
suspecting that it contained a proscribed inmate. Here Varro remained
concealed till a special edict was issued by the consul, M. Plancus, under
the triumviral seal, excepting him and Messala Corvinus from the general
slaughter(60).

But though Varro thus passed in security the hour of danger, he was unable
to save his library, which was placed in the garden of one of his villas,
and fell into the hands of an illiterate soldiery.

After the battle of Actium, Varro resided in tranquillity at Rome till his
decease, which happened in 727, when he was ninety years of age. The
tragical deaths, however, of Pompey and Cicero, with the loss of others of
his friends,—the ruin of his country,—the expulsion from his villas,—and
the loss of those literary treasures, which he had stored up as the solace
of his old age, and the want of which would be doubly felt by one who
wished to devote all his time to study,—must have cast a deep shade over
the concluding days of this illustrious scholar. His wealth was restored
by Augustus, but his books could not be supplied.

It is not improbable, that the dispersion of this library, which impeded
the prosecution of his studies, and prevented the composition of such
works as required reference and consultation, may have induced Varro to
employ the remaining hours of his life in delivering those precepts of
agriculture, which had been the result of long experience, and which
needed only reminiscence to inculcate. It was some time after the loss of
his books, and when he had nearly reached the age of eighty, that Varro
composed the work on husbandry, as he himself testifies in the
introduction. “If I had leisure, I might write these things more
conveniently, which I will now explain as well as I am able, thinking that
I must make haste; because, if a man be a bubble of air, much more so is
an old man, for now my eightieth year admonishes me to get my baggage
together before I leave the world. Wherefore, as you have bought a farm,
which you are desirous to render profitable by tillage, and as you ask me
to take this task upon me, I will try to advise you what must be done, not
only during my stay here, but after my departure.” The remainder of the
introduction forms, in its ostentatious display of erudition, a remarkable
contrast to Cato’s simplicity. Varro talks of the Syrens and
Sibyls,—invokes all the Roman deities, supposed to preside over rural
affairs,—and enumerates all the Greek authors who had written on the
subject of agriculture previous to his own time.

The first of the three books which this agricultural treatise comprehends,
is addressed, by Varro, to Fundanius, who had recently purchased a farm,
in the management of which he wished to be instructed. The information
which Varro undertakes to give, is communicated in the form of dialogue.
He feigns that, at the time appointed for rites to be performed in the
sowing season, (_sementivis feriis_,) he went, by invitation of the
priest, to the temple of Tellus. There he met his father-in-law, C.
Fundanius, the knight Agrius, and Agrasius, a farmer of imposts, who were
gazing on a map of Italy, painted on the inner walls of the temple. The
priest, whose duty it was to officiate, having been summoned by the ædile
to attend him on affairs of importance, they were awaiting his return;
and, in order to pass the time till his arrival, Agrasius commences a
conversation, (suggested by the map of Italy,) by inquiring at the others
present in the temple, whether they, who had travelled so much, had ever
visited any country better cultivated than Italy. This introduces an
eulogy on the soil and climate of that favoured region, and of its various
abundant productions,—the Apulian wheat, the Venafrian olive, and the
Falernian grape. All this, again, leads to the inquiry, by what arts of
agricultural skill and industry, aiding the luxuriant soil, it had reached
such unexampled fecundity. These questions are referred to Licinius Stolo,
and Tremellius Scrofa, who now joined the party, and who were well
qualified to throw light on the interesting discussion—the first being of
a family distinguished by the pains it had taken with regard to the
Agrarian laws, and the second being well known for possessing one of the
best cultivated farms in Italy. Scrofa, too, had himself written on
husbandry, as we learn from Columella; who says, that he had first
rendered agriculture eloquent. This first book of Varro is accordingly
devoted to rules for the cultivation of land, whether for the production
of grain, pulse, olives, or vines, and the establishment necessary for a
well-managed and lucrative farm; excluding from consideration what is
strictly the business of the grazier and shepherd, rather than of the
farmer.

After some general observations on the object and end of agriculture, and
the exposition of some general principles with regard to soil and climate,
Scrofa and Stolo, who are the chief prolocutors, proceed to settle the
size, as also the situation of the villa. They recommend that it should be
placed at the foot of a well-wooded hill, and open to the most healthful
breeze. An eastern exposure seems to be preferred, as it will thus have
shade in summer, and sun in winter. They farther advise, that it should
not be placed in a hollow valley, as being there subject to storms and
inundations; nor in front of a river, as that situation is cold in winter,
and unwholesome in summer; nor in the vicinity of a marsh, where it would
be liable to be infested with small insects, which, though invisible,
enter the body by the mouth or nostrils, and occasion obstinate diseases.
Fundanius asks, what one ought to do who happens to inherit such a villa;
and is answered, that he should sell it for whatever sum it may bring; and
if it will bring nothing, he should abandon it. After this follow the
subjects of enclosure—the necessary implements of husbandry—the number of
servants and oxen required—and the soil in which different crops should be
sown. We have then a sort of calendar, directing what operations ought to
be performed in each season of the year. Thus, the author recommends
draining betwixt the winter solstice and approach of the zephyrs, which
was reckoned to be about the beginning of February. The sowing of grain
should not be commenced before the autumnal equinox, nor delayed after the
winter solstice; because the seeds which are sown previous to the equinox
spring up too quickly, and those sown subsequent to the solstice scarcely
appear above ground in forty days. A taste for flowers had begun to
prevail at Rome in the time of Varro; he accordingly recommends their
cultivation, and points out the seasons for planting the lily, violet and
crocus.

The remainder of the first book of Varro is well and naturally arranged.
He considers his subject from the choice of the seed, till the grain has
sprung up, ripened, been reaped, secured, and brought to market. The same
course is followed in treating of the vine and the olive. While on the
subject of selling farm-produce to the best advantage, the conversation is
suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the priest’s freedman, who came in
haste to apologize to the guests for having been so long detained, and to
ask them to attend on the following day at the obsequies of his master,
who had been just assassinated on the public street by an unknown hand.
The party in the temple immediately separate.—“De casu humano magis
querentes, quam admirantes id Romæ factum.”

The subject of agriculture, strictly so called, having been discussed in
the first book, Varro proceeds in the second, addressed to Niger Turranus,
to treat of the care of flocks and cattle, (_De Re Pecuaria_). The
knowledge which he here communicates is the result of his own
observations, blended with the information he had received from the great
pasturers of Epirus, at the time when he commanded the Grecian ships on
its coast, in Pompey’s naval war with the pirates. As in the former book,
the instruction is delivered in the shape of dialogue. Varro being at the
house of a person called Cossinius, his host refuses to let him depart
till he explain to him the origin, the dignity, and the art of pasturage.
Our author undertakes to satisfy him as to the first and second points,
but as to the third, he refers him to Scrofa, another of the guests, who
had the management of extensive sheep-walks in the territory of the
Brutii. Varro makes but a pedantic figure in the part which he has
modestly taken to himself. His account of the origin of pasturage is
nothing but some very common-place observations on the early stages of
society; and its dignity is proved from several signs of the zodiac being
called after animals, as also some of the most celebrated spots on the
globe,—Mount Taurus, the Bosphorus, the Ægean sea, and Italy, which Varro
derives from Vitulus. Scrofa, in commencing his part of the dialogue,
divides the animals concerning which he is to treat into three classes: 1.
the lesser; of which there are three sorts—sheep, goats, and swine; 2. the
larger; of which there are also three—oxen, asses, and horses; and,
lastly, those which do not themselves bring profit, but are essential to
the care of the others—the dog, the mule, and the shepherd. With regard to
all animals, four things are to be considered in purchasing or procuring
them—their age, shape, pedigree, and price. After they have been
purchased, there are other four things to be attended to—feeding,
breeding, rearing, and curing distempers. According to this methodical
division of the subject, Scrofa proceeds to give rules for choosing the
best of the different species of animals which he has enumerated, as also
directions for tending them after they have been bought, and turning them
to the best profit. It is curious to hear what were considered the good
points of a goat, a hog, or a horse, in the days of Pompey and Cæsar; in
what regions they were produced in greatest size and perfection; what was
esteemed the most nutritive provender for each; and what number
constituted an ordinary flock or herd. The qualities specified as best in
an ox may perhaps astonish a modern grazier; but it must be remembered,
that they are applicable to the capacity for labour, not of carrying beef.
Hogs were fed by the Romans on acorns, beans, and barley; and, like our
own, indulged freely in the luxury of mire, which, Varro says, is as
refreshing to them as the bath to human creatures. The Romans, however,
did not rear, as we do, a solitary ill-looking pig in a sty, but possessed
great herds, sometimes amounting to the number of two or three hundred.

From what the author records while treating of the pasturage of sheep, we
learn that a similar practice prevailed in Italy, with that which at this
day exists in Spain, in the management of the Merinos belonging to the
Mêstà. Flocks of sheep, which pastured during the winter in Apulia, were
driven to a great distance from that region, to pass the summer in
Samnium; and mules were led from the champaign grounds of Rosea, at
certain seasons, to the high Gurgurian mountains. With much valuable and
curious information on all these various topics, there are interspersed a
great many strange superstitions and fables, or what may be called vulgar
errors, as that swine breathe by the ears instead of the mouth or
nostrils—that when a wolf gets hold of a sow, the first thing he does is
to plunge it into cold water, as his teeth cannot otherwise bear the heat
of the flesh—that on the shore of Lusitania, mares conceive from the
winds, but their foals do not live above three years—and what is more
inexplicable, one of the speakers in the dialogue asserts, that he himself
had seen a sow in Arcadia so fat, that a field-mouse had made a
comfortable nest in her flesh, and brought forth its young.

This book concludes with what forms the most profitable part of
pasturage—the dairy and sheep-shearing.

The third book, which is by far the most interesting and best written in
the work, treats _de villicis pastionibus_, which means the provisions, or
moderate luxuries, which a plain farmer may procure, independent of
tillage or pasturage,—as the poultry of his barn-yard—the trouts in the
stream, by which his farm is bounded—and the game, which he may enclose in
parks, or chance to take on days of recreation. If others of the
agricultural writers have been more minute with regard to the construction
of the villa itself, it is to Varro we are chiefly indebted for what
lights we have received concerning its appertenancies, as warrens,
aviaries, and fish-ponds. The dialogue on these subjects is introduced in
the following manner:—At the comitia, held for electing an Ædile, Varro
and the Senator Axius, having given their votes for the candidate whom
they mutually favoured, and wishing to be at his house to receive him on
his return home, after all the suffrages had been taken, resolved to wait
the issue in the shade of a _villa publica_. There they found Appius
Claudius, the augur, whom Axius began to rally on the magnificence of his
villa, at the extremity of the Campus Martius, which he contrasts with the
profitable plainness of his own farm in the Reatine district. “Your
sumptuous mansion,” says he, “is adorned with painting, sculpture, and
carving; but to make amends for the want of these, I have all that is
necessary to the cultivation of lands, and the feeding of cattle. In your
splendid abode, there is no sign of the vicinity of arable lands, or
vineyards. We find there neither ox nor horse—there is neither vintage in
the cellars, nor corn in the granary. In what respect does this resemble
the villa of your ancestors? A house cannot be called a farm or a villa,
merely because it is built beyond the precincts of the city.” This polite
remonstrance gives rise to a discussion with regard to the proper
definition of a villa, and whether that appellation can be applied to a
residence, where there is neither tillage nor pasturage. It seems to be at
length agreed, that a mansion which is without these, and is merely
ornamental, cannot be called a villa; but that it is properly so termed,
though there be neither tillage nor pasturage, if fish-ponds,
pigeon-houses, and bee-hives, be kept for the sake of profit; and it is
discussed whether such villas, or agricultural farms, are most lucrative.

Our author divides the _Villaticæ pastiones_ into poultry, game, and fish.
Under the first class, he comprehends birds, such as thrushes, which are
kept in aviaries, to be eaten, but not any birds of game. Rules and
directions are given for their management, of the same sort with those
concerning the animals mentioned in the preceding book. The aviaries in
the Roman villas were wonderfully productive and profitable. A very
particular account is given of the construction of an aviary. Varro
himself had one at his farm, near Casinum, but it was intended more for
pleasure and recreation than profit. The description he gives of it is
very minute, but not very distinct. The pigeon-house is treated of
separately from the aviary. As to the game, the instructions do not relate
to field-sports, but to the mode of keeping wild animals in enclosures or
warrens. In the more simple and moderate ages of the republic, these were
merely hare or rabbit warrens of no great extent; but as wealth and luxury
increased, they were enlarged to the size of 40 or 50 acres, and
frequently contained within their limits goats, wild boars, and deer. The
author even descends to instructions with regard to keeping and fattening
snails and dormice. On the subject of fish he is extremely brief, because
that was rather an article of expensive luxury than homely fare; and the
candidate, besides, was now momentarily expected. Fish-ponds had increased
in the same proportion as warrens, and in the age of Varro were often
formed at vast expense. Instances are given of the great depth and extent
of ponds belonging to the principal citizens, some of which had
subterraneous communications with the sea, and others were supplied by
rivers, which had been turned from their course. At this part of the
dialogue, a shout and unusual bustle announced the success of the
candidate whom Varro favoured: on hearing this tumult, the party gave up
their agricultural disquisitions, and accompanied him in triumph to the
Capitol.

This work of Varro is totally different from that of Cato on the same
subject, formerly mentioned. It is not a journal, but a book; and instead
of the loose and unconnected manner in which the brief precepts of the
Censor are delivered, it is composed on a plan not merely regular, but
perhaps somewhat too stiff and formal. Its exact and methodical
arrangement has particularly attracted the notice of Scaliger.—“Unicum
Varronem inter Latinos habemus, libris tribus de Re Rustica, qui vere ac
μεθοδικως philosophatus sit. Immo nullus est Græcorum qui tam bene, inter
eos saltem qui ad nos pervenerunt(61).” Instead, too, of that directness
and simplicity which never deviate from the plainest precepts of
agriculture, the work of Varro is embellished and illustrated by much of
the erudition which might be expected from the learning of its author, and
of one acquainted with fifty Greek writers who had treated of the subject
before him. “Cato, the famous Censor,” says Martyne, “writes like an
ancient country gentleman of much experience: He abounds in short pithy
sentences, intersperses his book with moral precepts, and was esteemed a
sort of oracle. Varro writes more like a scholar than a man of much
practice: He is fond of research into antiquity, and inquires into the
etymology of the names of persons and things. Cato, too, speaks of a
country life, and of farming, merely as it may be conducive to gain. Varro
also speaks of it as of a wise and happy state, inclining to justice,
temperance, sincerity, and all the virtues, which shelters from evil
passions, by affording that constant employment, which leaves little
leisure for those vices which prevail in cities, where the means and
occasions for them are created and supplied.”

