Read Ebook: Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history Vol. 1 (of 3) by Niebuhr Barthold Georg Isler M Meyer Other Chepmell Havilland Le Mesurier Translator Demmler F Translator

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IMPORTANCE OF ROMAN HISTORY, 78

MANNER IN WHICH THE EARLY HISTORY OF ROME ORIGINATED, 79

Impossibility of the earliest history, 80 Numerical system in the chronological statements, 82 Saecula of the Etruscans, 83 Ancient lays, 85 Etruscan historical works. Emperor Claudius, 87 The Saturnian verse, 89 Neniae, 91 Epic poems, family records, family vanity, 92 National vanity, spirit of caste, 93

THE EARLIEST HISTORY, 94

THE REFUGIUM. ROME A REPUBLIC, 198

L. Junius Brutus, 198 Abolition of the regal dignity, 202 The consulate, 203 Valerius Poplicola. The Valerian laws, 207 Porsena, 208 War of the Etruscans against Rome, 210 Mucius Scaevola, 210 Peace of Porsena. Reduction of the tribes, 212 The Latins take the position of equals, 214 Battle at the Regillus, 216 Isopolity, 219 League of Sp. Cassius; union of the Romans, Latins and Hernicans, 219 Dictatorship, 221 War with the Auruncians, 222

SECESSION OF THE PLEBES. LAW OF DEBT. INSTITUTION OF THE TRIBUNATE, 224

WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS AND AEQUIANS. LEAGUE WITH THE HERNICANS, 244

The legend of Coriolanus shown to be out of place here, 244 Division of the Volscian wars, 245 Alliance with the Hernicans, 246 Sp. Cassius, 248

WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS AND AEQUIANS. PLAGUE. CINCINNATUS. CAESO QUINCTIUS. CORIOLANUS, 274

LEGISLATION OF THE TWELVE TABLES, 295

LEX HORATIA VALERIA. FURTHER CHANGES IN THE CONSTITUTION. MILITARY TRIBUNATE. CENSORSHIP. SP. MAELIUS. VICTORY OF A. POSTUMIUS TUBERTUS OVER THE VOLSCIANS AND AEQUIANS. CONQUEST OF FIDENAE AND VEII, 320

MIGRATION OF THE GAULS. CONQUEST OF ROME, 363

Migration of the Gauls, 364 Invasion of the Gauls into Italy, 371 Embassy of the Romans to the Gauls, 372 Manners of the Gauls, 374 Battle at the Alia, 376 The Gauls in Rome, 379 Peace with the Gauls; their departure, 383

INVASION OF THE SENONIAN GAULS. LEAGUE WITH THE LATINS AND HERNICANS. CHANGES IN THE DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF ROME, 407

THE FIRST WAR WITH THE SAMNITES. PROGRESS OF LEGISLATION, 416

Position of the colonies, 417 Origin of the Samnites, 418 Rising in Capua, 419 Constitution of the Samnites, 420 Outbreak of the war, 422 M. Valerius Corvus, 425 Battle near the Mount Gaurus, 427 P. Decius Mus saves the Roman army, 429 Military insurrection of the Romans, 430 Progress of the legislation, 432 Military system of the Romans, 434

THE WAR AGAINST THE LATINS. THE LAWS OF THE DICTATOR Q. PUBLILIUS PHILO. FURTHER EVENTS, 436

THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR, 470

Palaeopolis and Neapolis, 470 Outbreak of the second Samnite war, 474 M. Valerius Corvus, L. Papirius Cursor, Q. Fabius Maximus, 481 Victory of Fabius over the Samnites, 483 Fabius flees from Papirius, 484 Death of Papius Brutulus, 486 Defeat near Caudium, 487 The Romans break the peace, 491 Defeat of the Romans near Lautulae, 494 Progress of the Romans. Colony in Luceria, 496 The Romans build a fleet, 498 Fine arts flourishing among the Romans, 498 Rising of the Etruscans, 499 Conquest of Bovianum, 500 Papirius Cursor appointed dictator, 501 The northern confederation pronounces itself in favour of the Samnites, 501 War of the Romans with the Hernicans, 502 Subjection of the Hernicans, 503 Battle near Bovianum. End of the war, 504 The AEquians conquered, 505 Alliance of Rome with the Marsians, 505