There were other Latin works on agriculture, besides those of Cato and
Varro, but they were subsequent to the time which the present volumes are
intended to embrace. Strictly speaking, indeed, even the work of Varro was
written after the battle of Actium: the knowledge, however, on which its
precepts were founded, was acquired long before. The style, too, is that
of the Roman republic, not of the Augustan age. I have therefore
considered Varro as belonging to the period on which we are at present
engaged.

Indeed, the history of his life and writings is almost identified with the
literary history of Rome, during the long period through which his
existence was protracted. But the treatise on agriculture is the only one
of his multifarious works which has descended to us entire. The other
writings of this celebrated polygraph, as Cicero calls him(62), may be
divided into philological, critical, historical, mythological,
philosophic, and satiric; and, after all, it would probably be necessary,
in order to form a complete catalogue, to add the convenient and
comprehensive class of miscellaneous.

The work _De Lingua Latina_, though it has descended to us incomplete, is
by much the most entire of Varro’s writings, except the Treatise on
Agriculture. It is on account of this philological production, that Aulus
Gellius ranks him among the grammarians, who form a numerous and important
class in the History of Latin Literature. They were called _grammatici_ by
the Romans—a word which would be better rendered philologers than
grammarians. The grammatic science, among the Romans, was not confined to
the inflections of words or rules of syntax. It formed one of the great
divisions of the art of criticism, and was understood to comprehend all
those different inquiries which philology includes—embracing not only
grammar, properly so called, but verbal and literal criticism, etymology,
the explication and just interpretation of authors, and emendation of
corrupted passages. Indeed the name of grammarian (grammaticus) is
frequently applied by ancient authors(63) to those whom we should now term
critics and commentators, rather than grammarians.

It will be readily conceived that a people, who, like the first Romans,
were chiefly occupied with war, and whose relaxation was agriculture, did
not attach much importance to a science, of which the professed object
was, teaching how to speak and write with propriety. Accordingly, almost
six hundred years elapsed before they formed any idea of such a study(64).
Crates Mallotes, who was a contemporary of Aristarchus, and was sent as
ambassador to Rome, by Attalus, King of Pergamus, towards the end of the
sixth century(65), was the first who excited a taste for grammatical
inquiries. Having accidentally broken his leg in the course of his
embassy, he employed the period of his convalescence in receiving
visitors, to whom he delivered lectures, containing grammatic
disquisitions: and he also read and commented on poets hitherto unknown in
Rome(66). These discussions, however, probably turned solely on Greek
words, and the interpretation of Greek authors. It is not likely that
Crates had such a knowledge of the Latin tongue, as to give lectures on a
subject which requires minute and extensive acquaintance with the
language. His instructions, however, had the effect of fixing the
attention of the Romans on their own language, and on their infant
literature. Men sprung up who commented on, and explained, the few Latin
poems which at that time existed. C. Octavius Lampadius illustrated the
Punic War of Nævius; and also divided that poem into seven books. About
the same time, Q. Vargunteius lectured on the Annals of Ennius, on certain
fixed days, to crowded audiences. Q. Philocomus soon afterwards performed
a similar service for the Satires of his friend Lucilius. Among these
early grammarians, Suetonius particularly mentions Ælius Preconinus and
Servius Clodius. The former was the master of Varro and Cicero; he was
also a rhetorician of eminence, and composed a number of orations for the
Patricians, to whose cause he was so ardently attached, that, when
Metellus Numidicus was banished in 654, he accompanied him into exile.
Serv. Clodius was the son-in-law of Lælius, and fraudulently appropriated,
it is said, a grammatical work, written by his distinguished relative,
which shows the honour and credit by this time attached to such pursuits
at Rome. Clodius was a Roman knight; and, from his example, men of rank
did not disdain to write concerning grammar, and even to teach its
principles. Still, however, the greater number of grammarians, at least of
the verbal grammarians, were slaves. If well versed in the science, they
brought, as we learn from Suetonius, exorbitant prices. Luctatius Daphnis
was purchased by Quintus Catulus for 200,000 pieces of money, and shortly
afterwards set at liberty. This was a strong encouragement for masters to
instruct their slaves in grammar, and for them to acquire its rules.
Sævius Nicanor, and Aurelius Opilius, who wrote a commentary, in nine
books, on different writers, were freedmen, as was also Antonius Gnipho, a
Gaul, who had been taught Greek at Alexandria, whither he was carried in
his youth, and was subsequently instructed in Latin literature at Rome.
Though a man of great learning in the science he professed, he left only
two small volumes on the Latin language—his time having been principally
occupied in teaching. He taught first in the house of the father of Julius
Cæsar, and afterwards lectured at home to those who chose to attend him.
The greatest men of Rome, when far advanced in age and dignity, did not
disdain to frequent his school. Many of his precepts, indeed, extended to
rhetoric and declamation, the arts, of all others, in which the Romans
were most anxious to be initiated. These were now taught in the schools of
almost all grammarians, of whom there were, at one time, upwards of twenty
in Rome. For a long while, only the Greek poets were publicly explained,
but at length the Latin poets were likewise commented on and illustrated.
About the same period, the etymology of Latin words began to be
investigated: Ælius Gallus, a jurisconsult quoted by Varro, wrote a work
on the origin and proper signification of terms of jurisprudence, which in
most languages remain unvaried, till they have become nearly
unintelligible; and Ælius Stilo attempted, though not with perfect
success, to explain the proper meaning of the words of the Salian verses,
by ascertaining their derivations(67).

The science of grammar and etymology was in this stage of progress and in
this degree of repute at the time when Varro wrote his celebrated treatise
_De Lingua Latina_. That work originally consisted of twenty-four
books—the first three being dedicated to Publius Septimius, who had been
his quæstor in the war with the pirates, and the remainder to Cicero. This
last dedication, with that of Cicero’s _Academica_ to Varro, has rendered
their friendship immortal. The importance attached to such dedications by
the great men of Rome, and the value, in particular, placed by Cicero on a
compliment of this nature from Varro, is established by a letter of the
orator to Atticus—“You know,” says he, “that, till lately, I composed
nothing but orations, or some such works, into which I could not introduce
Varro’s name with propriety. Afterwards, when I engaged in a work of more
general erudition, Varro informed me, that his intention was, to address
to me a work of considerable extent and importance. Two years, however,
have passed away without his making any progress. Meanwhile, I have been
making preparations for returning him the compliment(68).” Again, “I am
anxious to know how you came to be informed that a man like Varro, who has
written so much, without addressing anything to me, should wish me to pay
him a compliment(69).” The _Academica_ were dedicated to Varro before he
fulfilled his promise of addressing a work to Cicero; and it appears, from
Cicero’s letter to Varro, sent along with the _Academica_, how impatiently
he expected its performance, and how much he importuned him for its
execution.—“To exact the fulfilment of a promise,” says he, “is a sort of
ill manners, of which the populace themselves are seldom guilty. I cannot,
however, forbear—I will not say, to demand, but remind you, of a favour,
which you long since gave me reason to expect. To this end, I have sent
you four admonitors, (the four books of the Academica,) whom, perhaps, you
will not consider as extremely modest(70).” It is curious, that, when
Varro did at length come forth with his dedication, although he had been
highly extolled in the _Academica_, he introduced not a single word of
compliment to Cicero—whether it was that Varro dealt not in compliment,
that he was disgusted with his friend’s insatiable appetite for praise, or
that Cicero was considered as so exalted that he could not be elevated
higher by panegyric.

We find in the work _De Lingua Latina_, which was written during the
winter preceding Cæsar’s death, the same methodical arrangement that marks
the treatise _De Re Rustica_. The twenty-four books of which it consisted,
were divided into three great parts. The first six books were devoted to
etymological researches, or, as Varro himself expresses it, _quemadmodum
vocabula essent imposita rebus in lingua Latina_. In the first, second,
and third books, of this division of his work, all of which have perished,
the author had brought forward what an admirer of etymological science
could advance in its favour—what a depreciator might say against it; and
what might be pronounced concerning it without enthusiasm or
prejudice.—“Quæ contra eam dicentur, quæ pro ea, quæ de ea.” The fragments
remaining of this great work of Varro, commence at the fourth book, which,
with the two succeeding books, is occupied with the origin of Latin terms
and the poetical licenses that have been taken in their use: He first
considers the origin of the names of places, and of those things which are
in them. His great division of places is, into heaven and earth—_Cœlum_ he
derives from _cavum_, and that, from _chaos_; _terra_ is so called _quia
teritur_. The derivation of the names of many terrestrial regions is
equally whimsical. The most rational are those of the different spots in
Rome, which are chiefly named after individuals, as the Tarpeian rock,
from Tarpeia, a vestal virgin slain by the Sabines—the Cœlian Mount, from
Cœlius, an Etrurian chief, who assisted Romulus in one of his contests
with his neighbours. Following the same arrangement with regard to those
things which _are in_ places, he first treats of the immortals, or gods of
heaven and earth. Descending to mortal things, he treats of animals, whom
he considers as in three places—air, water, and earth. The creatures
inhabiting earth he divides into men, cattle, and wild beasts. Of the
appellations proper to mankind, he speaks first of public honours, as the
office of Prætor, who was so called, “quod præiret exercitui.” We have
then the derivations both of the generic and special names of animals.
Thus, _Armenta_ (quasi _aramenta_) is from _aro_, because oxen are used
for ploughing; _Lepus_ is _quasi Levipes_. The remainder of the book is
occupied with those words which relate to food, clothing, and various
sorts of utensils. Of these, the derivation is given, and it is generally
far-fetched. But of all his etymologies, the most whimsical is that
contained in his book of Divine Things, where he deduces _fur_ from
_furvus_, (dusky,) because thieves usually steal during the darkness of
night(71).

The fifth book relates to words expressive of time and its divisions, and
to those things which are done in the course of time. He begins with the
months and days consecrated to the service of the gods, or performance of
accustomed rites. Things which happen during the lapse of time, are
divided into three classes, according to the three great human functions
of thought, speech, and act. The third class, or actions, are performed by
means of the external senses; the mention of which introduces the
explication of those terms which express the various operations of the
senses; and the book terminates with a list of vocables derived from the
Greek. These two books relate the common employment of words. In the
sixth, the author treats of poetic words, and the poetic or metaphoric use
of ordinary terms, of which he gives examples. Here he follows the same
arrangement already adopted—speaking first of places, and then of time,
and showing, as he proceeds, the manner in which poets have changed or
corrupted the original signification of words.

Such is the first division of the work of Varro, forming what he himself
calls the etymological part. He admits that it was a subject of much
difficulty and obscurity, since many original words had become obsolete in
course of time, and of those which survived, the meaning had been changed
or had never been imposed with exactness. The second division, which
extended from the commencement of the seventh to the end of the twelfth
book, comprehended the accidents of words, and the different changes which
they undergo from declension, conjugation, and comparison. The author
admits but of two kinds of words—nouns and verbs, to which he refers all
the other parts of speech. He distinguishes two sorts of declensions, of
which he calls one arbitrary, and the other natural or necessary; and he
is thenceforth alternately occupied with analogy and anomaly. In the
seventh book he discusses the subject of analogy in general, and gives the
arguments which may be adduced against its existence in nouns proper: In
the eighth, he reasons like those who find analogies everywhere. Book
ninth treats of the analogy and anomaly of verbs, and with it the fragment
we possess of Varro’s treatise terminates. The three other books, which
completed the second part, were of course occupied with comparison and the
various inflections of words.

The third part of the work, which contained twelve books, treated of
syntax, or the junction of words, so as to form a phrase or sentence. It
also contained a sort of glossary, which explained the true meaning of
Latin vocables.

This, which may be considered as one of the chief works of Varro, was
certainly a laborious and ingenious production; but the author is
evidently too fond of deriving words from the ancient dialects of Italy,
instead of recurring to the Greek, which, after the capture of Tarentum,
became a great source of Latin terms. In general, the Romans, like the
Greeks before them, have been very unfortunate in their etymologies, being
but indifferent critics, and inadequately informed of everything that did
not relate to their own country. Blackwell, in his _Court of Augustus_,
while he admits that the sagacity of Varro is surprising in the use which
he has made of the knowledge he possessed of the Sabine and Tuscan
dialects, remarks, that his work, _De Lingua Latina_, is faulty in two
particulars; the first, arising from the author having recourse to
far-fetched allusions and metaphors in his own language, to illustrate his
etymology of words, instead of going at once to the Greek. The second,
proceeding from his ignorance of the eastern and northern languages,
particularly the Aramean and Celtic(72); the former of which, in
Blackwell’s opinion, had given names to the greater number of the gods,
and the latter, to matters occurring in war and rustic life.

It is not certain whether the _Libri De Similitudine Verborum_, and those
_De Utilitate Sermonis_, cited by Priscian and Charisius as philological
works of Varro, were parts of his great production, _De Lingua Latina_, or
separate compositions. There was a distinct treatise, however, _De Sermone
Latino_, addressed to Marcellus, of which a very few fragments are
preserved by Aulus Gellius.

The _critical_ works of this universal scholar, were entitled, _De
Proprietate Scriptorum_—_De Poetis_—_De Poematis_—_Theatrales__, sive de
Actionibus Scenicis_—_De Scenicis Originibus_—_De Plautinis Comœdiis_—_De
Plautinis Quæstionibus_—_De Compositione Satirarum_—_Rhetoricorum Libri_.
These works are praised or mentioned by Gellius, Nonius Marcellus, and
Diomedes; but almost nothing is known of their contents.

Somewhat more may be gathered concerning Varro’s _mythological_ or
_theological_ works, as they were much studied, and very frequently cited
by the early fathers, particularly St Augustine and Lactantius. Of these
the chief is the treatise _De Cultu Deorum_, noticed by St Augustine in
his seventh book, _De Civitate Dei_, where he says that Varro considers
God to be not only the soul of the world, but the world itself. In this
work he also treated of the origin of hydromancy, and other superstitious
divinations. Sixteen books of the treatise _De Rerum Humanarum et
Divinarum Antiquitatibus_, addressed to Julius Cæsar, as Pontifex Maximus,
related to theological, or at least what we might call ecclesiastical
subjects. He divides theology into three sorts—mythic, physical, and
civil. The first is chiefly employed by poets, who have feigned many
things contrary to the nature and dignity of the immortals, as that they
sprung from the head, or thigh, or from drops of blood—that they committed
thefts and impure actions, and were the servants of men. The second
species of theology is that which we meet with in the books of
philosophers, in which it is discussed, whether the gods have been from
all eternity, and what is their essence, whether of fire, or numbers, or
atoms. Civil, or the third kind of theology, relates to the institutions
devised by men, for the worship of the Gods. The first sort is most
appropriate to the stage; the second to the world; the third to the city.
Varro was a zealous advocate for the physical explication of the
mythological fables, to which he always had recourse, when pressed by the
difficulties of their literal meaning(73). He also seems to have been of
opinion that the images of the gods were originally intended to direct
such as were acquainted with the secret doctrines, to the contemplation of
the real gods, and of the immortal soul with its constituent parts(74).
The first book of this work, as we learn from St Augustine, was
introductory. The three following treated of the ministers of religion,
the Pontiffs, Augurs, and Sibyls; in mentioning whom, he relates the
well-known story of her who offered her volumes for sale to Tarquinius
Priscus. In the next ternary of chapters, he discoursed concerning places
appointed for religious worship, and the celebration of sacred rites. The
third ternary related to holidays; the fourth to consecrations, and to
private as well as public sacrifices; and the fifth contained an
enumeration of all the deities who watch over man, from the moment when
Janus opens to him the gates of life, till the dirges of Nænia conduct him
to the tomb. The whole universe, he says, in conclusion, is divided into
heaven and earth; the heavens, again, into æther and air; earth, into the
ground and water. All these are full of souls, mortal in earth and water,
but immortal in air and æther. Between the highest circle of heaven and
the orbit of the moon, are the ethereal souls of the stars and planets,
which are understood, and in fact seem, to be celestial deities; between
the sphere of the moon and the highest region of tempests, dwell those
aerial spirits, which are conceived by the mind though not seen by the
eye—departed heroes, Lares, and Genii.

This work, which is said to have chiefly contributed to the splendid
reputation of Varro, was extant as late as the beginning of the fourteenth
century. Petrarch, to whom the world has been under such infinite
obligations for his ardent zeal in discovering the learned works of the
Romans, had seen it in his youth. It continued ever after to be the object
of his diligent search, and his bad success was a source to him of
constant mortification. Of this we are informed in one of the letters,
which that enthusiastic admirer of the ancients addressed to them as if
they been alive, and his contemporaries. “Nullæ tamen exstant,” says he to
Varro, “vel admodum laceræ, tuorum operum reliquiæ; licet divinarum et
humanarum rerum libros, ex quibus sonantius nomen habes, puerum me vidisse
meminerim, et recordatione torqueor, summis, ut aiunt, labiis gustatæ
dulcedinis. Hos alicubi forsitan latitare suspicor, eaque, multos jam per
annos, me fatigat cura, quoniam longâ quidem ac sollicitâ spe nihil est
laboriosius in vitâ.”

Plutarch, in his life of Romulus, speaks of Varro as a man of all the
Romans most versed in history. The _historical_ and political works are
the _Annales Libri_—_Belli Punici Secundi Liber_—_De Initiis Urbis
Romanæ_—_De Gente Populi Romani_—_Libri de Familiis Trojanis_, which last
treated of the families that followed Æneas into Italy. With this class we
may rank the _Hebdomadum, sive de Imaginibus Libri_, containing the
panegyrics of 700 illustrious men. There was a picture of each, with a
legend or verse under it, like those in the children’s histories of the
Kings of England. That annexed to the portrait of Demetrius Phalereus, who
had upwards of 300 brazen statues erected to him by the Athenians, is
still preserved:—

  “Hic Demetrius æneis tot aptus est
  Quot luces habet annus absolutus.”

There were seven pictures and panegyrics in each book, whence the whole
work has been called Hebdomades. Varro had adopted the superstitious
notions of the ancients concerning particular numbers, and the number
seven seems specially to have commanded his veneration. There were in the
world seven wonders—there were seven wise men among the Greeks—there were
seven chariots in the Circensian games—and seven chiefs were chosen to
make war on Thebes: All which he sums up with remarking, that he himself
had then entered his twelfth period of seven years, on which day he had
written seventy times seven books, many of which, in consequence of his
proscription, had been lost in the plunder of his library. It appears from
Ausonius, that the tenth book of this work was occupied with pictures and
panegyrics of distinguished architects, since, in his Eidyllium, entitled
_Mosella_, he observes, that the buildings on the banks of that river
would not have been despised by the most celebrated architects; and that
those who planned them might well deserve a place in the tenth book of the
Hebdomas of Varro:—

  “Forsan et insignes hominumque operumque labores
  Hic habuit decimo celebrata volumine Marci
  Hebdomas.” ——

It is evident, however, from one of the letters of Symmachus, addressed to
his father, that though this was a professed work of panegyric, Varro was
very sparing and niggardly of his praise even to the greatest characters:
“Ille Pythagoram qui animas in æternitatem primus asseruit; ille Platonem
qui deos esse persuasit; ille Aristotelem qui naturam bene loquendi in
artem redegit; ille pauperem Curium sed divitibus imperantem; ille severos
Catones, gentem Fabiam, decora Scipionum, totumque illum triumphalem
Senatum parca laude perstrinxit.” Varro also wrote an eulogy on Porcia,
the wife of Brutus, which is alluded to by Cicero in one of his letters to
Atticus. Among his notices of celebrated characters, it is much to be
regretted that the _Liber de Vita Sua_, cited by Charisius, has shared the
same fate as most of the other valuable works of Varro. The treatise
entitled, _Sisenna, sive de Historia_, was a tract on the composition of
history, inscribed to Sisenna, the Roman historian, who wrote an account
of the civil wars of Marius and Sylla. It contained, it is said, many
excellent precepts with regard to the appropriate style of history, and
the accurate investigation of facts. But the greatest service rendered by
Varro to history was his attempt to fix the chronology of the world.
Censorinus informs us that he was the first who regulated chronology by
eclipses. That learned grammarian has also mentioned the division of three
great periods established by Varro. He did not determine whether the
earliest of them had any beginning, but he fixed the end of it at the
Ogygian deluge. To this period of absolute historical darkness, he
supposed that a kind of twilight succeeded, which continued from that
flood till the institution of the Olympic games, and this he called the
fabulous age. From that date the Greeks pretend to digest their history
with some degree of order and clearness. Varro, therefore, looked on it as
the break of day, or commencement of the historical age. The chronology,
however, of those events which occurred at the beginning of this second
period, is as uncertain and confused as of those which immediately
preceded it. Thus, the historical æra is evidently placed too high by
Varro. The earliest writers of history did not live till long after the
Olympian epoch, and they again long preceded the earliest chronologers.
Timæus, about the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, was the first who digested
the events recorded by these ancient historians, according to a
computation of the Olympiads(75). Preceding writers, indeed, mention these
celebrated epochs, but the mode of reckoning by them was not brought into
established use for many centuries after the Olympic æra. Arnobius farther
informs us, that Varro calculated that not quite 2000 years had elapsed
from the Ogygian flood to the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa. The
building of Rome he placed two years higher than Cato had done in his
_Origines_, founding his computation on the eclipse which had a short
while preceded the birth of Romulus; but unfortunately this eclipse is not
attested by contemporary authors, nor by any historian who could vouch for
it with certainty. It was calculated a long time after the phænomenon was
supposed to have appeared, by Tarrutius Firmanus, the judicial astrologer,
who amused himself with drawing horoscopes. Varro requested him to
discover the date of Romulus’s birth, by divining it from the known events
of his life, as geometrical problems are solved by analysis; for Tarrutius
considered it as belonging to the same art, (and doubtless the conclusions
are equally certain,) when a child’s nativity is given to predict its
future life, and when the incidents of life are given to cast up the
nativity. Tarrutius, accordingly, having considered the actions of
Romulus, and the manner of his death, and having combined all the
incidents, pronounced that he was conceived in the first year of the
second Olympiad, on the 23d of the Egyptian month Choiok, on which day
there had been a total eclipse of the sun.

Pompey, when about to enter for the first time on the office of Consul,
being ignorant of city manners and senatorial forms, requested Varro to
frame for him a written commentary or manual, from which he might learn
the duties to be discharged by him when he convened the Senate. This book,
which was entitled _Isagogicum de Officio Senatus habendi_, Varro says, in
the letters which he wrote to Oppianus, had been lost. But in these
letters he repeated many things on the subject, as what he had written
before had perished(76).

The _philosophical_ writings of Varro are not numerous; but his chief work
of that description, entitled _De Philosophia Liber_, appears to have been
very comprehensive. St Augustine informs us that Varro examined in it all
the various sects of philosophers, of which he enumerated upwards of 280.
The sect of the old Academy was that which he himself followed, and its
tenets he maintained in opposition to all others. He classed these
numerous sects in the following curious manner: All men chiefly desire, or
place their happiness in, four things—pleasure—rest—these two united,
(which Epicurus, however, termed pleasure,) or soundness of body and mind.
Now, philosophers have contended that virtue is to be sought after for the
sake of obtaining one or other of these four; or, that some one of these
four is to be sought after for the sake of virtue; or, that they and
virtue also are to be sought after for their own sake, and from these
different opinions each of the four great objects of human desire being
sought after with three different views, there are formed twelve sects of
philosophers. These twelve sects are doubled, in consequence of the
different opinions created by the considerations of social
intercourse—some maintaining that the four great desires should be
gratified for our own sake, and others, that they should be indulged only
for the sake of our neighbours. The above twenty-four sects become
forty-eight, from each system being defended as certain truth, or as
merely the nearest approximation to probability—twenty-four sects
maintaining each hypothesis as certain, and twenty-four as only probable.
These again were doubled, from the difference of opinion with regard to
the suitable garb and external habit and demeanour of philosophers.

We have now got ninety-six sects by a very strange sort of computation,
and all these are to be tripled, according to the different opinions
entertained concerning the best mode of spending life—in literary leisure,
in business, or in both(77).

Varro having followed the sect of the old Academy, in preference to all
others, proceeded to refute the principles of the sects he had enumerated.
He cleared the way, by dismissing, as unworthy the name of philosophical,
all those sects whose differences did not turn on what is the supreme
final good; for there is no use in philosophizing, unless it be to make us
happy, and that which makes us happy is the final good. But those who
dispute, for example, whether a wise man should follow virtue,
tranquillity, &c. partly for the sake of others, or solely for his own, do
not dispute concerning what is the final good, but whether that good
should be shared. In like manner, the Cynic does not dispute with regard
to the supreme good, but in what dress or habit he who follows the supreme
good should be clad. So also as to the controversy concerning the
uncertainty of knowledge. The number of sects were thus reduced to the
twelve with which our author set out, and in which the whole question
relates to what is the final good. From these, however, he abstracted the
sects which place the final good in pleasure, rest, or the union of
both—not that he altogether disdained these, but he thought they might be
included in soundness of body and mind, or what he called the _prima
Naturæ_. There are thus only three questions which merit full discussion.
Whether these _prima Naturæ_ should be desired for the sake of virtue, or
virtue for their sake, or if they and virtue also should be desired for
their own sake.

Now, since in philosophy we seek the supreme felicity of man, we must
inquire what man is. His nature is compounded of soul and body. Hence the
_summum bonum_ necessarily consists in the _prima Naturæ_ or perfect
soundness of mind and body. These, therefore, must be sought on their own
account; and under them may be included virtue, which is part of soundness
of mind, being the great director and prime former of the felicity of
life.

Such were the doctrines of the old Academy, which Varro was also
introduced as supporting in Cicero’s _Academica_.—“I have comprehended,”
says that illustrious orator and philosopher, in a letter to Atticus, “the
whole Academic system in four books, instead of two, in the course of
which Varro is made to defend the doctrines of Antiochus(78). I have put
into his mouth all the arguments which were so accurately collected by
Antiochus against the opinion of those who contend that there is no
certainty to be attained in human knowledge. These I have answered myself.
But the part assigned to Varro in the debate is so good, that I do not
think the cause which I support appears the better.”

I am not certain under what class Varro’s _Novem libri Disciplinarum_
should be ranked, as it probably comprehended instructive lessons in the
whole range of arts and sciences. One of the chapters, according to
Vitruvius, was on the subject of architecture. Varro was particularly full
and judicious in his remarks on the construction and situation of Roman
villas, and seems to have laid the foundation for what Palladius and
Columella subsequently compiled on that interesting topic. Another chapter
was on arithmetic; and Fabricius mentions, that Vetranius Maurus has
declared, in his _Life of Varro_, that he saw this part of the work, _De
Disciplinis_, at Rome, in the library of the Cardinal Lorenzo Strozzi.

Varro derived much notoriety from his _satirical_ compositions. His
_Tricarenus_, or _Tricipitina_, was a satiric history of the triumvirate
of Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus. Much pleasantry and sarcasm were also
interspersed in his books entitled _Logistorici_; but his most celebrated
production in that line was the satire which he himself entitled
_Menippean_. It was so called from the cynic Menippus of Gadara, a city in
Syria, who, like his countryman Meleager, was in the habit of expressing
himself jocularly on the most grave and important subjects. He was the
author of a _Symposium_, in the manner of Xenophon. His writings were
interspersed with verses, parodied from Homer and the tragic poets, or
ludicrously applied, for the purpose of burlesque. It is not known,
however, that he wrote any professed satire. The appellation, then, of
_Menippean_, was given to his satire by Varro, not from any production of
the same kind by Menippus, but because he imitated his general style of
humour. In its external form it appears to have been a sort of literary
anomaly. Greek words and phrases were interspersed with Latin; prose was
mingled with verses of various measures; and pleasantry with serious
remark. As to its object and design, Cicero introduces Varro himself
explaining this in the _Academica_. After giving his reasons for not
writing professedly on philosophical subjects, he continues,—“In those
ancient writings of ours, we, imitating Menippus, without translating him,
have infused a degree of mirth and gaiety along with a portion of our most
secret philosophy and logic, so that even our unlearned readers might more
easily understand them, being, as it were, invited to read them with some
pleasure. Besides, in the discourses we have composed in praise of the
dead, and in the introductions to our antiquities, it was our wish to
write in a manner worthy of philosophers, provided we have attained the
desired object.” From what Cicero afterwards says in this dialogue, while
addressing himself to Varro, it would appear, that he had indeed touched
on philosophical subjects in his _Menippean_ satire, but that, learned as
he was, his object was more to amuse his readers than instruct them: “You
have entered on topics of philosophy in a manner sufficient to allure
readers to its study, but inadequate to convey full instruction, or to
advance its progress.”