THE ETRUSCAN WAR. OTHER EVENTS DOWN TO THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR, 505

THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR, 524

The war is transferred into Etruria, 525 Battle near Sentinum, 528 P. Decius devotes himself to death, 531 End of the war, 534

EXTERMINATION OF THE SENONIAN GAULS. C. FABRICIUS LUSCINUS. WAR WITH TARENTUM. PYRRHUS OF EPIRUS. EVENTS IN SICILY DOWN TO THE FIRST PUNIC WAR, 544

War with the Senonian Gauls, 546 C. Fabricius Luscinus. M'. Curius Dentatus, 547 Ti. Coruncanius, 548 Outbreak of the war with Tarentum, 549 Pyrrhus of Epirus, 552 Cineas, 558 Battle near Heraclea, 558 Pyrrhus tries to march against Rome, 560 Pyrrhus sends Cineas to Rome, 561 Pyrrhus returns to Tarentum, 562 Roman embassy to Pyrrhus, 563 Battle near Asculum, 564 Pyrrhus goes to Sicily, 566 Siege of Lilybaeum. Pyrrhus returns to Italy, 567 Battle near Taurasia , 568 Pyrrhus' death. Peace with Samnium, 569 Tarentum falls into the hands of the Romans, 570 Subjection of Italy, 571 Campanian legion at Rhegium, 573 Earlier history of Sicily, 574 Mamertines in Messana. Hiero, 577 Hiero and the Carthaginians defeated by the Romans, 581 Peace with Hiero, 581

LECTURES ON ROMAN HISTORY.

INTRODUCTION.

Ancient history divides itself into the history anterior to the rule of Rome, which has many centres, and into the history of Roman rule, wherein there is but one centre, Rome, the action of which extends on all sides. Other nations, like the Egyptians, have acted by their intellectual power upon the foreigner, but were deficient in mind; others, as the barbarian nations of the Celts and other races, became important merely by the mightiness of their conquests; Greece, by her mind; but Rome combines every thing, the greatest political perfection, might, and mind. Here is an influence which has become still more lasting and ineffaceable than that of Greece: it continues to the latest centuries, even to this very day. The Roman history has to exhibit the greatest characters, achievements, and events; it is the development of the whole life of a people, the like of which is unknown in all the rest of history. Of the history of the East, as far as regards the stages of its progress, we know nothing whatever. The Egyptians we find already in castes, consequently in fixed forms, in which they abide throughout every century; they exist unalterable, of which their mummies are the emblem, and all the changes which we remark in them are a mere dying away. The Romans we see almost growing under our eyes; indeed, they also are early moulded into fixed forms, but their origin is no riddle to us. The other nations are as buds still folded up in their petals; they grow, but before they expand, they die away or only open imperfectly, as it also ever occurs with individuals, that among many thousands few only are not checked in their development. In modern history the English alone have had a career like that of the Romans. In a cosmopolitical point of view therefore, these two histories must ever remain the most important ones.

Here now the whole history of the twelve ages, which in the legend of Romulus have also been foretold as the duration of Rome, is to be set forth;--in the beginning the history of the nation and the town, then that of the empire and the aggregate of people who bore the name of Romans.

But first of all, let us make ourselves acquainted with the sources.

SOURCES OF ROMAN HISTORY.