Many fragments of this _Menippean_ satire still remain, but they are much
broken and corrupted. The heads of the different subjects, or chapters,
contained in it, amounting to near one hundred and fifty, have been given
by Fabricius in alphabetical order. Some of them are in Latin, others in
Greek. A few chapters have double titles; and, though little remains of
them but the titles, these show what an infinite variety of subjects was
treated by the author. As a specimen, I subjoin those ranged under the
letter A. Aborigines,—Περι Ανθρωπων φυσεως,—De Admirandis, vel Gallus
Fundanius,—Agatho,—Age modo,—Αιει διβυη, vel περι Αἱρεσεων,—Ajax
Stramentitius,—Αλλος ὁυτος Ἡρακλης,—Andabatæ,—Anthropopolis,—περι Αρχης,
seu Marcopolis,—περι Αρχαιρεσιων, seu Serranus,—περι Αρετης κτησεως,—περι
Αφροδισιων, seu vinalia,—Armorum judicium,—περι Αρρενοτητος, seu
Triphallus,—Autumedus,—Mæonius,—Baiæ, &c.(79)

There is a chapter concerning the duty of a husband, (De officio Mariti,)
in which the author observes, that the errors of a wife are either to be
cured or endured: He who extirpates them makes his wife better, but he who
bears with them improves himself. Another is inscribed, “You know not what
a late evening, or supper, may bring with it,” (Nescis quid vesper serus
vehat.) In this chapter he remarks, that the number of guests should not
be less than that of the Graces, or more than that of the Muses. To render
an entertainment perfect, four things must concur—agreeable company,
suitable place, convenient time, and careful preparation. The guests
should not be loquacious or taciturn. Silence is for the bed-chamber, and
eloquence for the Forum, but neither for a feast. The conversation ought
not to turn on anxious or difficult subjects, but should be cheerful and
inviting, so that utility may be combined with a certain degree of
pleasure and allurement. This will be best managed, by discoursing of
those things which relate to the ordinary occurrences or affairs of life,
concerning which one has not leisure to talk in the Forum, or while
transacting business. The master of the feast should rather be neat and
clean than splendidly attired; and if he introduce reading into the
entertainment, it should be so selected as to amuse, and to be neither
troublesome nor tedious(80). A third chapter is entitled, περι ἐδεσματων;
and treats of the rarer delicacies of an entertainment, especially foreign
luxuries. Au. Gellius has given us the import of some verses, in which
Varro mentioned the different countries which supplied the most exquisite
articles of food. Peacocks came from Samos; cranes from Melos; kids from
Ambracia; and the best oysters from Tarentum(81). Part of the chapter
γνωθι σεαυτον was directed against the Latin tragic poets.

What remains of the verses interspersed in the _Menippean_ satire, is too
trifling to enable us to form any accurate judgment of the poetical
talents of Varro.

The style of satire introduced by Varro was imitated by Lucius Annæus
Seneca, in his satire on the deification of Claudius Cæsar, who was called
on earth Divus Claudius. The _Satyricon_ of Petronius Arbiter, in which
that writer lashed the luxury, and avarice, and other vices of his age, is
a satire of the Varronian species, prose being mingled with verse, and
jest with serious remark. Such, too, are the Emperor Julian’s _Symposium
of the Cæsars_, in which he characterizes his predecessors; and his
Μισοπωγων, directed against the luxurious manners of the citizens of
Antioch.

Besides the works of Varro above mentioned, there is a miscellaneous
collection of sentences or maxims which have been attributed to him,
though it is not known in what part of his numerous writings they were
originally introduced. Barthius found seventeen of these sentences in a
MS. of the middle age, and printed them in his _Adversaria_. Schneider
afterwards discovered, in the _Speculum Historiale_ of Vincent de
Beauvais, a monk of the thirteenth century, a much more ample collection
of them, which he has inserted in his edition of the _Scriptores rei
Rusticæ_(82). They consist of moral maxims, in the style of those
preserved from the Mimes of Publius Syrus, and had doubtless been culled
as flowers from the works of Varro, at a time when the immense garden of
taste and learning which he planted, had not yet been laid waste by the
hand of time, or the spoiler(83).

Though the above list of the works of Varro is far from complete, a
sufficient number has been mentioned to justify the exclamation of
Quintilian,—“Quam multa, immo pene omnia tradidit Varro!” and the more
full panegyric of Cicero,—“His works brought us home, as it were, while we
were foreigners in our own city, and wandering like strangers, so that we
might know who and where we were; for in them are laid open the chronology
of his country,—a description of the seasons,—the laws of religion,—the
ordinances of the priests,—domestic and military occurrences,—the
situations of countries and places,—the names of all things divine and
human,—the breed of animals,—moral duties,—and the origin of things(84).”

Nor did Varro merely delight and instruct his fellow-citizens by his
writings. By his careful attention, in procuring the most valuable books,
and establishing libraries, he provided, perhaps, still more effectually
than by his own learned compositions, for the progressive improvement and
civilization of his countrymen. The formation of either private or public
libraries was late of taking place at Rome, for the Romans were late in
attending to literary studies. Tiraboschi quotes a number of writers who
have discovered a library in the public records preserved at Rome(85), and
in the books of the Sibyls(86). But these, he observes, may be classed
with the library which Madero found to have existed before the flood, and
that belonging to Adam, of which Hilscherus has made out an exact
catalogue(87). From Syracuse and Corinth the Romans brought away the
statues and pictures, and other monuments of the fine arts; but we do not
learn that they carried to the capital any works of literature or science.
Some agricultural books found their way to Rome from Africa, on the
destruction of Carthage; but the other treasures of its libraries, though
they fell under the power of a conqueror not without pretensions to taste
and erudition, were bestowed on the African princes in alliance with the
Romans(88).

Paulus Emilius is said by Plutarch to have allowed his sons to choose some
volumes from the library of Perseus, King of Macedon(89), whom he led
captive to Rome in 585. But the honour of first possessing a library in
Rome is justly due to Sylla; who, on the occupation of Athens, in 667,
acquired the library of Apellicon, which he discovered in the temple of
Apollo. This collection, which contained, among various other books, the
works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, was reserved to himself by Sylla from
the plunder; and, having been brought to Rome, was arranged by the
grammarian Tyrannio, who also supplied and corrected the mutilated text of
Aristotle(90). Engaged, as he constantly was, in domestic strife or
foreign warfare, Sylla could have made little use of this library, and he
did not communicate the benefit of it to scholars, by opening it to the
public; but the example of the Dictator prompted other commanders not to
overlook the libraries, in the plunder of captured cities, and books thus
became a fashionable acquisition. Sometimes, indeed, these collections
were rather proofs of the power and opulence of the Roman generals, than
of their literary taste or talents. A certain value was now affixed to
manuscripts; and these were, in consequence, amassed by them, from a
spirit of rapacity, and the principle of leaving nothing behind which
could be carried off by force or stratagem. In one remarkable instance,
however, the learning of the proprietor fully corresponded to the literary
treasures which he had collected. Lucullus, a man of severe study, and
wonderfully skilled in all the fine arts, after having employed many years
in the cultivation of literature, and the civil administration of the
republic, was unexpectedly called, in consequence of a political intrigue,
to lead on the Roman army in the perilous contest with Mithridates; and,
though previously unacquainted with military affairs, he became the first
captain of the age, with little farther experience, than his study of the
art of war, during the voyage from Rome to Asia. His attempts to introduce
a reform in the corrupt administration of the Asiatic provinces, procured
him enemies, through whose means he was superseded in the command of the
army, by one who was not superior to him in talents, and was far inferior
in virtue. After his recall from Pontus, and retreat to a private station,
he offered a new spectacle to his countrymen. He did not retire, like
Fabricius and Cincinnatus, to plough his farm, and eat turnips in a
cottage—he did not, like Africanus, quit his country in disgust, because
it had unworthily treated him; nor did he spend his wealth and leisure,
like Sylla, in midnight debauchery with buffoons and parasites. He
employed the riches he had acquired during his campaigns in the
construction of delightful villas, situated on the shore of the sea, or
hanging on the declivities of hills. Gardens and spacious porticos, which
he adorned with all the elegance of painting and sculpture, made the
Romans ashamed of their ancient rustic simplicity. These would doubtless
be the objects of admiration to his contemporaries; but it was his
library, in which so many copies of valuable works were multiplied or
preserved, and his distinguished patronage of learning, that claim the
gratitude of posterity. “His library,” says Plutarch, “had walks,
galleries, and cabinets belonging to it, which were open to all visitors;
and the ingenious Greeks resorted to this abode of the muses to hold
literary converse, in which Lucullus delighted to join them(91).” Other
Roman patricians had patronized literature, by extending their protection
to a favoured few, as the elder Scipio Africanus to Ennius, and the
younger to Terence; but Lucullus was the first who encouraged all the arts
and sciences, and promoted learning with princely munificence.

But the slave Tyrannio vied with the most splendid of the Romans in the
literary treasures he had amassed. A native of Pontus, he was taken
prisoner by Lucullus, in the course of the war with Mithridates; and,
having been brought to Rome, he was given to Muræna, from whom he received
freedom(92). He spent the remainder of his life in teaching rhetoric and
grammar. He also arranged the library of Cicero at Antium(93), and taught
his nephew, Quintus, in the house of the orator(94). These various
employments proved so profitable, that they enabled him to acquire a
library of 30,000 volumes(95). Libraries of considerable extent were also
formed by Atticus and Cicero; and _Varro_ was not inferior to any of his
learned contemporaries, in the industry of collecting and transcribing
manuscripts, both in the Greek and Latin language.

The library of Varro, however, and all the others which we have mentioned,
were private—open, indeed, to literary men, from the general courtesy of
the possessors, but the access to them still dependent on their good will
and indulgence. Julius Cæsar was the first who formed the design of
establishing a great public library; and to Varro he assigned the task of
arranging the books which he had procured. This plan, which was rendered
abortive by the untimely fate of Cæsar, was carried into effect by Asinius
Pollio, who devoted part of the wealth he had acquired from the spoils of
war, to the construction of a magnificent gallery, adjacent to the Temple
of Liberty, which he filled with books, and the busts of the learned.
Varro was the only living author who, in this public library, had the
honour of an image(96), which was erected to him as a testimony of respect
for his universal erudition. He also aided Augustus with his advice, in
the formation of the two libraries which that emperor established, and
which was part of his general system for the encouragement of science and
learning. When tyrants understand their trade, and when their judgment is
equal to their courage or craft, they become the most zealous and liberal
promoters of the interests of learning; for they know that it is for their
advantage to withdraw the minds of their subjects from political
discussion and to give them, in exchange, the consoling pleasures of
imagination, and the inexhaustible occupations of scientific curiosity.

Were I writing the history of Roman arts, it would be necessary to mention
that Varro excelled in his knowledge of all those that are useful, and in
his taste for all those that are elegant. He was the contriver of what may
be considered as the first hour clock that was made in Rome, and which
measured time by a hand entirely moved by mechanism. That he also
possessed a Museum, adorned with exquisite works of sculpture, we learn
from Pliny, who mentions, that it contained an admirable group, by the
statuary Archelaus, formed out of one block of marble, and representing a
lioness, with Cupids sporting around her—some giving her drink from a
horn; some in the attitude of putting socks on her paws, and others in the
act of binding her. The same writer acquaints us, that, in the year 692,
Varro, who was then Curule Ædile, caused a piece of painting, in fresco,
to be brought from Sparta to Rome, in order to adorn the Comitium—the
whole having been cut out entire, and enclosed in cases of wood. The
painting was excellent, and much admired; but what chiefly excited
astonishment, was that it should have been taken from the wall without
injury, and transported safe to Italy(97).

I fear I have too long detained the reader with this account of the life
and writings of Varro; yet it is not unpleasing to dwell on such a
character. He was the contemporary of Marius and Sylla, of Cæsar and
Pompey, of Antony and Octavius, these men of contention and massacre; and
amid the convulsions into which they threw their country, it is not
ungrateful to trace the _Secretum Iter_, which he silently pursued through
a period unparalleled in anarchy and crimes. Uninterrupted, save for a
moment, by strife and ambition, he prosecuted his literary labours till
the extreme term of his prolonged existence. “In eodem enim lectulo,” says
Valerius Maximus, with a spirit and eloquence beyond his usual strain of
composition—“In eodem enim lectulo, et spiritus ejus, et egregiorum operum
cursus extinctus est.”





                             NIGIDIUS FIGULUS


was a man much resembling Varro, and next to him was accounted the most
learned of the Romans(98). He was the contemporary of Cicero, and one of
his chief advisers and associates in suppressing the conspiracy of
Catiline(99). Shortly afterwards he arrived at the dignity of Prætor, but
having espoused the part of Pompey in the civil wars, he was driven into
banishment on the accession of Cæsar to the supreme power, and died in
709, before Cicero could obtain his recall from exile(100). He was much
addicted to judicial astrology; and ancient writers relate a vast number
of his predictions, particularly that of the empire of the world to
Augustus, which he presaged immediately after the birth of that
prince(101).

Nigidius vied with Varro in multifarious erudition, and the number of his
works—grammar, criticism, natural history, and the origin of man, having
successively employed his pen. His writings are praised by Cicero, Pliny,
Aulus Gellius, and Macrobius; but they were rendered almost entirely unfit
for popular use by their subtlety, mysteriousness, and
obscurity(102)—defects to which his cultivation of judicial astrology, and
adoption of the Pythagorean philosophy, may have materially contributed.
Aulus Gellius gives many examples of the obscurity, or rather
unintelligibility, of his grammatical writings(103). His chief work was
his Grammatical Commentaries, in thirty books, in which he attempted to
show, that names and words were fixed not by accidental application, but
by a certain power and order of nature. One of his examples, of terms
being rather natural than arbitrary, was taken from the word _Vos_, in
pronouncing which, he observed, that we use a certain motion of the mouth,
agreeing with what the word itself expresses: We protrude, by degrees, the
tips of our lips, and thrust forward our breath and mind towards those
with whom we are engaged in conversation. On the other hand, when we say
_nos_, we do not pronounce it with a broad and expanded blast of the
voice, nor with projecting lips, but we restrain our breath and lips, as
it were, within ourselves. The like natural signs accompany the utterance
of the words _tu_ and _ego_—_tibi_ and _mihi_(104). Nigidius also wrote
works, entitled _De Animalibus_, _De Ventis_, _De Extis_, and a great many
treatises on the nature of the gods. All these have long since perished,
except a very few fragments, which have been collected and explained by
Janus Rutgersius, in the third book of his _Variæ Lectiones_, published at
Leyden in 1618; 4to. In this collection he has also inserted a Greek
translation of another lost work of Nigidius, on the presages to be drawn
from thunder. The original Latin is said to have been taken from books
which bore the name of the Etruscan Tages, the supposed founder of the
science of divination. The Greek version was executed by Laurentius, a
philosopher of the age of Justinian, and his translation was discovered by
Meursius, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, in the Palatine
library. It is a sort of Almanack, containing presages of thunder for each
particular day of the year, and beginning with June. If it thunder on the
13th of June, the life or fortunes of some great person are menaced—if on
the 19th of July, war is announced—if on the 5th of August, it is
indicated that those women, with whom we have any concern, will become
somewhat more reasonable than they have hitherto proved(105).