Are the sources of the most ancient Roman history, before ever an historical literature had arisen in Rome, worthy of credit? In former times a simple honest belief was prevalent concerning this point; it would have been considered as audacity and as a crime, if any one had doubted of the Roman history, especially that which Livy drew and set forth from the sources at his command. It is now quite incomprehensible to us to what a degree very ingenious men, like Scaliger, who had far more knowledge than we, received without any hesitation the details of ancient history, deeming, for instance, the lists of the kings of Sicyon to be quite as authentic as those of the kings of France. This state of literary innocence lasted as long as all education was purely philological, and derived from books only. In the seventeenth century, when in England, France, and Germany, a new era commenced for the civilization of mankind, many began to be startled at the contradictions which some individuals might have remarked before them, but had imposed on themselves silence upon the subject,--as for instance the Roman Valla, the discovery of whose grave is one of the most pleasing remembrances of my life, and Glareanus, who thereby irritated the ingenious Sigonius, a man, however, who had not the least idea of historical criticism. The Italians were for some time a-head of the rest of Europe, then the French followed, and shortly afterwards, the Germans. As early as towards the end of the sixteenth century lived Pighius, a native of the province of Cleves, who had original ideas with regard to historical criticism, but who has commenced much and finished nothing. Then followed Perizonius' able criticism, and then the sceptical works of Bayle and Beaufort. It was not possible in the eighteenth century to receive the Roman history with the same credulity as in the sixteenth, since the sphere of the human mind had been so much enlarged during the seventeenth. People wanted to comprehend what had happened, and how it had come to pass, and so they could no more believe in the Roman history as they found it. O that Perizonius had gone on with the work which he had begun, and had formed the conviction that he must arrive at an historical result, without which belief no man can advance and succeed;--or, that others had proceeded in his track! But he was wanting in self-confidence, and others set themselves to the work with less comprehensive powers. Beaufort, a clever man, but whose studies had not been sufficiently comprehensive, forms at this time an epoch; but his literary and personal imperfections caused him to root up the tares with the wheat. Already before had Pouilly, in the 'M?moires de l'Acad?mie des Inscriptions et des belles lettres,' set forth the same opinions, but quite crudely. It was the time of that extreme scepticism which Bayle had given birth to, and Freret had confirmed. Beaufort did not feel the necessity of a good groundwork of scientific knowledge; nevertheless he held a prominent place in his time, and exercised a marked influence upon Hooke and Fergusson, who were not capable of any deep inquiry. Yet it is remarkable that those points which Beaufort had left untouched caused scruple to no one. People made difficulties about the seven kings, the chronology, and other matters of the kind; but they would believe without knowing why, and repudiate what had a very good foundation. Such a state of things must be followed by a regular sound criticism, or there is an end of science.

Properly speaking, Livy himself to a great extent is liable to the censure of having made the earlier Roman history fall into disrepute; not merely because he sets forth much contradictory matter, but because he says himself in the beginning of the sixth book, that a new era commenced with the burning of the city by the Gauls, in which the records of the earlier times had been destroyed. This is only half true.

We may form a distinct idea of these annals from the passages which Livy has quoted from them at the end of the tenth book, especially where he mentions the election of the magistrates, and in the third and fourth decades. As it seems, Livy's copy only began with the year 460 A. U. C., otherwise he would have certainly made an earlier use of it.

This was the material when the first historians arose. They had besides, it is true, many laws and other documentary records; but these were a buried treasure noticed by few only. On the whole, the Romans were too careless and negligent to make use of such sources. A remarkable example of it is afforded by Livy, who, among other things, contents himself with stating, that he had heard from Augustus that there existed a certain inscription in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, without ever thinking of looking himself at it in the Capitol, where he certainly must have been often enough.

The Annals, many of which, as may have been seen, were preserved in later times, form one source of history, of which it cannot be stated at all how early it could have commenced. But this is only the skeleton of history. Besides these there is a living traditionary history. It consists of narrations which pass from the father to the children, and may be very circumstantial;--others are propagated partly by word of mouth, partly in writing, and these are the poetical traditions. Here is a field on which it will never be possible to agree, whilst looking only to one side of the question. I am convinced that great part of the early Roman history has been handed down in songs; that is to say, all that has life in it, all that has pith and meaning, and coherence. This is to me as evident a truth as any in the world. To these belongs the history of Romulus, that of Tarquinius Priscus, down to the battle near the lake Regillus, and others. The passages in Varro, and a fragment of Cato in Cicero, purporting that the Romans sang the achievements of the ancients to the flute, speak distinctly to the fact. Three inscriptions on the tombs of the Scipios are poetical, as I have shown in my Roman history. Such is moreover the story of Coriolanus, of Curtius, and others. Besides this there are without any doubt preserved in Livy detached lines from the lay of Tullius Hostilius and the Horatii. With regard to others we have not indeed any thing to bring forward, but we may here appeal to the general experience of mankind.