With Varro and Nigidius Figulus, may be classed Tiro, the celebrated
freedman of Cicero, and constant assistant in all his literary pursuits.
He wrote many books on the use and formation of the Latin language, and
others on miscellaneous subjects, which he denominated _Pandectas_(106),
as comprehending every sort of literary topic.

Quintus Cornificius, the elder, was also a very general scholar. He
composed a curious treatise on the etymology of the names of things in
heaven and earth, in which he discovered great knowledge, both of Roman
antiquities, and the most recondite Grecian literature. It was here he
introduced an explication of Homer’s dark fable, where Jupiter and all the
gods proceed to feast for twelve days in Ethiopia. The work was written in
709, during the time of Cæsar’s last expedition to Spain, and was probably
intended as a supplement to Varro’s treatise on a similar topic.





                                 HISTORY.


From our supposing that those things which affected our ancestors may
affect us, and that those which affect us must affect posterity, we become
fond of collecting memorials of prior events, and also of preserving the
remembrance of incidents which have occurred in our own age. The historic
passion, if it may be so termed, thus naturally divides itself into two
desires—that of indulging our own curiosity, and of relating what has
occurred to ourselves or our contemporaries.

Monuments accordingly have been raised, and rude hymns composed, for this
purpose, by people who had scarcely acquired the use of letters. Among
civilized nations, the passion grows in proportion to the means of
gratifying it, and the force of example comes to be so strongly felt, that
its power and influence are soon historically employed.

The Romans were, in all ages, particularly fond of giving instruction, by
every sort of example. They placed the images of their ancestors in the
Forum and the vestibules of their houses, so that these venerable forms
everywhere met their eyes; and by recalling the glorious actions of the
dead, excited the living to emulate their forefathers. The virtue of one
generation was thus transfused, by the magic of example, into those by
which it was succeeded, and the spirit of heroism was maintained through
many ages of the republic—

  “Has olim virtus crevit Romana per artes:
  Namque foro in medio stabant spirantia signa
  Magnanimûm heroum; hîc Decios, magnosque Camillos
  Cernere erat: vivax heroum in imagine virtus,
  Invidiamque ipsis factura nepotibus, acri
  Urgebat stimulo Romanum in prælia robur(107).”

History, therefore, among the Romans, was not composed merely to gratify
curiosity, or satiate the historic passion, but also to inflame, by the
force of example, and urge on to emulation, in warlike prowess. An
insatiable thirst of military fame—an unlimited ambition of extending
their empire—an unbounded confidence in their own force and courage—an
impetuous overbearing spirit, with which all their enterprises were
pursued, composed, in the early days of the Republic, the characteristics
of Romans. To foment, and give fresh vigour to these, was a chief object
of history.—“I have recorded these things,” says an old Latin annalist,
after giving an account of Regulus, “that they who read my commentaries
may be rendered, by his example, greater and better.”

Accordingly, the Romans had journalists or annalists, from the earliest
periods of the state. The Annals of the Pontiffs were of the same date, if
we may believe Cicero, as the foundation of the city(108); but others have
placed their commencement in the reign of Numa(109), and Niebuhr not till
after the battle of Regillus, which terminated the hopes of Tarquin(110).
In order to preserve the memory of public transactions, the Pontifex
Maximus, who was the official historian of the Republic, annually
committed to writing, on wooden tablets, the leading events of each year,
and then set them up at his own house for the instruction of the
people(111). These Annals were continued down to the Pontificate of
Mucius, in the year 629, and were called _Annales Maximi_, as being
periodically compiled and kept by the Pontifex Maximus, or _Publici_, as
recording public transactions. Having been inscribed on wooden tablets,
they would necessarily be short, and destitute of all circumstantial
detail; and being annually formed by successive Pontiffs, could have no
appearance of a continued history. They would contain, as Lord Bolingbroke
remarks, little more than short minutes or memoranda, hung up in the
Pontiff’s house, like the rules of the game in a billiard room: their
contents would resemble the epitome prefixed to the books of Livy, or the
Register of Remarkable Occurrences in modern Almanacks.

But though short, jejune, and unadorned, still, as records of facts, these
annals, if spared, would have formed an inestimable treasure of early
history. The Roman territory, in the first ages of the state, was so
confined, that every event may be considered as having passed under the
immediate observation of the sacred annalist. Besides, the method which,
as Cicero informs us, was observed in preparing these Annals, and the care
that was taken to insert no fact, of which the truth had not been attested
by as many witnesses as there were citizens at Rome, who were all entitled
to judge and make their remarks on what ought either to be added or
retrenched, must have formed the most authentic body of history that could
be desired. The memory of transactions which were yet recent, and whose
concomitant circumstances every one could remember, was therein
transmitted to posterity. By these means, the Annals were proof against
falsification, and their veracity was incontestibly fixed.

These valuable records, however, were, for the most part, consumed in the
conflagration of the city, consequent on its capture by the Gauls—an event
which was to the early history of Rome what the English invasion by Edward
I. proved to the history of Scotland. The practice of the Pontifex Maximus
preserving such records was discontinued after that eventful period. A
feeble attempt was made to revive it towards the end of the second Punic
war; and, from that time, the custom was not entirely dropped till the
Pontificate of Mucius, in the year 629. It is to this second series of
Annals, or to some other late and ineffectual attempt to revive the
ancient Roman history, that Cicero must allude, when he talks of the Great
Annals, in his work _De Legibus_(112), since it is undoubted that the
pontifical records of events previous to the capture of Rome by the Gauls,
almost entirely perished in the conflagration of the city(113).
Accordingly, Livy never cites these records, and there is no appearance
that he had any opportunity of consulting them; nor are they mentioned by
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in the long catalogue of records and memorials
which he had employed in the composition of his _Historical Antiquities_.
The _books_ of the Pontiffs, some of which were recovered in the search
made to find what the flames had spared, are, indeed, occasionally
mentioned. But these were works explaining the mysteries of religion, with
instructions as to the ceremonies to be observed in its practical
exercise, and could have been of no more service to Roman, than a
collection of breviaries or missals to modern history.

Statues, inscriptions, and other public monuments, which aid in
perpetuating the memory of illustrious persons, and transmitting to
posterity the services they have rendered their country, were accounted,
among the Romans, as the most honourable rewards that could be bestowed on
great actions; and virtue, in those ancient times, thought no recompense
more worthy of her than the immortality which such monuments seemed to
promise. Rome having produced so many examples of a disinterested
patriotism and valour must have been filled with monuments of this
description when taken by the Gauls. But these honorary memorials were
thrown down along with the buildings, and buried in the ruins. If any
escaped, it was but a small number; and the greatest part of those that
were to be seen at Rome in the eighth century of the city, were founded on
fabulous traditions which proved that the loss of the true monuments had
occasioned the substitution of false ones. Had the genuine monuments been
preserved at Rome, even till the period when the first regular annals
began to be composed, though they would not have sufficed to restore the
history entirely, they would have served at least to have perpetuated
incontestably the memory of various important facts, to have fixed their
dates, and transmitted the glory of great men to posterity.

On what then, it will be asked, was the Roman history founded, and what
authentic records were preserved as materials for its composition? There
were first the _Leges Regiæ_. These were diligently searched for, and were
discovered along with the Twelve Tables, after the sack of the city: And
all those royal laws which did not concern sacred matters, were publicly
exposed to be seen and identified by the people(114), that no suspicion of
forgery or falsification might descend to posterity. These precautions
leave us little room to doubt that the _Leges Regiæ_, and Laws of the
Tables, were preserved, and that they remained as they had been originally
promulgated by the kings and decemvirs. Such laws, however, would be of no
greater service to Roman history, than what the _Regiam Majestatem_ has
been to that of Scotland. They might be useful in tracing the early
constitution of the state, the origin of several customs, ceremonies,
public offices, and other points of antiquarian research, but they could
be of little avail in fixing dates, ascertaining facts, and setting events
in their true light, which form the peculiar objects of civil history.

Treaties of peace, which were the pledges of the public tranquillity from
without, being next to the laws of the greatest importance to the state,
much care was bestowed, after the expulsion of the Gauls, in recovering as
many of them as the flames had spared. Some of them were the more easily
restored, from having been kept in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus,
which the fury of the enemy could not reach(115). Those which had been
saved, continued to be very carefully preserved, and there is no reason to
suspect them of having been falsified. Among the treaties which were
rescued from destruction, Horace mentions those of the Kings, with the
Gabii and the Sabines (_Fœdera Regum_(116).) The former was that concluded
by Tarquinius Superbus, and which, Dionysius of Halicarnassus informs us,
was still preserved at Rome in his time, in the temple of Jupiter Fidius,
on a buckler made of wood, and covered with an ox’s hide, on which the
articles of the treaty were written in ancient characters(117). Dionysius
mentions two treaties with the Sabines—the first was between Romulus and
their king Tatius(118); and the other, the terms of which were inscribed
on a column erected in a temple, was concluded with them by Tullus
Hostilius, at the close of a Sabine war(119). Livy likewise cites a treaty
made with the Ardeates(120); and Polybius has preserved entire another
entered into with the Carthaginians, in the year of the expulsion of the
kings(121). Pliny has also alluded to one of the conditions of a treaty
which Porsenna, the ally of Tarquin, granted to the Roman people(122). Now
these leagues with the Gabii, Sabines, Ardeates, and one or two with the
Latins, are almost the only treaties we find anywhere referred to by the
ancient Latin historians; who thus seem to have employed but little
diligence in consulting those original documents, or drawing from them, in
compiling their histories, such assistance as they could have afforded.
The treaties quoted by Polybius and Pliny, completely contradict the
relations of the Latin annalists; those cited by Polybius proving, in
opposition to their assertions, that the Carthaginians had been in
possession of a great part of Sicily about a century previous to the date
which Livy has fixed to their first expedition to that island; and those
quoted by Pliny, that Porsenna, instead of treating with the Romans on
equal terms, as represented by their historians, had actually prohibited
them from employing arms,—permitting them the use of iron only in tilling
the ground(123).

The _Libri Lintei_ (so called because written on linen) are cited by Livy
after the old annalist Licinius Macer, by whom they appear to have been
carefully studied. These books were kept in the temple of Juno Moneta, but
were probably of less importance than the other public records, which were
inscribed on rolls of lead. They were obviously a work of no great extent,
since Livy, who appeals to them on four different occasions in the space
of ten years, just after the degradation of the decemvirs, had not quoted
them before, and never refers to them again. There also appear to have
been different copies of them which did not exactly agree, and Livy seems
far from considering their authority as decisive even on the points on
which reference is made to them(124).

The _Memoirs of the Censors_ were journals preserved by those persons who
held the office of Censor. They were transmitted by them to their
descendants as so many sacred pledges, and were preserved in the families
which had been rendered illustrious by that dignity. They formed a series
of eulogies on those who had thus exalted the glory of their house, and
contained a relation of the memorable actions performed by them in
discharge of the high censorial office with which they had been
invested(125). Hence they must be considered as part of the _Family
Memoirs_, which were unfortunately the great and corrupt sources of early
Roman history.

It was the custom of the ancient families of Rome to preserve with
religious care everything that could contribute to perpetuate the glory of
their ancestry, and confer honour on their lineage. Thus, besides the
titles which were placed under the smoky images of their forefathers,
there were likewise tables in their apartments on which lay books and
memoirs recording, in a style of general panegyric, the services they had
performed for the state during their exercise of the employments with
which they had been dignified(126).

Had these Family Memoirs been faithfully composed, they would have been of
infinite service to history; and although all other monuments had
perished, they alone would have supplied the defect. They were a record,
by those who had the best access to knowledge, of the high offices which
their ancestors had filled, and of whatever memorable was transacted
during the time they had held the exalted situations of Prætor or Consul:
Even the dates of events, as may be seen by a fragment which Dionysius of
Halicarnassus cites from them, were recorded with all the appearance of
accuracy. Each set of family memoirs thus formed a series of biographies,
which, by preserving the memory of the great actions of individuals, and
omitting nothing that could tend to their illustration, comprehended also
the principal affairs of state, in which they had borne a share. From the
fragments of the genealogical book of the Porcian family, quoted by Aulus
Gellius, and the abstract of the Memoirs of the Claudian and Livian
families, preserved by Suetonius, in the first chapters of his Life of
Tiberius, we may perceive how important such memoirs would have been, and
what light they would have thrown on history, had they possessed the stamp
of fidelity. But unfortunately, in their composition more regard was paid
to family reputation than to historical truth. Whatever tended to exalt
its name was embellished and exaggerated. Whatever could dim its lustre
was studiously withdrawn. Circumstances, meanwhile, became peculiarly
favourable for these high family pretensions. The destruction of the
public monuments and annals of the Pontiffs, gave ample scope for the
vanity or fertile imagination of those who chose to fabricate titles and
invent claims to distinction, the falsity of which could no longer be
demonstrated. “All the monuments,” says Plutarch, “being destroyed at the
taking of Rome, others were substituted, which were forged out of
complaisance to private persons, who pretended to be of illustrious
families, though in fact they had no relation to them(127).” So
unmercifully had the great families availed themselves of this favourable
opportunity, that Livy complains that these private memoirs were the chief
cause of the uncertainty in which he was forced to fluctuate during the
early periods of his history. “What has chiefly confounded the history,”
says he, “is each family ascribing to itself the glory of great actions
and honourable employments. Hence, doubtless, the exploits of individuals
and public monuments have been falsified; nor have we so much as one
writer of these times whose authority can be depended on(128).” Those
funeral orations on the dead, which it was the custom to deliver at Rome,
and which were preserved in families as carefully as the memoirs, also
contributed to augment this evil. Cicero declares, that history had been
completely falsified by these funeral panegyrics, many things being
inserted in them which never were performed, or existed—False triumphs,
supernumerary consulships, and forged pedigrees(129).

Connected with these prose legends, there were also the old heroic ballads
formerly mentioned, on which the annals of Ennius were in a great measure
built, and to which may be traced some of those wonderful incidents of
Roman history, chiefly contrived for the purpose of exalting the military
achievements of the country. Many things which of right belong to such
ancient poems, still exist under the disguise of an historical clothing in
the narratives of the Roman annalists. Niebuhr, the German historian of
Rome, has recently analysed these legends, and taken much from the Roman
history, by detecting what incidents rest on no other foundation than
their chimerical or embellished pictures, and by shewing how incidents, in
themselves unconnected, have by their aid been artificially combined.
Such, according to him, were the stories of the birth of Romulus, of the
treason of Tatia, the death of the Fabii, and the incidents of an almost
complete Epopée, from the succession of Tarquinius Priscus to the battle
of Regillus. These old ballads, being more attractive and of easier access
than authentic records and monuments, were preferred to them as
authorities; and even when converted into prose, retained much of their
original and poetic spirit. For example, it was feigned in them that
Tullus Hostilius was the son of Hostus Hostilius, who perished in the war
with the Sabines, which, according to chronology, would make Tullus at
least eighty years old when he mounted the throne; but it was thought a
fine thing to represent him as the son of a genuine Roman hero, who had
fallen in the service of his country. Niebuhr, probably, as I have already
shown, has attributed too much to these old heroic ballads, and has
assigned to them an extent and importance of which there are no adequate
proofs. But I strongly suspect that the heroic or historical poems of
Ennius had formed a principal document to the Roman annalists for the
transactions during the Monarchy and earlier times of the Republic, and
had been appealed to, like Ferdousi’s Shad-Nameh, for occurrences which
were probably rather fictions of fancy than events of history.

The Greek writers, from whom several fables and traditions were derived
concerning the infancy of Rome, lived not much higher than the age of
Fabius Pictor, and only mention its affairs cursorily, while treating of
Alexander or his successors. Polybius, indeed, considers their narratives
as mere vulgar traditions(130), and Dionysius says they have written some
few things concerning the Romans, which they have compiled from common
reports, without accuracy or diligence. To them have been plausibly
attributed those fables, concerning the exploits of Romans, which bear so
remarkable an analogy to incidents in Grecian history(131). Like to these
in all respects are the histories which some Romans published in Greek
concerning the ancient transactions of their own nation.

We thus see that the authentic materials for the early history of Rome
were meagre and imperfect—that the annals of the Pontiffs and public
monuments had perished—that the _Leges Regiæ_, Twelve Tables, and remains
of the religious or ritual books of the Pontiffs, could throw no great
light on history, and that the want of better materials was supplied by
false, and sometimes incredible relations, drawn from the family
traditions—“_ad ostentationem scenæ gaudentis miraculis aptiora quàm ad
fidem_(132).” The mutilated inscriptions, too, the scanty treaties, and
the family memoirs, became, from the variations in the language, in a
great measure unintelligible to the generation which succeeded that in
which they were composed. Polybius informs us, that the most learned
Romans of his day could not read a treaty with the Carthaginians,
concluded after the expulsion of the kings. Hence, the documents for
history, such as they were, became useless to the historian, or, at least,
were of such difficulty, that he would sometimes mistake their import, and
be, at others, deterred from investigation.

When all this is considered, and also that Rome, in its commencement, was
the dwelling of a rude and ignorant people, subsisting by rapine—that the
art of writing, the only sure guardian of the remembrance of events, was
little practised—that critical examination was utterly unknown; and that
the writers of no other nation would think of accurately transmitting to
posterity events, which have only become interesting from the subsequent
conquests and extension of the Roman empire, it must be evident, that the
materials provided for the work of the historian would necessarily be
obscure and uncertain.

The great general results recorded in Roman history, during the first five
centuries, cannot, indeed, be denied. It cannot be doubted that Rome
ultimately triumphed over the neighbouring nations, and obtained
possession of their territories; for Rome would not have been what we know
it was in the sixth century, without these successes. But there exists, in
the particular events recorded in the Roman history, sufficient internal
evidence of its uncertainty, or rather falsehood; and here I do not refer
to the lying fables, and absurd prodigies, which the annalists may have
inserted in deference to the prejudices of the people, nor to the almost
incredible daring and endurance of Scævola, Cocles, or Curtius, which may
be accounted for from the wild spirit of a half-civilized nation, and are
not unlike the acts we hear of among Indian tribes; but I allude to the
total improbability of the historic details concerning transactions with
surrounding tribes, and the origin of domestic institutions. How, for
example, after so long a series of defeats, with few intervals of
prosperity interposed, could the Italian states have possessed resources
sufficient incessantly to renew hostilities, in which they were always the
aggressors? And how, on the other hand, should the Romans, with their
constant preponderance of force and fortune, (if the repetition and
magnitude of their victories can be depended on,) have been so long
employed in completely subjugating them? The numbers slain, according to
Livy’s account, are so prodigious, that it is difficult to conceive how
the population of such moderate territories, as belonged to the
independent Italian communities, could have supplied such losses. We,
therefore, cannot avoid concluding, that the frequency and importance of
these campaigns were magnified by the consular families indulging in the
vanity of exaggerating the achievements of their ancestors(133). Sometimes
these campaigns are represented as carried on against the whole nation of
Volsci, Samnites, or Etruscans, when, in fact, only a part was engaged;
and, at other times, battles, which never were fought, have been extracted
from the family memoirs, where they were drawn up to illustrate each
consulate; for what would a consul have been without a triumph or a
victory? It would exceed my limits were I to point out the various
improbabilities and evident inconsistencies of this sort recorded in the
early periods of Roman history. With regard, again, to the domestic
institutions of Rome, everything (doubtless for the sake of effect and
dignity) is represented as having at once originated in the refined policy
and foresight of the early kings. The division of the people into tribes
and curiæ—the relations of patron and client—the election of senators—in
short, the whole fabric of the constitution, is exhibited as a
preconcerted plan of political wisdom, and not (as a constitution has been
in every other state, and must have been in Rome) the gradual result of
contingencies and progressive improvements, of assertions of rights, and
struggles for power.

The opinion entertained by Polybius of the uncertainty of the Roman
history, is sufficiently manifest from a passage in the fourth book of his
admirable work, which is written with all the philosophy and profound
inquiry of Tacitus, without any of his apparent affectation.—“The things
which I have undertaken to describe,” says he, “are those which I myself
have seen, or such as I have received from men who were eye-witnesses of
them. For, had I gone back to a more early period, and borrowed my
accounts from the report of persons who themselves had only heard them
before from others, as it would scarcely have been possible that I should
myself be able to discern the true state of the matters that were then
transacted, so neither could I have written anything concerning them with
confidence.” What, indeed, can we expect to know with regard to the Kings
of Rome, when we find so much uncertainty with regard to the most
memorable events of the republic, as the period of the first creation of a
dictator and tribunes of the people? The same doubt exists in the
biography of illustrious characters. Cicero says, that Coriolanus, having
gone over to the Volsci, repressed the struggles of his resentment by a
voluntary death; “for, though you, my Atticus,” he continues, “have
represented his death in a different manner, you must pardon me if I do
not subscribe to the justness of your representations(134).” Atticus, I
presume, gave the account as we now have it, that he was killed in a
tumult of the Volsci, and Fabius Pictor had written that he lived till old
age(135). Of the reliance to be placed on the events between the death of
Coriolanus and the termination of the second Punic war, we may judge from
the uncertainty which prevailed with regard to Scipio Africanus, a hero,
of all others, the most distinguished, and who flourished, comparatively,
at a recent period. Yet some of the most important events of his life are
involved in contradiction and almost hopeless obscurity.—“Cicero,” says
Berwick, in his Memoirs of Scipio, “speaks with great confidence of the
year in which he died, yet Livy found so great a difference of opinion
among historians on the subject, that he declares himself unable to
ascertain it. From a fragment in Polybius, we learn, that, in his time,
the authors who had written of Scipio were ignorant of some circumstances
of his life, and mistaken in others; and, from Livy, it appears, that the
accounts respecting his life, trial, death, funeral, and sepulchre, were
so contradictory, that he was not able to determine what tradition, or
whose writings, he ought to credit.”

But, although the early events of Roman history were of such a
description, that Cicero and Atticus were not agreed concerning them—that
Polybius could write nothing about them with confidence; and that Livy
would neither undertake to affirm nor refute them, every vestige of Roman
antiquity had not perished. Though the annals of the Pontiffs were
destroyed,—those who wrote, who kept, and had read them, could not have
lost all recollection of the facts they recorded. Even from the family
memoirs, full of falsehoods as they were, much truth might have been
extracted by a judicious and acute historian. The journals of different
rival families must often have served as historical checks on each other,
and much real information might have been gathered, by comparing and
contrasting the vain-glorious lies of those family-legends(136).

Such was the state of the materials for Roman history, in the middle of
the sixth century, from the building of the city, at which time regular
annals first began to be composed; and notwithstanding all unfavourable
circumstances, much might have been done, even at that period, towards
fixing and ascertaining the dates and circumstances of previous events,
had the earliest annalist of Rome been in any degree fitted for this
difficult and important task; but, unfortunately,





                          QUINTUS FABIUS PICTOR,


who first undertook to relate the affairs of Rome from its foundation, in
a formal and regular order, and is thence called by Livy _Scriptorum
antiquissimus_, appears to have been wretchedly qualified for the labour
he had undertaken, either in point of fidelity or research: and to his
carelessness and inaccuracy, more even than to the loss of monuments, may
be attributed the painful uncertainty, which to this day hangs over the
early ages of Roman history.

Fabius Pictor lived in the time of the second Punic war. The family
received its _cognomen_ from Caius Fabius, who, having resided in Etruria,
and there acquired some knowledge of the fine arts, painted with figures
the temple of _Salus_, in the year 450(137). Pliny mentions having seen
this piece of workmanship, which remained entire till the building itself
was consumed, in the reign of the Emperor Claudius. The son of the painter
rose to the highest honours of the state, having been Consul along with
Ogulnius Gallus, in the year 485. From him sprung the historian, who was
consequently grandson of the first Fabius Pictor. He was a provincial
quæstor in early youth, and in 528 served under the Consul Lucius Æmilius,
when sent to repel a formidable incursion of the Gauls, who, in that year,
had passed the Alps in vast hordes. He also served in the second Punic
war, which commenced in 534, and was present at the battle of Thrasymene.
After the defeat at Cannæ, he was despatched by the senate to inquire from
the oracle of Delphos, what would be the issue of the war, and to learn by
what supplications the wrath of the gods might be appeased(138).

The Annals of Fabius Pictor commenced with the foundation of the city, and
brought down the series of Roman affairs to the author’s own time—that is,
to the end of the second Punic war. We are informed by Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, that for the great proportion of events which preceded his
own age, Fabius Pictor had no better authority than vulgar tradition(139).
He probably found, that if he had confined himself to what was certain in
these early times, his history would have been dry, insipid, and
incomplete. This may have induced him to adopt the fables, which the Greek
historians had invented concerning the origin of Rome, and to insert
whatever he found in the family traditions, however contradictory or
uncertain. Dionysius has also given us many examples of his improbable
narrations—his inconsistencies—his negligence in investigating the truth
of what he relates as facts—and his inaccuracy in chronology. “I cannot
refrain,” says he, when speaking of the age of Tarquinius Priscus, “from
blaming Fabius Pictor for his little exactness in chronology(140);” and it
appears from various other passages, that all the ancient history of
Fabius which was not founded on hearsay, was taken from Greek authors, who
had little opportunity of being informed of Roman affairs, and had
supplied their deficiency in real knowledge, by the invention of fables.
In particular, as we are told by Plutarch(141), he followed an obscure
Greek author, Diocles the Peparethian, in his account of the foundation of
Rome, and from this tainted source have flowed all the stories concerning
Mars, the Vestal, the Wolf, Romulus, and Remus.

It is thus evident, that no great reliance can be placed on the history
given by Fabius Pictor, of the events which preceded his own age, and
which happened during a period of 500 years from the building of the city;
but what must be considered as more extraordinary and lamentable, is, that
although a senator, and of a distinguished family, he gave a prejudiced
and inaccurate account of affairs occurring during the time he lived, and
in the management of which he had some concern. Polybius, who flourished
shortly after that time, and was at pains to inform himself accurately
concerning all the events of the second Punic war, apologizes for quoting
Fabius on one occasion as an authority. “It will perhaps be asked,” says
he, “how I came to make mention of Fabius: It is not that I think his
relation probable enough to deserve credit: What he writes is so absurd,
and has so little appearance of truth, that the reader will easily remark,
without my taking notice of it, the little reliance that is to be placed
on that author, whose inconsistency is palpable of itself. It is,
therefore, only to warn such as shall read his history, not to judge by
the title of the book, but by the things it contains—for there are many
people, who, considering the author more than what he writes, think
themselves obliged to believe everything he says, because a senator and
contemporary(142).” Polybius also accuses him of gross partiality to his
own nation, in the account of the Punic war—allowing to the enemy no
praise, even where they deserved it, and uncandidly aggravating their
faults.(143) In particular, he charges him with falsehood in what he has
delivered, with regard to the causes of the second contest with the
Carthaginians. Fabius had alleged, that the covetousness of Hannibal,
which he inherited from Asdrubal, and his desire of ultimately ruling over
his own country, to which he conceived a Roman war to be a necessary step,
were the chief causes of renewing hostilities, to which the Carthaginian
government was totally averse. Now, Polybius asks him, if this were true,
why the Carthaginian Senate did not deliver up their general, as was
required, after the capture of Saguntum; and why they supported him,
during fourteen years continuance in Italy, with frequent supplies of
money, and immense reinforcements(144).

The sentiments expressed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, concerning Fabius
Pictor’s relation of events, in the early ages of Rome, and those of
Polybius(145), on the occurrences of which he was himself an eye-witness,
enable us to form a pretty accurate estimate of the credit due to his
whole history. Dionysius having himself written on the antiquities of
Rome, was competent to deliver an opinion as to the works of those who had
preceded him in the same undertaking; and it would rather have been
favourable to the general view which he has adopted, to have established
the credibility of Fabius. We may also safely rely on the judgment which
Polybius has passed, concerning this old annalist’s relation of the events
of the age in which he lived, since Polybius had spared no pains to be
thoroughly informed of whatever could render his own account of them
complete and unexceptionable.

The opinion which must now be naturally formed from the sentiments
entertained by these two eminent historians, is rather confirmed by the
few and unconnected fragments that remain of the Annals of Fabius Pictor,
as they exhibit a spirit of trifling and credulity quite unworthy the
historian of a great republic. One passage is about a person who saw a
magpie; another about a man who had a message brought to him by a swallow;
and a third concerning a party of _loup garous_, who, after being
transformed into wolves, recovered their own figures, and, what is more,
got back their cast-off clothes, provided they had abstained for nine
years from preying on human flesh!