It matters not in the least, whether the old legends were still in existence at the time when the historians wrote their works, or whether they were in verse or in prose. We may find a parallel illustration in our own literature, and refer to the manifold changes which our epic poems had to undergo. The song of Hildebrand and Hadubrand, which Eckard has edited, and W. Grimm has commented upon, is of much more ancient date than the times of Charles the Great; in the tenth century there existed a Latin version of it. We are acquainted with the 'Nibelungen' only in that form in which they have been composed in the thirteenth century. How many phases may there not have occurred in the interval between? Then we have the much tamer version of the same subject in the 'Book of Heroes;' and at last that in prose of 'Siegfried,' which for some centuries has been in an ever renewed form in the hands of the people. Now if the 'Nibelungen' and all the information concerning them had been lost, and some ingenious critic recognised in 'Siegfried' the old poem, it would be exactly the same case as in the Roman history. The quotation of some verses from the 'Nibelungen' in Aventinus, would then stand quite on the same footing as the three verses cited by Livy in the story of the Horatii. Such lays go for a long time side by side with history. Saxo Grammaticus has tried to change the Danish Saga into history, and on that account he cannot be brought into agreement with the statements of the Chronicles. Just so is it in Grecian history. Rhianus, in his poem on Messene, which he undoubtedly composed from old popular songs, is utterly at variance with the list of Spartan kings which Pausanias found in the old records, and with the facts which are mentioned in the contemporary strains of Tyrtaeus. Then comes the time long before a literature exists, when men who have a true vocation write history; as, for instance, the author of the excellent Chronicle of Cologne. In this chronicle, which partly dates from the fifteenth century, and which might be made beautifully complete from the archives of Cologne, we find the poem of Gotfrid Hagen on the feud of the bishops, paraphrased in prose, yet with some traces of the rhyme remaining. Yet if we compare this with what is stated by that very chronicle on the same subject, perhaps from church books, they can by no means be reconciled with each other. The same thing happened in the Russian Chronicles, which were continued from the time of Nestor, a monk of the eleventh century, down to a much later period, as I myself can testify from a copy in my own possession. The authors of these, as well as the writer of the Chronicle of Cologne, did not live in a literary age, and their works therefore vanished, as they did not write for the public at large. Similar chronicles had without doubt arisen in Rome also before the literature of history commenced; that is to say, before authors wrote for the Greek public, as Fabius, M. Cincius, C. Acilius did. History as a branch of literature only began when the Romans wished to make themselves known to the Greeks. Those who were not Greeks were everywhere keenly alive to the contempt which they had to suffer from the Greeks.

Cicero and Livy say that by the orations in praise of the dead history had been made fabulous. There can be no doubt of this; yet, for all that, those discourses were not a mere tissue of fables, but they were mostly documents of a very early period. This ancient time may be dated from the expulsion of the kings, that is to say, twenty-eight years before the passage of Xerxes over the Hellespont. How many literary documents of the Greeks have we not of that date? Thus in the case of the seven consulships of the Fabii, as they are told in Livy and Dionysius, in the case of the battle with the Veientines, of the story of Q. Fabius Maximus , the relations seem to be taken from such and similar documents; unless we choose to suppose that these stories had been fabricated with such astonishing accuracy of detail. It even seems that Fabius Maximus himself has written his own history, that at least a number of records were at hand in the accomplished Fabian family, and were carefully preserved. Of this intellectual cultivation among the Fabii, we have many proofs before us. C. Fabius Pictor, a hundred years before the war of Hannibal, created a work of art of the highest beauty; the historian wrote in Greek without being ever reproached with barbarisms in his style.

One ought to take care not to consider the Romans previous to the time when they learned from the Greeks as barbarians. A people which in the age of the kings built those wonderful sewers; which a hundred years before the Punic wars produced the she-wolf of the Capitol; which possessed a painter like C. Fabius Pictor; which made a sarcophagus like that of Scipio Barbatus, takes certainly a high stand in mental cultivation. And such we must deem their written literature to have been, not composed in Greek forms, but endowed with beauties peculiarly its own. The grammarians knew still the moral maxims of Appius Claudius Caecus, Cicero still read a speech of the same person against Pyrrhus. Where such writings were kept, many others also must have still existed.