Such were the merits of the earliest annalist of Rome, whom all succeeding
historians of the state copied as far as he had proceeded, or at least
implicitly followed as their authority and guide in facts and chronology.
Unfortunately, his character as a senator, and an eye-witness of many of
the events he recorded, gave the stamp of authenticity to his work, which
it did not intrinsically deserve to have impressed on it. His successors
accordingly, instead of giving themselves the pains to clear up the
difficulties with which the history of former ages was embarrassed, and
which would have led into long and laborious discussions, preferred
reposing on the authority of Fabius. They copied him on the ancient times,
without even consulting the few monuments that remained, and then
contented themselves with adding the transactions subsequent to the period
which his history comprehends. Thus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus(146)
informs us that Cincius, Cato the Censor, Calpurnius Piso, and most of the
other historians who succeeded him, implicitly adopted Fabius’ story of
the birth and education of Romulus; and he adds many glaring instances of
the little discernment they showed in following him on points where, by a
little investigation, they might have discovered how egregiously he had
erred. Even Livy himself admits, that his own account of the second Punic
war was chiefly founded on the relations of Fabius Pictor(147).

This ancient and dubious annalist was succeeded by Scribonius Libo, and by
Calpurnius Piso. Libo served under Ser. Galba in Spain, and on his return
to Rome impeached his commander for some act of treachery towards the
natives of that province. Piso was Consul along with Mucius Scævola in
620, the year in which Tib. Gracchus was slain. Like Fabius, he wrote
Annals of Rome, from the beginning of the state, which Cicero pronounces
to be _exiliter scripti_(148): But although his style was jejune, he is
called a profound writer, _gravis auctor_, by Pliny(149); and Au. Gellius
says, that there is an agreeable simplicity in some parts of his work—the
brevity which displeased Cicero appearing to him _simplicissima suavitas
et rei et orationis_(150). He relates an anecdote of Romulus, who, being
abroad at supper, drank little wine, because he was to be occupied with
important affairs on the following day. One of the other guests remarked,
“that if all men did as he, wine would be cheap.”—“No,” replied Romulus,
“I have drunk as much as I liked, and wine would be dearer than it is now
if every one did the same.” This annalist first suggested Varro’s famous
derivation of the word Italy, which he deduced from _Vitulus_. He is also
frequently quoted by Plutarch and Dionysius of Halicarnassus(151). Niebuhr
thinks, that of all the Roman annalists he is chiefly responsible for
having introduced into history the fables of the ancient heroic
ballads(152).

About the same time with Piso, lived two historians, who were both called
Caius Fannius, and were nearly related to each other. One of them was
son-in-law of Lælius, and served under the younger Scipio at the final
reduction of Carthage. Of him Cicero speaks favourably, though his style
was somewhat harsh(153); but his chief praise is, that Sallust, in
mentioning the Latin historians, while he gives to Cato the palm for
conciseness, awards it to Fannius for accuracy in facts(154). Heeren also
mentions, that he was the authority chiefly followed by Plutarch in his
lives of the Gracchi(155).

Cœlius Antipater was contemporary with the Gracchi, and was the master of
Lucius Crassus, the celebrated orator, and other eminent men of the day.
We learn from Valerius Maximus, that he was the authority for the story of
the shade of Tiberius Gracchus having appeared to his brother Caius in a
dream, to warn him that he would suffer the same fate which he had himself
experienced(156); and the historian testifies that he had heard of this
vision from many persons during the lifetime of Caius Gracchus. The chief
subject of Antipater’s history, which was dedicated to Lælius, consisted
in the events that occurred during the second Punic war. Cicero says, that
he was for his age _Scriptor luculentus_(157); that he raised himself
considerably above his predecessors, and gave a more lofty tone to
history; but he seems to think that the utmost praise to which he was
entitled, is, that he excelled those who preceded him, for still he
possessed but little eloquence or learning, and his style was yet
unpolished. Valerius Maximus, however, calls him an authentic writer,
(_certus auctor_(158);) and the Emperor Hadrian thought him superior to
Sallust, consistently with that sort of black-letter taste which led him
to prefer Cato the Censor to Cicero, and Ennius to Virgil(159).

Sempronius Asellio served as military tribune under the younger Scipio
Africanus, in the war of Numantia(160), which began in 614, and ended in
621, with the destruction of that city. He wrote the history of the
campaigns in which he fought under Scipio, in Spain, in at least 40 books,
since the 40th is cited by Charisius. His work, however, was not written
for a considerable time after the events he recorded had happened: That he
wrote subsequently to Antipater, we have the authority of Cicero, who says
“that Cœlius Antipater was succeeded by Asellio, who did not imitate his
improvements, but relapsed into the dulness and unskilfulness of the
earliest historians(161).” This does not at all appear to have been
Asellio’s own opinion, as, from a passage extracted by Aulus Gellius from
the first book of his Annals, he seems to have considered himself as the
undisputed father of philosophic history(162).

Quintus Lutatius Catulus, better known as an accomplished orator than a
historian, was Consul along with Marius in the year 651, and shared with
him in his distinguished triumph over the Cimbrians. Though once united in
the strictest friendship, these old colleagues quarrelled at last, during
the civil war with Sylla; and Catulus, it is said, in order to avoid the
emissaries despatched by the unrelenting Marius, to put him to death, shut
himself up in a room newly plastered, and having kindled a fire, was
suffocated by the noxious vapours. He wrote the history of his own
consulship, and the various public transactions in which he had been
engaged, particularly the war with the Cimbrians. Cicero(163), who has
spoken so disadvantageously of the style of the older annalists, admits
that Catulus wrote very pure Latin, and that his language had some
resemblance to the sweetness of Xenophon.

Q. Claudius Quadrigarius composed Annals of Rome in twenty-four books,
which, though now almost entirely lost, were in existence as late as the
end of the 12th century, being referred to by John of Salisbury in his
book _De Nugis Curialibus_. Some passages, however, are still preserved,
particularly the account of the defiance by the gigantic Gaul, adorned
with a chain, to the whole Roman army, and his combat with Titus Manlius,
afterwards sirnamed Torquatus, from this chain which he took from his
antagonist. “Who the enemy was,” says Au. Gellius, “of how great and
formidable stature, how audacious the challenge, and in what kind of
battle they fought, Q. Claudius has told with much purity and elegance,
and in the simple unadorned sweetness of ancient language(164).”

There is likewise extant from these Annals the story of the Consul Q.
Fabius Maximus making his father, who was then Proconsul, alight from his
horse when he came out to meet him. We have also the letter of the Roman
Consuls, Fabricius and Q. Emilius, to Pyrrhus, informing him of the
treachery of his confident, Nicias, who had offered to the Romans to make
away with his master for a reward. It merits quotation, as a fine example
of ancient dignity and simplicity.—“Nos, pro tuis injuriis, continuo
animo, strenue commoti, inimiciter tecum bellare studemus. Sed communis
exempli et fidei ergo visum est, uti te salvum velimus; ut esset quem
armis vincere possimus. Ad nos venit Nicias familiaris tuus, qui sibi
pretium a nobis peteret, si te clam interfecisset: Id nos negavimus velle;
neve ob eam rem quidquam commodi expectaret: Et simul visum est, ut te
certiorem faceremus, nequid ejusmodi, si accidisset, nostro consilio
putares factum: et, quid nobis non placet, pretio, aut premio, aut dolis
pugnare.”—The Annals of Quadrigarius must at least have brought down the
history to the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, since, in the nineteenth
book, the author details the circumstances of the defence of the Piræus
against Sylla, by Archelaus, the prefect of Mithridates. As to the style
of these annals, Aulus Gellius reports, that they were written in a
conversational manner(165).

Quintus Valerius Antias also left Annals, which must have formed an
immense work, since Priscian cites the seventy-fourth book. They commenced
with the foundation of the city; but their accuracy cannot be relied on,
as the author was much addicted to exaggeration. Livy, mentioning, on the
authority of Antias, a victory gained by the Proconsul Q. Minucius, adds,
while speaking of the number of slain on the part of the enemy, “Little
faith can be given to this author, as no one was ever more intemperate in
such exaggerations;” and Aulus Gellius mentions a circumstance which he
had affirmed, contrary to the records of the Tribunes, and the authors of
the ancient Annals(166). This history also seems to have been stuffed with
the most absurd and superstitious fables. A nonsensical tale is told with
regard to the manner in which Numa procured thunder from Jupiter; and
stories are likewise related about the conflagration of the lake
Thrasimene, before the defeat of the Roman Consul, and the flame which
played round the head of Servius Tullius in his childhood. It also appears
from him, that the Romans had judicial trials, as horrible as those of the
witches which disgraced our criminal record. Q. Nævius, before setting out
for Sardinia, held _Questions_ of incantation through the towns of Italy,
and condemned to death, apparently without much investigation, not less
than two thousand persons. This annalist denies, in another passage, the
well-known story of the continence of Scipio, and alleges that the lady
whom he is generally said to have restored to her lover, was “_in deliciis
amoribusque usurpata_(167).” His opinion of the moral character of Scipio
seems founded on some satirical verses of Nævius, with regard to a low
intrigue in which he was detected in his youth. But whatever his private
amours may have been, it does not follow that he was incapable of a signal
exertion of generosity and continence in the presence of his army, and
with the eyes of two great rival nations fixed upon his conduct.

Licinius Macer, father of Licin. Calvus, the distinguished poet and orator
formerly mentioned(168), was author of Annals, entitled _Libri Rerum
Romanarum_. In the course of these he frequently quotes the _Libri
Lintei_. He was not considered as a very impartial historian, and, in
particular, he is accused by Livy of inventing stories to throw lustre
over his own family.

L. Cornelius Sisenna was the friend of Macer, and coeval with Antias and
Quadrigarius; but he far excelled his contemporaries, as well as
predecessors, in the art of historical narrative. He was of the same
family as Sylla, the dictator, and was descended from that Sisenna who was
Prætor in 570. In his youth he practised as an orator, and is
characterized by Cicero as a man of learning and wit, but of no great
industry or knowledge in business(169). In more advanced life he was
Prætor of Achaia, and a friend of Atticus. Vossius says his history
commenced after the taking of Rome by the Gauls, and ended with the wars
of Marius and Sylla. Now, it is possible that he may have given some
sketch of Roman affairs from the burning of the city by the Gauls, but it
is evident he had touched slightly on these early portions of the history,
for though his work consisted of twenty, or, according to others, of
twenty-two books, it appears from a fragment of the second, which is still
preserved, that he had there advanced in his narrative as far as the
Social War, which broke out in the year 663. The greater part, therefore,
I suspect, was devoted to the history of the civil wars of Marius; and
indeed Velleius Paterculus calls his work _Opus Belli Civilis
Sullani_(170). The great defect of his history consisted, it is said, in
not being written with sufficient political freedom, at least concerning
the character and conduct of Sylla, which is regretted by Sallust in a
passage bearing ample testimony to the merits of Sisenna in other
particulars.—“L. Sisenna,” says he, “optume et diligentissime omnium, qui
eas res dixere persecutus, parum mihi libero ore locutus videtur(171).”
Cicero, while he admits his superiority over his predecessors, adds, that
he was far from perfection(172), and complains that there was something
puerile in his Annals, as if he had studied none of the Greek historians
but Clitarchus(173). I have quoted these opinions, since we must now
entirely trust to the sentiments of others, in the judgment which we form
of the merits of Sisenna; for although the fragments which remain of his
history are more numerous than those of any other old Latin annalist,
being about 150, they are also shorter and more unconnected. Indeed, there
are scarcely two sentences anywhere joined together.

The great defect, then, imputed to the class of annalists above
enumerated, is the meagerness of their relations, which are stript of all
ornament of style—of all philosophic observation on the springs or
consequences of action—and all characteristic painting of the actors
themselves. That they often perverted the truth of history, to dignify the
name of their country at the expense of its foes, is a fault common to
them with many national historians—that they sometimes exalted one
political faction or chief to depreciate another, was almost unavoidable
amid the anarchy and civil discord of Rome—that they were credulous in the
extreme, in their relations of portents and prodigies, is a blemish from
which their greater successors were not exempted: The easy faith of Livy
is well known. Even the philosophic Tacitus seems to give credit to those
presages, which darkly announced the fate of men and empires; and Julius
Obsequens, a grave writer in the most enlightened age of Rome, collected
in one work all the portents observed from its foundation to the age of
Augustus.

The period in which the ancient annalists flourished, also produced
several biographical works; and these being lives of men distinguished in
the state, may be ranked in the number of histories.

Lucius Emilius Scaurus, who was born in 591, and died in 666, wrote
memoirs of his own life, which Tacitus says were accounted faithful and
impartial. They are unfortunately lost, but their matter may be
conjectured from the well-known incidents of the life of Scaurus. They
embraced a very eventful period, and were written without any flagrant
breach of truth. We learn from Cicero, that these memoirs, however useful
and instructive, were little read, even in his days, though his
contemporaries carefully studied the Cyropædia; a work, as he continues,
no doubt sufficiently elegant, but not so connected with our affairs, nor
in any respect to be preferred to the merits of Scaurus(174).

Rutilius Rufus, who was Consul in the year 649, also wrote memoirs of his
own life. He was a man of very different character from Scaurus, being of
distinguished probity in every part of his conduct, and possessing, as we
are informed by Cicero, something almost of sanctity in his demeanour. All
this did not save him from an unjust exile, to which he was condemned, and
which he passed in tranquillity at Smyrna. These biographical memoirs
being lost, we know their merits only from the commendations of Livy(175),
Plutarch(176), Velleius Paterculus(177), and Valerius Maximus(178). As the
author served under Scipio in Spain—under Scævola in Asia, and under
Metellus in his campaign against Jugurtha, the loss of this work is
severely to be regretted.