Likewise in Greek, only a little later , C. Acilius writes Roman annals down to the war with Antiochus. He is quoted for the Myth of Romulus; and by Dionysius with reference to the restoration of the sewers. His work was translated into Latin by a certain Claudius; he too seems to have been a very estimable writer.

Some more Romans afterwards wrote in Greek; it is, however, uncertain, whether the whole of the history, or merely memoirs of their time. There are mentioned A. Postumius Albinus, a contemporary of the elder Cato ; and Cn. Aufidius, a contemporary of Cicero in his youth.

It was soon afterwards, towards the beginning of the war with Perseus, that Q. Ennius composed his Annals. The denomination of annals is a strange one, quite ill suited to a poem. Ennius was by far too poetical to write down history year by year. His poem was the first real imitation of the Greek model: the earlier ones of Naevius were still in the old lyric style. We are able to gain a general view of the work in the fragments; if the older quotations were only somewhat more trustworthy in the numbers, the whole of its argument might be restored. So much is certain, that the oldest times of the Trojan arrival and of the kings were contained in the three first books; and the quotation may also be pretty sure, that the war of Pyrrhus had been the subject of the fifth book. He occupied himself little with the domestic struggles; and would probably speak of the wars only, according to the notions of epic poetry which were then entertained. The 225 years between were therefore contained in one book; the wars against the Samnites perhaps only in a slight sketch. The first Punic war, as Cicero tells us, he altogether left out, because Naevius had sung it; that of Hannibal he treated with the utmost prolixity, so that it must have begun already in the seventh book, and have been still continuing in the twelfth. In the thirteenth book, the subject was the war with Antiochus; in the fifteenth, the Istrian; so that the last six books only extended over twenty-four years. There were in all eighteen books. Of Scipio, and of M. Fulvius Nobilior, he sung the praises with peculiar richness of detail. The latter he accompanies into the AEtolian war. He was born in 513, according to Cato's chronology, and died 583, continuing his poem almost to the time of his death.

As to the assertion, that the division of his books had originated with Q. Vargunteius, a positive denial may be given to it. Suetonius only states, that Vargunteius had critically reviewed the books of Ennius, as Lampadio did Naevius.

Here I also mention the tedious Cn. Gellius, a credulous, uncritical, and second-rate writer. The time when he lived is uncertain. Vossius conjectures that he is the very same against whom Cato the Censor made a speech; but we have fragments of his which do not seem to tally with such an early period. Much rather should he be placed in the second half of the seventh century; partly on account of his style, and partly because he already criticizes, and tries to make the improbabilities of the old tradition more credible by small but dishonest alterations. The numbers of his books, as they were quoted, betoken an immense prolixity. Charisius cites the ninety-seventh book, and that distinctly written in full letters in the Neapolitan original Codex. Other citations do not go beyond the thirtieth book.

Cicero mentions after Pictor an annalist, Vennonius, of whom we have only one passage in Dionysius, referring to the history of the kings. He therefore most likely wrote annals from the building of the city. In that fragment, he shows himself to be a man without judgment; which also corresponds with Cicero's unfavourable opinion of his manner of writing.

It is strange, that although Livy himself repeatedly acknowledges the untrustworthiness of Valerius Antias, there are nevertheless in his own first book some passages which he can only have taken from him.

All these authors had still something old-fashioned in their manner, and stood in the same relation to the later ones as the German writers in the beginning of the eighteenth century did to those who came out at the time of the seven years' war.

Of Fenestella nothing is quoted that refers to the earlier ages: it seems therefore that he did not treat of Roman history in its full extent.

This was the state of Roman history in the time of Cicero. During Caesar's stay in Gaul, Q. AElius Tubero, a friend of Cicero, wrote the Roman annals anew. He was with Q. Cicero as legate in Asia; he belonged to the party of the Optimates, and was a very honest man. Livy cites his history from the earliest times. What is quoted of him, gives an impression of his respectability as a historian; though it is evident from it, that he no longer knew the old style of language, and that he did not see the difference between the institutions of his own day and those of primitive times. He too made use of documents; but he was not to be compared with Macer in importance, unless he has been wronged by those who are our authorities.

Atticus' annals seem to have been only tables; but a very valuable work. Quotations, however, from them we read nowhere; so that we may infer, that in all likelihood there were many such books of which we know nothing.

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