But the want of Sylla’s Memoirs of his own Life, and of the affairs in
which he had himself been engaged, is still more deeply to be lamented
than the loss of those of Scaurus or Rutilius Rufus. These memoirs were
meant to have been dedicated to Lucullus, on condition that he should
arrange and correct them(179). Sylla was employed on them the evening
before his death, and concluded them by relating, that on the preceding
night he had seen in a dream one of his children, who had died a short
while before, and who, stretching out his hand, showed to him his mother
Metella, and exhorted him forthwith to leave the cares of life, and hasten
to enjoy repose along with them in the bosom of eternal rest. “Thus,” adds
the author, who accounted nothing so certain as what was signified to him
in dreams, “I finish my days, as was predicted to me by the Chaldeans, who
announced that I should surmount envy itself by my glory, and should have
the good fortune to fall in the full blossom of my prosperity(180).” These
memoirs were sent by Epicadus, the freedman of Sylla, to Lucullus, in
order that he might put to them the finishing hand. If preserved, they
would have thrown much light on the most important affairs of Roman
history, as they proceeded from the person who must, of all others, have
been the best informed concerning them. They are quoted by Plutarch as
authority for many curious facts, as—that in the great battle by which the
Cimbrian invasion was repelled, the chief execution was done in that
quarter where Sylla was stationed; the main body, under Marius, having
been misled by a cloud of dust, and having in consequence wandered about
for a long time without finding the enemy(181). Plutarch also mentions
that, in these Commentaries, the author contradicted the current story of
his seeking refuge during a tumult at the commencement of the civil wars
with Marius, in the house of his rival, who, it had been reported,
sheltered and dismissed him in safety. Besides their importance for the
history of events, the Memoirs of Sylla must have been highly interesting,
as developing, in some degree, the most curious character in Roman
history. “In the loss of his Memoirs,” says Blackwell, in his usual
inflated style, “the strongest draught of human passions, in the highest
wheels of fortune and sallies of power, is for ever vanished(182).” The
character of Cæsar, though greater, was less incomprehensible than that of
Sylla; and the mind of Augustus, though unfathomable to his
contemporaries, has been sounded by the long line of posterity; but it is
difficult to analyse the disposition which inspired the inconsistent
conduct of Sylla. Gorged with power, and blood, and vengeance, he seems to
have retired from what he chiefly coveted, as if surfeited; but neither
this retreat, nor old age, could mollify his heart; nor could disease, or
the approach of death, or the remembrance of his past life, disturb his
tranquillity. No part of his existence was more strange than its
termination; and nothing can be more singular than that he, who, on the
day of his decease, caused in mere wantonness a provincial magistrate to
be strangled in his presence, should, the night before, have enjoyed a
dream so elevated and tender. It is probable that the Memoirs were well
written, in point of style, as Sylla loved the arts and sciences, and was
even a man of some learning, though Cæsar is reported to have said, on
hearing his literary acquirements extolled, that he must have been but an
indifferent scholar who had resigned a dictatorship.

The characteristic of most of the annals and memoirs which I have hitherto
mentioned, was extreme conciseness. Satisfied with collecting a mass of
facts, their authors adopted a style which, in the later ages of Rome,
became proverbially meagre and jejune. Cicero includes Claudius
Quadrigarius and Asellio in the same censure which he passes on their
predecessors, Fabius Pictor, Piso, and Fannius. But though, perhaps,
equally barren in style, much greater trust and reliance may be placed on
the annalists of the time of Marius and Sylla than of the second Punic
war.

Some of these more modern annalists wrote the History of Rome from the
commencement of the state; others took up the relation from the burning of
Rome by the Gauls, or confined themselves to events which had occurred in
their own time. Their narratives of all that passed before the incursion
of the Gauls, were indeed as little authentic as the relations of Fabius
Pictor, since they implicitly followed that writer, and made no new
researches into the mouldering monuments of their country. But their
accounts of what happened subsequently to the rebuilding of Rome, are not
liable to the same suspicion and uncertainty; the public monuments and
records having, from that period, been duly preserved, and having been in
greater abundance than those of almost any other nation in the history of
the world. The Roman authors possessed all the auxiliaries which aid
historical compilation—decrees of the senate, chiefly pronounced in
affairs of state—leagues with friendly nations—terms of the surrender of
cities—tables of triumphs, and treaties, which were carefully preserved in
the treasury or in temples. There were even rolls kept of the senators and
knights, as also of the number of the legions and ships employed in each
war; but the public despatches addressed to the Senate by commanders of
armies, of which we have specimens in Cicero’s Epistles, were the
documents which must have chiefly aided historical composition. These were
probably accurate, as the Senate, and people in general, were too well
versed in military affairs to have been easily deluded, and legates were
often commissioned by them to ascertain the truth of the relations. The
immense multitude of such documents is evinced by the fact, that
Vespasian, when restoring the Capitol, found in its ruins not fewer than
3000 brazen tablets, containing decrees of the Senate and people,
concerning leagues, associations, and immunities to whomsoever granted,
from an early period of the state, and which Suetonius justly styles,
_instrumentum imperii pulcherrimum ac vetustissimum_(183). Accordingly,
when the later annalists came to write of the affairs of their own time,
they found historical documents more full and satisfactory than those of
almost any other country. But, in addition to these copious sources of
information, it will be remarked, that the annalists themselves had often
personal knowledge of the facts they related. It is true, indeed, that
historians contemporary with the events which they record, are not always
best qualified to place them in an instructive light, since, though they
may understand how they spring out of prior incidents, they cannot foresee
their influence on future occurrences. Of some things, the importance is
overrated, and of others undervalued, till time, which has the same effect
on events as distance on external objects, obscures all that is minute,
while it renders the outlines of what is vast more distinct and
perceptible. But though the reach of a contemporary historian’s mind may
not extend to the issue of the drama which passes before him, he is no
doubt best aware of the detached incidents of each separate scene and act,
and most fitted to detail those particulars which posterity may combine
into a mass, exhibiting at one view the grandeur and interest of the
whole. Now, it will have been remarked from the preceding pages, that all
the Roman annalists, from the time of Fabius Pictor to Sylla, were Consuls
and Prætors, commanders of armies, or heads of political parties, and
consequently the principal sharers in the events which they recorded. In
Greece, there was an earlier separation than at Rome, between an active
and a speculative life. Many of the Greek historians had little part in
those transactions, the remembrance of which they have transmitted. They
wrote at a distance, as it were, from the scene of affairs, so that they
contemplated the wars and dissensions of their countrymen with the
unprejudiced eye of a foreigner, or of posterity. This naturally diffuses
a calm philosophic spirit over the page of the historian, and gives
abundant scope for conjecture concerning the motives and springs of
action. The Roman annalists, on the other hand, wrote from perfect
knowledge and remembrance; they were the persons who had planned and
executed every project; they had fought the battles they described, or
excited the war, the vicissitudes of which they recorded. Hence the facts
which their pages disclosed, might have borne the genuine stamp of truth,
and the analysis of the motives and causes of actions might have been
absolute revelations. Yet, under these, the most favourable circumstances
for historic composition, prejudices from which the Greek historians were
exempt, would unconsciously creep in: Writers like Sylla or Æmilius
Scaurus, had much to extenuate, and strong temptations to set down much in
malice(184).

Nor is it always sufficient to have witnessed a great event in order to
record it well, and with that fulness which converts it into a lesson in
legislation, ethics, or politics. Now, the Roman annals had hitherto been
chiefly a dry register of facts, what Lord Bolingbroke calls the _Nuntia
Vetustatis_, or Gazette of Antiquity. A history properly so termed, and
when considered as opposed to such productions, forms a complete series of
transactions, accompanied by a deduction of their immediate and remote
causes, and of the consequences by which they were attended,—all related,
in their full extent, with such detail of circumstances as transports us
back to the very time, makes us parties to the counsels, and actors, as it
were, in the whole scene of affairs. It is then alone that history becomes
the _magistra vitæ_; and in this sense





                                 SALLUST


has been generally considered as the first among the Romans who merited
the title of historian. This celebrated writer was born at Amiternum, in
the territory of the Sabines, in the year 668. He received his education
at Rome, and, in his early youth, appears to have been desirous to devote
himself to literary pursuits. But it was not easy for one residing in the
capital to escape the contagious desire of military or political
distinction. At the age of twenty-seven, he obtained the situation of
Quæstor, which entitled him to a seat in the Senate, and about six years
afterwards he was elected Tribune of the people. While in this office, he
attached himself to the fortunes of Cæsar, and along with one of his
colleagues in the tribunate, conducted the prosecution against Milo for
the murder of Clodius. In the year 704, he was excluded from the Senate,
on pretext of immoral conduct, but more probably from the violence of the
patrician party, to which he was opposed. Aulus Gellius, on the authority
of Varro’s treatise, _Pius aut de Pace_, informs us that he incurred this
disgrace in consequence of being surprised in an intrigue with Fausta, the
wife of Milo, by the husband, who made him be scourged by his slaves(185).
It has been doubted, however, by modern critics, whether it was the
historian Sallust who was thus detected and punished, or his nephew,
Crispus Sallustius, to whom Horace has addressed the second ode of the
second book. It seems, indeed, unlikely, that in such a corrupt age, an
amour with a woman of Fausta’s abandoned character, should have been the
real cause of his expulsion from the Senate. After undergoing this
ignominy, which, for the present, baffled all his hopes of preferment, he
quitted Rome, and joined his patron, Cæsar, in Gaul. He continued to
follow the fortunes of that commander, and, in particular bore a share in
the expedition to Africa, where the scattered remains of Pompey’s party
had united. That region being finally subdued, Sallust was left by Cæsar
as Prætor of Numidia; and about the same time he married Terentia, the
divorced wife of Cicero. He remained only a year in his government, but
during that period he enriched himself by despoiling the province. On his
return to Rome, he was accused by the Numidians, whom he had plundered,
but escaped with impunity, by means of the protection of Cæsar, and was
quietly permitted to betake himself to a luxurious retirement with his
ill-gotten wealth. He chose for his favourite retreat a villa at Tibur,
which had belonged to Cæsar; and he also built a magnificent palace in the
suburbs of Rome, surrounded by delightful pleasure-grounds, which were
afterwards well known and celebrated by the name of the Gardens of
Sallust. One front of this splendid mansion faced the street, where he
constructed a spacious market-place, in which every article of luxury was
sold in abundance. The other front looked to the gardens, which were
contiguous to those of Lucullus, and occupied the valley between the
extremities of the Quirinal and Pincian Hills(186). They lay, in the time
of Sallust, immediately beyond the walls of Rome, but were included within
the new wall of Aurelian. In them every beauty of nature, and every
embellishment of art, that could delight or gratify the senses, seem to
have been assembled. Umbrageous walks, open parterres, and cool porticos,
displayed their various attractions. Amidst shrubs and flowers of every
hue and odour, interspersed with statues of the most exquisite
workmanship, pure streams of water preserved the verdure of the earth and
the temperature of the air; and while, on the one hand, the distant
prospect caught the eye, on the other, the close retreat invited to repose
or meditation(187). These gardens included within their precincts the most
magnificent baths, a temple to Venus, and a circus, which Sallust repaired
and ornamented. Possessed of such attractions, the Sallustian palace and
gardens became, after the death of their original proprietor, the
residence of successive emperors. Augustus chose them as the scene of his
most sumptuous entertainments. The taste of Vespasian preferred them to
the palace of the Cæsars. Even the virtuous Nerva, and stern Aurelian,
were so attracted by their beauty, that, while at Rome, they were their
constant abode. “The palace,” says Eustace, “was consumed by fire on the
fatal night when Alaric entered the city. The temple, of singular beauty,
sacred to Venus, was discovered about the middle of the sixteenth century,
in opening the grounds of a garden, and was destroyed for the sale of the
materials: Of the circus little remains, but masses of walls that merely
indicate its site; while statues and marbles, found occasionally, continue
to furnish proofs of its former magnificence(188).” Many statues of
exquisite workmanship have been found on the same spot; but these may have
been placed there by the magnificence of the imperial occupiers, and not
of the original proprietor.

In his urban gardens, or villa at Tibur, Sallust passed the close of his
life, dividing his time between literary avocations and the society of his
friends—among whom he numbered Lucullus, Messala, and Cornelius Nepos.

Such having been his friends and studies, it seems highly improbable that
he indulged in that excessive libertinism which has been attributed to
him, on the erroneous supposition that he was the Sallust mentioned by
Horace, in the first book of his Satires(189). The subject of Sallust’s
character is one which has excited some investigation and interest, and on
which very different opinions have been formed. That he was a man of loose
morals is evident; and it cannot be denied that he rapaciously plundered
his province, like other Roman governors of the day. But it seems doubtful
if he was that monster of iniquity he has been sometimes represented. He
was extremely unfortunate in the first permanent notice taken of his
character by his contemporaries. The decided enemy of Pompey and his
faction, he had said of that celebrated chief, in his general history,
that he was a man “oris probi, animo inverecundo.” Lenæus, the freedman of
Pompey, avenged his master, by the most virulent abuse of his enemy(190),
in a work, which should rather be regarded as a frantic satire than an
historical document. Of the injustice which he had done to the life of the
historian we may, in some degree, judge, from what he said of him as an
author. He called him, as we learn from Suetonius, “Nebulonem, vitâ
scriptisque monstrosum: præterea, priscorum Catonisque ineruditissimum
furem.” The life of Sallust, by Asconius Pedianus, which was written in
the age of Augustus, and might have acted, in the present day, as a
corrective, or palliative, of the unfavourable impression produced by this
injurious libel, has unfortunately perished; and the next work on the
subject now extant, is a professed rhetorical declamation against the
character of Sallust, which was given to the world in the name of Cicero,
but was not written till long after the death of that orator, and is now
generally assigned by critics, to a rhetorician, in the reign of Claudius,
called Porcius Latro. The calumnies invented or exaggerated by Lenæus, and
propagated in the scholiastic theme of Porcius Latro, have been adopted by
Le Clerc, professor of Hebrew at Amsterdam, and by Professor Meisner, of
Prague(191), in their respective accounts of the Life of Sallust. His
character has received more justice from the prefatory Memoir and Notes of
De Brosses, his French translator, and from the researches of Wieland in
Germany.

From what has been above said of Fabius Pictor, and his immediate
successors, it must be apparent, that the art of historic composition at
Rome was in the lowest state, and that Sallust had no model to imitate
among the writers of his own country. He therefore naturally recurred to
the productions of the Greek historians. The native exuberance, and
loquacious familiarity of Herodotus, were not adapted to his taste; and
simplicity, such as that of Xenophon, is, of all things, the most
difficult to attain: He therefore chiefly emulated Thucydides, and
attempted to transplant into his own language the vigour and conciseness
of the Greek historian; but the strict imitation, with which he has
followed him, has gone far to lessen the effect of his own original
genius.

The first book of Sallust was the _Conspiracy of Catiline_. There exists,
however, some doubt as to the precise period of its composition. The
general opinion is, that it was written immediately after the author went
out of office as Tribune of the People, that is, in the year 703: And the
composition of the _Jugurthine War_, as well as of his general history,
are fixed by Le Clerc between that period and his appointment to the
Prætorship of Numidia. But others have supposed that they were all written
during the space which intervened between his return from Numidia, in 708,
and his death, which happened in 718, four years previous to the battle of
Actium. It is maintained by the supporters of this last idea, that he was
too much engaged in political tumults previous to his administration of
Numidia, to have leisure for such important compositions—that, in the
introduction to Catiline’s Conspiracy, he talks of himself as withdrawn
from public affairs, and refutes accusations of his voluptuous life, which
were only applicable to this period; and that, while instituting the
comparison between Cæsar and Cato, he speaks of the e

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/35751